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The Second Coming Originally published in German Last night the ICA, London, hosted the premiere screening of a new art film. Nothing new in itself, this was no straight forward art screening in a gallery space, to art in-crowd, glass of wine – you know the scene and the suspects. You see, this screening was to start with a live event to which you had to buy ticket – 350 people did so. This screening had a starkly diverse audience: a strong rockabilly contingent, a select but evident post punk group, an art crowd and a large number of people who were evidently different from the rest, not because of a fashion or styling but because well, they were evidently mentally ill, a cocktail of yonderlyness, medication and over-boystrousness … all those signifiers left little doubt. This event was the premiere screening of the latest project by artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard entitled File under Sacred Music. So the night ran like this: films made by people from mental health and arts organisations, a band from the same body, the screening of File under Sacred Music, another band, then Holly Golightly played a set (she had appeared in the film). The Parkinsons played a full on set – lead singer of the group was also in the film - and so the night concluded. I should fill you in. The film by Iain and Jane was a recording of a closed live event we staged together at the ICA in March this year. The event and film were a re-make of a bootleg film they had found on e-bay of an original concert by New York legendary rockabilly/punk band The Cramps. The Cramps in 1978 performed a one-off concert at the NAPA mental health Institute in California to patients of the hospital and all that remains is this bootleg. So in March, Iain and Jane restyled Alfonso as Lux Interior, Holly as Poison Ivy, brought in a Bryan Gregory et al. They invited over 60 people who were from the mental health system to form the audience, supplied some drinks and cakes, and in two takes re-shot the film as per the cinematic script of the found bootleg. That film was then degraded and ruptured to the point that it assumed the rough and raw quality of the original and was screened at the aforementioned concert last night, which happened to be the 25th anniversary of the original event (June 13th 1978). This project was, the fourth I (at the ICA) had commissioned with Iain and Jane. All had the binding theme of re-creating and reviving a historic pop moment. The kind of moment you either personally experience, or more likely, is so prevalent in our communal memories, due to their imagery or consistent mediation, that we have a guarded and often emotional bond with them. The latter is certainly true for the artists themselves. Pop moments acted out in the live arena have a strength and passion which in their fastidious re-creation of the original evoke passions, memories (true or false) and at times disturbing reactions in a live context. And so in 1997 The Smiths farewell concert (10 years to the day) was re-enacted and in '98 The Who were brought back to life. Then came the idea to re-create the most ambitious live project to date – on the 2nd and 3rd July 1998 the ICA hosted Iain and Jane's re-creation of the farewell concerts of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Akin to the creation of File under Sacred Music the Ziggy project, entitled A Rock 'N' Roll Suicide was an involved and challenging processed based piece of art, the complexities of which revealed themselves in the year long run up to the event. It became apparent that on the 2nd and 3rd July 1973 Bowie was not simply killing off a character at the Hammersmith Odeon in the format of a regular concert, but was himself elevating himself of an amalgamation of ideas, training, references and stylised codes rooted in art history, performative tradition, socio-political shifts at the turn of the 70's and a heavily rehearsed script which made the Ziggy shows a complex and constructed work of elaborate theatre. In order to re-enact this, the artists had to familiarise themselves with the script with mimetic confidence – enough confidence in-fact to be able to instil the character into a band composed of an ex-member of a Who tribute and the successful Ziggy enactor selected from an open audition. This involved extensive research, rehearsing and what in short can only be described as a seductive form of indoctrination. Indeed I recall that in the weeks leading up to the event I found I myself could not leave the house in the morning without watching at least all or part of the D.A. Pennebaker film to ensure every move or gesture was firmly recorded in my head. Obsessions are contagious, but then it seemed like a healthy form of addiction with a certain end date. Yesterday was an interesting day for a second reason reasons as it coincidentally involved a meeting with legendary photographer Mick Rock, perhaps the only person outside of the Spiders from Mars who witnessed and recorded both the public profile and intimate details of the whole Ziggy era. He was friendly and smart (ex Cambridge graduate I believe) whose rock n roll excesses had not impaired his memory or photographic talent, so I took the opportunity to fill him in on A Rock n Roll Suicide which he appeared to be favourable of and to try and record his thoughts on the character of Ziggy without digressing too far from the purpose of our meeting. I was interested to find out, in an after the fact kind of way, what he thought were the visual tools employed by Bowie in the construction of Ziggy. Unlike my impression that Bowie had carefully crafted this figure in a formulaic manor, Rock insisted that the visual references employed by Bowie were: "very much in the wind" he explained how the young Bowie; "…took kabuki and living theatre mixed it with fantastic cool and a sub-Warholian New York vibe and came up with this fantastic character by fusing these elements together" . An interesting insight which perhaps reminded me just how young Bowie was when he created Ziggy and an 'in the wind' fusion of references, vibes and interests was probably a more appropriate methodology which became worked out in its mass impact on the hoards of 'teenage-outsiders' who emulated and worshiped him. In the early '70's kabuki and mime art were exotic and unfamiliar art-forms. They became the platform for Bowie to employ a set of movement structures and gestures, which through their subtlety echoed the alien quality of Ziggy. One of the stark qualities recurrent in the images of Ziggy is the focussed stare integral to a mimetic training which both engaged the audience whilst accentuating an impression of distance. Similarly the now notorious mime act constructing the invisible wall served to convince us of other-worldliness – this fragile figure elaborately dressed failing to break through to the mortal world. Only at the concerts conclusion with the announcement that 'this the last concert we will ever do' followed by the haunting melody of 'Rock n Roll Suicide' do the grasping hands of the audience connect with the alien life form. In retrospect what saved these theatrical devices from sub-conviction was the visual aesthetic, the make-up, costumes and that orange hair. When the decadence met the narrative the script was born. By a strange co-incidence Iain and Jane in the year they revived Ziggy were just 25 the same age as Bowie in '73. Their practice shared an amalgamation of ideas with the single focus of producing a live character with enough strength to persuade an audience in excess of 700 that they should and could suspend disbelief – to no longer approach the work as a piece of fiction but a shortcut to the authentic moment. Nothing could be a distraction and so the backdrops were studied and re created, the movements were rehearsed to precision (our Ziggy like Bowies' had to become a competent performer of Lindsay Kemps mime movements too), the intro music, the pauses, the costumes… The costumes being so integral to the theatre led Iain and Jane to persuade former Bowie costume maker Natasha Korniloff to remake the seven elaborate creations. So at 8pm on walked our band: Mick Ronson in gold lame peddle pushers and blonde wig, Trevor Bolder part hidden by two huge sideburns and Ziggy in the elaborate quilted metallic suit. Within the space of the first song ending and the second beginning something significant and transitional started to happen. All the visual signifiers enlivened by the music engendered a marked change in the audience. Hands moved from knowing chin strokes to raised arm clapping, eyes stopped rolling and focussed in delight at the spectacle unfolding before them. By song three the familiar push to the stage began to happen and by the closing moments of A Rock n Roll Suicide – all offered their hands - it was wonderful! The cameras flashed from press and audience alike, echo's of the post show euphoria resonated, anecdotes abound. People desperate to prove they were at the original compared the show in minute detail, one guy even began to display his proud collection of Ziggy tattoo's to mark his place in the hierarchy of fandom. The papers ran pictures of the original and the fake in exact pose to emphasise the point. It was undoubtedly a success. Even Mr Bowie himself two weeks later came into the ICA to pass on his congratulations to the artists – though not divulging his exact opinion on re-kindling a character he had rid himself of quarter of a century ago, he illustrated his understanding of the artistry incurred in its re-enactment and the involved complexities in the formation of the work. But the question still remains; why choose to re-enact Ziggy Stardust a mythical figure, which was deleted before the artists were even born?
One of the binding elements common to all the figures Iain and Jane choose is their kind of influence on the course of pop music - a rather raw and working-class kind of music and following (from Morrissey to the Who). Similarly all these artists have an influence, which have outlived their lifetimes, adopted, appropriated and inherited by generations of performers, journalists and audiences. Memories are carried across generations – people access these authors through contemporary sources and seek out the original in the desire to further cultural enlightenment, to find the source at which the references stop. The impact of Ziggy across the decades has been well chartered. Without Ziggy there could have been no New York Dolls in the 70's or Culture Club in the 80's, Suede in the 90's or Marilyn Manson today to name but a few and my gut feeling convinces me that the heritage will live the life till pop's inevitable demise. The significance of Ziggy's appearance on the cultural map lives out in the re-runs of classic pop moments – we have all seen the outtake from Top of The Pops when the androgynous Ziggy simulated fallatio on Mick Ronson's guitar engendering the tabloid accusations of open homosexual activity of British television. Sensation aside, one of the key changes appears in the overt infusion of art into pop. Opportunistically, yesterday I questioned Mick Rock on this. He reinforced the point in his belief that the invention of Ziggy meant that British music was: " no longer working class lads having a romp. He opened the art-door. No-one talked about 'art-rock' before Bowie." Indeed that: " The living figure of Ziggy upped the visual ante of pop". 'Upped the visual ante' and the inventor of 'art-rock'. This being true what can two artists add to the legacy by re-positioning this work in exact detail in an art gallery twenty-five years on? In many ways the premise of the question is flawed in that it was not the artists ambition to add, alter or distort the original itself, but then it was more than an act of fandom or homage. As discussed in parts of this essay the image of Ziggy has been well documented and regurgitated from photo's, film and record covers of the time to T-shirt prints, fashion and contemporary pop acts who appropriate the stylistic devices. What none of these forms of mediation can convey however is the live experience, which was crucial to the mass impact of Bowie's theatre? The elaborate meta-narratives, abounding otherliness, alien experience, and a sci-fi decadence rescued the audience of daily humdrum boredom and projected them into this inclusive environment. In 1998 everything could accessed from that era except the ambitious attempt to revive the live experience of the time – the essential part which moves people, which sets questions racing, which evokes memories and through carefully constructing this virtual environment creates a distinct event in its own right. I may even go so far as to say that the re-enactment of Ziggy in '98 was, for those seven hundred or so of us who were there, the original. I am sure there are many thousands of devotees who would fervently argue to the contrary however by re-enacting a piece of work which was itself a fictitious narrative the need for originality and indeed authorship are negated. A Rock n Roll Suicide became an entity in its own right. By referencing an original so precisely and re-playing it in the live arena twenty-five years on the experience of the night assumes its own identity and thus becomes an original experience free from heritage. Unlike an act of nostalgic tribute the event freed itself from the notion of authorship. This event was an idea created by Iain and Jane based on an idea of Bowie's enacted by a newly composed band, And so the need to assert authority through its dubiousness becomes irrelevant allowing the project a lifeblood of its own and a distinct status as art. It has often been asked if there was any specific reason to produce A Rock n Roll Suicide in late 90's Britain? Though a good sociological historian should be able to write reams on this my feeling is that there probably wasn't any specific socio-political or cultural content which necessitated this work. A residual drabness in British music and style highlighted a need for elaborate culture and a sense of insular crisis in performance art all served to provide a context to counter but none were exclusive triggers. By removing context, authorship, nostalgia and trend the projects devised by Iain and Jane remain expansive and powerful. Their influence assumes a legacy equally as important to the fan as to the art world. Re-enactment has, since their initial work in the early 90's become an important and current cultural debate. For me each of the artists projects have in their converse ways exceeded the precedents and limits, which have framed/constrained, live performance in recent times. By harnessing the mass appeal of pop performance and re-framing it in a cultural context they have successfully, to re-cite the words of Mr Rock 'upped the visual ante'. Thanks to Mick Rock and Joe Wilson for their contributions and advice.
The Second Coming This text originally appeared in German in Schnitt film journal issue 31. Published in Germany, Summer 2003
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