Hearing music is easy, listening is much more difficult. It is a rare occasion for us to give complete attention to the sounds which are unfolding around us. Music is most often present in the background, the accompaniment to a different activity. Sometimes, however, this is just not enough. I do not want to...
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Obviously, listening to music is essential to its enjoyment. You do not need me to tell you that. Music is much more than just sound, and it provides more than the proverbial ‘soundtrack to our lives’. It plays an  integral role to the social functions of many modern-day situations, shaping and influencing our social...
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Given the extent to which metaphysics has been chased out of the lecture theatre, and indeed out of cultural theory itself in the past few decades, it may seem rather surprising for me to herald its return. And I do so not on the balance and tone of any purported majority of recent publications,...
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Ingmar  Bergman passed away this year. It was not unexpected of course – he was after all 89 years of age – but time still stopped for an instant. An era died there. Will he ever have an heir? I was curious about the world’s reaction. Not surprisingly, America, alongside Sweden, reacted the most....
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Perhaps one of the most telling displays of a sense of western “identity” is the adaptation of internationally successful (but ultimately foreign) films. Whether motivated by capitalism or an inability to relate with characters outside of our own cultural context, a trend has risen in the remaking of eastern films for western audiences rather...
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Emblazoned on the walls of Islington Underground Station in 1965 were the words “Clapton is God”. Rock stars experienced such cult status particularly in the sixties and seventies when London was described, by Clapton himself, as “an extraordinary melting pot of fashion, music, art and intellect”. As the graffiti faded in time so did...
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Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997) is a supremely violent, unnerving Austrian film. In March next year it is going to acquire a supremely violent, unnerving, American remake. However, while the Hollywood revision essentially translates originals into “American” by Americans, this case saw Haneke remain as the director. Furthermore, as we are talking of a...
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“Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers”. Choose a middle-classed, middle-educated, middle-dressed, middle life. In Danny Boyle’s film Trainspotting, identity demands a step towards smack, living cheap and being young. And a step away from a fucking big television. In the final scene of Trainspotting,...
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What do we see when we look at a photograph? Do we expect to see a representation of actual events, or do we allow the photographer some artistic licence? In the age of photo-editing software and digital photography, how can the maxim “the camera never lies” be true? Since the dawn of time, people...
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When asked this question I have several responses. At a personal level I don’t really like being given labels, but then I hate it if anyone gets my name (an important signifier of Identity) wrong, and can also present (or rather, identify) myself in terms of what I think defines me. Some of the...
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