Eno appeals for arts funding for the health of our society

24 May 2010. Last night, in the Brighton Dome, Brian Eno appealed to government to fund the arts. Without the arts, ran the subtext of Eno's message, our society can’t develop properly.

Eno started out by explaining that he was addressing the proposed cuts in arts funding by the British government. He noted there are no proposals to cut funding to the Trident nuclear missile programme, and said he was not proud of the fact that Britain is the number two arms producer in the world. He said the arts community is failing to sell itself to government as successfully as the arms industry. The arts community is failing to convince government of the importance of the arts.

Eno said we are at a Darwinian moment – at present the arts are considered to be interesting, but not essential to human development. He compared this attitude to the study of nature before Darwin's theory of evolution changed our idea of the place of humans in the world: we discovered that humans are not isolated, but are connected with all life, part of the same evolutionary chain. Now, says Eno, we are going to realise that the arts are connected with human development and healthy society.

He illustrated his point with an overhead projection of screwdrivers. They all had the same business end. The other end was the stylistic end, in many variations. He showed slides of screwdrivers with curved and straight, spotted and pink, and even be-feathered handles. Hairstyles were another example. On one end of the scale, we might think we don't need to cut our hair, or only need the most utilitarian cut, on the other end we see an infinite variety of styles.

The arts, said Eno, are “anything we don't have to do”. But, in both examples of screwdrivers and hair, we can see that the whole does not work without the stylistic part.

Before and after Eno (or how the Apollo space mission affected human consciousness)

Pic: NASA

Click for Apollo sample
When I invited a young friend to the performance of Brian Eno’s Apollo that opened the Brighton Festival last night (1 May 2010), I wasn’t tremendously surprised that she didn’t know who Brian Eno is. Despite her tender years, my friend is the veteran of countless surreal, early-morning chilled-out after-parties, so I was more confident of the effect of describing Eno as the father of ambient music. That was enough to get her to the Dome.

Ambient music has become a part of modern life, so fundamental to our experience that it is taken for granted, rather like our modern view of man in space. The lonely, beautiful, ever-changing disc of blue – earth viewed from space – has become a commonplace visual icon in our modern human consciousness, just as ambient electronic music has become an unremarkable strand in the aural texture of our lives. But there was a time before; the time before science became integral to our human essence. Eno’s music is the soundtrack to that transition: before and after science.

My companion came away from the concert dazzled. The performance was like taking the pure essence when you’ve been used to the diluted stuff. She stumbled over herself in her praise for Eno. “He is my new master,” she declared, revealing, I thought, an unconscious yearning for direction.

Eno originally produced Apollo as a soundtrack to Al Reinert’s docu-movie about the moon landings. It was a studio recording using electronic equipment that, in the 1980’s, was both experimental and state of the art. Technology has come a long way since then. As Eno pointed out, in a talk before the performance, the computing power applied to the entire Apollo space mission could be fitted into a modern mobile phone.

Last night, live musicians using acoustic instruments – including guitars, cello, drums, violin, wind, brass and pedal steel guitar – performed the sound track to Apollo. They sat beneath a giant screen projection of the hour-long movie, which was culled from six million hours of film footage shot by Nasa on their moon trips (more...)

Hot lead for Brighton Festival: So you want to contact Brian Eno?

I picked up a copy of Brighton Festival's 2010 programme at Lewes station on Friday. I was impressed to see reclusive musician and artist Brian Eno as Festival Director.

In my salad days, the late 70s and 80s, I loved Eno's range, from lyrical-poignant songs like 'Here he comes' to dance chants such as 'Kings lead hat'. Plus he was mates with, and collaborated with people like David Bowie and Iggy Pop in the days of 'Speed of Life', and David Byrne in the days of 'My life in the Bush of Ghosts'. Mystic fire indeed.

So, I thought, let's follow the main lead. The man is coming to Brighton. Get an interview. How to start? With Google of course!

I asked Google "How to contact Brian Eno?" I got an answer, not the answer I was looking for, but it is a good answer and made me laugh. Well worth a visit, click the link:

"why contacting Brian Eno may not be a good idea"

There will be a chance to see Eno in person when he appears at the Brighton Dome on the 23 May, to present "This is an illustrated talk".

The Festival runs from 1-23 May, and features the 1970's short film 'Berlin Horse', with a sound track by Eno, his digital-audio painting '77 Million Paintings', and a live arrangement of his album 'Apollo'. I'm going to try to see all those. I will also be at the Children's street festival (1 May), and I'll try to see AfroBeat on 14 May, with Tony Allen and Seun Kuti. Brian Eno says Tony Allen is "the greatest living drummer in the world today".
For more information and booking: click here for the Brighton Festival website