| UNDERNIGHT |
Athens 2007 Still from 3d animation Undernight is a multimedia affair that addresses the lost history of disco. At it's core is a 24 hour audiovisual work, in the mode of a hallucinatory documentary chronicling what disco was, and what it might have been. |
| Was disco the last utopia? Creative, cultural, social and political possibilities where pioneered on the multi-racial, poly-sexual dance floor of the '70s. The Utopian possibilities on the brief disco horizon only lasted for about 10 years. The main voices and figureheads of the disco era where wiped out by the 1981 onset of the AIDS epidemic. In what can only be called a cultural holocaust, a whole generation that danced, loved and created together disappeared. Between the terror, taboos and grief caused by the "big disease with a little name" what this people left behind was thrown away, underestimated trash of a wild party gone wrong, the aftermath nobody wants to remember about, souvenirs of a damned epoch. Being part of an artistic movement that flourished mainly in gay and black ghettos, the disco artist was a revolutionary. He might be a DJ, party promoter, face on the scene, snapshot diarist, record reviewer, music producer, fashion designer, magazine editor, radio jock or anyone who contributed to this massive phenomenon. Utilising technology, his product was strictly of the post modern era, suspect as it hung between the underground and the mainstream culture it aspired to. Therefore it was never much lamented by the predominantly white/heterosexual art establishment, and now disco work seems lost forever. |
| Disco culture has since remained relatively unexamined. It is devoid of the cultural significance accorded to other, parallel, scenes of the time. Punk, the NY graffiti scene, even minor pockets like the "mutant art disco" of ESG have all been re-visited as new generations enthused about their energy and creativity. The art establishment regards the main disco with suspicion - frivolous, superficial, transitory and faddish. That prejudice has not stopped artists to pilfer disco culture's treasure of tricks ever since. Hence my Undernight Project. I chose the form of animated documentary, because i needed an immersive but still didactic experience for anyone bothering to see the work. In order to avoid any forced representational dilemmas, i chose abstraction, and specifically the psychedelic-technological kaleidoscope made of a quilt of 3d animations. This liquid but symmetrical structure is a visual response to the proverbial "disco lights", the transcendental visions attained with closed eyes on a dance floor you pray never to leave. On another level, they map the fluidity of the disco experience, accordingly to your reading of the mutating Rorschach tests fleeting before your eyes. The soundtrack consists of a non stop nanogod disco mix, sewn out of very lovingly downloaded disco rarities. It tries to capture my personal disco feelings, the exact shades of emotional and intellectual arousal that i associate with a night of non-stop dancing to music designed to engage you totally - mind, body and soul. |
| Fusing black music culture with the predominantly white aesthetics of big Broadway orchestras, disco managed to unite the two most antagonistic strains of 20th century music - sensual, body-centric African polyrythms and emotional-intellectual symphonics. It broke down barriers that held apart these two black and white musical idioms for decades. Adopted enthusiastically by the gay clubbing underground of major US cities, disco became the hedonistic soundtrack to unforgettable weekends of newfound sexual freedom. When it went mainstream, the heterosexual population was exposed to the homosexual lifestyle and aesthetics in an unprecedented way. This libertarian atmosphere established the roots for the nascent gay liberation movement and paved the way for a societal upheaval never before equalled. A new visibility was raised for realities either ignored or previously non-existent. |