Working title – Cast / Casting Bowiemers Concept: Kira O’Reilly
In 1976, David Bowie arrived by train in Helsinki from Moscow, to play a date in his Isolar tour alighting on the platform at Central Railway station to a crowd of journalists and fans before being swept off by a car parked on the platform, to a press conference. Iconic photographs were captured of the arrival by Finnish photojournalists and Andrew Kent who was accompanying Bowie.
Cast is conceived as a participatory art work, a live event that restages this rapturous arrival, by inviting multiple Helsinkians to cast themselves as many David Bowies, each to perform a descent from a train on the central platform at Helsinki Central Railway Station. Theses arrivals will be captured by still and moving image, to create a series of video and images for further display.
Part of Cast is a sound work that both focuses on the event itself, a soundtrack of endless arrival, and also a distributed sound work that activates the excitement and energy of the station as a place of eventfulness. An established composer of ambiant music has been approached with a initial enquiry, and has expressed an interest. An initial mention was made (by me) about the into to Station to Station being a possible sample, Basinski pointed out that the Bowie estate is notoriously careful about licencing and expensive, the opening. Nevertheless, that famous intro does offer a sense of the tone and possible sonic register that might be a suitable inspiration or departure point for the work.
The production will involve wardrobe to support people stepping into the iconic Bowiesque demeanour, however Cast is less concerned with a re-enactment of precision, or perfectly replicated Bowies, than it being more of a fulcrum that invites a deluge or celebratory arrivals, certainly some of which will – hopefully attract die-hard fans who wish to embody the graphic angular poise of the Thin White Duke, but also numerous other kinds of people and bodies, ages, ethnicities, genders and manifestations, who wish to embody the glamour of an arrival.
Bowie’s arrival from what was then from Soviet Russia, behind the iron curtain also summons a reflection on our current reality, during which train services no longer run between Finland and Russia. Our geo-political landscape has shifted – seemingly irreparably once more.
A helpful reference in thinking about this project has been the work of Jeremy Deller, much of which he offers reflection on current cultural and political realities via engaging with folk and popular culture, frequently working with seemingly obvious or too easily dismissed tropes from pop and rock to convey moving and expressive testimonies, the 2008 documentary, Our Hobby is Depeche Mode, being one example.