tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/vivid-10594/articlesVivid – The Conversation2015-07-20T20:10:30Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/443132015-07-20T20:10:30Z2015-07-20T20:10:30ZArt and science combine to reveal the inner workings of our DNA<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87883/original/image-20150709-10895-2w5cpr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=281%2C7%2C850%2C712&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The enzyme, DNA methyltransferase (DNMT), in action in the animation, Tagging DNA.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kate Patterson</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How can cells that contain the same DNA end up so different from each other? That is not only a difficult question for science to answer, but also a challenging one to represent visually.</p>
<p>It is also the question I posed at the start of my latest biomedical animation, called Tagging DNA, which visualises the molecular mechanisms behind epigenetics. </p>
<p>It specifically looks at a process called <a href="http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-DNA-Methylation.aspx">methylation</a>, where <a href="http://www.britannica.com/science/methyl-group">methyl groups</a> are added to DNA, thus changing which genes are switched on and which are switched off. This is one of the processes that enables the same static DNA to produce different types of cells throughout our bodies.</p>
<p>The animation also seeks to engage the viewer on a visual and emotional level, yet also balance what we know based on the latest science. You can view the animation below: </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Tagging DNA: Mislabelling the Cancer Genome.</span></figcaption>
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<p>It is one of six animations created so far as part of the <a href="http://vizbi.org/plus/">VIZBIplus project</a>, established as part of the Inspiring Australia <a href="http://inspiringaustralia.net.au/about-us/grants/">Unlocking Australia’s Potential Initiative</a>.</p>
<p>With slight nervous excitement – since this was the first time anyone except for myself had actually seen the whole thing – I narrated my animation live in June at the <a href="http://www.vividsydney.com/event/ideas/science-reimagined">Science Reimagined</a> event as a part of the VIVID festival in Sydney. Narrating in this style seemed to bring life to the animation and engage the audience in a way that I couldn’t achieve with a pre-recorded version. </p>
<h2>Science and art</h2>
<p>It’s no trivial task making such complex science accessible and engaging. When creating a biomedical animation, I use the tools of Hollywood, such as colour, movement and narrative, to capture the interest and attention of an audience not necessarily interested or engaged in science. Yet, while the overall aesthetic needs to be appealing and awe-inspiring, this should not be at the expense of scientific accuracy. </p>
<p>There is always a balance between accuracy and artistry, and this remains a challenge for every biomedical animation. I encountered another aspect of this challenge when creating Tagging DNA when I needed to explain and show concepts that are not yet fully understood, even among scientists. </p>
<p>Together with <a href="http://www.garvan.org.au/research/genomics-epigenetics/epigenetics-research/suscla">Professor Susan Clark</a> from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research – who is a co-author on this article – we were careful in explaining the role of the enzymes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_methyltransferase">methyltransferase</a> DNMT and TET in regulating how genes are switched on and off. </p>
<p>We had to do this in a way that accurately showed their properties and functions, yet still fit within the storyline. We also had to carefully orchestrate the enzyme TET’s appearance and the associated narration to ensure that its potential role in methylation and cancer was not overstated, given what we know about it. </p>
<p>The evidence today suggests that TET enzymes play a role in facilitating demethylation during development. However, their specific role in cancer remains elusive, except to say that the genes encoding TET enzymes are commonly mutated in cancer. </p>
<p>It is also well accepted that DNMT enzymes are not the only players that contribute to the methylation landscape. And we still need to understand more about the complexity of the methylation and demethylation machinery, and that is what we wanted to make clear by including TET in the animation. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87884/original/image-20150709-10899-ln32cg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87884/original/image-20150709-10899-ln32cg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87884/original/image-20150709-10899-ln32cg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87884/original/image-20150709-10899-ln32cg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87884/original/image-20150709-10899-ln32cg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87884/original/image-20150709-10899-ln32cg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87884/original/image-20150709-10899-ln32cg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The enzyme TET binding to a segment of DNA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kate Patterson</span></span>
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<p>The challenge was introducing this in the animation, knowing that the majority of the audience would not have deep scientific understanding of the topic, but appreciating that some viewers would.</p>
<p>This is a classic example that illustrates how narrative can be a powerful tool to guide a viewer through a complex topic. However, when not used carefully, it can inadvertently cause unintended implications or link ideas that are not fully scientifically resolved. </p>
<h2>Animating science</h2>
<p>By comparison, we have a much better understanding of the method by which the enzyme DNMT operates. In the animation, I drew from what we know about the structure of DNMT, and show how the enzyme directly binds to unmethylated DNA, flipping out a section and enabling the transfer of a methyl group. </p>
<p>This process has been captured by <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-x-ray-crystallography-22143">x-ray crystallography</a> and recorded in the Protein Databank (<a href="http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/home/home.do">PDB</a>). </p>
<p>To create the animations, I have the luxury of using the 3D animation software Autodesk Maya, which is industry standard for Hollywood companies such as Pixar. I also use Molecular Maya and Cell Pack, which are plugins that have been specifically designed to allow proteins in the PDB to be imported directly into the 3D animation software. </p>
<p>These tools are essential when telling molecular stories accurately. In my animation, the DNA itself is also an accurate model, complete with structural details such as the major and minor groove, thermal or <a href="http://www.britannica.com/science/Brownian-motion">Brownian motion</a> of atoms and 10.5 base pairs per 360 degree turn of the DNA. The base pairs are even colour-coded to represent the genetic code. </p>
<p>Molecular animations can be brightly coloured and breathtakingly beautiful. One could easily believe that they are portraying fictional worlds of fantastical creatures and wonderful environments. </p>
<p>It is the underlying scientific rigour and attention to detail that helps the audience build trust. As a creator of such animations, the greatest satisfaction comes in watching a viewer realise that they are watching something that is real, and something that is actually occurring inside their bodies at that very point in time. </p>
<p>I invite you to watch the animation again and imagine just that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Patterson works for the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. She received funding for this project from Inspiring Australia Unlocking Australia’s Potential Grants Program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Clark is Head of the Genomics and Epigenetics Division, and Head of the Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, National Breast Cancer Foundation, Cancer Council and Prostate Cancer Foundation.</span></em></p>It takes a careful balance between art and science to illustrate the processes that take place within our cells and explain the complexities of epigenetics.Kate Patterson, Senior Research Officer: Biomedical Animator and Visual Science Communicator, Garvan InstituteSusan Clark, Senior Principal Research Fellow, Garvan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/274522014-06-05T20:36:22Z2014-06-05T20:36:22ZPet Shop Boys made gay okay: discuss<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50327/original/973dyfr4-1401936345.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks, let’s make lots of money.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vivid</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pet Shop Boys are performing at Carriageworks in Sydney tonight and over the weekend as part of Vivid festival. Their live shows are described as incredible and dazzling, and after almost three decades in the business, they’re still getting great reviews and sales for their albums. </p>
<p>Their brand of British electronic dance pop has become known for its ambition, intelligence and self-awareness, and its ability to be simultaneously meaningful and frivolous, melancholic and joyful. </p>
<p>To many fans, their music was great and their sexuality was irrelevant. To others, their music and image were deliberately and flamboyantly queer. </p>
<p>Pet Shop Boys formed in the early 1980s. Neil Tennant, who had been a writer for British music magazine Smash Hits, was the lyricist and singer, and Chris Lowe played keyboards and programmed their music. The pair were a study in contrasts – in a review for Q magazine, Stuart Maconie described their personae as the academic and the hedonist – and played on this in their public image and lyrics. </p>
<p>As Neil Tennant sang in their hit song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuHIRrt5lCI">Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)</a> (1985):</p>
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<p>I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks, let’s make lots of money.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The line spoke to their self-awareness and use of irony. The song was also a critique of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies. But, because Pet Shop Boys made pop music aimed at the dance floor, the song didn’t sound as serious as its subject. This smart, multi-layered dance pop was what broke them commercially and it became one of their hallmarks.</p>
<p>Released in 1985, their first single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIC6_nApwjc">West End Girls</a>, about the British class system, went to the top of the charts in countries around the world. Tennant’s sibilant, deadpan, polite white rap contributed to the song’s success and the duo’s distinctive sound. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The rap was inspired by Grandmaster Flash’s The Message (1982), but rather than emulating black rap Tennant revised it to fit his cultural context.
In a decade in which popular music was characterised by earnestness and excess, even the title of their first album Please (1986) spoke to Pet Shop Boys’ play with irony and manners.
They rejected rock culture as pretentious and inauthentic, a stance that took musical form in their cover of U2’s 1987 hit Where the Streets Have No Name. They transformed the serious rock anthem into a camp show tune by combining it with the crooner classic Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.
Perhaps because he’d been a pop music critic himself, Tennant knew how to play the music and media game, which helped the duo earn critical respect. As music writer Don Watson commented in NME magazine:
Everyone ends up rather liking them, perhaps because they seem to feel no need to make a fuss about their intelligence, they’d rather make a song and dance with it than about it.
Since then they have influenced and worked with artists including Madonna, Yoko Ono, George Michael, Guns N’ Roses, U2 (ironically), Coldplay’s Chris Martin, The Killers, Lady Gaga and Daft Punk. The artistry and design of their live performances earned them the reputation of being the best ever group to perform at Glastonbury, which in turn influenced music festivals to shift from a pure rock music focus to incorporate dance acts.
Pet Shop Boys performing at the Balaton Sound Festival in Zamardi, Hungary, 2010.
EPA/ Balazs Mohai
But their reach and impact extended beyond music circles, dance floors and commercial radios. With lyrics about escaping from the suffocating confines of conservative suburbia, Pet Shop Boys appealed to people who felt like outsiders. Their music helped to create a space for people at the margins.
Indeed, part of the hype around Pet Shop Boys in the 1980s was whether or not they were gay. They wouldn’t comment on their sexuality in interviews and a rumour circulated that their name referred to a mythic gay male sexual practice that involved using gerbils and other small rodents for anal stimulation.
For their part, the duo seemed happy to play with the rumours and the uncertainty around their sexual identities. Tennant used a non-gender specific pronoun in his lyrics, and the fey sound of his voice could pass for straight but might also signal that he wasn’t.
Gay aesthetics and meanings could be found in a lot of their output. The duo recorded hit songs with gay icons Dusty Springfield and Liza Minnelli. Their song Rent (1987) was interpreted by some as about male prostitutes, while the lyrics in It’s a Sin (1987) dealt with religious guilt and social transgression and could easily have been about sexual identity.
Pet Shop Boys’ performance of queerness was significant in the 1980s when AIDS was discovered and became an international pandemic. Because it had circulated in and decimated gay communities, conservatives characterised AIDS as a gay disease and as God’s punishment for being homosexual. As part of the homophobic hysteria, governments, including Thatcher’s, took anti-gay positions through policy.
In this context, by flaunting an exuberant queer aesthetic that also flew under the radar, Pet Shop Boys both undermined and defied conservative culture. Their pop was a political statement. By the time Neil Tennant officially came out in 1993, his and Chris Lowe’s music had given visibility to queerness and helped to carve a bigger space – and greater tolerance – for it in the mainstream.
Their 1990 song Being Boring, written about a friend of Tennant’s who died of AIDS, is a poignant and moving eulogy of its time. But as much as the song is about loss, it’s also about how to live. Which is what the never-boring Pet Shop Boys continue to do.
<em>Pet Shop Boys perform at Modulations on Friday 6, Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 June.</em></span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Sheehan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pet Shop Boys are performing at Carriageworks in Sydney tonight and over the weekend as part of Vivid festival. Their live shows are described as incredible and dazzling, and after almost three decades…Rebecca Sheehan, Lecturer in US History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/268252014-06-02T04:11:38Z2014-06-02T04:11:38ZGiorgio Moroder steps back into the sound of the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49923/original/qkr2vr5j-1401670523.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Giorgio Moroder made his Australian DJ debut at 74 years of age in Sydney last night at Vivid Live.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Giorgio Moroder closed the Vivid festival at the Sydney Opera House last night with a Q&A and a DJ set; this followed an “electro-orchestral tribute” to his music by Britain’s 40-piece Heritage Orchestra.</p>
<p>Moroder, disco synthesiser pioneer and Oscar-winning film composer of some of the biggest film songs and soundtracks of the 1980s, has made a remarkable comeback recently, largely due to his appearance on French duo Daft Punk’s 2013 multi Grammy award winning album Random Access Memories (2013). </p>
<p>A recovery, a tribute, a clever marketing ploy, the track <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmpsBeaVrkE&feature=kp">Giorgio by Moroder</a> (2013) created advance buzz for the album and helped drive its success. It gave credibility in two directions: to Daft Punk by association with a legend and for knowing their music history, and to Moroder, who had been lost to a generation raised on musicians, critics and historians who used “disco” as shorthand for passé, superficial rubbish.</p>
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<span class="caption">Vivid Live, Giorgio Moroder.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton</span></span>
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<p>An Italian who had some success in the late 1960s writing bubblegum pop, Moroder’s big international breakthrough came in 1975 as the result of his collaboration with writing partner Pete Bellotte and the African-American singer Donna Summer on Love to Love You (Baby). </p>
<p>Over 17 minutes on the first ever extended release single, Summer’s breathy vocals and moans conveyed a woman experiencing waves of sexual ecstasy. Banned by the BBC in the UK, the song went to number one in the US. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Extended version of Love to Love You (Baby), 1975.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In a decade in which music had been dominated by “cock rock”, Love to Love You (Baby) focused on female pleasure. The song’s form shifted away from rock’s phallic peak in the guitar solo, towards disco’s whole-body sensuality and its multiple possibilities. Unlike early disco, its rhythm was driven not by the drums, bass and keyboards of funk and the Philadelphia sound, but by a synthesiser.</p>
<p>Moroder’s next collaboration with Summer is widely considered to have revolutionised electronic dance music. I Feel Love’s signature repeating bass line had a precision and timing that could only have been made with machines. </p>
<p>Indeed, in trying to create a futuristic sound, Moroder <a href="http://theconversation.com/sublime-design-the-moog-synthesiser-26460">used the Moog synthesiser</a> to make all the music for the song. In 1977, I Feel Love became an international hit. Brian Eno apparently played the song to David Bowie and told him it was “the sound of the future”. Music writer Jon Savage <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2012/may/18/donna-summer-i-feel-love">described</a> it as the only disco song punks were allowed to like.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">I Feel Love, 1977.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The song influenced a generation of British artists, from Cabaret Voltaire to New Order, to write synth-driven dance music, and inspired the sounds of the British <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_wave_music">New Wave</a>. In the United States it influenced gay disco, house and techno, was sampled by hip hop artists in the 1980s, and its synthesised rhythm section echoes in contemporary R&B. </p>
<p>Moroder’s special brand of “Eurodisco” as it was called, helped push disco to its zenith: by the late 1970s musicians from Barbra Streisand to the Rolling Stones were recording disco-inflected songs.</p>
<h2>Sex with machines?</h2>
<p>But it was also a sound that generated controversy. Some critics interpreted the combination of the music with Donna Summer’s vocals as equating sex with machines. Moroder’s music, <a href="http://www.globaldarkness.com/articles/giorgio_moroder_interview.htm">they argued</a>, was artificial, a symptom and proponent of the wider trend of dehumanisation in an age of technology. </p>
<p>Searching for further damning evidence, Moroder’s critics pointed to his “Munich Machine” – the name he gave to himself and his regular team of collaborators – and its albums, one of which had dancing robots on its cover. They accused Moroder of using factory production methods, advocating machines over humans, and destroying the humanity and art in music. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Juska Wendland</span></span>
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<p>Those charges were part of a broad backlash against disco. In 1979, white American male rock fans revolted against what they perceived as disco’s artifice, blackness, femaleness and gayness. In a symbolic gesture, they exploded thousands of disco records in a Chicago baseball field. </p>
<p>The riot set off a national “disco sucks” movement so successful that, by the end of the year, major record companies no longer wanted disco acts. Many artists, including Donna Summer, lost their record deals and Moroder’s disco boom was over.</p>
<p>But his futuristic sound found a new place in movies. English director Alan Parker commissioned it for his 1978 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077928/">Midnight Express</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD4Ks_EMQBY&list=RDQD4Ks_EMQBY#t=9">the music Moroder created</a> revolutionised a genre that had been dominated by classical compositions. </p>
<p>The Midnight Express soundtrack won Moroder his first Oscar, and he went on to work with Blondie on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StKVS0eI85I">Call Me</a> for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080365/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">American Gigolo</a> (1980), David Bowie for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083722/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Cat People</a> (1982), and with the Human League’s Phil Oakey on the title track for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087197/">Electric Dreams</a> (1984). </p>
<p>He wrote and produced Irene Cara’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65ynRuXN7GI">What a Feeling</a> for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085549/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Flashdance</a> (1983), and was behind the two huge songs from the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092099/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Top Gun</a> (1986) soundtrack, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUis9yny_lI">Take My Breath Away</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siwpn14IE7E">Danger Zone</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49938/original/sjycnk77-1401674831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49938/original/sjycnk77-1401674831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49938/original/sjycnk77-1401674831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49938/original/sjycnk77-1401674831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49938/original/sjycnk77-1401674831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49938/original/sjycnk77-1401674831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49938/original/sjycnk77-1401674831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49938/original/sjycnk77-1401674831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vivid Live, Giorgio Moroder.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moroder’s iconic film themes, including <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Scarface</a> (1983), continue to influence moody, electronic film scores from composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s work on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Social Network</a> (2010), to Hans Zimmer’s composition work on the Dark Knight series.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, grunge and hip hop became huge, synth-pop lost its popular appeal, and a displaced Moroder went into semi-retirement. </p>
<p>Now, in the second decade of the new millennium, when beat-based music dominates the charts around the world and electronic dance music is experiencing such a renaissance that it has its own acronym (EDM), Daft Punk’s Giorgio by Moroder has brought him back. And Moroder is in demand again. </p>
<p>Moroder has <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/30/giorgio-moroder-dance-music-legend-on-remixing-coldplay-s-midnight-and-crazy-lana-del-rey.html">just confirmed</a> he’ll be working on American singer Lana Del Rey’s next album, he’s remixed Coldplay, and there are rumours he’ll be working with other big name artists including Lady Gaga. </p>
<p>At the age of 74, Moroder has returned to the future he helped to create.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vivid Live, Giorgio Moroder, June 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26825/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Sheehan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Giorgio Moroder closed the Vivid festival at the Sydney Opera House last night with a Q&A and a DJ set; this followed an “electro-orchestral tribute” to his music by Britain’s 40-piece Heritage Orchestra…Rebecca Sheehan, Lecturer in US History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/264492014-05-23T02:11:31Z2014-05-23T02:11:31ZLet there be light: behind the trend of illuminating cities for art<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49209/original/pxhhsysp-1400725991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bright lights, big city - in the 1950s lighting for productivity and security was overtaken by lighting for spectacle, mood and advertising.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lighting the Sails - 59 Productions Vivid LIVE 2014.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re in Melbourne or Sydney over the next couple of weeks, you can enjoy the nightly transformation of some familiar urban landmarks. How should we understand this growing global enthusiasm for spectacular urban illumination? </p>
<p>Tonight in Sydney, the Opera House will again become an urban canvas for <a href="http://www.vividsydney.com/events/lighting-of-the-sails/">Lighting The Sails</a>, now an established part of the annual <a href="http://www.vividsydney.com/">Vivid</a> festival (May 23-June 1). Instead of reflecting the harbour’s ambient light, the sails will be shrink-wrapped with a large-scale video projection created by <a href="http://59productions.co.uk/">59 Productions</a>, the team responsible for the video design of the London 2012 Olympic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4As0e4de-rI">Opening Ceremony</a>. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White Night Melbourne, February 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Newzulu/ Dhiren Velu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Melbourne in June, a new interactive light-based installation <a href="http://www.fedsquare.com/events/radiant-lines-by-asif-khan/">Radiant Lines</a> by renowned London-based light artist <a href="http://www.asif-khan.com/">Asif Khan</a> will open in Federation Square as part of its long-running <a href="http://www.fedsquare.com/events/the-light-in-winter/program/">Light in Winter</a> festival. </p>
<p>Radiant Lines is a sculpture comprising 40 rings of raw aluminium suspended in space and illuminated by hundreds of LED lights pulsing in a rhythm that mimics bioluminescence. As visitors approach, they are able to trigger new patterns that immerse them.</p>
<p>Urban illumination projects of this kind are increasingly popular, not only for festivals such as Vivid, Light in Winter, <a href="http://enlightencanberra.com.au/">Enlighten</a> in Canberra and various “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Night_festivals">White Nights</a>” around the world, but for all kinds of transformations of urban space — both temporary and permanent. </p>
<p>New forms of public and commercial lighting, large-scale projection, urban screens and media facades have profoundly transformed the look and ambiance of cities around the world. In Hong Kong, the city’s skyscrapers even perform <a href="http://www.tourism.gov.hk/symphony/english/details/details.html">a nightly choreography of light</a>. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Symphony of Lights, Hong Kong.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Francisco Diez</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A short history of lighting cities</h2>
<p>While much urban lighting has a functional dimension, there is a long history of lighting cities for spectacle and pleasure. Gas-lit Paris was proclaimed the world’s first “city of light” in the 1820s. From the 1870s, World’s Fairs regularly showcased new developments in electric lighting, paving the way for the twentieth century “electropolis”, as cities such as Chicago, Berlin and New York came to be defined by the intensity of their illumination. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eHfWwSIjuI">bright lights, big city</a>” of which Jimmy Reed sang in the 1950s became a dominant image of the modern city, establishing a new rhetoric of urban space in which lighting for productivity and security was overtaken by lighting for spectacle, mood and advertising.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Curtis Perry</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For a century, urban lighting depended on incandescent bulbs and various fluorescent tubes, such as the neon tube that became synonymous with advertising from the 1920s. </p>
<p>The current explosion of urban illumination projects has been sparked by a range of new technologies, including the maturation of digital projection systems, light-emitting diode (LED) video screens and LED lighting from the mid-90s. </p>
<p>The capacity to computer program LED lights down to the individual pixel means that lighting designers can create complex sequences and rhythms, such as the light narrative designed by Bruce Ramus, former lighting designer for rock luminaries U2, that plays on the LED skin wrapping Melbourne’s AAMI Park stadium. </p>
<p>Bringing computer-aided design together with high-precision large-scale digital projection has also created the distinctive new art form of projection mapping. Projection mapping enables real structures, such as the curvaceous Sydney Opera House, to be transformed into a screen on which images can play without distortion. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o5ZvCv7yUKk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">URBANSCREEN lighting the Sydney Opera House, 2012.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Precise integration of mutable light with material structures can result in astonishing contemporary retakes on the old <em>son et lumière</em> show, as solid buildings seem to come alive through virtuoso combinations of light and shadow. For Lighting the Sails in 2012, German company <a href="http://www.urbanscreen.com/">URBANSCREEN</a> took the sails metaphor of Utzon’s famous structure literally, using projection mapping to make them appear to undulate and ripple. </p>
<h2>Public space debate</h2>
<p>New lighting technologies inevitably raise new questions about access and control over public space. The complexity and cost of large-scale projection mapping means it requires the deep pockets of large festivals. But it is also becoming an increasingly common promotional tool for high profile commercial events. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bruce Ramus’ Helix Tree.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PatM</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lighting the modern city has always had a strong commercial bias, and has been a key factor in tilting the contemporary city towards becoming a “brandscape”, a spectacle that is consumed rather than inhabited in other ways. However, new technologies can carry other possibilities for public communication. </p>
<p>The Helix Tree installation (pictured) that <a href="http://www.ramus.com.au/">Bruce Ramus</a> designed for Light in Winter in 2013 lit up in response to people singing. Light became a medium for congregation and collective public participation.</p>
<p>There are also myriad examples of “unauthorised” illumination projects around the world, variously termed digital graffiti, photon bombing and mobile guerrilla projection. </p>
<p>During the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in 2011 artists projected “99%” and “Occupy Together” right across the front of buildings such as City Hall. And predating Lighting the Sails was the memorable guerrilla projection in 2006 of the “We are all boat people” logo on to the Opera House sails. </p>
<p>More than ever before, lighting has become integral to debate over public space.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.vividsydney.com/events/the-city-as-a-canvas-transformations-through-light">The City as a Canvas: Transformations Through Light</a>, a public talk at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, takes place on Saturday May 23 at 3.30pm.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott McQuire was part of an ARC linkage project, Large-screens and the transnational public sphere 2009-2013, in which Fed Square P/L was one of three industry partners. </span></em></p>If you’re in Melbourne or Sydney over the next couple of weeks, you can enjoy the nightly transformation of some familiar urban landmarks. How should we understand this growing global enthusiasm for spectacular…Scott McQuire, Head, Media and Communication Program, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.