Events

Music for Real Airports is series of exciting live art events and installations in art galleries/spaces that are an artistic response to the reality of occupying the semi-public space of an airport, and a contemporary reply to Brian Eno’s work from the 70s.

Combining performances of live electronic music, live-mixed animation and digital video projected on multiple screens, Music for Real Airports will be a unique and immersive experience.

Music For Real Airports - The Intent
Produced by musicians and artists with an international reputation - The Black Dog and Human - the project will portray airports as they really are, rather than an idealised utopian vision of what they should be. Combining performances of electronic music, live-mixed animation and digital video projected on multiple screens, Music for Real Airports will be a unique, immersive experience.

Airports can be seen as dystopian microcosms of a possible future society. Airports present themselves as doing everything for your benefit and safety, but the reality is that they are systems of human control. The necessity of safety has elevated stress and airports’ promise – of travel, exploration and excitement – is broken by the stale, tedious reality of intense, sometimes overwhelming environments. Anyone who travels by air will have been puzzled by the way that airports tend to reduce us to a worthless pink blobs of flesh, the human equivalent of the bags on the conveyor belt. Yet despite the frustration of being in that atmosphere, some of the best of human nature is revealed, alongside some of the worst. Airports make for great “people watching”.

The artistic content of Music for Real Airports is therefore to use the gallery space to examine the nature of airports and to explore what they could be. We argue that, considering their importance in our lives, airports have not been sufficiently represented by artists. Perhaps the best known artistic response to airports is Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, whose purpose seems to be largely elegiac, even if conceived as an antidote to the stress of plane delays. Our performances, events and installations are a more accurate update to Eno’s work, and a to a degree, a riposte.