RMJM Art Commissioning
Cultural
RMJM Art Commissioning: City 24: Radiance 07
Glasgow
November 07
"Can lighting change the way we feel about a part of the city? Should a lighting strategy light the city's best buildings or its worst? Are we over illuminating our public spaces? Is the preoccupation with safety leading to sanitised and anodyne environments? The event named City 24, was...
“Popular Concerts - A little nonsense, according to the old adage, is relished by the wisest people, and if Washington Irving may be believed, there is no social companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter abundant.
It is generally considered that nonsense ought to be administered sparingly, by infinitesimal doses, as it were; but the audience at the City Hall on Saturday evening showed that larger proportions did not altogether disagree with the public digestion. They were promised "two hours of genuine fun", and they got them; for mr Arthur Lloyd, the versatile son of our veteran comedian, was there in great force, accompanied by a party whose native drollery was calculated to set any table in a roar. The effect of the performance was not wholly what Goldsmith described as “a loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind". It was rather that happy ebullition of merriment which braces the vital power, enlivens the spirits, and makes a man better disposed towards his fellows than he was before. A healthy exuberance of animal spirits was apparent all through, and the outward mirth afforded indubitable evidence of inward satisfaction. We are free to confess that the members of Mr Aruthur Lloyd's party are about the funniest people we have seen for a long time, and that their sallies of humour were met by those frank manifestations of delight so unmistakably dear to every public performer.”
Mr Arthor Lloyd
Glasgow News, September 29, 1893
Cultural
RMJM Art Commissioning: City 24: Radiance 07
Glasgow
November 07
"Can lighting change the way we feel about a part of the city? Should a lighting strategy light the city's best buildings or its worst? Are we over illuminating our public spaces? Is the preoccupation with safety leading to sanitised and anodyne environments?
The event named City 24, was conceived by Willie Hanlon, a senior architect at Glasgow City Council to coincide with the Radiance Lighting festival in November 2007.
The purpose of the event was to discuss the city's lighting strategy and how it might be developed with architects and designers working in the city. Penny Lewis from Scottish architectural magazine Prospect was invited to chair the debate.
Following the discussion the participants were invited to produce graphic images which explored the ideas discussed in the round table. A selection of those ideas were projected in public as part of Radiance 07".
Penny Lewis for Prospect Magazine
Following the City24 meeting, which took place at the Lighthouse, RMJM Art Commissioning produced a short light based animation based on the work of music hall performer Arthur Lloyd who performed "comic concerts" in the Glasgow music halls of the 1800s. The animation is a text piece that illustrates one of the Arthur Lloyd songs titled "You Understand, or At Least I Hope You Do", part of his "two hours of genuine fun" series.
RMJM Art Commissioning used this text to create a cultural and historical reference in the Candleriggs area of Glasgow. During the late 1800's Arthur Lloyd performed in a host of venues across Glasgow including the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall, City Hall, Candlerigggs; The Theatre Royal in Dunlop Street (now the St Enochs Centre) and the Whitebait Music Hall, St Enochs where he made his debut in 1861.
On viewing the Glasgow News review there is a very visual reference to how he was received in the city. It beautifully illustrates how theatre and performance were an active part of the "social scene" and creates a ghostly reference to this era of music hall in an area of the city that housed an exceptional number of theatres, during this time.
In turn, the text itself engages further dialogue. It could be read from a city perspective, about our built environment, that we have no / or very little control over what shapes the city of Glasgow; how good design at human scale, placemaking and art are unusual rather than the norm. So reflection on the question opens cultural dialogue!
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