“She had an horror of rooms she was tired”
The Stardom and Celebrity of David Bowie is a two-day (17/18 July) multi-discipline symposium at ACMI that brings together artists, academics and cultural commentators to reflect upon the influences of and on David Bowie in rock, pop, film, art, fashion and performance.
Among the speakers is BowieNetter, Dr Leah Kardos, who kindly supplied the following regarding her contributions to the symposium
My involvement is on the first of the two days, which kicks off with a keynote from Professor Will Brooker, with whom I work with at Kingston University. His keynote will be pretty exciting, as it sounds like a kind of academic analysis never attempted in this field before: a ‘performance’ of Bowie’s various personas with aim of teasing out important ideas on his ’sameness’ rather than ‘changes’ – the key artistic traits and constant central concerns present throughout his career.
My involvement is in two different panels – the first looking at Bowie’s creativity, will be special because I get to share/co-present with Meagan Wilson (“Mego” from Bowienet of yore). In it I will be looking at Bowie’s music (actual musical analysis, something that doesn’t often happen when talking about Bowie in academic contexts!) for patterns and evidence of a constructed language. Some members of the London fan community have been helping me with this research, most notably Phil Blackhouse and Liz Tray. Mego’s presentation will be looking at lyrical themes to do with characters in domestic/interior spaces and the idea of escape.
The second panel I’m involved with is all about covers and collaborations and I will be talking about my “You Can’t Hide Beat” project, made for/with the Bowienet community in 2011.
Do listen to Leah’s superb “You Can’t Hide Beat” collection of six Bowie covers, which includes her version of The Man Who Sold The World which ties in nicely with this week’s featured album.
Check out the dedicated Bowie Symposium page for ticket links and the full schedule.
#bowiesymposium