Our Monthly Favourites

New Theme : Music as a medium in the Arts/in other art forms/in cinema and interior design

Music and sound as an art form have first been introduced in a full-length film with The Jazz Singer in 1927 directed by Alan Crossland, thanks to synchronised music and dialogues. Its sensational success revolutionised the film industry to introduce “talkies”, marking the end of the silent films era. To a film, those added stylistic elements can fulfill multiple roles; setting  a mood to become a fully-fledged layer in the film, allowing character development a dimension often found in musicals as well as acceding to new narratives to help the storytelling, for example through parodical means, and navigating through scenes.

More directly, music guides its audience through a journey, but also embodies the unwordable, enhancing the viewers’ emotional response and involvement.

Dancer In The Dark, 2000, Lars Von Trier

In director Lars Von Trier’s trilogy after Breaking the waves and Les Idiots, today we are discussing the 2000’s Palme d’or Dancer In The Dark (2000).

This musical drama stars Björk as Selma, a factory worker who gradually loses sight and finds herself accused of a crime she did not commit. Through her tragic journey, music (that the Icelandic singer composed herself) becomes an escape amongst the rhythmical machineries. Although it is, by definition, a musical, it works at the opposite of the typical Hollywoodian film in its narrative, characters and especially turns away from the usually expected happy ending to become a social pamphlet.

Peter Doig: House of Music

Focusing more locally we can take a look at the Serpentine Gallery’s current Peter Doig exhibition: the House of Music. 

This exhibition transforms the Serpentine South Gallery into an atmospheric listening space where painting, music, and interior design operate as a single curated environment, an enhanced felt experienced. Instead of a traditional white-cube presentation, the exhibition arranges Doig’s paintings alongside a curated soundtrack played through vintage analogue speaker systems, including restored units sourced in collaboration with engineers from Bell Labs and cinema manufacturers. These sculptural speakers shape the room as much as the artworks do, turning sound equipment into part of the spatial design.

The layout, developed with curators at Serpentine Galleries, creates zones for lingering, listening, and slow looking. Furniture placement, lighting, and the physical presence of the audio systems give the gallery the feel of an intimate, communal listening room rather than a standard exhibition. If you are in London, it is really worth visiting!

Beau Travail, 1999, Claire Denis

Beau travail is a 2000 film directed by Claire Denis starring Denis Lavant as Galoup, the warrant officer of a troupe of legionnaires in Djibouti. The latter deeply enjoys the life led there, with its structure and discipline, before the arrival of soldier Sentain interpreted by Grégoire Colin that will soon create tension and jealousy. 

The use of music and more precisely the opera Billy Budd composed by Benjamin Britten in the training scenes enhances discipline implemented in those men’s lives to “serve the good cause and die”, but also creates contrast to become a seemingly erotic scene between the choreographed men’s bodies filmed in close-up shots, acting as an ambiguous clue of repressed sexuality and desire. By the end, music serves as an outlet for Galoup through an iconic dancing scene on Rhythm of the Night.

Finally, this singular film has to be watched bearing in mind its female artistic direction and vision, enhancing men’s rivalities and egos to still be powerfully encapsulated through softness and beautiful imagery to deconstruct rather than to ordinate.

Spotted at the Other London Art Fair - Can Touch This Studio’s Sonic Bench 2.0

“Sit down. Relax. Play music by simply touching another person” is the promise Can Touch This Studio gives us when walking up to this piece of furniture, reminiscent of Mondrian with its bold primary colour painted seats. Seen at the Other Art Fair in Shoreditch London, it’s an object that can be quite easy to overlook in the never-ending mass of artworks on display.

However for visitors of all ages, from children to elderly, the amazement is the same when understanding that skin to skin contact makes the piece come to life. As it hums a couple faint notes into your ears you finally understand how this bench pushes you to create contact with others and moments of intimacy, a true celebration of furniture design and music, ornamenting the space with materiality and soundscape.