NEW OPERA CREATES ‘SOUNDTRACK FOR THE ERA OF CLIMATE CHANGE’

Today sees the launch of And While London Burns - a compelling
collision of thriller, opera and guided walk that dramatically
explores London’s Square Mile and its role in climate change.

An ‘opera for one’, it takes the audience equipped with an
mp3-player on a walking audio adventure through the skyscrapers,
streets and alleyways of the City.

This unusual work catapults the climate crisis from the cold realms
of science and economics into the emotional world of culture.

And While London Burns leads the headphone-wearing participants on a
mystery tour, experiencing the City through the eyes of a tormented
financial worker, who encounters Roman ruins, real life City
characters, bank trading rooms, buried rivers, and relics from the
Great Fire. The audio tour explores the role of companies including
BP, Royal Bank of Scotland and Swiss Re in fueling climate change.

Starring recent Olivier Award nominee Douglas Hodge[1], and produced
by award -winning arts company PLATFORM,[2] the track is downloadable
for free from http://www.andwhilelondonburns.com and can be
experienced at any time of the week.

Pre-viewing theatre critic Robert Butler writes [3]: “The journey
becomes a magical mystery tour, a London walk, a political essay, a
short story and a requiem”

James Marriott [4], co-writer, says: “The theme of this opera is not
fiction, and this is emphasised by it being staged in real space,
among real characters. This is a soundtrack for the era of climate
change”.

John Jordan [5], fellow librettist, continued: “We know the numbers,
graphs, models and terrifying predictions of the climate catastrophe
that faces us, but until we are truly moved to feel the scale of the
crisis, then there is little hope that our society will go beyond the
cataclysmic scenario of business as usual.”

Composer Isa Suarez’s [6] stirring score evokes London’s fiery past,
oil drenched present and a dark unknowable future and is performed by
some of the UK’s best contemporary musicians including BBC Jazz award
winning clarinettist Alan Barnes and acclaimed cellist Robin Michael.
She describes And While London Burns as a “requiem for the warming
world.”

Press Contacts:
James Marriott: 0207 403 3738
Greg Muttitt (till Sunday 3rd Dec): 07970 589 611
Dan Gretton (after Monday 4th Dec): 07749 422 953

A press photograph is available for use in print media

Notes to editors

1. One of the UK’s most versatile actors, Douglas Hodge has recently
starred in Titus Andronicus for The Globe and the West End run of
Guys and Dolls. He has just finished playing Ewan Mc Gregor’s lover
in the hit British film Scenes of a Sexual Nature.

2. PLATFORM works across disciplines for social and ecological
justice. It combines the transformatory power of art with the
tangible goals of campaigning, the rigour of in-depth research with
the vision to promote alternative futures.
http://www.platformlondon.org

3. Robert Butler, author and theatre critic, was drama critic of the
Independent on Sunday from 1995-2000. His most recent book is ‘The
Art of Darkness - Staging the Philip Pullman Trilogy’ (Oberon 2004).
The review appears on
http://www.ashdendirectory.org.uk/featuresView.asp?pageIdentifier=20061130_63053531&view=

4. James Marriott, Co-Director of PLATFORM, has been researching
London’s oil & gas sector since 1995. He is the author of ‘The Next
Gulf - London, Washington & the Oil Conflict in Nigeria’ (Constable
2005) and is an AHRC Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology,
Goldsmiths College, University of London.

5. Artist activist John Jordan was co-founder of the infamous
anti-globalisation collective Reclaim the Streets. He is co-editor of
‘We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global
Anticapitalism’(Verso 2003). He worked on the film “The Take” about
the economic crisis in Argentina with Naomi Klein and set up the
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army in 2003.

6. Trained classically as a musician, Isa Suarez is a composer,
sound artist and songwriter working since 1988 on film and TV,
contemporary art, songs and multimedia productions. She has released
albums internationally and exhibited at Tate Britain London and
Whitechapel Art Gallery. She was recently awarded an artist residency
in Southwark, London and is currently preparing a multimedia piece
about human rights. http://www.isasuarez.com

Fujitsu Siemens Pocket LOOX T830

Just back from New York - I visited Tom Igoe at NYU’s ITP program. A great lab. They are quite interested in sustainability at the moment. For mobile stuff, they have some sponsorship from Nokia, and are working w/ the Series 60 phones, in their case, the N80. A colleague from Australia was there, and they also just got a bunch of N93’s. So our choice of the N70 for Mosomuso/Net_Derive was probably the right choice at the time.

Meanwhile Naceur has some disappointing news for the Trolltech Qtopia Greenphone - no 3G, no EDGE. . . it’s only GPRS. Hard to do anything in mobile music w/ that kind of bandwidth… So the search for a viable mobile phone platform continues.

Back to ITP - it seems that they have integrated Processing as a library into the Eclipse IDE. Exactly what we started to look at w/ Lorys. I will be getting more info.

If this is possible, that plus sound synthesis possibilities w/ Jsyn . It seems like live audio streaming can be done in Java w/ Javasonics - an interesting comparison here.

It’d be interesting to see how much of this could run on a mobile phone….