The Spectacle of the Symphony

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1.

THE WHOLE LIFE of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.

2.

IMAGES DETACHED FROM every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever. Apprehended in a partial way, reality unfolds in a new generality as a pseudo-world apart, solely as an object of contemplation. The tendency toward the specialization of images-of-the-world finds its highest expression in the world of the autonomous image, where deceit deceives itself. The spectacle in its generality is a concrete inversion of life, and, as such, the autonomous movement of non-life.

The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord
La société du spectacle (Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1967)
Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books, 1994)

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To Aberdeen’s down-at-heel Georgian/Victorian concert-hall - The Music Hall - last night for a performance of Sibelius’ 5th Symphony, the concert forming part of the “Naked Classics” series from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra

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http://www.rsno.org.uk/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=80&extmode=view&extid=272&date=2011-10-11

The RSNO's successful Naked Classics is coming to Aberdeen for the very first time!
Presenter Paul Rissmann uses an innovative mixture of projections, lighting, on stage demonstrations and interviews with players [sic] to reveal the stories behind musical masterworks and the composers who wrote them. Then, after the interval, sit back and enjoy the work being performed in all its glory by the RSNO.
A distant horn-call, a flight of swans, and copious quantities of vodka – Jean Sibelius got his inspiration from some unlikely places. But when it all came together in his Fifth Symphony, the result was one of the most stirring masterpieces in modern music (and a tune so good that it's been covered by everyone from the Beach Boys to Sinitta). Paul Rissmann and conductor Christian Kluxen take it to pieces and show you how it all works.

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The RSNO’s “Naked Classics” format forgoes the traditional programme of an orchestral concert. The first half of the concert - in which the orchestra usually will play an short overture (opening) piece followed by a concerto (a longer piece, featuring a soloist) is dispensed with in favour of a 45-minute lecture with a sort of son-et-lumière and power-point presentation which tries to explain both the composer and the symphonic work in an informal and entertaining way, the intended aim being to improve the accessibility of symphonic music.

We had serious reservations about this format from the moment we learned that we were to be subjected to it. Firstly, we felt we were being short-changed - we knew we would feel keenly the absence of the overture and concerto. Particularly felt was the lack of a soloist, for often (yes, even here in Aberdeen) we are delighted to be treated to a virtuoso performance from a world-class musician at the very top of their world-renowned talent. But not yesterday. Instead we got a quite boring talk with slides not enlivened even slightly by all the possible bells and whistles of special PowerPoint page-turn and cloud-puff transition effects and the like.

Now, a symphony can be programmatic - which is how the piece is described when it attempts to render an extra-musical narrative or explores a particular thematic subject in linear progression. But more usually the symphonic form exemplifies absolute music which is intended to be appreciated without any specific reference to the outside world. The unity of the symphonic form and its effect upon the listener is enabled by that self-same continuous unmediated single experience which is the symphonic form itself. Other than competent musicians, their instruments, a hall to play in and the score, no other thing is required. It is not textual, it is not pictorial, it is not verbal; it is pure music, it is symphony - the artistic pinnacle of rendered human emotion. So, once the lecture was underway, we were disquieted by the risibly literal interpretations and pat explanations mapped directly one-to-one onto the musical forms and intentions of Sibelius and his work. We were issued a Baedeker, a guide for tourists. We were spoon-fed an insultingly childish sequence of comfortingly primary-colourful pictorial and textual symbols to use as a meaning-eliding gazetteer with which to summarise and contain, categorise and control the abstract and terrifyingly vast depths of unfathomable emotion which are the true content of the monolithic work of genius which is Sibelius' 5th Symphony. The first movement is a bit like a flower opening, apparently. The second is a stream or river - who knew? And the third is exactly like some swans, seemingly. There. Now you know.

So the interval came, and we thought, with relief - good; that’s that then, we can try to forget all about that crap, disconnect from the imposed context, and engage exclusively with the symphony in the second half. But no, the symphony itself was accompanied by powerpoint slides throughout, projected onto a big screen above the audience; the visually intrusive imagery and text referring back to the words and pictures expounded during the lecture in the first half of the evening, reinforcing their asinine associations. It will take all our kung-fu skills and a passive effort of accepting resistance to expunge those hyperrealistic, over-simplistic and literal images and text from their imposed association with this masterpiece symphony. An association where none should exist - uncomplicated words for a complex non-verbal form, unchallenging images for an elaborate non-pictorial artwork - keeping us from a true appreciation of the artwork, quarantining us from the emotional freight which is the true content of the symphony. Not only all that, but the high-intensity digital projector, from which the powerpoint slides were projected, also issued an intrusively insistent and incessant susurration from its position suspended up on high, at the very acoustic focal point of the concert hall. Thus, the unity of the symphonic experience was polluted and rendered into a juddering discontinuity of distraction and false images, caroming over the mutilated surface of a disjointed experience.

So, this “Naked Classics” is a patronising and didactic cheapening of high culture that fails even on its own terms. Rather than bring the audience closer to the music, as is its intention, this “Naked Classics” format does not succeed, for it imposes a cognitive burden of additional and spurious sensory content - redundant barriers which keep the audience at a distance removed from a direct appreciation of the music. The symphony, the highest form of musical composition, should not be presented as a multi-media ‘event’ - it is a single-media artwork. It is not an object to be contemplated from the outside, by external means - for it requires no explanation other than that which is contained within it itself. It requires no representation other than that which it itself offers, directly and personally encountered by the listener’s abstracted perception, a direct intercourse (mediated only by instruments and musical virtousity) between the mind of the composer and the emotional topography of the listener’s consciousness, directly lived in real time. Any further exposition is redundant, a pointless distraction, a misdirection.

We go to symphonic concerts to avoid the Spectacle. We had thought in our idealistic naivety that orchestral music would remain a safe refuge from the common stream. But last night the RSNO - an organisation which should know better; an organisation with a royal warrant to serve as guardians of high culture - took symphony away from us and instead we were spoon fed with the Spectacle of the Symphony.

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1.

THE WHOLE LIFE of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.

2.

IMAGES DETACHED FROM every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever. Apprehended in a partial way, reality unfolds in a new generality as a pseudo-world apart, solely as an object of contemplation. The tendency toward the specialization of images-of-the-world finds its highest expression in the world of the autonomous image, where deceit deceives itself. The spectacle in its generality is a concrete inversion of life, and, as such, the autonomous movement of non-life.

The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord
La société du spectacle (Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1967)
Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books, 1994)

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Hyperreality Update - Strange Loop Potemkin Blight

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http://otheraberdeen.blogspot.com/2011/03/hyperreality-update-taxidermy-for.html

http://otheraberdeen.blogspot.com/2011/02/a-to-z-of-aberdeen-h-is-for.html

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The notion of "hyperreality" is one which popped up in the late 20th century study of philosophy and sociology, notably expounded upon by French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard and Italian semiotician Umberto Eco. Hyperreality can be thought of as the way in which modern life can cause us to seek and experience satisfaction through a "simulated version of reality". A sort of reality by proxy - where the real world or experience has been replaced by a simulation at surface level only: a "real fake" which is thought of as "even better than the real thing". By finding (or believing to have found) satisfaction in simulation, the boundary between the "real" and the "fake" becomes blurred to the point where we cannot perceive the difference. The substitution of the simulacrum for the authentic article or experience is no longer noticed, and, indeed the substituted item (the simulation) is sometimes considered to be superior to that which it has replaced (the original). In this way the artifacts and experiences of our lives become authentic simulations, "real fakes"; "hyperreal".

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http://www.aberdeenbid.org/The-Vision-for-Aberdeen/The-Vision-for-Aberdeen.aspx

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ABERDEEN BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT

"The Vision for Aberdeen"

Richard Noble BSc (Hons) MRICS MCIArb,

Director, F G Burnett Property

Steering Group Member

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It is time to re-invigorate Aberdeen City Centre. A private sector driven BID [Business Improvement District], focusing on tackling specific issues, as identified through consultation with the businesses, can deliver.

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http://www.aberdeenbid.org/The-BID-Themes/Theme-4.aspx

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Theme 4: Attractive City

You are here: The BID Themes > Theme 4: Attractive City

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Ensure that the BID area is attractive to locals, businesses, clients, customers and visitors by enhancing projects provided by the Council or delivering projects in addition to those already provided...

[by assuming] control of the "Empty Shop Enhancement" scheme, some of which will be self financing, others will promote the City Centre and the BID activities.

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At present, "Empty Shop Enhancement" in Aberdeen tends take the form of advertising for events, concerts and the like, or - in the example pictured - an advert for a large brownfield redevelopment shopping mall with a total of 1700 car parking spaces spread over three car-parks, one of which features predominantly in the advert. We conclude that the mall's managers believe that this is the mall's USP. It probably is. What are the implications and consequences of allowing generic shopping malls designed for access by motorcar - difficult and troublesome to access by foot, bus or bike - to draw demand away from traditional shopping zones with unique character?

Is it ironic that the necessity to "enhance" this empty shop front has itself been provoked by the blight caused by the development of the very shopping mall which is now advertised in the window of the vacant shop? It certainly makes us laugh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop

A strange loop arises when, by moving up or down through a
hierarchical system, one finds oneself back where one started.

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When the Aberdeen BID nomenclatura "take control" of the "Empty Shop Enhancement" scheme we hope that they will put a bit of hyperreal dynamism into it, as our south-western competitors have done. That'll give us an even better laugh.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12398371

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Dumbarton uses fake shop fronts to beat downturn

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A town in the west of Scotland is to install fake shop fronts to disguise high street stores left vacant in the economic downturn.

The "shopjackets" in Dumbarton town centre give the impression that the stores are still occupied.

West Dunbartonshire Council believes the £20,000 pilot scheme will "improve the look" of the area and is a better alternative to boarded up shop fronts.

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With thanks to fellow-travelling psychogeographer of Aberdeen "rxpell" for pointing out some of this stuff.

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Hyperreality Update. Taxidermy for Aberdeen.

As part of our ongoing occasional series "The A to Z of Aberdeen" we most recently posted "H is for Hyperreality". In that post, we gave the opinion that one of the dangers which confront our town as we face the future is our collective condition of hyperreality, which ill-equips us for the challenges ahead. It ill-equips us, because, by definition, it is a way of avoiding confronting reality and the implications which flow from realism.

Hyperreality can be thought of as the way in which modern life can cause us to seek and experience satisfaction through a "simulated version of reality". A sort of reality by proxy - where the real world or experience has been replaced by a simulation at surface level only: a "real fake" which is thought of as "even better than the real thing". By finding (or believing to have found) satisfaction in simulation, the boundary between the "real" and the "fake" becomes blurred to the point where we cannot perceive the difference. The substitution of the simulacrum for the authentic article or experience is no longer noticed, and, indeed the substituted item (the simulation) is sometimes considered to be superior to that which it has replaced (the original). In this way the artifacts and experiences of our lives become authentic simulations, "real fakes"; "hyperreal".

So it came as no surprise to us when we read the following words on the website which promotes the proposed redevelopment of Union Terrace Gardens as The City Square Gardens Project:

Imagine ... coming up onto street-level to be faced with displays showcasing physical pieces of our history and telling the story of our rich heritage.

Em. Isn't that just kind of all around us, all the time and everywhere? We do not require special permission or a roped-off display area with a 'look at this' sign which tells us what to think; dioramas are redundant for the story of our town is always and everywhere evident by the lives we live in it - we exist within the heritage, we are it and we have no choice but to participate in it. Attempts to put it in a box are futile. Anything in a box is already dead. What is being proposed here is a sort of taxidermy for Aberdeen.

By promoting this type of hyperreality integral to their scheme - this boxed, displayed and pre-interpreted version of 'heritage' - those who are intent on the redevelopment of Union Terrace Gardens via this project are demonstrating that, while they may reside in Aberdeen, they do not know what it is to live here.




(With thanks to Mike Shepherd for pointing us to the web-page in question).

Those Tiled Street Signs Again

We mentioned these signs the other day, we lionised the tiled lustre of the originals and we bemoaned the crap hyperreality of the plastic simulacrum with which they are being replaced.

Hooray!

Boo!

In the original post, which forms part of our A to Z of Aberdeen we asked rhetorically:

"We’re not sure whether this system is unique, but it’s certainly unusual and is [has been?] of very high quality."

Thanks to old friend 'AJD' for pointing out that the signs are not unique:

Thanks are also due to fellow Aberdeen Blogger RXPELL of the Moved to comment blog for pointing out that the Aberdeen City Centre Development Framework (huge slow pdf) makes capital out of the tiled signs, and looks to use them as a way of distinguishing Aberdeen from it's "competitors".

Signage and way-finding in the City Centre should capitalise on existing unique features, such as the distinctive street letter tiles used to name streets in the City. These individual fired clay tiles with white lettering on a black background do not occur elsewhere in Scotland and could form the basis of a unique signage strategy distinguishing Aberdeen from its competitors. 

[our emphasis]

We're concerned about that use of the words 'should' and 'could'. These are "weasel words" which renders the quoted policy meaningless as a statement of intent. Disappointing.


CODA

We've also found these couple of outliers which have been, um, sort-of "placeholder" repaired.

LODGF
W^LK

SHOF
L^NE

Interestingly, on both examples the "E" has been replaced with an "F" and the "A" has been replaced with an inverted "V".

The A to Z of Aberdeen - H is for Hyperreality

H is for Hyperreality.

One of our motivations for setting out on our psychogeographcal projects is to defamiliarise ourselves with the town which we’ve lived in for so many years. And so by coming at our urban landscape from this defamiliarised high angle of attack - with new eyes as it were - we hope to see things that we’ve simply dismissed or ignored before; we hope to see things as they really are, and so we hope to decrypt the events and messages encoded within the fabric of the town.

One of the things we’ve begun to notice - begun to percieve the shape of - is our collective condition of hyperreality in Aberdeen.

The notion of "hyperreality" is one which popped up in the late 20th century study of philosophy and sociology, notably expounded upon by French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard and Italian semiotician Umberto Eco. Hyperreality can be thought of as the way in which modern life can cause us to seek and experience satisfaction through a "simulated version of reality". A sort of reality by proxy - where the real world or experience has been replaced by a simulation at surface level only: a "real fake" which is thought of as "even better than the real thing". By finding (or believing to have found) satisfaction in simulation, the boundary between the "real" and the "fake" becomes blurred to the point where we cannot perceive the difference. The substitution of the simulacrum for the authentic article or experience is no longer noticed, and, indeed the substituted item (the simulation) is sometimes considered to be superior to that which it has replaced (the original). In this way the artifacts and experiences of our lives become authentic simulations, "real fakes"; "hyperreal".

We first noticed it in the replacement of our street-name signs which is happening at the moment.

This one is of original quality.
Click the pic to see a larger version and
appreciate the quality and lustre of the ceramic tiles.

Since the late 19th century Aberdeen has had a ceramic tile system of displaying street names. We’re not sure whether this system is unique, but it’s certainly unusual and is [has been?] of very high quality. The ceramic tiles literally have a lustrous depth to their burnished sheen. By their nature they are non-homologous; their slight variability lends them a character, substance and personality which speaks of a certain quality and integrity not only in the built environment of our town, but also in the attention to detail shown in its street furniture and in the offices of the civic functionaries who made it so. I remember as a small child my disappointment when, first taken on family outings to Glasgow or Edinburgh, noticing that their street signs weren’t as interesting neither as well-designed or executed as ours. Ever the street-furniture trainspotter!

But of course, nothing lasts forever, and recent harsh winters have damaged the signs; frost shatter.

Nothing will last forever.

In the past, if individual tiles were damaged, they were replaced. You can notice the replacements if you look very carefully.

The letter 'I' has been replaced. The tile, being newer, is slightly brighter.
We like this - we like the authentic quality of the repair.
We like the fact that nothing is hidden, there is no pretence, no artifice in the repar.

Thus we can read the history of ongoing maintenance; we can imagine the care and attention of the artisans making the tiles and of the tilers who installed them. We might imagine a storeroom with a wunderkammer of tiles, somewhere in the basement or attic of the Townhouse; all the letters of the alphabet, punctuation marks, ampersands and the fabulous pointy hand.

More recently, damaged street signs have been replaced in their entirity with printed plastic sheets, screwed roughly and visibly into rawlplugs.

New to the left.                Original to the Right.
Up close, the difference is clear to see.

Original quality.

Plastic, roughly screwed to the mortar.

All of this is quite distressing to those of us who care about quality, authenticity and integrity. But all the more distressing to us is the attempt at deception; the simulation, the misdirection and the complacent assumption that “it’ll do - nobody will notice the difference”. It makes us cringe with embarrassment for our town and its people that this assumption is, regrettably, correct. Unless you take the time to look and think about what you’re seeing; if you’re in a hurry, speeding past in your car, not taking the time to attempt to decode the urban environment, what it means and what it does to us by what we do to it, you just won’t notice this hyperreal simulacrum, this deceptive veneer. Like laminate flooring or a fake Rolex, this says so much more about us than we intend it to.

It is this willingness to accept artifice which most troubles us. This disinclination to see anything wrong when something hollow, something without depth and without character attempts to simulate something intrinsically better. It tells us a lot about the character of the people who live here that we are so easily deceived, so easy to please.

But, admittedly, a few street furniture artifacts don't add up to much, what else is there? What else is hyperreal? A while back, we posted about a new housing development at Kingswells and moaned at length about it’s hyperreal appearance. There are plenty more similar examples.

In Bill Brogden's splendid reference work Aberdeen: An Illustrated Architectural Guide, he writes of the West End houses of Aberdeen:

Characteristic of the West End are the northern streets. In Devonshire Road or Gladstone, Beaconsfield, Carlton and Desswood Places, only the materials distinguish them from their contemporaries elsewhere in Britain - typically two-storey buildings with canted bay windows to the side capped by its own roof and often ornamented with by wrought iron finial. The doorway is broad, often with an architrave window.

This understated beauty displays its original quality Whitehall Place.
Click the pic for a bigger version - enjoy the high quality of materials and detailing.

There's a lot of variety around this basic formula. But recently, the formula has been polluted and corrupted by developers who are mining the vein of housebuyers to whom this veneer of traditionality might appeal. New-build houses and apartments have been springing up on formerly vacant plots, back gardens and change-of-use sites all over the West End and Ferryhill. They have a wierdly jarring quality, there pretense at traditional respectability is betrayed by their weird out-of scale proportions, their ill-considered placement and their oddly mis-designed and mis-specified finishes. We call this 'Pencilneck Pastiche'. The four following pictures are of brand-new buildings, all of which are pretending to be something they are not.

This new-build tenement is pretending (very badly) to be
a converted Victorian villa. This is doubly hyperreal.
Not only is the building attempting to simulate something
which it is not, but it is also attempting to simulate something which
itself has been subject to a change from its original purpose.

The squatness of the storeys is betrayed by the lack of fan-light above the door and oddly proportioned bay windows, themselves with a bizarre architrave detail.
No Chimneys!

Shallow bays with no architrave.
First storey different in height from ground storey.
Shallow gable.
Oddly canted bay roof betrays awkward proportions
of bay and overly steep pitch of main roof.

Plastic details simulating wrought/cast iron and lead!
Squat storeys cause out-of proportion bays.
Garages?

The very worst aspect of these buildings is that, by their cut corners and half measures, by their lipservice to the past and by their pandering to the market for traditionally acceptable conformity they degrade the authentic qualities and details of those which they copy. This is regrettable. But all the more regrettable in our opinion is the loss of opportunity; capital has been sunk into the creation of these buildings, mortgages have been arranged and people work hard to pay them off. It is as if our era has no architectural style of its own of which we can be proud. Well, of course it does, and there are several high- and low- quality exceptions to what we've posted above. (We'll post pics in the future along with praise or brickbats as we see fit.) But for the moment we bemoan these pastiche buildings which lack the integrity and authenticity which should and could characterise our town. It did in the past, there's no real reason why it can't again today and in the future.

You see, when the Victorian and Edwardian era terraces and avenues of our town were laid out, the buildings which lined them were of cutting-edge style and quality. They exhibited both literal and metaphorical integrity. In our opinion, we should respect this heritage by building with our own era's cutting edge style and highest possible build quality and standard of finish. Those who have caused the creation of Pencilneck Pastiche in Aberdeen have misunderstood what it actually means to respect heritage. They have constructed buildings which sort-of resemble hundred-year-old buildings, and by doing so believe that this policy respects our high-quality heritage. It does not. Conversely and perhaps counter-intuitively, it serves to devalue that heritage through its low-quality facadism and simulation. This Pencilneck Pastiche lacks the authenticity and integrity which would better respect the heritage of our built environment.

It is not only in the built environment and street furniture where we can discern hyperreality. We can see a preoccupation with surface appearances to the exclusion of real substance in many aspects of Aberdonian life: from the client of the "aesthetic practitioner" who will conduct home visits for the discrete injection of botulinum toxin into your forehead in the comfort of your own home (the preferred euphamistic nomenclature "injectable products" being itself, hyperrealistic) to the young man who parks a Ferrari supercar outside his (albeit new, and itself, hyperreal) tenement apartment, all are concerned primarily with surface appearance.

It is this confusion between surface and substance which indicates our condition of hyperreality in Aberdeen. This quote from Wikipedia's entry on Hyperreality is illuminating:

Hyperreality is significant as a paradigm to explain current cultural conditions. Consumerism, because of its reliance on sign exchange value (e.g. brand X shows that one is fashionable, car Y indicates one's wealth), could be seen as a contributing factor in the creation of hyperreality or the hyperreal condition. Hyperreality tricks consciousness into detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance. Essentially, fulfillment or happiness is found through simulation and imitation of a transient simulacrum of reality, rather than any interaction with any "real" reality.

So, what is the 'real' reality which this Aberdonian hyperreality is screening us from? Why is it that we seek the comfort of a surface simulation of past glories, of traditionally-styled conformity, of a mediated experience even in the domestic sphere? What is Pencilneck Pastiche hiding? What do conspicuous displays of affluence conceal?

We will explore the possible answers to these questions in our next entry in 'The A to Z of Aberdeen'.

"I" will be for Insecurity.

Hyperreal Reality Distortion Field Generation

A weird new type of industry forms itself around the Oil and Gas sector in Aberdeen and finds cheap office accommodation in the glut of former retail premises located just outside Aberdeen town centre.

Compounding the increasing feeling of hyperreality we feel when walking around Aberdeen, we note that the companies who participate in this industry openly trumpet their expertise in generating reality distortion fields.

From Response Consultants website:
(Our emphasis)

Response Consultants ... provide the following resources, as required, to participate in emergency response exercises and training courses:

Organisation Role Players

Response Consultants has a pool of associate consultants who simulate the role of non-participating organisations in exercises. These professional consultants have a wealth of experience of working in the oil and gas industry but have different skills including coastguard, police, production, safety, personnel and logistics.

Casualties and Evacuees

Response Consultants have a pool of personnel who have experience in simulating casualties and personnel evacuated from offshore in major exercises and evacuation reception training courses.

Relative Role Players

Response Consultants has its own team of relatives role players to generate telephone enquiries from concerned next of kin during exercises and training courses. 

Media Role Players

Response Consultants utilise freelance journalists in training courses and exercises to simulate telephone enquiries from the media, conduct doorstep interviews and attend press conferences.

Fair enough. We're glad that organisations like Response Consultants are helping companies look after their preparedness for this difficult aspect of the intrinsically dangerous industry which to a large extent sustains our town.

However, that last paragraph relating to "Media Role Players" troubles us somewhat. We begin to fear that an expertise in news and agenda management might be on offer here. We've also noticed that an ecosystem of media companies is beginning to spring up with the express aim not of mitigating the effects of any disastrous event upon its victims, but rather of mitigating the unfavourable commercial effects of an adverse event upon the corporate entity responsible.

media response - crisis management - presentation skills

From Frasermedia website:
(Again, our emphasis)

emergency media response training

We can offer you the best and most up-to-date crisis media response training available using a team of industry trained professionals with a wealth of knowledge and many years of experience in television, print and radio news.

We are all journalists, we are still involved in the media and we have all the skills you need to deal with the media.

We will put your team through a ‘realistic’ company crisis and see how they cope with the pressures of the media from beginning to end, offering valuable guidance and advice throughout.

We use a number of media interview techniques throughout the training from telephone interviews through to mock ‘live’ TV interviews. Each interview is recorded and played back so delegates can improve on their performance throughout the day.

Preparation is the key - don’t be caught out – be prepared with Frasermedia Training.

Aberdeen Airport say:

Frasermedia provided media training for five senior managers from Aberdeen Airport, who had next to no media-related experience. By the end of the day, all five had experienced a wide range of simulated scenarios in which they had to think on their feet and deal with unexpected questions, while ensuring the integrity and reputation of the business was protected and maintained.

Yes, Frasermedia will train your bullshist army PR department in the generation of a reality distortion field. They will coach you repeatedly on your performance. Thus - in the regrettable event of something bad happening - your organisation's reputation will be protected and maintained.

So that's all right then.

'Traditionally Built' at Willowburn

We regularly use the mostly splendid Westhill Cycleway which allows travel from Queen's Road to Skene on dedicated cycling facilities, mostly. We go mountain biking on Kingshill and Brimmond Hill a lot and like to explore the off-road forest tracks and farm access paths which the Westhill Cycleway gives us quick and safe access to along its entire length. We've written a few posts with lots of stuff about good (and bad) cycling facilities in Aberdeen over the last months.

On part of the route of the Westhill Cycleway, where it passes the Fourmile Lounge at Kingswells, we've watched with interest while, over the last year, Barratt Homes have built their 'Willowburn' dormitory exclusive development of executive suburban homes.

On their marketing materials they use the words "all traditionally built". But when we look at the developing plots, we see timber frame and rendered breeze block construction with new-tech vapour barriers and insulation membranes. Hmmm. That's not really "traditional", is it? It's a great method of construction; sustainable, ideal thermal and sound insulation properties, quick to build, partially pre-fabricated, etc. Very good, naturally we approve. But it is not traditional; the history of that type of timber frame construction on any sort of commercial scale in this country goes back only about 30 years. It is modern.

Yet the first thing you notice when you look at a plot nearing completion is that Barratt have done their usual thing; the thing that they are know for, they ape the local vernacular. So, we see brand-new homes which are high tech and modern in their construction, but which look like ghillie's cottages from an Victorian sporting estate in Aberdeenshire. What looks like painted wooden fascia is self-coloured plastic. What looks like slate tile is ceramic. What look like cast iron guttering and downpipes are extruded polymer. What looks like a compound sandstone lintel with an accent keystone is a single-piece moulded block of coloured concrete.

So, when Barratt say "traditionally built" what they really mean is "as modern as cost efficacy allows but traditional-looking". This bending of meaning in pursuit of pastiche confuses us. We are nonplussed. It is as if Richard Branson were to dress up his Virgin Galactic spaceship to look like the Kon Tiki Raft. 

Even more confusing; Barratt - being Barratt - also offer the houses in 'move-in condition'; decorated and furnished in the prevailing 'contemporary moderne' aspirational style. You know the look; like a chavvy motel room or mid-market themed restaurant in an out-of-town shopping mall. Why the contemporary interior when the exterior looks so "traditional"? Who does this appeal to? And why? 

My grandmother, god rest her soul, used to live in one of the 1960's skyscrapers at Stockethill. An ultra-modern flat in an ultra-modern building, which she filled with frills and lace and anti-macassers and chintz and paisley and velvet and Victoriana. Even as a child, I noticed that this juxtaposition provoked an odd feeling which I now know to be called cognitive dissonance. What's going on now at Willowburn (and elsewhere) is like an opposite or inverse of this. My grandmother was an old woman, surrounding herself with the familiar possessions and artifacts which had followed her through all the various homes of her life. The people who will move into the Willowburn houses will doubtless be modern people living modern lives with modern jobs. They will, perforce, have all new cars and possessions and artifacts - the latest available on the upgrade cycle we're sure. Yet they will chose to live in a suburban simulacrum of a rural residence once occupied by people who led a bucolic way of life which is now long gone. And even then they will likely make the interior of that residence look like that which would be better fitted to an ultra-modern urban apartment.

Pretense upon pastiche, imitation upon hyperreality.

Our heads are spinning.