2.07.2010

Klaus Nomi: Inbetween

The lecture made by John T. Gates of what he does in Germany was a small sampling of what Klaus Nomi did in outer space. It didn’t matter where Nomi was, whether in America or traveling through Europe, “culturally six million miles away” and establishing himself wherever he could. He was so far out because opera, popular music, and fashion had not been combined before in such an awesome way. In Nomi’s case, there was no fear of “high” art, as Gates mentioned that there might be today. It was creating a world where the strange was normal in order to be able for Nomi to explore his musical performances.

At first, I was trying to place Nomi within my realm of binary thinking: is his music pop or operatic, gender male or female, and composition technology or flesh? There was a sensory overload that I assume most people that were exposed to his world were confused even more so. Everything about him seems to be wrong in Earthly terms, but is right once removed from our places. The place of performance changes the context as well, be it in misfit New York, the fashion-savvy Paris, or anyplace in-between. He was more “successful” at a time when he related the most to the crowd. Then, he would take his idea and invade the viewers as long as he could, until finally moving away to another city or country.

Nomi would have fit into the Twilight Zone perfectly, “You're traveling through another dimension: a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind: a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.” Nomi’s world would have been made of all angles, reflected light, and also have been in black and white. There would be infinite opportunities for abstraction; interplay between media and information; and melding between “blood and guts” of technology and alien physicality. It would be, in a few words, too much for us to handle on a daily basis. Our senses are still too sensitive, but are becoming resistant to becoming overloaded. Are we not slowly becoming completely desensitized to art?


IHRTLUHC

Ian Wallace.

2 comments:

Z said...

Nomi was obviously very aware of the performative nature of his life and career but I wonder if we aren’t all something of a Klaus Nomi.

Facebook/ Twitter/ Tumblr each gives the user a shot at self-creation. These websites are inherently performative and self-promotional. I disagree with the assertion that we are becoming “insensitive towards art.” We are all creating ourselves as a work of art. It is not an issue of being insensitive but rather being desensitized.

Perhaps we are as performative as Klaus-- just unaware of it.

Shimon and Lindemann said...

Web 2.0 has given everybody all kinds of new tools for making themselves into a brand. We needed Nomi and Warhol and their ilk to show us the way.