TY - JOUR
T1 - 'To Explore the World of Sound'
T2 - Music, silence and nation-building in Bing Bang Boom (1969)
AU - Magee, Gayle
N1 - Beyond the NFB, other independently produced avant-garde films contributed to the success of the most media-centred exposition in history, one frequently identified as \u2018McLuhanesque\u2019. Described by visitors as \u2018the ultimate psychedelic experience\u2019 and \u2018the LSD experience without the LSD\u2019 (Morley Markson and Associates Limited ), the Kaleidoscope Pavilion combined contemporary experiences of drug culture, avant-garde rock performances and accompanying light shows (Sloan : 56, 60\u20131). A joint project by the University of Waterloo and industrial designer Morley Markson, Kaleidoscope was sponsored by six chemical companies in Canada on the theme \u2018Man and Colour\u2019, and its vivid exterior replicated the form of a slide carousel on a mammoth scale. The principal attraction inside Kaleidoscope was a 12-minute film created by Markson meant to represent a day \u2018from sunrise to nightfall, during which one experiences the emotional, psychological and even physical effects of color\u2019, creating the sense of being inside a kaleidoscope (Whelan ). As visitors moved to the last of the chambers of immersive media, the \u2018combination of projected film and strategically tilted mirrors produced the illusion of being afloat in a gigantic sphere or dome\u2019 (Sloan : 57). Notably, none of the sponsoring companies were identified inside or outside of the pavilion, such as the Canadian division of Union Carbide, whose parent company was active in producing chemicals used in Agent Orange during the Vietnam War (ibid.: 58\u20139).
PY - 2024/8/1
Y1 - 2024/8/1
N2 - The National Film Board documentary Bing Bang Boom (1969) depicts Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021) teaching seventh-grade students in a suburban public school in Scarborough, Ontario. A close study of the film informs the larger trajectory of the composer's previous and later writings and compositions over the next several decades, while a deeper dive into archival materials and concurrent productions from Canada's National Film Board (NFB) illuminates the organisation's strategy of nation-building at a crucial moment in the country's history. Together, Schafer and the NFB illuminate Canada's problematic relationship to Indigenous peoples, places and sounds.
AB - The National Film Board documentary Bing Bang Boom (1969) depicts Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021) teaching seventh-grade students in a suburban public school in Scarborough, Ontario. A close study of the film informs the larger trajectory of the composer's previous and later writings and compositions over the next several decades, while a deeper dive into archival materials and concurrent productions from Canada's National Film Board (NFB) illuminates the organisation's strategy of nation-building at a crucial moment in the country's history. Together, Schafer and the NFB illuminate Canada's problematic relationship to Indigenous peoples, places and sounds.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85195611113
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85195611113#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1017/S1355771824000025
DO - 10.1017/S1355771824000025
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85195611113
SN - 1355-7718
VL - 29
SP - 111
EP - 130
JO - Organised Sound
JF - Organised Sound
IS - 2
ER -