Is there life on Mars?

In October 2012, at the University of Limerica (Ireland), they held the Symposium "Strange Fascination?" -To the 40th anniversary of the song "Changes" - With speakers from Australia, New Zealand and the USA. January 8, 2013 Bowie released the first single in 10 years “Were Are We Now?” , and March 11 is the first album “The Next Day” in 10 years.

And in St. Petersburg in early 2014, the graduate student of the Philfak and Polyglot Elizaveta Stolyarova organized her scientific conference on Bowie, very instructive for those whose fanatty does not go further on the network and orders of collection publications: with reports, discussions, film locations and a party.

Not to say that in Russia they do not like to analyze rock music. Tver State University, for example, in the early 2000s issued collections “Russian rock poetry: text and context” with articles like “The Motive of the Road in the song work of D. Arbenina”. But then - paper affairs. And here is a scientific conference in a country that is not particularly loving Bowie, after an unsuccessful speech in which he said that there was a terrible audience and that he would not come to Russia anymore.

Several Aladdinov, Ziggi Stardasov, white dukes compete with each other in the costume contest.

January 8 at the entrance to the Loft Project "Floor" did not have a crowd. Despite the fact that 19 thousand people are recorded in David Bowie Vkontakte. At the first day of the conference, about three dozen people, sitting in the dark, are listening to reports. The microphone in the speakers appears closer to the end of the session. The speakers do not show any eccentricity in behavior or appearance-everyday clothes, a calm tone. Here Petersburzhenka Anna Glushkevich conducted the study “Cosmic theme in the texts of David Bowie’s songs” - calculated the number of “space” words such as “heaven” and “stars” and built many tables based on calculations - according to the periods, according to albums. The candidate of physical and mathematical sciences Dmitry Lebedev enthusiastically quoted newspaper clippings dedicated to the album of Bowie and IGGI POP “The IDIOT” .

Finally, a Muscovite with a low voice Victoria Vasina thoroughly revealed the topic “David Bowie: the game of the gender”-up to the point of explaining each term, gave quotes, outlined the context in which in the 70s Bowie made a statement about her bisexuality, and so on. They say that at the official international forum of the author "Life on Mars?" The announcement of this report has already caused surprise: how can this be in the non -recovery St. Petersburg about this? Elizaveta Stolyarova suggested from the stage that, apparently, deputies - the guardians of morality did not know what gender is.

The second evening of the conference, held at Hello Hostel , was more like a theatrical production. There are even fewer people than in the first. Two men in the hall - I am and the already mentioned fan of IGGI PA. Meanwhile, the reports of the second day turned into discussions for several hours. The last part was dedicated to David Bowie 's clips released in support Next Day " . Each was carefully disassembled-with stop-frames and nerve replicas from the hall. Who does a woman look like in "Were Are We Now?" ? What does this package mean, it is from Berlin? Why is it written on the T-shirt “Song of Norway” (this is the name of the film on the operetta, because of which Bowie was thrown by another girlfriend-actress)? Why does everything look so ridiculous in “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” - and is it not only about Tilda Swinton's eyelashes? The Gothic Virgin from the first row begins to violently attack the speaker for the fact that she reports excessively a lot of speculations and associations, but neglects the facts. However, the debate goes intelligently, including sudden deviations in conversations about the esher and how one of Bowie’s fans met her husband-programmer, because she wanted to understand whether it was possible to make paintings like Escher on a computer. All this resembles a revived branch of the forum. Only instead of the next dull evening, you get a rich evening with unfamiliar interesting people. Forgotten feeling.

The situation in the cinema “Cinema without popcorn” (another site of scientific conference) is no longer so strange. Several dozen people are watching cult paintings with the participation of a rock-idol, such as "a person who fell to the ground."

You immediately write off the meager attendance of the conference to the failure of the information campaign. For example, on the Internet, information about the place of the final party of the conference (a third -party venture created in close cooperation with the organizers), appointed on January 9, varies. The meeting “VKontakte” indicates the recently closed 8paces space. But the memory throws a phrase that flickered somewhere about the second site of the club "Tsokol". There are several Aladdins, Ziggi Stardas, white dukes compete with each other in a costume contest. The atmosphere as at the beginning of the corporate party is still embarrassed. A friend throws the message that the day before in the Kopen bar, Bowie's birthday was much more fun: with a three -hour cut of clips, the hero’s songs through one, a solid amount of the public and a couple of costume characters from the conference.

“I had a desire to conduct an experiment,” explains the organizer of Bowie conference Elizabeth Stolyarov. - I am from the scientific, teaching environment, work with students. I talked a lot with people from the group of David Bowie “VKontakte”. I decided to see what would happen if you combine the scientific and fan approaches. At first I wanted to make a conference by dividing it to the popular science and scientific parts. Then I decided that you should not share them. The idea arose a year ago when I saw a conference in Ireland. True, there was too little time to get there.

The interest of the VKontakte fan community was quite large. When the album came out, the conversations fell off, it was not up to that. And then in the group they remembered this idea, they began to discuss. In my opinion, in reality, almost no one reached the conference of those actively discussing. ”

Elizaveta Stolyarova did not previously organize conferences, only visited. She does not consider her first experience unsuccessful - she has already analyzed him and made conclusions about the mistakes. “I understand what was not enough: information pressure and control over the situation. Something I let it on my own-I trusted people. I hoped for a response of more people from the musical environment. Oddly enough, the greatest interest was from philologists and people related to design. I think there will be still conferences - with more active interaction with speakers and more saturated with events. ”

She wants to help. And also to see how similar measures would have passed, dedicated to, say, Depeche Mode or Joy Division . Reports on the themes “Dynamics of Hair Growing Gahan” and “The influence of English poetry on the texts of Ien Curtis”? Why not. It seems to be a completely Russian format of fanatty.