BETTY at the Stereo Society
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BETTY at the Stereo Society
BETTY And The Peacock Room Remix: Filthy Lucre
BETTY compose and perform haunting and ethereal soundscape for
Darren Waterston’s Filthy Lucre.
‘I set out to recreate Whistler’s fabled Peacock Room in a state of decadent demolition—a space collapsing in on itself, heavy with its own excess and tumultuous history. I imagined it as . . . a vision of both discord and beauty, the once-extravagant interior warped, ruptured.’ —Darren Waterston
Read Thorne’s comments on the recording and production of BETTY’s Filthy Lucre Soundscape, released May 2015
Filthy Lucre is an immersive installation which re-imagines James McNeill Whistler’s famed Peacock Room—an icon of American art—as a decadent ruin collapsing under the weight of its own creative excess.
The artist Darren Waterston asked BETTY to contribute music and sounds to be played from around eight sources scattered around the space at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Installed in Washington at the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery, the Peacock Room REMIX offers an unprecedented chance to compare Waterston’s re-creation with the actual Peacock Room, which has been permanently installed in the adjacent Freer Gallery of Art since 1923.
Special performances at the Smithsonian
Party-goers donned their finest feathers and rocked out to BETTY at the Asia After Dark: PEACOCKalypse, the after-hours party on June 13th that this year was an official event of Capital Pride and the 40th Celebration of Pride in the Nation’s Capital. Guests flashed back to the gilded glamour of the Peacock Room and met its alter ego Filthy Lucre, then danced the night away in the Freer Courtyard, which once housed live peacocks.
BETTY performing at Flock Together, the Peacock Room Remix preview party, on 15th May 2015.
BETTY discuss the musical landscape of Filthy Lucre
On May 17th, at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery, Darren Waterston and Amy Ziff talked about the relationship between art and music, as demonstrated by the haunting, ethereal soundscape that BETTY created for Filthy Lucre. The conversation covered the collaboration and the challenges—both conceptual and logistical—of breathing music into Waterston’s immersive vision of a “resplendent ruin.”
Following the conversation, BETTY performed a short concert.
Watch the video of Darren Waterston talking about Filthy Lucre
EVENTS
May 16th 2015 through November 29th 2016:
Peacock Room Remixopen to public at the Sackler Gallery
June 13th, PEACOCKalypse
BETTY performed at the Asia After Dark party in the Freer Courtyard
May 21st, two pop up performances by BETTY along with the soundscape in the actual installation.
May 17th, Amy Ziff and Darren Waterston in conversation, plus performance by BETTY
Freer Gallery of Art
May 15th: Birds of a Feather Gala and Flock Together After-Party, Sackler Gallery
BETTY at the party, with actress Gillian Anderson in her peacock dress.
March 22nd 2014: BETTY performance at MassMOCA
March 29th 2014: Opening at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
January 21st 2015: BETTY deliver the live version of the soundscape