The Lady Gaga + Intel Performance | 58th GRAMMYs
For some time now there has been an ongoing debate regarding digital technology and whether it threatens the authenticity of artistic mediums like music or film. Personally, speaking from the perspective of both an artist and a lifetime champion of the arts, I have always been concerned with technology’s potential to limit creativity and tarnish the purity of artistic expression. To give you some context, I’m the kind of person who will only listen to the mono version of Happiness is a Warm Gun while wearing headphones or drive out to Santa Monica on random night to see a 70 mm screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. So I was surprised to feel intrigued or dare I say inspired by the intense visual effects of Lady’s Gaga’s tribute performance to David Bowie at the 58th Grammys on Monday evening.
Regardless of whether you believe Gaga's tribute paid justice to Bowie’s legacy or not, her collaboration with Intel brought the present and future of live performance into full focus and into the living rooms of an audience that doesn't readily attend Coachella or Burning Man. Before delving further into Gaga and “tech”, allow me to digress for a quick moment concerning the tribute at large. I do believe Gaga’s performance would have received greater critical acclaim if she limited the set list to three hits, performed each song longer than 15 seconds, and rocked out with artists of various generations, all inspired by Bowie’s music, like Elton John, Iggy Pop, or Arcade Fire, to name a few. Overall it felt a bit sporadic and perhaps egocentric at times for my personal taste. And I am done digressing on that topic...
Monday evening, while watching the tribute, I suddenly felt reminded to truly “turn and face the strange” as the electrifying face paint of Aladdin Sane entered a dynamic world of 3D motion graphics and superimpositions of Bowie holograms and psychedelic doves shifting imagery with Gaga in real time. And let's not forget about her robotic rose gold piano as it came to life—jittering and jiving to the bass line of Suffragette City. However, all this fancy Intel technology, the crafty robotics, the live video processing, etc., didn’t distract from Gaga’s performance but rather personified Bowie's prophetic nature and enhanced a new glam rock experience that felt almost visceral yet intoxicating in a tangible way. That evening she reminded artists that technology doesn’t always have to inhibit creativity like with pop singers and auto-tune softwares or obscure laser shows displayed for drug induced teens at EDM concerts. Instead a beautiful union between creativity and science can exist and stretch the infinite boundaries of possibility—allowing for imagination to thrive. And for that, I do think David Bowie, an innovator and starman, would be proud.