David Cunningham

David Cunningham

Birth : 1954-12-20, Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK

History

David Cunningham (born December 20, 1954) is a composer and music producer from Northern Ireland. Well-known for his commercial work under the pseudonym "the Flying Lizards" and for his production of Michael Nyman's music for Peter Greenaway's films including the Draughtsman's Contract and Drowning by Numbers. His work as producer, musician and composer has ranged across many genres of music and includes work for television, film, contemporary dance, and significant collaborations with visual artists and filmmakers. Since the release of his first album 'Grey Scale' in 1976 he has worked as a musician and record producer, engaging with an eclectic range of people and music. In the spring of 1978, David started working as a music producer for the first time, but with a very limited studio situation. His first significant commercial success came with The Flying Lizards' record 'Money', an international hit in 1979. Over the last 20 years Cunningham has recorded everything from jazz bands to solo performers in his L-shaped recording-studio, as well as composing scores for films and adverts. Besides collaborating with artists such as Martin Creed, John Cage, Kathy Acker and Pansonic, Cunningham never stopped creating music of his own. Film and television work has included two long continuing collaborations - with William Raban and with Ken McMullen. Related work has included the production and treatment of sound for installation and broadcast artworks by Susan Hiller, Cerith Wyn Evans, Martin Creed, Amikam Toren, João Penalva, Ceal Floyer, Ian Breakwell, Gillian Wearing, Thomas Demand, Sam Taylor-Wood, John Latham, David Hall, Stephen Partridge, Bruce McLean, Tony Sinden, Brad Butler and Karen Mirza and many others.

Profile

David Cunningham

Movies

Dark By Noon
Music
Rez lost his wife sometime in the past, now he is a man abandoned by society, trying to survive, and provide for his daughter. He possesses a gift: the perfect photographic memory, but having perfect recall isn't all it's cracked up to be. He finds himself involved with dangerous people from his past who persuade him into testing their stolen time machine "Titus" that has the ability to send someone hours into the future. When he leaps forward in time and witnesses a nuclear explosion, he returns to his own time and has only eight hours to discover the cause and save the city from destruction.
Sick Film
Sound Recordist
Martin Creed has said that part of living is coming to terms with horrible feelings. 'The problem with horrible feelings is you can't paint them. But horrible vomit – you can film that.' And he has. It's a difficult piece to watch but highlights Creed's ability to provoke psychological reactions from his viewer, whether that be joy, despair, anger or as in this case, utter disgust.
Ten Little Indians
Sound Re-Recording Mixer
An unknown judge invites a guilty governess and others to a 1930s safari, for justice one by one.
Terminus
Original Music Composer
In a post-apocalyptic future, an international sport has been established where a driver of a computerized truck must drive across country to an established terminus and not be stopped by other vehicles. The lead truck, called "Monster" has been created by a boy genius and is to be driven by a woman through the course. The only problem is the computer guidance system fails and she ends up in uncharted territories. There she encounters leather-clad hoods who torture her and eventually kill her. Before dying she tells a fellow prisoner about the truck and he uses it to escape.
Being and Doing
Music
About Performance Art and its historical origins including its links with folk customs. The film includes extracts from the work of many different performance artists from England and abroad collected from 1979 to 1983, amongst them: Tibor Hajas (Hungary), Rasa Todosijevic (Yugoslavia), Iain Robertson (Scotland), Zbigniew Warpechowski (Poland), Milan Knizak (Czechoslovakia), Natalia LL (Poland), Ewa Partum (Poland), Jan Mlcoch (Czechoslovakia), Sonia Knox (Northern Ireland), Jerzy Beres (Poland) and Stuart Brisley (England). The film also records the Haxey Hood and Padstow Hobbyhorse folk dances from Lincolnshire and Cornwall respectively.
Ghost Dance
Music
Through the experiences of two women in Paris and London, Ghost Dance offers an analysis of the complexity of our conceptions of ghosts, memory and the past. The film focuses on the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who observes, 'I think cinema, when it's not boring, is the art of letting ghosts come back.' He also says that 'memory is the past that has never had the form of the present.'