• The Italian version of Violin Music in the Age of Shopping was broadcast 27/05/1995


• Performers: Jon Rose - violin, vocals, samples: Otomo Yoshihide - CDs, Vinyls, samples, guitar: Stefano Zorzanello - saxophone, flute: Paulo Angeli - Sardinian guitar: Fabrizio Spera - drums, percussion: Luca Venitucci - piano, keyboards, accordion: Sabina Sacchi, Pinotto Fava - shopping guides: Frederica Santoro, Antonella Bottini, Fabrizio Spera, Paulo Angeli, Stefano Zorzanella, Pino Saulo - other voices.


• Nicola Caponero - sound engineer: Pinotto Fava and Pino Saulo for AUDIO BOX - producers.

As revealed in the seminal book The Pink Violin (ISBN 0 646 080032) the Australian composer, theorist and violinist Dr. Johannes Rosenberg predicted that after the demise of Communism and Capitalism would come The Age of Shopping. He also identified two important characteristics that the culture industry of this period would develop - firstly an obsession with technical process for its own sake and secondly, a contemporary art and music world largely empty of any creative content. A culture where the constituent parts have been removed from their context (meaning) and all voices, authentic, original or otherwise, continue to exist only as easily identifiable, sellable product. Content as a recognizable idea has ceased to exist because all 'the content' has become interchangeable - it doesn't matter what is going on providing there is evidence that something is going on - a merely quantative world of massed copies and fakes. All music whatever its origin, status or supposed function would now exist in a digital dream time that the originators of 'muzak' could never have imagined. Rosenberg envisaged the music supermarket of today - a place where the tins on the shelf are interchangeable; the labels maybe looking different but the content (once bought) identical.

Placing the violin in a global shopping context does seem to be the next logical step in Jon Rose's Gesamtkunstwerk approach to music. Histories, functions, imagery and meanings are all up for sale in this current culture-vulture project. Shopping is of necessity a satirical piece with political intent. Sonic, visual, and written material has been collected and collated over the past few years in digital format. From this pool of information have come over 60 concert performances, a book (of the same title), 2 videos, 4 radio broadcasts in Australia & Europe, an exhibition (in Tokyo) and 4 CD productions.

Jon Rose decided to shut up shop on this particular project (it's all gotta go) in 1996 by which time, despite the benefits of a good purge, he had begun to feel decidedly sick of it all. The situation (the cultural decline) continues to get worse with the internet helping to speed up the demise. There is no evidence as yet for a cultural renaissance.