Thursday, June 27, 2013

U2 stage designer Mark Fisher dies, aged 66


U2 stage designer Mark Fisher dies, aged 66

Rhian Jones
Mark Fisher

Stage designer and architect Mark Fisher, OBE, MVO, RDI, died yesterday in London aged 66.
He passed away in his sleep at the Marie Curie Hospice in Hampstead with his wife Cristina at his side, after a long illness.
Fisher has worked as a set designer and artistic director for rock concerts and large-scale events over the last 25 years.
Together with his company Stufish, he created the designs for all the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and U2 tours for two decades as well as scores of other artists all over the world – including Robbie Williams.
As well as his work in live music performance he also created designs for theatre productions and musical theatre including We Will Rock You, and Ka and Viva Elvis for Cirque du Soleil.
He was the senior designer the Beijing Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies and was one of the three executive producers at the London 2012 Games ceremonies.
Paying his respects on Twitter earlier today, Williams paid homage to ‘music’s greatest architect,’ posting a photo dedicated to Fisher from his concert at Hampden Park yesterday while on his Stufish designed Take The Crown tour.
The Rolling Stones said: "We are all extremely saddened to hear of the death of our dear friend Mark Fisher. The remarkable sets he designed for us over the last two decades played a major part in the success of all those tours. His passion, dedication and professionalism was infectious.
"We all loved his dry sense of humour and unflappable demeanour - a quietly soft spoken genius. Mark will be sorely missed - not only by us, but by every single member of ours and any crew he worked with. Our sincere condolences go to his wife and family."

François Dischinger for The Wall Street Journal
Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher, a stage designer who helped shape the modern concert experience with the spectacles he created for Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, U2 and others, died Tuesday at age 66. His death in a London hospice was announced by the firm he co-founded, Stufish.
After attending architecture school in London in the mid-1960s, Fisher stumbled into the concert business with his creation of helium-filled figures that hovered over Pink Floyd’s performances. Later, he helped bring that band’s “The Wall” to life on tour, and he updated the concept for a 2010 “Wall” revival tour by Roger Waters. One of Fisher’s most technical innovations was the spidery stage at the center of U2’s most recent “360” tour.

In recent years Fisher expanded the scope of his “entertainment architecture” with contributions to opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing and London.
Fisher was pragmatic about his behind-the-scenes role in the rock world, yet he also maintained an ambitious view of what design could achieve in the concert experience. In a 2010 interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said, “The audience isn’t rating my work as they would a vacuum cleaner; it’s being rated in terms of pleasure.”
“It has to do with the way that a rock show is sort of tribal event in our culture, and somebody like Bono is a sort of shaman.” In that respect, Fisher added, his stage designs had to fulfill a critical function: “It’s preparing everyone for the arrival of the high priest.”
Read a WSJ story about Fisher’s creative process.