Flights of fancy: When art meets science

A new song-cycle explores an important Australian invention, the now ubiquitous black box flight recorder.

‘All art should be about using history as a lens to talk about now,’ said playwright Alana Valentine.

In the case of Flight Memory, a new song cycle co-written by Valentine and composer Sandra France, and commissioned by The Street Theatre, the production is an opportunity to explore the Australian cultural cringe by telling the story of scientist David Warren, the inventor of the now ubiquitous black box flight recorder.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts