The Bauhouse Audi Symphony sort of blew my mind.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Art and advertising have been co-habituating quite comfortably for some time now. It is nothing new that, as audiences become increasingly immune to advertising, advertisers have been forced to look for new ways to reach consumers;they have opened their minds and spaces to artists. Artists I admire, like graphic designer Seb Jarnot and musician Jose Gonzalez, are signing their names to Nike and Sony. Renowned filmmaker Wong Kar Wai made a film especially for a television set, the Philips Aurea. Closer to home, here at DDB, Zelta Zivtina’s commercials have a sitcom format and eventually a 30-minute film was made. Both commercials and the film sell well in stores on DVD. Consumers are now purchasing commercials and giving them to their family and friends for Christmas. None of this is new to me.

But here I was, at the National Opera with an audience who, like me, CHOSE to watch a 35-minute live commercial. I didn’t find this ad/art flipping channels on television or through a link to YouTube, I acquired a ticket, put on nice clothes and came to the opera to watch a commercial. And it was brilliant.

Multi media artists Bauhouse make what they call audio:video:performance. They have been active since the 1990s and have been working with Audi since 2005. Since the beginning of this collaboration they have produced over 20 compositions for auto shows, television and cinema commercials. These works were combined and revised to form the foundation for the Audi Symphony, a 35-minute audio-video performance. The three artists - Fabian Grobe, Clemens Wittkowski and Arno Kraehan – stand on podiums and work the screens behind them from laptops while accompanied by an orchestra. The visuals are comprised entirely of Audi related footage. Doors open and close, a bolt is fastened, tires spin, forests blur by from a speeding car - all in time with the music.

As I sat through the Audi Symphony I had many contrasting reactions – outrage, disdain, surprise, delight, awe, laughter, inspiration. First I was skeptical, even a little nauseous. Art and advertising so dangerously close? I used to say that I liked advertising in its place, where we expect it, not shrewdly sneaking up on us, posing as art, a social networking portal or a good deed. And I still don’t enjoy seeing Van Gogh in costume for an ad or an M&M hanging out in Munch’s The Scream. During the first few minutes I frantically tried to separate the music from the car parts and highways – to focus on the art and block out the advertising. Some part of me was having a very strong allergic reaction. Then I calmed down, accepted it for what it was and let it in. I laughed out loud when they set Strauss to joyfully splashing pink car paint. I thought it was hilarious when I realized that the choirboys were singing “Auudi. AUUUUUDI” in their angelic voices. I admired the audacity. It was clever, skillful and unapologetic. Audi wasn’t hiding advertising in art – it was blatantly and shamelessly creating a collision of the two. It was over the top, and this became precisely what I admired most - I actually though it was kind of genius. I laughed at the gall and suddenly I was enjoying myself. I could relax and enjoy the visuals for their artistry as well as their content. The imagery of asphalt disappearing beneath the car and forests flying by the passenger window recalled the anticipation and freedom of a road trip. In the factory, the assembly machines moved with seemingly choreographed grace, metallic arms twisting in ways that seem to have been programmed for beauty of movement, not efficiency.

When I went into advertising some friends thought I was a sellout, still do. I thought of those friends as I sat in the opera and I was certain that they would have stood up and left. But artists like Bauhouse working in advertising have less need to be “sellouts” than they used to. They aren’t always required to compromise their principles to please the client. Artists are being given more creative freedom and, on top of that, the means to create projects that their own funds could never make possible and access to a wide audience that they could never reach on their own. Art is meant to be seen and shared, and in some cases, brands are facilitating that. Some advertisers have even taken the product out of the ad all together, selling a feeling, an interpretation of life, with the product appearing at the end like a signature. Of course there is still that sacrifice to make – which to some is equivalent selling their soul – the signature. You don’t get to sign your work, Nike does. And yes, the product is still in there somewhere. But what is more important – the work or the artist? I, personally, have always found that my signature at the bottom of a painting spoils its composition as much as that pesky logo at the bottom of the poster. Others choose not to hide the product, face it straight on like Audi, and have fun with it. Bauhouse took the product, shoved it in our faces and showed us that a good singer can sing anything, and a good artist can make anything artful. They did it with class and humour – they made no subtle efforts to hide the product in the art, they made no apologies and showed that art and advertising can live quite well together.

Artists don’t have to be starving anymore. More and more artists – illustrators, filmmakers, musicians, composers – are getting paid by advertisers to do what they do. A choirboy can sing about a car, does the fact that he isn’t singing about our Lord, our Savior make his voice any less sweet? Does he touch us less? Starving, unexposed but free, or rich, out in the open and branded? These extremes are inching closer together as advertisers are giving artists more freedom and “sellout” is fading out of the equation. Audi gave me a vision of a utopia where we don’t have to choose between the two anymore.