Rogue Game – Spike Island
I was fortunate enough to be asked to perform as one of the editors for Rogue Game’s iteration @ Spike Island, Bristol. Rogue Game was in full flow between 8 to 30 September 2012.
Rogue Game is an ongoing project devised by Bristol-based artist/architect collaboration Sophie Warren and Jonathan Mosley with Turkish artist Can Altay. The game brings together three different sports staged simultaneously in the same arena, with each game played according to its own rules. In doing so, Rogue Game constructs a setting that gives rise to moments of improvisation, subversion, ingenuity and chance, proposing itself as a metaphor for how we might share the urban realm.
I live edited for 3 sessions, a first for me to be on display to the public while editing video, a figure sat at a screen in the midst of the architecture of the exhibition, inside yet simultaneously outside in the sound/image time of representation. It was a fascinating exercise in discovering and inventing trajectories through the recordings made of the games, the image space became a zone of free play for me and the interplay of formal elements came to the fore – colour, movement and repetition. I made great use of the opportunity to re-shoot images from both the projection screens and computer monitors, trying to bring the image -as-image into sharp focus and building on the work of other editors with the awareness that the sequences I produced could become raw materials for other editors coming in after. The desire to create while releasing all ownership was incredibly liberating as was the freedom to indulge tangents as and when they arose.
The following is a statement from Warren & Moseley, quoted from their website
Our practice is based on a mutual contamination of art and architectural processes and concerns. We continually and incrementally shift our position in relation to these disciplines, testing, playing and ‘worrying’ at their borders and intersections. We respond to architectural and city space; the way that it is occupied, adapted, perceived and regulated. An insistence on back and forth, observation of places on the point of change and an examination of aspirations for these environments alongside realities initiate the terms of our engagement with the city landscape. We encounter situations and through our work provoke the imaginary, introducing an ‘other-world’ of play, resistance and dream. We use text and publication, event, still and moving imagery, installation and construction. With these media we collage compositions and spatial configurations of which the gallery or the city may be a part. We construct situations, an informal architecture of possibility, moving between material fact and the fiction of our imagination.
Here’s an example of the image flows that I contributed to:
BYOBeamer @ Spike Island
UPDATE
The night was fascinating! With 26 projections at the most active point, the gallery was alive with light and an ever evolving soundtrack, layered, discordant but with strange moments of synchronicity. The atmosphere was full of conversation and an openness from all parties to discuss their work technically, conceptually and aesthetically. One piece that particularly stood out for me was Marko Wilkinson’s re-interpretation of Guy Sherwin’s performance Man with Mirror (1976/2006), Wilkinson had shot him and a female performer holding signs that instructed the audience (soon to become performers themselves) on how to take part in the piece by standing in front of the projector beam with a mirror and reflecting the beam as you see fit. This introduction of materialist film inspired interactive performance in to the context of the image driven BYOB framework was a fascinating counter point, placing human action at the centre of the experience of the image.The agency of the recorded image as call to act and engage now, rather than passively consume. I felt that Wilkinson’s piece successfully built on the foundations laid by Sherwin and it was positive to see the legacy of the London Filmmaker’s Co-Op in effect 30+ years later, encouraging critical engagement with the image and projector to open fresh possibilities for thought and reflection.
UPDATE ends
Delighted to be taking part in this event, here’s what the event organisers at Spike Island had to say:
Established by Rafaël Rozendaal in 2010, Bring Your Own Beamer is a worldwide series of one-night exhibitions celebrating visual noise and audio overspill. These freeform events host artists and their projectors, and anyone is invited to set up their own.
At Spike Island, you can come to watch or bring your own moving image work to take part. We’ll provide a plug socket and wall or ceiling space; you’ll need your films or videos, something to play them on and something to project them with.
Confirmed participants include artists from Bristol and beyond such as Laura Buckley, Matthew Noel-Tod and G39.
I will be screening the four collaborative works that I’ve made over the last year and Tom Long’s Truths (a collaboration with a man who possibly never existed). These works include:
14 Vulpine Nights with Mr Mead – who will be exhibiting with Last Rites gallery, New York, in their 13th Hour Group Show from 26th Oct 2012.
Orchestra in a Field with Ant Garratt – who has a gorgeous looking solo show opening with Thackeray gallery, London on 30th Oct 2012.
Defeated with Amy Timms – who is currently exhibiting in the RWA’s 160th Open Exhibition.
I’m very much looking forward to meeting the other artists and film makers, I see this night as one large collaborative piece which is why I’ve chosen to exhibit my collaborative works and find out what fresh moments these collisions will generate.
de-construct/re-construct
Delighted to be taking part in Creative Exhibitors UK‘s inaugural Bristol exhibition. I will be exhibiting a selection of photography from my Supranature and The Slowest Dance series. Please see they’re flyers for all location and opening times details. Here’s what Creative Exhibitors UK founders Clare Sheridan and Annabel Shilliday had to say about the show:
De-Constuct/Re-Construct
An exhibition of 13 Bristol based artists, who work as individual artists in an ever changing collective. For ‘De-Construct/ Re-Construct’ the artists have created work relating to the idea that Art has the power to change our perception towards varied ways of thinking.
DokumentART 2012 & Alkerton Place
Alkerton Place, one of my earliest video pieces has been selected for the European Film Festival for Documentaries, DokumentART 2012. Very excited about this!! The festival is in it’s 21st edition and is held in Neubrandenburg, Germany and Szczecin, Poland, it runs from the 16-20.11.2012.
Alkerton Place is included in the Video Art section, curated by Antoni Karwowski, here as his thoughts on curating last years selection:
In modern video art the documentary more and more often becomes the subject as well as
the means of opening the space for artistic creation. Many artists go beyond the traditional
“objective” documentary by proposing a “documentary subjectivism,” a kind of hybrid
supported by the experience with new technologies. On the artistic level it expresses
the attitude of confronting reality and its subjective reception more fully. Many of the
films presented this year follow this formula. It is a tendency which is being increasingly
accentuated in contemporary experimental cinema.
The diversity of the films presented makes us more familiar with the complexity ofcontemporary experimental cinema, which is a simple reflection of the dynamically
changing reality but above all shows the condition of contemporary man on many levels.
It will be fascinating to see the other works included in this section and I’m very happy to see Alkerton Place screen in this context and and explore the collisions and thoughts it will evoke next to the other works.
Mr Mead, Captain James McWolfson & Jamaica St Open Studios
This little sliver of darkness that Mr. Mead and I made last year (with a little help from Boards of Canada…) will be featuring at Jamaica Street Open Studios this year.
The event runs from 08.06.2012 – 10.06.2012 and is one of the cornerstones of the Bristol Art calendar. Attendance is rewarded with viewing some really great Artwork and meeting the dedicated, skilled hands and minds behind their creation.
If you wanna find/contact them them please check here!
The video will be screening on the exterior of Mr. Meads studio on the third floor, he’s had a busy year so there are new creations a plenty to indulge in – catch them here before they migrate to new homes throughout the globe…
Spike Island Open 2012
My past 5 months at Spike Island have been great and part of the time has been spent working towards this weekend, the 2012 Spike Island Open. Over 80 artists’ studios, 2 major exhibitions, talks, performances and a host of other quality moments. There were over 7000 visitors and I think I spoke to alot of them! There was a great buzz around the place and all involved worked their socks off putting together this event that it was great for me to play a small part in.
A great many thanks to all those tireless organizers who made the event happen!
I was fortunate enough to have some work selected for the spike open video channel, which you can view here. It features some great work from throughout the building.
On the friday night we partied like Art Stars… and then in time honoured fashion made sure I was ready to talk politely to the many interesting folks who came through our space.
You can check out more images of the weekend here.
As if that wasn’t enough there was a very busy team running around creating this collection of video interviews with some of the bewilderingly diverse array of talents that Spike has to offer. Check them out here.
To round it off those busy folks over at Made in Bristol have written a review of the event (they were even kind enough to mention me), you might recognize one of them in my pictures…;)
If you have images or a review of the event then please get in touch and I’ll gladly add you to this post.
Hope’s Inversion & The RGB Awards
I was fortunate enough to have this little beauty selected by the RGB awards, the opening event of Bristol Festival of Photography. The opening evening was packed and it was a great chance to meet some of the other exhibitors and talk shop over a glass of wine or two. I had the charming Helen Williams on my arm and the irrepressible Jazz Beard for company as well. I was blessed!
The standard of the exhibition was high and there were worthy winners in each category, overall I was glad to be involved and to have a chance to exhibit my brooding photography – I hope it the first of many outings for my lucky pheasant, who I feel proves so eloquently that Hope’s Inversion is not despair, but fresh hope born from reflection and contemplation. Maybe next time I’ll photograph a phoenix…
Tom Long’s Truths @ AIVA
Angelholm International Video Art Festival are screening Tom Long’s Truths as part of their open call programme. AIVA is the brainchild of Anders Weberg – artist, experimental filmmaker and independent Curator – clearly a man of sublime taste and refinement as he likes this short piece of video art that I dreamt up…
I’m delighted to be included in the festival and only wish that I could attend the weekend long event as it sounds fascinating:
The first AIVA, Angelholm International Video Art Festival, will take place in April 2012 and the main purpose of the festival is the free presentation, promotion and development of international video art and to create a new, alternative, peripheral meeting point for emerging and established video and media artists from all over the world. The festival will run for three days, from April 26th – 28th.
We hope to bring the Northwestern region of Scania in Sweden clearer on the map, both nationally and internationally, as a vivid scene of video art.
It is supposed to be a recurring event in addition to art offers cultural meetings that attract conversation about video art and its position in contemporary art.In addition to screenings & installations of video art and performances, the festival invites international guest curators to curate programs of video art from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. These programs will be exhibited as projections in containers placed in the main square.
I’m wishing all involved the best of luck and getting involved with new work so hopefully I can both screen at and attend next years event!
