A couple of videos of my Interactive Balafon at DIY Music Day 2010. The balafon is a type of wooden marimba from West Africa (here is a great video of a balafon solo). The World Museum Liverpool has one as part of its collection but visitors aren’t allowed to play it. This interactive piece enables people to explore the balafon using their bodies in space. Developed for DIY Music Day 2010 using Isadora, in the same way as my bells and glockenspiel pieces. Isadora allows peoples’ movement in front of the camera (hidden at the base of screen) to be tracked and then to trigger corresponding video clips of notes being played.
Interactive Balafon @ DIY Music Day
Ash cloud causes chaos – ‘Volcano’
Here is the video for ‘Volcano‘ by Liverpool mod-rockers The Universal. A thumping rock love song with catchy riffs if I ever heard one. I filmed the band last Friday at Liverpool Sound City and am really pleased with the outcome. More pleased than usual, as this was the second attempt at filming the band.
The first attempt was a month before at FAC251 in Manchester and the sound from the desk was awful. My filming wasn’t great either to be honest. Good sound can often sometimes carry a poor music video, but a great video can do little with poor sound. It bothered me to leave it at that so I was glad to get another crack of the whip. This time the girl on the desk was great and the band sounded brilliant and I got good audio as a result ( a mix of clean desk and the camera mic). I also knew the songs inside out, which was helpful as I was approaching this as a single-take so could anticipate changes.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the band and the video. It’s fairly energetic. I tend to dance around a lot when I film bands. If I can’t get in the swing, it just aint rock n roll.
WIYRT#06 – Baptism
At the beginning of April I went down to London again to film the next installment of Mercy’s ‘Wave If You’re Really There’ production in St Leonard’s church. This was the 6th in the series and this event took the theme of Baptism. Cue lots of fantastic watery projections on the church ceiling and also some bizarre performances devised by Karen Mcleod. This video has a bit of behind the scenes chat with the artists involved. You can also check out a trailer for the evening here.
Maundy Thursday
An Easter treat. Filmed Easter 2008. Screened for the first time easter 2009. Blogged easter 2010.
“I walk the line”
Artist Thomas Shephard gives a performance exploring public / private space in the city centre. ‘Walking Tour of Liverpool One’ navigates the public circumference of the privately owned Liverpool One shopping development. I was interested to document Thomas’ take on this issue, having already done some work in relation to Liverpool One, both in the The Model City and Make Your Own Liverpool projects. I will also be working one a project later this year researching the history of the site prior to it’s re-development.
“Walking Tour of Liverpool One’ was performed as part of the Bluecoats ‘View From the Grassy Knoll’ event on 27th Feb 2010. An unedited video of the full 20 minute walk can be seen here.
Wave If You’re Really There #05 – trailer
Some highlights from the last ‘Wave If You’re Really There’ event.
“it seems we think in tiny drops…”
My favourite lyric above from the title track from the album from which this event takes its name, ‘Wave If You’re Really There’ has become a kind of rallying call for creatives in Liverpool under the steering of Mercy Corps and their friends the Wave Machines. Their 4 events last year took place in St Brides church and gathered some of the best folk musicians, pop groups, performances artists, installation artists and poets to create a carefully orchestrated themed evening of delights for the audience, dutifully arranged in rows of pews (well, to begin with at least).
Last weekend was the first time the experiment had been exported, and saw a large group of collaborators and familiar faces transported down to London to install the the first of two capitol-based events (themed ‘marriage’) in St Leonards Church in Shoreditch. I went down to document the show, which its fair to say, turned out fantastic. Everyone worked really hard to set it up over 2 days, lending helping hands wherever needed; creativity abounded through the artistic direction of Scott Spencer and the Mercy crew and their collaborators, and all way lit in fantastic reactive colours by lighting guru known only as Guy. The performers (Karen McLeod, John Smith, Nathan Jones, Luke Kennard, Homework, Post War Years, and of course Wave Machines) all gave their best. It really felt very special indeed. Especially when John Smith did his folk cover of ‘Not Over Yet’.
More people than can be mentioned here contributed to the event, so I’ll simply leave these photos by John O’Shea to sum up the beauty of the evening. I’ll post the videos as they go through my patented topntail process.
A Pansy for Michael Causer
Earlier this year I did some filming for Homotopia (Liverpool’s queer culture festival) and Light Factory (Liverpool’s most prolific documentarians) of an event to mark the death of murdered teenager Michael Causer. Michael was severely beaten in a homophobic attack in August 2008 and died of his injuries eight days later.
This event commemorated the memory of Michael and was part of the Pansy Project, an artwork developed by artist Paul Harfleet. Taking part in the remembereance alongside Michael’s family were representatives from the local council, Homotopia, and the Sigma Team, a specialist division of Merseyside Police setup to deal with Hate Crime.
Michael’s murder was not reported in national press (deemed to be of only ‘regional interest’ by the BBC) until there was an outcry in the gay press. ‘The Invisible Death of Michael Causer’, speaks to leading gay rights activists and media commentators to question why this was the case. The film was shot and edited by Tim Brunsden for Homotopia. Both films were shown last night at the Unity Theatre as part of Homotopia Festival.
Fearful Symmetry
An interview with Angie Hiesl – co-artistic director of ‘TWINS – How do I know I am me?’ – talks about the process of bringing the production to Liverpool.
I spent a day or so watching the rehearsal process in this fantastic space with these surreal symmetries of people and action. It was really great to meet the team and then finally experience the performance, which had a great freedom for the audince to explore and engage and drop out as they pleased.
‘Twins’ was produced by the Bluecoat, and was performed at A-Foundation, Liverpool in July 2009.







