Video of me testing a piece I have developed in Isadora for the DIY Music Day tomorrow. I will be able to calibrate it a bit better once I’m in the space, but for now its look good and should work really well once its displayed 10ft wide.
I have just started work on another Re-Dock project involving the Leeds-Liverpool canal. Building on the work we did for Canal &, we are using the memories and ideas gathered as a starting point for a signage installation next to the new Pennington Road bridge.
‘Constellation Of Signs’ will be made of over 100 aluminium road and tourist information signs with custom designs based on ideas about the canal. We are running workshops with local groups to help us develop these designs and in doing so explore further how people relate to the canal.
Some of the signs developed in our first workshop this week were warning signs for dirty water and sharks, prohibitive signs for swimming and teachers, and direction signs for ice-cream and the graffiti wall.
It is a really great project to be developing as again it is about the inherent value of ideas and experiences, and their relationship to each other. We are not promising that these things will happen at all, but simply making space for a creative and imaginative ownership of the canal. Ideas in themselves have value. Once someone suggests an idea we can discuss the practical implications of that idea, we can discuss it in relation to community, law, aesthetics, history, possibility, technology. If something can’t happen, then we can ask ‘why not?’ and open up a new area of investigation.
Signs function to shape our understanding of a space. They give us an orientation and also permit levels and modes of engagement with the space. This has a potent impact beyond the immediate message. When I was growing up we used to play footy on a patch of grass near us. One day a window got broken, and the following week a ‘No Ball Games’ sign was put up in what used to be the goal. Aside from the practical obstruction, the space became pretty much unused for play at all, as if sulking after a telling off – it was as if the sign had just said ‘No!’. What if there had been other signs to frame that message and our interpretation of it?
The signs in Constellations Of Signs will act as markers and totems of peoples’ impressions of a place. It will represent their willingness to let their imagination briefly reclaim the canal for the sake of letting the imagination wander. They will be fossilised harbingers of events that may never actually happen, or uncanny indications of things to come. They will mark previous histories and current concerns in relation to irreverence and humour. They will illustrate what people want and what people fear. They will be the evolving dictation of a cross community conversation about what if? and why not? And they will tell you how to get to Bootle Strand Shopping Centre.
You can see more about the project at www.constellationofsigns.wordpress.com
Today I ran the final Small Cinema of 2009, this time in a small school in Everton. Our guide was Tony Keating, who seemed excited to be having the event there. He was keen to help set up, as was Ray the caretaker, who cleared the space in a jiffy and then brought his power tools to help assemble the screen. Tony had prepared film posters for the event, and gladly distributed memory tickets to the staff and children. He also volunteered to be an usher, sporting a bow tie along with Mr Byrne, who fetched torches from the science department.
All in all, staff at the Primary Education Centre couldn’t have been more helpful or more positive about the event. All the staff and the children filled out memory tickets in order to attend the event and a range of memories were discovered, including some kids who had never been to the cinema. All the children attended the event, and most of the school staff, and their was an air of excitement but kids seemed well behaved. During the screening there was some noise and lots of laughter from all ages, but most talking was in reference to events happening in the films (though Charlie Chaplin was mistaken for Hitler). Popcorn was brought out at have time by the staff / ushers and the chldren stayed in their places well behaved to receive it, enjoying the sense of novelty of being served my their teachers in bow ties. I think both sides bought into the theatrics and roles of the cinema, whether they had experienced it before or not.
After the screening, lots of kids said thankyou, and the teachers invited us for a cup of tea in the staffroom , where many stories of cinema experiences were swapped. The staff felt that the afternoon had been a good treat for kids, who had behaved better than expected. Tales of trying to take the kids on cinema trips that had been stressful (“never again”) made it more apparent the possibilities offered by bringing the cinema to the school.
All in all it was a terrific way to close the project for 2009, and another new approach discovered, this time, keeping it small and in some ways a surprise, but built on string support from the community.
The more time has past, the more fond I have grown of this piece, and so finally putting this online. It was amos’ idea, and its power comes from the sincere words and the intense score, but I am pleased with the role of the video in expressing these ideas.
I showed it in Apocalypse at Red Wire in August, and I’ve just submitted it to AV Fest, so fingers crossed. Made as part of ‘The Winter Will Not Last Forever’, a series of soundworks developed by composer Amos on the theme of ‘hope’, and performed at HIVE. This piece is a live stream mix from Isadora and combines video samples from myself and the late great Pete Bamford.
A voice reads out a letter telling of his personal struggle amidst bereavement and addiction. A red glow pulses behind a growing storm of grit and noise. As the storm becomes ever harsher, the glow becomes stronger. The glow and the storm begin to feedback on themselves, becoming enmeshed and amplified towards and inevitable end. Created using simple samples pushed through a state of live video feedback, organically re-incorporated and remixed.
Text by Warwick Ward
Images by Pete Bamford and Sam Meech
Sounds by Amos
Red Wire Gallery’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ exhibition finished at the weekend. There were some great works in their including a 4 screen installation of an old lady 4, 3, 2, and 1 days before her death, and these crows pecking at baby birds. ‘A Long Journey’, a video piece I developed for Amos‘ music performance The Winter Will Not Last Forever in collaboration with Pete Bamford, was also part of the exhibition. The video is essentially a glowing red pulse that grows and wanes, whilst crackle swirls around like a snow storm, feeding back on itself, whilst a voice over recounts their personal reflection on battling bereavement and drug addiction and the possibility of hope. The crows provided an audience.
I’m collecting peoples’ memories of going to the cinema. I’m interested in the different experiences we have depending on when we first or last went, and the role it plays in our lives.
Please spend 60 seconds sharing a memory of a cinema experience you had:
The new year will begin with an interesting and relaxing event with Tom Smith (aka Amos) who presents his Music for Sleeping project, first performed at View Two Gallery last year. As a member of the audience I was treated to a comfy space to lie down and soak up the surround experience of Tom’s soundscapes whilst meditating on the textured imagery beamed on the gallery ceiling by VJ Pistol Pete, now sadly departed. It was a truly lovely experience. This time round its at the Bluecoat, and I will be helping provide the light show with Pete’s original material as well as my own stuff, and the audience will once again get the fill in the bit inbetween. And its on a Sunday! I implore you to come.
The Model of Clayton Square is the last remaining architectural model of Clayton Square Shopping Centre. One of three models built in the early 1980’s, this model was salvaged from a skip by Bren O’Callaghan when the manager of the centre let builders lash them while he had his office refurbished. I rebuilt the model from the leftover parts, including some of the lead figures from the other two models, and filmed it as part of making ‘The Model City’. Once finished, the model became home to a large female house spider for a number of months before she died.
The Model of Clayton Square is on show at the View Two Gallery, Liverpool from Thursday 23rd October to 1st November as part of the ‘Local Heroes’ exhibition, curated by Samuel Skinner.The film of ‘The Model City’ will be shown along with 10 other short films by local artists at A Small Cinema, an intimate temporary cinema installation taking place in View Two Gallery, 7pm, Friday 24th October.
