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Light Grafitti 6 Sketch of Dog Copyright Š Kyle Saxton
Issue 13 July 2009
3. welcome 4. blankverse - Lynn Myint-Maung 5. cover artist - Kyle Saxton 6. The Freezing Fog 9. blankverse - Annette Cookson 10. blankpages relaunch event 13. blankverse - Annette Cookson 14. ‘Gelling’ by David Gaffney 17. blankpicks 18. gallery - Jack Welsh 20. ‘Jester The Labrador’ - Joe Booker 22. blank media presents... 25. blankverse - Lynn Myint-Maung 26. blank media recommends
conten
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this month’s MP3: A Sleepwalker’s Dream by The Freezing Fog
Blank Media Team... Director: Mark Devereux Financial Administrator: Steven Porter Communications Manager: Kate Butler Web Manager: Simon Mills Web: Matt Small Exhibitions Coordinators: Jamie Hyde, Marcelle Holt & Gareth Hacking Moving Image Curator: Dan Hopkins Blank Media Presents... Manager: Iain Goodyear Blank Media Presents: Steve Goossens blankpages Team... Editor: Phil Craggs Poetry Editor: Baiba Auria Fiction Editor: John Leyland Music Editor: Dan Bridgwood-Hill Visual Design by John Leyland With Thanks To: Ali Gunn Matthew Twyford Justin Watson Blank Media is kindly supported by:
welcome Website: www.blankmediacollective.org As you will know, the British National party won two seats at the recent European elections. Now, you MySpace: www.myspace.com/ may be asking yourself why I’m mentioning this in the Introduction to an arts’ magazine. After all, politics blankmediacollective and art are two completely separate things, right? Pablo Picasso once described art as ‘the lie that helps us understand the truth’, and this can be seen * You can also find us on other social in his painting Guernica which was a response to the Spanish Civil War. No-one suggests that the work is networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, ArtReview and cheapened by its ideological content. The music of the last century has been littered with artists who’ve many more! managed to mix politics with musical integrity; from Bob Dylan to the Sex Pistols, Paul Robeson to Public Enemy. The list of great political novels is huge, and that’s not even touching upon the likes of blankpages submission guidelines: Bertold Brecht in the theatre. www.blankmediacollective.org Art does still have the power to shock, provoke and move - thankfully, or there’d be no point to it. General Enquiries: Recently the cover of the new album by Manic Street Preachers, Journal For Plague Lovers, was banned info@blankmediacollective.org by several supermarket chains. The cover was a painting by acclaimed artist Jenny Saville of the face of Communications: an androgynous child. Half of the child’s face has a redder hue than the other. The supermarkets thought communications@blankmedia it represented a child that had been beaten up and decided it was inappropriate. But even if they’d been collective.org right, so what? It provokes a human reaction without being cheap or exploitative - isn’t that a good thing? Another recent event was Jeremy Deller’s re-enactment of the ‘battle’ at Orgreave in 1984, which blankpages: re-played the famous confrontation between striking miners and police. The BBC had to issue an apology editor@blankmediacollective.org after the original events for making it appear that the police advanced on the miners after they had had Blank Media Presents…: stones thrown at them, when in fact the latter was a response to the former. This ‘mistake’ (which many music@blankmediacollective.org believe to have been deliberate) was corrected by the re-enactment, making it more truthful than the contemporary footage. Secondly it was an act of contextualisation, establishing it as a part of this Moving Image: movingimage@blankmediacollective.org country’s history, comparable in importance to a battle from Cromwell’s Civil War. And thirdly it was a remembrance of that day and of the struggle as a whole. blankpages copyright © 2006 – 2009 So it is entirely appropriate for art to tackle issues such as politics, and sometimes artists need to be Blank Media Collective unless otherwise noted. Copyright of all artworks remains provoked a little to get the best response from them. But to try to keep things in perspective, was the with the artist. Blank Media Collective BNP’s gain really that massive an event? Two MEPs won’t be able to make much difference and their logo copyright © Ben Rose 2008, victory had more to do with the number of people who didn’t vote at all than with the number who voted www.graphicstateofmind.com. BNP. But its importance is perhaps more symbolic. To use that most artistic of forms of expression, the blankpages logo copyright © metaphor, the BNP are just the symptom. And the artist has a huge role to play in diagnosing and treating Eleni Angelou, www.eleniangelou.com the disease. all external imagery (including original background image) Phil Craggs courtesy of www.freephotosbank.com blankpages Editor.
blankverse Pan
Staggering down a Cretan gorge I came upon a shepherd’s well And had already swallowed when I tasted the carcass A natural church is not the place to vomit And so I held the host within me And turning, saw the god cross the path below me; yellow goaty eye, stink of ancient piss Silence surrounded him, enfolded me and I swam through death and chaos down to the sea.
lynn myint-maung
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I am 59 years old, travel in Europe a fair bit and write mostly about things connected directly with nature - I live on a smallholding on the Pennine moors and feel lucky to be so constantly in touch with the natural world, though not when birds crap on my car...
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for more information and images, visit www.raggaphoto.co.uk
Castlefield Light Grafitti 7 Copyright Š Kyle Saxton
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I gather my inspiration from the urban cityscape, I like to find dark gritty places to work with, I sometimes mark the area with vibrant colours and images that purposely contrast that particularly place, other times I simply add something that looks beautiful and adds something to the photograph.
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cover artist kyle saxton
the freezing fog The Freezing Fog formed in 2006 as the brainchild of guitarists and songwriters Liam Stewart and Ed Godby. They quickly recruited Dave Hopkinson from the recently demised underground metal legends Beecher, with whom Ed had been doing vocals. After a couple of brief line-up changes, Dave settled on bass guitar and Todd Staszko and James Longsden were added on drums and vocals respectively. From the very start, the band decided to draw their sound from the classic age of British rock, bands like Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy. ‘It all seemed like an appealingly silly idea at first,’ explains Liam, ‘but we didn’t realise how fun would actually be.’ Fun is at the very core of The Freezing Fog. He continues, ‘Folk sometimes just wanna grab a beer, get their foot on the monitor and have a bloody good time to some feel good rock.’ And having a bloody good time is exactly what happens when you listen to The Freezing Fog. Ed and Liam knock out riff after riff of beautiful bluesy melody which is expertly fielded by the rhythm section, a pair so tight and funky I find it hard to believe they’ve ever missed a note. This all coloured in by James’s hippy-roar and psychedelic lyrics that Liam describes as ‘a big psychedelic jog through an episode of Twins Peaks whilst riding on the back of a golden eagle.’ Make of that what you will.
The band have recently released their second full-length album to critical acclaim. ‘A Sleepwalker’s Dream’, one of the accompanying tracks, typifies this terrific record with its heavy-funk riff, catchy melody and almost obligatory middle 8 chill out, before an even heavier and funkier riff kicks in, out of which flies the classic twiddly guitar solo. Ed even took part in setting up a vinyl-only record label to ensure it was pressed to, in their words, ‘sweet, sweet vinyl’. As the manager of a recently credit-crunched record shop, vinyl is something Liam cares a lot about. ‘We all like vinyl as music consumers as it is something that you can seemingly get more involved in than an MP3 or a CD. We, as many bands do, see music as art and therefore the sound is inextricably linked with the visual when it comes to presenting music for consumption. The vinyl format provides the best platform for this.’ To understand The Freezing Fog you need to understand where they have come from. Ed and Dave’s former band, Beecher, were an influential and criminally undervalued progressive metalcore group whose all-too- brief career saw the genre explode in popularity. Meanwhile, Liam has taken part in various instrumental post-rock bands, long before Mogwai ever sold out the Albert Hall. As a result of their success, both genres have become muddied with generic copy bands and lame imitators. To me, The Freezing Fog seems like a reaction against this. Liam agrees. ‘We often play with “metalcore” or “post-rock” bands that are labelled progressive but to me are playing some of the most regressive music I have ever heard as often they are in no way trying out any new ideas or bringing something new to the table. I think what I am trying to say is that there are many ways to be progressive, and a progressive band does not necessarily have to sound a specific way as the magazines would have everyone believe.’ As such, The Freezing Fog are a thoroughly modern band, something which their detractors, and even some supporters, seem to miss completely, branding them as retro or worse, unfashionable – as if that has anything to do with it. ‘Beecher were very progressive in terms of heavy music,’ Liam continues, ‘but I do not feel that makes the music of The Freezing Fog in any way “regressive”. We are definitely playing music that is inspired by sounds that shaped certain decades like the ‘70’s,’ Copyright © Macky
‘But I feel that we bring something new to the table. I feel like we are adding our own stamp to the sound and progressing the genre that we are a part of. I actually feel we are becoming more and more a progressive band as we go on and it sometimes feels like this point is entirely missed by folk who write us off after hearing half a song.’ And he’s completely right. They mix up all the best bits of the old favourites; Black Sabbath’s heaviness, Thin Lizzy’s funk and Led Zeppelin’s gorgeous melodies, adding a 90s stoner-rock flavour with the vocals and some of the riffs as well as throwing in some more contemporary influences such as Isis and Mastadon. But The ‘Fog are more than simply a cut and paste job. They have moulded their own sound, hinged vitally on the recurring pop element, something which excels on their new, self-titled record. The band agree that the new songs have an added maturity in their construction, something that will surely propel them on to bigger and better things. But The Freezing Fog is not a career move.
Copyright © Rob Da Banks ‘I don’t think we’ll make a career out of it and we don’t really intend to. The only reason we keep doing it is to say we’re in a band with Dave Hopkinson, bass magician,’ jokes Liam. However, with contemporaries like The Plight and Blakfish making a name for themselves, this is a very exciting time for British rock music so crack open a beer and join in the fun. For more information, merchandise and free downloads visit www.thefreezingfog.co.uk
Cars, bikes, buses, trams To a market street That’s always rammed With buskers, hustlers And mums pushing prams. Down come the high rise Lives of the hinterlands, Up go apartments That specialise, compartmentalise Spatial division For the masses, still That fine line Between the classes. Public gardens Fountains, pop queens, emos, chavs And drunks, music Sung live from praise God To funk as bubbles blow Mancunian dreams Over the head of Victoria. Pavements are canvas Full of rainbows and poets, Monet prints of Surreal chewing gum Come into focus And play with The light in your eye. With pride in the heart And arrogance worn on feet I walk these streets, these roads With a smile and a swagger Every nook and cranny in It’s glorious crown,
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Manchestarr.
This is my manc’land, My muse, My town.
annette cookson
Gerry Potter
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“eight o’clock is a nervous time...”
At that time on Friday 15th of May I was sat behind a desk besplendent with home-made cakes, awaiting the arrival of our first guests of the evening. For the previous couple of hours the Blank Media machine had gone into action. The venue was the upstairs room of the Black Lion pub on Blackfriars Road, and it was perfect for our needs. Intimate, with comfy settees and a small stage in the corner it had all the potential for hosting a great night. Turning that potential into reality however called for some work. A PA system was set up for the readers and musicians; a laptop and projector readied to allow the audience to read blankpages on the wall; lighting was set up; paper and coloured pencils laid out to allow any random act of creation; poets and musicians rehearsed and prepared for their moment in the spotlight; short films were set up to be shown; models both human and dummy were dressed in fabulous recycled fashions... All of this activity, building up to the moment the doors would officially open and the masses would flood in. Hopefully. And so it was I sat at the door, trying to resist eating all the cake in front of me and waiting anxiously. Would anyone turn up? Of course you did. I’m biased of course but I’d say the night was a pretty solid success for all concerned. The audience were entertained, the performers were able to express themselves in front of an appreciative group, and Blank Media was able to continue to showcase the kind of talent that we’ve always supported. And the cake was, rightly, a massive hit too. What’s not to love?
In the rest of this feature the other members of the blankpages team will tell you a little about the event from their point of view.
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I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped us set up, everyone who performed, everyone who helped bring the fashion and equipment, the owner and staff of the Black Lion who were incredably supportive, and a special thank-you to our very own John Leyland who not only helped organise, set up and host the event but also made the delicious cake. The success of the night is down to you all. Now, as I was asked by numerous people at the end of the night; when’s the next one? --Phil Craggs Ever since I began hosting events for the Dead Good Poets Society at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, I’ve found great pleasure in presenting evenings of performance, and the blankpages relaunch party was simply a joy. The process of putting the evening together was inspiring, with such exquisite tools at my disposal. Through arranging the furniture to slicing my (rather marvellous) cheesecake before things began I knew it was going to be a special time. The opportunity to showcase such an experienced artist as Gerry Potter was a privilege, and he didn’t disappoint. The mixture of media during the evening gave us something edgy, and the interaction between spoken word and visual art was particularly satisfying for me during Steve O’Connor’s performance. It felt like we were showcasing something that was different from other literary evenings, and if you weren’t there, keep your eyes peeled for more exciting blankpages events in the future. --John Leyland DBH
Gerry Potter
I loved every bit of it. To start with I felt great in the fantasically futuristic design by Trashed Couture. I certainly intend to wear their clothes again, it is all recycled materials, true originals and futuristic vintage... rather fittingly I`d call them pure poetry. You can check them out at www.trashedcouture.com. Talking about poetry, I was very proud of the quality of the work performed on our big night. It could not have been any better - Annette`s relevant passion and Gerry`s beautiful satire, both delivered with great style and infectious energy. Even people who did not know themselves as poetry fans expressed a newborn interest in the genre after hearing the performances. Knockout. Thank you Annette and Gerry, you made it great. John`s presenting was as as brilliant as the glitter all over his person. But I am still impressed by his cake making skills, I dream of the thing. Mmmmm... The audience rocked, I thank you all for being you and being where it counts. See you soon, on another night, with more cake. John, start your oven.
Steve O’Connor
“what a night, what a cake...”
--Baiba Auria
The evening’s main musical attraction was Kalbakken’s Dave Birchall. For his first set he treated us to some exclusive solo renditions of Kalbakken songs, sewn together in impressive style with flurries of opentuned guitar notes, harmonics and guitar thumping. His second set, and the evening’s closing performance, took an unusual twist when he invited collaborator and bandmate Zeke Clough onstage for a fearsome improvisation. Zeke swayed, tightly gripping the microphone and rambling menacingly like Nick Cave while Dave accompanied on the slide guitar. It was a thoroughly compelling performance and was much appreciated by the audience who, by this stage in the night, were already expecting the unexpected. --Dan Bridgwood-Hill event photographs Copyright © Gareth Hacking Photography Dave Birchall - Kalbakken
blankverse
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Pandora I’m a mum, a socialist and a feminist who is in love with her city, and I always have to cut my pizza up into 8 segments before I eat it...
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The past wants to be My friend on facebook. With the past came the Bearded man and the emotional Vampire; its own entourage That sees, believes And eats its own re-runs of Classic Hollywood, but I Am a black and white Living documentary on An independent label Speaking in subtitles Pregnant with subtext That the past just didn’t Seem to recollect. The past sits, grinning Wearing medieval armour Waiting, in my inbox.
annette cookson
Gelling
He looks like a toaster with a clock on the side. That’s what the trainees are thinking. Barry taps his stack of index cards on the table and examines the first sentence he is supposed to say. The trainees are talking quietly to each other. What if he shot them all? Took out a gun and said this will help you gel, this will help you bond. Together in death. He asks the trainees to wait and goes out to his car. He stands for a moment at the boot and listens to the birds twittering. Spring. Do birds know what’s going to happen next? He opens the boot and takes out two boxes. The larger box is long, coffin shaped, and from inside comes the sound of scrabbling and faint peeping. The smaller box emits no sound and has the word ‘Dylan’ written on the side. A door on the front, like a cat flap. Looks like one of the boxes pigeon racers use. Those boxes have clocks on the top, but those clocks have a clear utility. The trainees stop talking when Barry enters and watch as he places the coffin-shaped box in the centre of the table and the smaller one next to him at the head. Don’t make fun of them Barry. The scratching noise comes from the big box again and everyone looks at it. The sound comes in waves then stops as if whatever is inside is resting. He smiles. The trainees will think his teeth are over-flossed. You can over floss. You can overdo everything. Barry knows this. That’s why he is a consultant. ‘What’s in the boxes?’ The speaker has a too-much-dope-wide-frog-smile-small-independent-hardwarestore face. Barry looks at the names he has written on his pad in the shape of how people are sitting. ‘Andy, is it? Yes, Andy, the boxes are important.’ Barry feels like a toaster with a clock on the side.
It is disparate. A tourist information centre, a gallery, a literature festival, a restaurant, a couple of design companies and other miscellaneous creative agencies, front of house staff, building management, caretakers, cleaners, and technicians for the gallery and performance space. Barry removes Margaret’s lid. Margaret is his favourite marker. She had been lucky and he doesn’t know what he would do if she dried up, so he never writes with her. Just flips off her cap and grips her in his fingers, using an inferior pen to make his marks. One for playing, one for keeps. ‘Imagine The Storey Creative Industry centre as a village. The passages, corridors and meeting rooms are village lanes and the window ledges are flowerbeds - the public spaces we decorate for Britain in Bloom. How do we breath life into these public spaces?’ They will know if you hate them. Don’t hate them. The big box emits the scrabbling sound again, and, as if ringing in sympathy, a thin, unhappy whining comes from whatever is trapped inside the smaller box. ‘Cricket in the corridor,’ says one.
David Gaffney
‘Giant pie making.’ ‘Burn effigies of local councillors,’ says another. ‘Morris dancing,’ says one. ‘Incest,’ says another. Barry springs to the flip chart and scribbles with the inferior marker pen. He doesn’t write consultant goes on killing rampage. He writes down what they say about the village he has put them in. He doesn’t write if she didn’t love me then why did she come to the video installation at the cathedral? He has locked them in a village of his invention. He will feast them, impale them, then torch the fools. Remember you are not a god. He bounces up and down while he writes, his shoulders quivering, his legs vibrating. Show them energy and they will take it. They will absorb it. They say things and he makes bullets. His face is wide open, his eyes expanded, his eyebrows in his hair. He has not had an electric shock. He looks friendly. Market researchers will stop him in the street, a prime example of a certain segment. But no one looks at Barry or his flip chart. They look at the two boxes which make noises. They read the word ‘Dylan’ on the side of the smaller one and wonder what it means. The big box trembles with the vibrations from whatever is inside and the little box bounces on the table as its inhabitant thumps madly at the sides. Barry moves the trainees on to the next stage. This will be the best stage. During this stage Barry will develop ideas of hubs, of water cooler places, of points where ways intersect. There will be an oasis of warmth and conviviality. The Storey Creative Industry centre will be a building where the default is stop and chat. When staff in The Storey Institute speak they will be above the line. He draws a line on the flip chart. ‘What words might be above the line?’ They don’t know. How about - that’s fantastic, Fiona, that’s tremendous Fiona that’s amazing Fiona I would be delighted to do that for you Fiona. When we speak above the line we think above the line and when we think above the line we become above the line and then above the line things happen. ‘Who’s Fiona?’ one says, softly. Barry has been waiting for this one. He has shown himself. The muted, sincere one; a storm of abuse is vaulted in those whispers. Barry consults his diagram of names. ‘Michael isn’t it? You are wondering who Fiona is. Fiona is a construct for today’s course. She is all of you. You are no longer individuals. For the purpose of the course you are Fiona.’
If he makes the trainees into Fiona and they learn to love him then Fiona will love him. Don’t make people pretend to be Fiona. I won’t. I will, though. Don’t purse your lips. Michael tells Barry in his soft voice that he doesn’t want to be Fiona. He wants to be Michael. He would give Michael the job of opening the door and letting Dylan out. Don’t purse your lips. If he purses his lips they will know that if they took him to their niece’s 18th birthday party he would spit in the hummus. He didn’t spit, he dipped a cracker after he’d taken a bite, it wasn’t the same as spitting in the hummus. It was the same. It was his spit in the Hummus. He may as well have hawked up a frothy green one, lobbed it into the centre and stirred it with his dick. Barry thought back to when he did his research. The Storey Institute’s caretaker, Roy, lived in a narrow boat and kept a tarantula in his window to ward off burglars. Never let them know which bridge you’re moored under. Roy told Barry about the old Storey. There were lots of different organisations then, too; Oxford Archaeology, the Open College Network and the Princes Trust, the Storey Gallery, the Litfest, Folly digital arts, the Chamber of Commerce, the Department of Continuing Education. The people of these organisations never spoke to each other. Each business was resolutely independent; insulated empires where strange breeds evolved with quirky characteristics peculiar to that place and that place alone. They held separate Christmas parties. But Barry needed the hubs, the water cooler moments, the pivots, the forums. The tarantula in the boat window shuffled behind its glass. ‘Did anything, anything at all, ever bring them together?’ ‘There was a corn warehouse down near the river. They pulled it down and the rats that lived there had nowhere to go so they came to the Storey. A man was hired, it was his job. He was a rat catcher. He had a small terrier dog called Dylan and this dog could shake a dozen rats to death in an afternoon. Everyone stood in the garden and watched. They spoke to each other about how awful it was, and how horrible the rats were, and how it was gruesome yet fascinating to see Dylan at work, doing his natural thing.’ Minds are corridors, staircases, foyers, atriums. Open them up and make the spaces real. They are Fiona and will forgive him for the hummus and will come with him to the cathedral for the art installation. He indicates that Michael should approach the box with ‘Dylan’ on the side. Andy is holding the catch on the big box. Soon everyone will be together. David Gaffney is from Manchester. He is the author of ‘Sawn Off Tales’ (Salt 2006), ‘Aromabingo’ (Salt 2007), ‘Never Never’ (Tindal Street 2008), ‘Buildings Crying Out’ - a story using lost cat posters (Lancaster litfest 2009), ‘23 Stops To Hull’ stories about junctions on the M62 (Humbermouth festival 2009) ‘Rivers Take Them’ - a set of short operas with composer Ailis Ni Riain (BBC Radio Three 2008.) and ‘Destroy PowerPoint’, stories in PowerPoint format (Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009).
One of the many highlights of my recent trip to Athens was Shirin Neshat’s solo exhibition at the National Museum Of Contemporary Art (EMST). Neshat, an Iranian born video artist, now living and working in America, focuses her work around the loneliness and isolation of women living in her native country. ‘Women Without Men’ is a series of five video installations based upon Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel of the same title. Neshat’s series of works follow the main characters from the novel exploring their isolated and politically enforced lives. The installations take advantage of one, two and even three screen projections, enabling the viewer to find out even more detail and information. Each short extract (up to around 20 minutes) was made up by technically astute camera-work, aesthetically pleasing shot selections and perfectly selected locations. Neshat succeeds in capturing the attention of the viewer and taking them into the world of each of the characters. Where many ‘art videos and films’ based in galleries capture your attention for minutes, this series of installations captured attention for hours. The work follows a cinematic approach to filmmaking, requiring full and constant attention. With some parts disturbing and some heart-warming, the overall affect upon leaving the space was experiential and thought provoking. The accompaniment of my time in the historic city of Athens and incidental reading of Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner made this an unforgettable experience for me. For further information about Shirin Neshat’s recent exhibition at EMST please visit www.emst.gr. Shirin Neshat’s full feature film presentation of Women Without Men will be coming to cinemas soon… Mark Devereux
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Any avid art-watcher will know of Antony Gormley’s latest public art project ‘One Other’ (in conjunction with the somewhat amusingly titled ‘Artichoke’). This summer, 2400 selected members of the public will be given one consecutive hour each to ‘help make a living portrait of the UK now’ (as it says in the publicity) by occupying the space on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London. It is audience participation taken to the extreme, and it sparks in me some interesting thoughts (not least on the accessibility of art). Everybody’s watching everybody else, but how often do we look at ourselves? I wonder what old Bertolt Brecht would make of ‘One and Other’, this opportune product of our pressing obsession with surveillance. Would he want to pull down the artistic construct (as with his verfremdungseffekt) or would he see it as an egalitarian dream fulfilling that very concept? Is it life imitating life? Or another subversion of that well known phrase? In any case it will be a spectacle, a literal translation of the artistic platform. John Leyland
jack welsh Welsh’s work employs pre existing objects and found materials that are then positioned within newly created paradigms. These hybrid objects frequently suggest narratives that thrive on the tensions and relationships between the materials utilised in the work and preconceptions of existing forms and objects. He often produces work in response to space, drawing on the history or pre-conceptions of venues and location. His work The Ship Owner & Grace (2008) was produced in response to exhibiting at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, Welsh responding to the chance placement of two paticular relocated headstones within the now closed cemetery on the grounds of the Cathedral. The role of materiality is vital in his work but the outcomes are often left to chance, wood and objects are gathered, found and stolen to literally assemble the work in parts. Decisions are often dictated by these conditions of production, an example; the usage of the same colour of paint until it is exhausted and this colour may be constant in a number of works. Alongside the role of the material he places great emphasis on the methods utilised in production of a work, viewing the process of creation as a personal ongoing investigation into the boundaries of craftsmanship which is equal to the finished piece. Final forms are often objects that are paradoxical in that whilst they are often heavy and cumbersome, they are always balanced or propped, the threat of collapse ever present.
The Ship Owner & Grace (2008) Found wood, picture frames, table legs, rubbings, pencils, gloss paint, glue
His recent work, The Acquisition of Knowledge/All That You Ever Knew (2009), display these concerns focusing on found, damaged objects such as a lamp that he found strewn in Welsh countryside and which he carefully restored to functioning order. The lamp illuminates a oak dressing table bearing the scars of its previous life with a new rigid faรงade that is of contrast to the aged wood. The objects carefully placed upon the dressing table are blank books carved out of wood. Despite knowing that these objects aspire to be something that they cannot, the objects have an air of similarity, the style, weight and texture of each exploiting our preconceptions and succinctly presenting the viewer with various possible narratives within the work. For more information, visit www.jackwelsh.co.uk
The Acquisition of Knowledge/All That You Ever Knew (2009) Dressing table, found lamp, carved found wood, screws, glue, acrylic, wiring, plug, light bulb.
At about the age of eleven, one of my best mates was a lad called Chris Kappler. He lived near me on my estate and I used to go and play with him on the weekends and after school. He had a Playstation, and I only had a Sega Saturn, which although was released at the same time as the Playstation, everyone knew wasn’t as good. I remember one night, we stayed up almost the whole night playing on the original Grand Theft Auto. We played for as long as we could stay awake, but as it grew light, we finally decided that we had to go to sleep. As a child (and still very much so now), I preferred to sleep in small, enclosed spaces; burying my myself deep under the covers, my face down between the bed and the wall at night. When I stayed at Chris’s, I slept on the floor in the gap between his bed and the wall, which was no more than a foot and a half wide. I would lift my legs up and cram them between his mattress and the bed frame. It was weird, I know, but it was very comfortable.
jester the labrador
On this particular night, I must’ve unconsciously, in my state of much needed sleep, grabbed this large green pillow that Chris had in his room, and put it over my head. This wasn’t any ordinary pillow. Chris had two Labradors, named Jester and Taylor. They were both male, but hadn’t been castrated, so were horny little bastards. Although horny, they couldn’t do a great deal about it. As they were mostly housebound, the only other dog that they came into contact with was each other. Not only were they both male dogs, but they were also brothers, and it seems that not even a lack of lady dogs was enough to turn them homosexual and incestuous. Taylor just made do with celibacy, but Jester had to find some other outlet for his frustrations. The outlet was Chris’s large green pillow. The pillow, or as everyone else in the house referred to it, ‘Jester’s Humping Pillow’, was utterly disgusting. It was covered in odious and ominous stains, and as far as I knew, had never been washed. He really enjoyed it though. So here I was on that late night/early morning, oblivious to the fact that I had Jester’s humping pillow on my head. And this would’ve been bad enough! I mean, if I’d have awoken to find myself in this situation, I would most undoubtedly have been appalled. But it got worse. As you can probably guess, Jester had woken up nice and early in the morning, with only one satisfaction to be gained. The pillow and consequentially, my head, were in for some action. Up the stairs he trotted and found his buddy easily. I’m quite a deep sleeper, and I must’ve slept through quite a bit of the engagement, as when I awoke, he was already in full swing, and I could hardly breathe. As you do when you are awoken suddenly during the period of sleep they call R.E.M., I thought that I was still dreaming. Maybe someone was trying to smother me in my sleep? Then I realised the truth and severity of the situation. At this point in the story, I like to hope that you are gunning for me, (literally the underdog) hoping that I will overthrow my aggressor/lover, and come out of the situation with at least a little of my dignity intact. But once again, as you’ve probably already guessed, it wasn’t to be. You see, because of my ridiculous sleeping preferences, Jester easily had the upper hand, pinning me into the corner of the room, up against the wall. I fought as hard as I could, but a fully grown Labrador is stronger than a freshly awoken, scrawny child. I had no option but to wait for him to finish his business. This he did, and the abuse ceased. I was left feeling shaken and dirty. Obviously this event has lead to some minor mental scarring, but I like to think that some good has come of it. It makes the perfect foil for my own failings sexually. I’m sure the day will come when I use the line, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do it…I was abused as a child…by Jester the Labrador’.
Joe Booker
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- - - - april
written by Dan Bridgewood-Hill
Dubsy Asylum opened tonight’s typically varied bill. Boards of Canada and late-nineties Warp Records would be my first, obvious comparison although the duo’s sound was much denser and darker than that of their Scottish counterparts. Bouncing funk beats and vintage keyboard sounds weaved in and out of each other while various noises and echodrenched swirls jostled for position. The pair were obviously having fun as their hands darted about, turning dials and pushing buttons. Technical difficulties threatened to ruin the mood on a couple of occasions but other than that it was a highly enjoyable experience. More electronic gadgetry followed. As far as I could make out, the sounds were coming from a laptop, a mixing desk with various inputs and outputs and a third man alternating between violin and bowed bass guitar. Visuals were supplied by a fourth. The band is Sheffield’s Good Noise Bad Noise. Shuffling electronic sounds and a throbbing drone reminiscent of Coil’s later live incarnations provided the backdrop for the first half of the set. Extremely downtempo beats would occasionally creep out of the mire, accompanied by esoteric vocal samples creating a dark and disturbing atmosphere. In the second half of tonight’s improvisation, the violin became more prominent. Simple melodies were looped round and round, over each other, creating a haunting mess of notes which were, from time to time, interrupted by digital squelches that sounded like they were bouncing around King Tubby’s mixing desk. The visuals focused on strange images in hazy reds and yellows and provided the perfect backdrop to the ominous sounds. Tonight’s headliners are Tape and this is their first gig in Manchester. This must mean they are a relatively young band, but you wouldn’t know by watching them. The rhythm section is flawlessly tight, with the drummer providing a variety of disco and funk beats. The piano lines are like a world-weary take on Coldplay’s uplifting ones, the vocal lines are catchy and the guitar stabs at you just when it’s needed to give it that rough edge that a lot of less-clever bands would lack. The set is peppered with originality in the form of song structure and the interesting shifts in timesignature. Although their palette of sounds has more in common with Coldplay and Keane, the mood is definitely a more sombre affair, hinting at bands like The Longcut, and the song construction is more interesting, taking a step in the direction of Radiohead.
presents...
Such comparisons are cheap in this business but that is the general area they’re coming from. Tape might just be original and good-looking enough to succeed, so remember where you heard of them first.
- - - - may
written by Phil Craggs
A solo drummer is not the most common kind of act - even less common a solo drummer with a tube coming out of his mouth. Rodrigo Constanzo opens his set with a run of quiet taps that explode in sudden crescendos, mixed with almost electronic sounds. Later he complimented the drums by playing an egg whisk with a violin bow, before shaking two whisks together, combined with an ominous tolling bell sound. It all sounded rather like the sound track to a horror film, where the slim, attractive disposable teen walks though a dark corridor to her doom. Instruments are picked up and put down seemingly at random - other make-shift instruments include a metal ball, a spoon and a pan lid. At first it was difficult to work out whether he was performing or just tuning up. At his best he managed to create the feel of playing either with a band or with multi-track tapes. Electronic machines produced bleeps and interference and at one point a sample of a keyboard melody with voice behind came on suggesting that this music would work well behind drama after all. In truth it was hard to tell if the performance went well or not. It had its beguiling moments but I have no idea how many pieces he actually performed or if it all formed one long piece. There did not seem to be any set rhythm to any stretch of his playing. Also, being a one-man band meant that he frequently had to stop to pick up his next instrument, preventing the music from flowing. It was impressive at times, certainly, but as a whole it did not hang together for this listener.
The next act offered something of a contrast. Chris Selman operates in the more traditional singer-songwriter genre, and plays James Morrison-esque pop on a rather fetching green guitar. Opener ‘Headlights’ offers fragile vocals over willowy acoustic strumming, while ‘Your Aching Wings’ tells a tale of love and heartache. ‘The Morning’, a slightly more up-tempo number is announced as being released as a single, while ‘Minimum Wage’ is described as ‘a song about working in a shop’ but the main thrust remains relationships. Each song is well structured and well played, and as each goes past - ‘The Alchemist’, ‘Graffiti Dreams’, a cover of Madonna’s ‘Ray Of Light’ - we’re presented with a series of relationships at various stages, all backed by similar acoustic tunes with small variations in tempo. This makes the set easy to listen to and gives it a sense of unity, but it does make you wish for something to go wrong to make it all a little less professional, or for one number to do something different. The last original song in the set repeats the line ‘Everything’s under control’ - perhaps he could do with it being a little less so. The final act is Mantis In Motion. They gather round a table; guitar player to the right, bass to the left. A young lady operates a lap top between them, and another man stands in front of her, his back to the audience, playing... well, I’m not honestly sure what he was doing beyond wielding a sound distorting microphone. Silence...and then NOISE as they come in perfectly in time. And then they stop again. And then NOISE - ear shredding, high-pitched guitar sounds feed through pedals and the laptop before howls of industrial noise knock the song to a close. An ominous hum then fills the air, throbbing like a headache behind distorted, effects pedal heavy guitar screech. Their instruments unite in thunderstorm. They stop, talk amongst themselves, seem to forget there’s an audience watching. Bass player taps out a beat on his fret. A dance-electro beat fills the air, and the guitarist starts to allow a funkier side of his nature to emerge, calling to mind Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. It’s a welcome change - not because what came before was bad but because it provides a variety of tone and rhythm that prevents the set becoming too one-dimensional. And by adding that element of funk it gives the music - most of which had been quite cerebral, to be enjoyed intellectually a greater physicality, aimed at the body as well as the mind. It’s the most successful moment of the night, the moment that appeals to both the brain and the body. So, another night of variety, originality, inspiration, frustration, structure, free-form...in short, all you’d expect from a Blank Media Presents.
Hiawatha In Vienna
By the waters of the Danube By the murky, frigid river, Stood the warrior Hiawatha Freezing in his skins and mittens Wishing he had brought a trenchcoat. All was not as he’d imagined Gleaming city, great museums Cultivated Europeans What he found was pretty Nazi Scowling and aggressive drivers Passers-by who muttered at him. For they took him for a hippy In his moccasins and feathers Even worse, he might be Polish Come to rape their chaste blonde frauleins Steal their treasures, eat their children. So he took to minor strassen Drank a lot of firewater Dreamed of jumping in the river. But salvation was upon him For he found the Prater fairground Sanctuary of the unwelcome Found a place there in a sideshow Basic rate but schnapps aplenty Trapped and hunted on his days off Leaving town by all the backroads Gloried in the Wienerwalder. And he got himself a girlfriend Bearded lady from the freakshow Sweet and gentle mitten-stitcher She would cook him squirrel strudel Kept his wigwam clean and tidy For she was a goodly hausfrau And nobody else would have her. So the outcasts took Vienna Made it theirs by wit and cunning Followed refugee tradition Stayed alive against the odds.
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lynn myint-maung
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recommends RUSSELL HERRON & JAMES UNSWORTH Collections Wednesday 8th July - Thursday 30th July Sartorial Contemporary Art, London GALLERY: RUSSELL HERRON PROJECT SPACE: JAMES UNSWORTH THIS WAS NOW - THE RUSSELL HERRON COLLECTION Following the recent death of London artist Russell Herron, Sartorial Contemporary Art presents This Was Now : The Russell Herron Collection, a selection of works from the artist’s private collection. The exhibition is curated by Harry Pye, and presents a selection of works from some of the 300 pieces which were in Herron’s possession, the majority of the works purchased from emerging artists over the last 12 years. The selection has been curated around the themes of history, location and identity, reflecting the concerns which informed much of Herron’s own work over the last few years, and includes painting, sculpture and photography. Pye says, “I knew Herron for exactly a decade. He and I would talk a lot about ideas and changing trends. We were never close friends but there was always a mutual respect. He was to new art what John Peel was to new music. He bought work from many students who (in some cases) blossomed into art stars. He never bought any work from me but he went to pretty much every show I curated - and I curated a lot of them. I felt honoured when I was asked to organise his collection for this exhibition. ”
JAMES UNSWORTH I LOVE YOU LIKE A MURDERER LOVES THEIR VICTIMS Sartorial Contemporary Art is pleased to present ‘I Love You Like a Murderer Loves Their Victims’, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by James Unsworth. In the project space Unsworth will exhibit over 20 photographic prints. Half of the project space is dedicated to ‘Shithead’, his first large-scale film installation.
Set on a university campus the photographs and movies from I love You Like a Murderer Loves Their Victims’ revel in their low budget aesthetic, framed by empty educational spaces that induce a sense of isolation, tension and danger. The scenes are populated by hyperunreal depictions of murder, sex and dismemberment, comic/horrific figures engaged in acts of disembowelment, degradation and desecration while piles of body parts are splattered with simulated bodily fluids and are gradually engulfed by smoke. The projection ‘Shithead’ features characters occupied in activity beyond the common realm of human behaviors, transgressing natural boundaries and descending into a devolved state of blood lust and self-gratification. Scenes inspired by the low budget horror movies of his youth, research into homosexual serial killers and the life and death of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell are spliced together into an incoherent orgy of on screen horror. Minimally displayed in a white cube gallery setting the horror, stench and gore is all in the images allowing the viewer a voyeuristic look into a world of violence and inhumanity. Unsworth’s photographic prints and films are at once horrific and humorous, bodily and bawdy, they embody the true spirit of grotesque. Sartorial Contemporary Art 26 Argyle Square London WC1H 8AP Tel: 020 7837 1013 Tuesday to Saturday 12:30 to 6pm or by appointment art@sartorialart.com www.sartorialart.com