X issue
X chromosome this issue dedicated to the work of women in arts participating in the citypulse project
ADRIAN NIEVES [CA] ALBA ESCAYO [ES] ALEX CHUNG [CN] ANDRÉ CATOTO [BR] ANDREA ERBIFORI [IT] ANDREW BURGESS [UK] ANDY HUTCHCRAFT [UK] ARTHUR TUOTO [BR] AUX [CL] BIAGIO AZZARELLI [US] BUDO [US] CARLOS ALBALÁ [ES] COLBY ALLEN [US] CONSTANZA JOBET [CL] CRANK STURGEON [US] DANIELA ORVIN [IL] DANIETO [CL] DAVE TWIGG [CA] DAVID CABRERA [GT] DAVID QUEZADA [CL] DAVID SANT [UK] DIANA LEMIEUX [US] DIEGO MORALES [CL] DOMINIK BANASIK [PL] EDUARDO ACOSTA [ES] ELLE DUNN [UK] ENERO [US] EPIX [CL] EVAN MANNERS [CA] EVELYN FAHRENKROG [CL] FAT MARLEY [BR] FRANCA FRANCHI [VE] FELIPE VENEGAS [CL] FLIPPER [CL] FLOUNDER [US] FRANCISCA GÓMEZ [CL] FREESE [US] GEERT WACHTELAER [BE] GENIE YIP [CN] GIULIANO SCANDUZZI [BR] GORDON MCDOWELL [CA] GORDON WALTHO [US] GOTTARDO GOTTARDI [IT] HANS CARSTENS [CL] HANS MICHAUD [US] JACOB GRUNERT [DE] JAKE KOVNAT [CA] JAMES THOMAS ROWE [UK] JENS KULL [CH] JIMMY MACK [JP] JOAQUÍN ORTÚZAR [CL] JOHN BAEK [US] JOHN HOLOWACH [US] JOSÉ LUIS SANTORCUATO [CL] JOTA DIBAN [CL] JUANJO FERNANDEZ [ES] KARL HARRISON [CA] LAVUELTAALDIA [ES] LEANDRO LISBOA [BR] LEONARDO ORELLANA [CL] LESTER WEISS LEVAN KAKABADZE [GE] LLUVIA ACIDA [CL] LUIS MUÑOZ [CL] MAELLYN MACINTOSH [ZA] MARIA LODDO [IT] MARINA ANDRADE CAMARA [BR] MAPS AND DIAGRAMS [UK] MARCELO LETURIA [CL] MATTHIAS NEUGEBAUER [DE] MAURÍCIO CASTRO [BR] MAYA NEWMAN (MALKA SPIGEL) [UK] MICHAEL PENN[US] MICHELE PESCE [IT] MICHELLE LETELIER [CL] MIKE POSEHN [US] MITCH DEREK [UK] MONGOLE BATOR [ES] MURAT HARMANLIKLI [TR] NAHÚM MÉNDEZ [ES] NICOYKATIUSHCA [CL] NOLAN WEBB [CA] OKTOPUS VJ SYSTEM [CL] PABLO DURÁN [CL] PABLO PÉREZ [MX] PAUL OSBORNE [UK] PAULINA GIUSTINAHOVICH [CL] PETER SANT [UK] PIETER MUSTERD [DE] POSITRON [CH] PRAS ANAND [UK] RACHEL CASTRO [BR] RAFAEL CHEUQUELAF [CL] RANDALL HARRIS [US] RAÚL ACOSTA [ES] RODRIGO DEL CAMPO [MX] RODRIGO SAQUEL [CL] RUGGERO MANTOVANI [IT] SABINE STRECKHARDT [DE] SEBASTIÁN SOTO [CL] SEBASTIÁN SOTO CHACÓN [CL] SERDAR CAMLICA [TR] SHANE TERPENING [US] SISSI LI [AU] SOPHIA MALE [CA] SOUNDSTHATMATTER [BR] STEPHAN VAN DER PALEN [NL] STEPHEN GARD [AU] THE COREY [US] TIM MARTIN [UK] TOBIAS BERNDT TOM DENKE [CL] TOMÁS NÚÑEZ [CL] TRYAND ERROR [DE] TUNA ÖNDER [TR] URS BACHTHALER MEMELLOW [DE] VALENTINA BERTHELON [CL] VALENTINA SERRATI [CL] YIVES [UK] YUSUF ÖZKIZIL [UK] ZEP WERNBACHER [AT]
Con tents Postcard
05
Brighton Madrid Caracas Berlin Nepal Tel Aviv
Photography
12
Contamination Zone by Elle Dunn
Performance
31
MISS TV by Valentina Serrati
FAQ::music/photography
38
Maya Newman
VideoArt
53
Nowhere by Michelle Letelier
Photography
62
Mujeres de Venezuela by Franca Franchi
Citypulse music collection
71
Citypulse video collection
75
Contami nation Zone
ELLE DUNN
Westbourne Drain Name: Westbourne River Location: Underground London Status: Dirty Utility: Drain/Sewer The Westbourne is one of London‟s many „buried‟ rivers which was made to disappear underneath the streets of the city by building over it and channeling the river through distinctive red brick Victorian built tunnels known as „culverts‟ of which many have since been tapped for channeling sewage downstream and out of London. Once named the Kilburn and occasionally referred to as the Serpentine the Westbourne begins its course at Hampstead passing Hyde Park and Sloane square before its troubled waters finally join up with the Thames to be released.
Name: Bletchley Park Location: Buckinghamshire Status: Part Derelict Utility: WWII Codebreaking Bletchley Park was built in 1883 as a private Mansion by Sir Herbert Leon. Over a decade later the site is now run as the National Codes Centre for tourists and can be found on the outer reaches of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. During WWII Bletchley Park became home to the Government‟s Code and Cipher School and it was here that one of the most significant advancements was made by an elite team of codebreakers in cracking the German Enigma machine. It is also here that the first programmable computer was designed by Max Newman; the machine was aptly named „Colossus‟ since it dominated an entire room. It is believed that the Government employed over 10,000 workers here at its workforce peak.
The future of Bletchley Park now looks bleak due to insufficient maintenance funding and a large area of the site has fallen into disrepair over the years.
Bletchley Park was built in 1883 as a private Mansion by Sir Herbert Leon. Over a decade later the site is now run as the National Codes Centre for tourists and can be found on the outer reaches of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. During WWII Bletchley Park became home to the Government‟s Code and Cipher School and it was here that one of the most significant advancements was made by an elite team of codebreakers in cracking the German Enigma machine. It is also here that the first programmable computer was designed by Max Newman; the machine was aptly named „Colossus‟ since it dominated an entire room. It is believed that the Government employed over 10,000 workers here at its workforce peak.
The future of Bletchley Park now looks bleak due to insufficient maintenance funding and a large area of the site has fallen into disrepair over the years.
Bletchley Park
Name: Bletchley Park Location: Buckinghamshire Status: Part Derelict Utility: WWII Codebreaking
B e e l i t z H e i l s t채t t e n Name: Hitler's Sanatorium Location: East Germany, Beelitz Status: Deep in the woods... Utility: General Sana (Heilstatten) & Health The abandoned Beelitz Sanatorium (Heilst채tten) lies in East Germany and was built in 1898. It was primarily designed by two leading German architects, Heino Forging and Julius Boethke, and specialized in the treatment of TB (the individual pavilions were built eastwest so that one of the longer sides would face directly south to benefit from sunshine; these pavilions also featured distinctive first floor bathing terraces). The site is vast and spreads out to northern and southern complexes split in the centre by a purpose built railway station. In its heyday, Beelitz was a selfsufficient colony housing up to 1200 patients, producing its own meat, vegetables and bread and boasting a post office, restaurant, mortuary, nursery, stables, workshops and laundries.
There were separate areas for men and women, the only areas where they might meet being the church (now demolished) and the central bath house. During both World Wars Beelitz was used as a military hospital and in WW1 Hitler was admitted there for a short stay which he refers to in his autobiography, Mein Kampf. Post-war Soviet administration ensured the survival of Beelitz with neither renovation nor demolition taking place. Although in 1995 the site was listed, inevitable deterioration and decay continue to ravage the structures. On the day of my visit the ornate, majestic buildings and surrounding pine forests, vast and dense, were covered with thick snow. There was lamentable and widespread evidence of petty theft, scavenging and looters bleeding the beautiful buildings dry of their few remaining fixtures and fittings.
On the day of my visit the ornate, majestic buildings and surrounding pine forests, vast and dense, were covered with thick snow. There was lamentable and widespread evidence of petty theft, scavenging and looters bleeding the beautiful buildings dry of their few remaining fixtures and fittings.
Sugar Beet Factory, Kidderminster
The British Sugar factory of Kidderminster can be found in the county of Worcestershire which was once owned by the ‘British sugar corporation’ a company which was created in 1936 as part of a British effort to nationalize their sugar beet processing. In 1972 the commercial brand of ‘Silver Spoon’ was formed to cover household forms of sugar purchase including granulated, icing and cubed sugars. British Sugar Corp now faces a ropey yet inevitable future as the dominance of Tate & Lyle sugar and the low costs of imported sugar (and no doubt cheaper human labour that comes with those prices) force the few remaining plants to shut down. Walking beneath the pitch blackened silos of the factory the concrete floors have been coated inches deep with spilt sugar and oil to form a sticky caramel scented tar which was so thick that my boots became weighed down by this super sugar ‘glue’. A sense of irony occurred to me whilst walking through these crystallized mountains of discarded sugar of what these ‘mountains’ could have represented in the face of war times when sugar was so precious it was rationed or perhaps even to the brutal torture and heavy labour carried out on the slaves on sugar cane plantations to provide our Western countries with enough sugar for seasoning.
The British Sugar factory of Kidderminster can be found in the county of Worcestershire which was once owned by the ‘British sugar corporation’ a company which was created in 1936 as part of a British effort to nationalize their sugar beet processing. In 1972 the commercial brand of ‘Silver Spoon’ was formed to cover household forms of sugar purchase including granulated, icing and cubed sugars. British Sugar Corp now faces a ropey yet inevitable future as the dominance of Tate & Lyle sugar and the low costs of imported sugar (and no doubt cheaper human labour that comes with those prices) force the few remaining plants to shut down. Walking beneath the pitch blackened silos of the factory the concrete floors have been coated inches deep with spilt sugar and oil to form a sticky caramel scented tar which was so thick that my boots became weighed down by this super sugar ‘glue’.
Name: British Sugar Refinery Location: Kidderminster Status: Disused Utility: Beet Sugar Industry
A sense of irony occurred to me whilst walking through these crystallized mountains of discarded sugar of what these ‘mountains’ could have represented in the face of war times when sugar was so precious it was rationed or perhaps even to the brutal torture and heavy labour carried out on the slaves on sugar cane plantations to provide our Western countries with enough sugar for seasoning.
Name: Harold Wood Hospital Location: Outer London Status: Awaiting Demolition Utility: General Hospital Harold Wood hospital opened to patients in 1909 and was named The Grange Convalescent Home for Children. The hospital’s admin building was originally built in 1884 by John Compton to serve as a private house for the Gubbins Estate. During WWII the building was put to use as an emergency hospital, then later expanded to become a District General Hospital during the 1960s. The hospital has been derelict since 6 December 2006 when remaining patients and staff were forced to relocate to King George’s and Queens Hospitals in London.
The condemned buildings which remain bear silent witness to the tide of unskilled and reckless copper thieves who have left large areas of the site ravaged; piles of unwanted piping and debris have accumulated like so much flotsam and jetsam along the hospital’s dank corridors.
Harold Wood Hospital
Name: Harold Wood Hospital Location: Outer London Status: Awaiting Demolition Utility: General Hospital Harold Wood hospital opened to patients in 1909 and was named The Grange Convalescent Home for Children. The hospital’s admin building was originally built in 1884 by John Compton to serve as a private house for the Gubbins Estate. During WWII the building was put to use as an emergency hospital, then later expanded to become a District General Hospital during the 1960s. The hospital has been derelict since 6 December 2006 when remaining patients and staff were forced to relocate to King George’s and Queens Hospitals in London.
The condemned buildings which remain bear silent witness to the tide of unskilled and reckless copper thieves who have left large areas of the site ravaged; piles of unwanted piping and debris have accumulated like so much flotsam and jetsam along the hospital’s dank corridors.
Apethorpe Hall Apethorpe Hall is a mélange of medieval, Tudor and Jacobean architecture constructed of beautiful golden-coloured limestone. The former house, resembling more of a palace and with over 200 rooms, is constructed around two courtyards. The building entertained such monarchs as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I and King Charles I on many occasions and the imposing and ornate fireplace can still be found beautifully conserved in the King’s Chamber. During the restoration work a secret passage was discovered which led from King James’ chamber to the Duke of Buckingham’s bed chamber.
Name: Apethorpe Hall Location: Northamptonshire Status: Under Renovation Utility: Royal Residence
Apethorpe Hall is Grade I listed and was a young offenders rehabilitation centre which was leased to the Roman Catholic diocese of Northampton from the mid1940s until 1982 when it was closed down. It was then purchased privately for £750, 000 by a Libyan businessman, Mr. Burweila. Since then an estimated 10 million pounds worth of damage has spread all over the building due to the owner’s neglect and failure to take any action despite repeated urgent repair notices sent out to him by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; woodworm and dry rot have both contributed to the Hall’s state of near obsolescence. A compulsory purchase order was finally sent out to Mr Burweila by the Government on behalf on English Heritage but it was then discovered that the former owner had covertly sold the property to avoid being involved in any repair costs. Part of the site is being carefully restored by skilled stonemasons and carpenters but a further 4 million will be needed to complete the salvage. Apethorpe Hall is currently on the market for £2.9 million, however if a single buyer cannot be found the developers will gain the right to divide the site up into separate housing quarters and build new living accommodation in the grounds.
Name: London International Terminal Location: Tilbury Status: Partly disused Utility: Cruise and Train Station Terminal The London Cruise terminal was built in 1886 and was the result of a concept drawn up between the Port of London authority and the Midland and Scottish Railway in an effort to promote the construction of a passenger landing stage. In 1930 the landing stage was completed and at 1,147 ft in length, the landing stage connected to the station via five bridges which still remain. In its heyday during one of the terminalâ€&#x;s busiest periods in 1932, 470 passengers were disembarked from ships and passed through the landing stage. In 1981 the station Tilbury Riverside station was closed and a bus replacement service was put into operation to transport cruise terminal passengers to the Tilbury Town station, a 10 minute ride from the terminal. During the 1990â€&#x;s the terminal fell into near disrepair and to date is still owned by the Port of London authority. The terminal is seldom used but occasionally welcomes privately owned ships or cruise boats to dock, but the station which lies a few metres away from the terminal remains unmodernized and invisible to the world around it like the ghost of its former shell. The faded brickwork and worn paint signage hints to the past – glamour that was once associated with the golden years of railway travel and will one day hopefully be lovingly restored for everyone to enjoy.
This large government domain has been predominantly abandoned for the past 10 years yet still remains strict Ministry of Defense property on the East side of Woolwich Arsenal in London. As with most MOD sites one of the few tell tale signs left behind of the building’s former usage can be detected in the quantity of mistrustful signage above laboratories resembling an ode made to staff paranoia and its iconography. These age old warnings which have stood the ravage of time now speak only of neglect and can be found scattered over the site, adorning office doors with notices such as ‘Lock all cabinets after use’ and office doors and cupboards plastered with stickers such as ‘you never know who’s watching’ ‘watch your work’ and numerous others. The far site boundary of these beautifully overgrown buildings borders on the edge of Britain’s infamous Belmarsh Prison which was recently re-named by the media as The UK’s own ‘Guantanamo Bay’. The Prison’s walls from the far edge of the site stretch out into the horizon like an endless wall of reinforced metal and from the rooftop of a nearby three story high laboratory office block you can survey the immense inner prison confines.
M.O.D Testing Site, Woolwich Arsenal Location: Woolwich Arsenal Status: Abandoned Utility: Government Laboratories
The Crypt Name: Crypt of the Dead Location: Buried Underground Status: Flooded in areas with a pungent smell of death Utility: Burial Chambers A dark and damp crypt which once served as a dwelling space for the dead now lies forgotten beneath an old city cemetery in Belgium.
Some of the oldest grave plaques ranged from 1880’s to the 1970’s when the Crypt fell into disrepair, and gravestone maintenance notices, many of which have become calcified adorn the endless rows of burial chambers. The sickly sweet and heavy scent in the air is inescapable here during the humid months of summer. Three long corridors radiate from a central point which once served as a ‘junction’ for the visitors who would come and pay homage to the dead in this manmade underworld. During the 1880’s coffins were generally constructed of wood, however the smell of decomposing wood and rotting flesh rendered the Crypt so unbearable that a short time later the local council dispensed an order for the coffins which were ‘buried’ here to be zinc based to reduce the putrid stench emanating from the body shelves.
come and pay homage to the dead in this manmade underworld
The Royal opened its doors in 1849 as the result of a joint £1,000 initial donation made by two local businessmen and later the hospital was designed and built to a decorative Italian renaissance style which has lost none of its ‘Roman-rooted’ impact to this day. The hospital in its formative years interestingly brewed its own beer and ales which were to be accompanied with the staff’s lunch. My exploration here was tense and claustrophobic, perhaps because of the chaotic enclosed internal renovations which meant that most areas were essentially ‘one way streets’. This site also backs onto a red-light district and with a complete lack of any security presence I decided to air on the side of caution. The hospital closed in 1997 and the site was sold off to Tesco Superstores, services have since been relocated to the New Cross hospital a few miles away.
The Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton Location: Wolverhampton Status: Derelict Utility: Area Hospital
Elle Dunn was born in 1985 and grew up in the countryside of the Maine et Loire Valley in France. She moved to Britain in 1999 where she began exploring inner city abandonments in her spare time and later became a self-taught photographer in the aim of capturing the transience of decay. Graduating in 2006 with a degree in Film history, she has since devoted herself to both documenting hundreds of architectural rarities which are continuously under the threat.
"My photographic work is dedicated to the art and fetish of urban and rural decay throughout the U.K and Europe. Each image that I have taken represents a fleeting moment of my time passed in the darkest recesses of a building. Some of these private moments shared with my audience include time passed in the seclusion room of an old asylum, the uncertain reflections of disused pool or dirty light rays penetrating the small windows of a contaminated industrial plant. I enjoy photographing derelict buildings in solitude and in the future I aim to continue evolving my creativity within these obsolete spaces."
www.elledunn.com
She has produced a website in which she has compiled a selection of urban explorations which can be viewed at www.contaminationzone.com
ENTATION BUTTOCK JECTIONS OMY FAT AUGMENSTOPEXY MOPLASTY CULPTURE NOPLASTY EAST LIFT LIFT CALF ABRASION S FIBREL LIFT LIP ASTY EAR TY NOSE HIGH LIFT ENTATION MPLANTS CAL PEEL N EYELID EAD LIFT POPLASTY ED PHEMY SMAS XPANSION MOPLASTY SURFACE EDUCTION
ABDOMINOPLASTY TUMMY TUCK AUGMENTATION MAMMOPLASTY BLEPHAROP-LAST BREAST LIFT MASTOPEXY BREAST IMPLANTS TEXTURED-SURFACE BREAST REDUC LIFT CALF AUGMENTATION CHEMICAL PEEL CHIN AUGMENTATION MENTOPLASTY C DERMABRASION EARLOBE REDUCTION EYELID SURGERY BLE-PHAROPLASTY FACE INJECTIONS FIBREL TREATMENT FOREHEAD LIFT BROW LIFT HYDROXYAPATITE GR TATION LIP LIFT LIP REDUCTION LIPOPLASTY LIPOSUCTION MALAR CHEEKBONE A OTOPLASTY EAR SURGERY PEEL BUFFERED PHE-NOL PLATYSMA TIGHTENED RED RHINOPLASTY NOSE RESHAPING RHYTIDECTOMY SMAS FACELIFT SUPERFICIAL SYR TATTOOING TCA THIGH LIFT TISSUE EXPANSION TRANSCONJUNC-TIVAL BLEPHARO TUMMY TUCK AUGMENTATION MAMMOPLASTY BLEPHAROP-LASTY BREAST AUGMEN MASTOPEXY BREAST IMPLANTS TEXTURED-SURFACE BREAST REDUCTION MAMMO AUGMENTATION CHEMICAL PEEL CHIN AUGMENTATION MENTOPLASTY COLLA-GEN EARLOBE REDUCTION EYELID SURGERY BLE-PHAROPLASTY FACELIFT RHYTIDECTO TREATMENT FOREHEAD LIFT BROW LIFT HYDROXYAPATITE GRANULES LASERS LIP REDUCTION LIPOPLASTY LIPOSUCTION MALAR CHEEKBONE AUGMENTATION MASTO SURGERY PEEL BUFFERED PHE-NOL PLATYSMA TIGHTENED REDUCTION MAMMOP RESHAPING RHYTIDECTOMY SMAS FACELIFT SUPERFICIAL SYRINGE LIPOS-CULPTU TISSUE EXPANSION TRANSCONJUNC-TIVAL BLEPHAROPLASTY ABDOMINOPLASTY TU MAMMOPLASTY BLEPHAROP-LASTY BREAST AUGMENTATION BREAST LIFT MASTOP TEXTURED-SURFACE BREAST REDUCTION MAMMOPLASTY BUTTOCK LIFT CALF AU CHIN AUGMENTATION MENTOPLASTY COLLA-GEN INJECTIONS DERMABRASION EAR SURGERY BLE-PHAROPLASTY FACELIFT RHYTIDECTOMY FAT INJECTIONS FIBREL T BROW LIFT HYDROXYAPATITE GRANULES LASERS LIP AUGMEN-TATION LIP LIFT L LIPOSUCTION MALAR CHEEKBONE AUGMENTATION MASTOPEXY OTOPLASTY EAR S NOL PLATYSMA TIGHTENED REDUCTION MAMMOPLASTY RHINOPLASTY NOSE RESH FACELIFT SUPERFICIAL SYRINGE LIPOS-CULPTURE TATTOOING TCA THIGH LIFT TI TRANSCONJUNC-TIVAL BLEPHAROPLASTY ABDOMINOPLASTY TUMMY TUCK AUGMEN BLEPHAROP-LASTY BREAST AUGMENTATION BREAST LIFT MASTOPEXY BREAST IM BREAST REDUCTION
the alienating
denial
FAQ
MUSIC / PHOTOGRAPHY
MAYA NEWMAN
Tell us about your creative process. Which are the main differences and similarities between the musical and visual creation? With my visual creativity mostly takes place as a part of my everyday life, I have a camera with me all the time and I take pictures all the time. When I upload images to flickr I choose the ones that I like, so the creative process is first in the shooting which is totally spontaneous and then the choosing whether it's for an exhibition or just to go on line. With music making, I always work with other people as a collaboration, working towards a new album or rehearsing for a tour, the similarity between the two creative processes is that I do both in an instinctive way.
Once you wrote: "that's what I like about always shooting, I never feel scared". How far did you go with your camera? What I meant was that it always gives me some kind of focus. Whatever I have to deal with, when I hold my LCA camera I feel somehow secure. And, yes I do feel more brave getting my camera out and not feeling shy about taking pictures. Just the same way I feel on stage playing music. A mixture of having a reason to be there and feeling confident in what I'm doing.
How do you feel more comfortable, working alone or in collective? I feel comfortable with both working alone or collectively, so far I worked mostly collaborating in music making and working alone taking pictures but I can see that I could very easily collaborate with other people doing visual art if I needed to.
Bob Ham, from Amplifier, said that you are thinking at least two steps ahead of the rest of the musical world. How these two steps take creative form in your musical work? Do you think that you have this "two steps advantage" also in the visual arts? The quote is kind of about Githead, it's a collaboration and we have the ambition to be as good as we can be. It's great if people love it but you also have to take that stuff with a pinch of salt. I have similar ambitions visually, I try my best! If people see it that way then great.
One of your fans wrote "your 'own private London' is even more beautiful than the real one could ever be." How do you compose those incredible visions from such ordinary situations? This is a hard question for me to answer, because I don't feel that I do any composing, all I do is shoot. Plus, I shoot too fast to be doing any thinking about what I do! Because I take a lot of shots with my LC-A, even though the results can be unpredictable, I get a sense of what the lens "sees" some kind of instinctive idea about what might make a good shot. I'm not always right but then if I take a few then usually one is good!
We are familiar with your remarkable work in music and photographs. Did you thought about working more intensely with moving images, beyond the music videos for your band? I already worked on "art" videos, something I started in art school few years ago. In fact these were the first videos I made. They were non-narrative with abstract soundtracks (sometimes made form extreme layered treatment of the audio captured by the camera). However visually there are a lot of similarities with the work I've done on music videos.
The strength of the colours signs your photography. Which is the equivalent to the colour in your music? If you wanted to make a comparison you could describe the colours I like as "upfront", kind of direct, confident, uncluttered. You could certainly describe Githead in that way too.
What are the main phases of creative search that have marked your career? I started relatively late with Minimal Compact (my 1st band) and got into photography even later. After the end of the 1st phase of Minimal I worked on various collaborations & solo albums mainly released on the label (swim ~) I run with my husband. I did a lot of the visual aspects too and my photos got used for many covers. I decided to go to University to study Fine Art as a mature student and did a BA course. After this I got very interested in lomo cameras (in many ways as a reaction to the rigidity of fine art thinking). In 2004 we formed Githead.
Which are your latest artistic explorations?
Even though I've detailed a few "phases" above in a very limited & general way actually everything runs into everything else and there aren't too many boundaries. I take a lot of photos on tour for example. They might get used for anything from publicity shots to album covers or whatever. I recently was on tour with Githead, in a couple of months I have some gigs with Minimal Compact, I'm also working towards a show of my images this Autumn which I can't give too many details about right now.
Maya Newman (Malka Spigel) is a founding member of the Israeli rock band Minimal Compact. She has also worked as a solo artist, and as a visual artist, exhibiting in prominent venues such as The Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Royal Festival Hall. She is a member of Githead along with husband Colin Newman, Robin Rimbaud, and fellow Minimal Compact refugee Max Franken. She fell into the music and art world in early 1980s Amsterdam. Minimal Compact, which she co-founded with Berry Sakharof and Samy Birnbach, pioneered a minimal post-punk/punk-funk sound that over seven years attracted a large, enthusiastic audience in continental Europe and beyond. During the period 1981 to 1988 the band were associated with many luminaries, recording with Tuxedomoon's Peter Principle, Wire's Colin Newman, and John Fryer (This Mortal Coil), sound-tracking ballet by choreographer Pierre Droulers, and having a song in the Wim Wenders movie Wings of Desire.
Malka's working partnership with Colin Newman started in 1986 with "Commercial Suicide" and its follow up "It Seems". The couple married in 1986 and moved to London in 1992, setting up the Swim label (and later PostEverything), initially to release their own projects (Oracle, Malka's debut Rosh Balata, and Immersion), but later to release the work of other artists. In 1996, Immersion made an installation at The Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, which set Malka on a path of realizing herself as a visual artist in addition to being a musician. During the period 2000 to 2002 she gained a degree in fine art, specializing in video and photography. She has since made video work with Immersion (most famously seen at the Royal Festival Hall, London) and video clips for Vapourspace, Minimal Compact and Githead. She also has an extensive collection of photography work, primarily created with a lomo LCA camera, which has gained her pre-eminence in the lomo & flickr community.
www.mayanewman.com
Elephant registers the routine of the journey and emptied of the load trucks in Chuquicamata, originating constantly a waste dump, or what is called locally as a “cake” of sterile material from the mining process.These “cakes” will replace topographically the houses of the old Chuquicamata mining camp. The scale and the repetitive action of this process make the trucks to become as beings inside this journey, as if were elephants in a caravan. Music: Anders Ilar
ELEPH ANTS
DESARME The “John Bradford� houses, in Chuquicamata, are being at the present covered by tons of sterile material. Desarme is a video registry of a visit to this neighborhood in July of 2004, along with part of the objects found in the abandoned houses, without doors nor windows.
ELSEWHERE
These video series show a distance towards the social approach of the situation in Chuquicamata
in order to focus on the landscape of the Atacama Desert, which surrounds the mining activity.
The sense of magnificence of the arid nature and the vulnerability of the human bodies
wondering inside as the only urban element, drives the viewer to see them as part of
something out of their usual scale, but at the same time, completely isolated.
A 3-Channel videoinstallation project, which uses a clip of Coal briquettes interfered with the artist finger, along with a satellite photography of Germany panned across the surface of the Coal. In the third video channel, this satellite image is mixed with a slides collage of a piece of Coal taken with an extended bellow. This work is a metaphor of an eroded landscape, an intimate performance video register, which joins into the same images a micro view of the mineral and the area from where it is exploited.
ZERFRESSEN
Michelle Letelier Studied Bachelor in Fine Arts in the Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile. She has participated in several shows and video festivals, such as: “Otra Pichanga: Another Chilean Experiment”, Monkey Town Gallery, New York; “Next Festival”,Vilnius, Lithuania; “ALBIAC”, Parque Natural de Olmería,Valencia, Spain; Peepshow, Gallery 54, Göteborg, Sweden; “AirVideo 3: Alternative Possible World”, AirSpace Gallery, Staffordshire, England and “World One Minute”, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China. Solo exhibitions in Calama, Valparaíso and Santiago de Chile. Collective exhibitions in Calama, Santiago, Porto Alegre, Turín, Italy, Weimar, Shanghai and Beijing. From July 2007 she lives and works in Berlin, Germany www.nowhere.cl
today I explode with my lips of bubble, the echo of my words and their wave will scatter and I will walk retaking
my way.
IT IS TIME TO
HEAL.
IT IS TIME TO
HEAL.
to understand
how humble we are how human how vulnerable mystic natural
an extension of my energy, we were ONE SINGLE being, vibrating, beating, breathing, sharing
Then we really understood the meaning of being human,
and that we are perfect, beyond the body, the color of the skin,
the size, the race, we are beautiful and perfect beings.
Franca Franchi is a professional artistic photographer based on Caracas, Venezuela. She studied graphic design in the University Jose Maria Vargas. After five years working as an audiovisual producer for television, in 2007 she decides to dedicate herself completely to the artistic photography. Her works have been exhibited in varied events and publications. Her premise as photographer is to catch the human essence, the emotions, and the atmospheres of the inhabited spaces. Her photos are pictures of life, people, of who they are, what they do and how they feel when they are doing it. She has been working for years in portraying the people of her country: warm, expressive, alive, with a lot of things to say, to show in a single gesture or a smile.
She joined Citypulse in 2007 by publishing an urban photography series.
LUISMUﾃ前Z
Culture
The Culture EP is an exploration on the diversity of ancient cultures in modern times. This work was conceived as the original soundtrack for the live video performance by artists Valentina Serrati and Rodrigo Saquel at the Citypulse Festival.
HMSTR
Exhibere Voyeur Soundtrack from the audiovisual performance by HMSTR at the Citypulse Festival.
soundsthatmatter
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS incylcopeday
SOUNDSTHAT MATTER
PABLOPEREZ Zone of alienation
Inspired by the city of CHERNOBYL, and the nuclear accident that happened there, the title makes reference to the zone of 30 kilometers that was left inhabitable after the accident and that until today remains the same as when the reactor exploded.
6.0
tanz in den mai by tryand error [de]
huechuraba image+sound by jota [cl] samples by: andrew duke, bebeto, oyenstikker, pablo perez, plagasul, poised to glitch, virotic santiago 1 minute excerpt exhibere / voyeur image+sound by sebastian soto [hmstr] [cl]
london tourist image by maellyn [uk] music by dj soultnuts tokyo edit+music by pablo perez [mx] original images by hokkey
berlin tanz in den mai image+sound by tryand error [de]
monterrey blurry memories image+sound by alfonso guevara [mx]
velocity edited by tom denke [cl] original footage by syzygy music by pablo perez [mx]
eclipse images by epix [cl] music by luis muĂąoz [cl]
london fig 5.1 image + sound by andrew burgess [uk] atacama desert 1 minute excerpt images by michelle letelier [cl] music by andrĂŠs bucci [cl] marghera [veneto] sketches de marghera marina andrade camara [br] & leandro lisboa [br] music by giulio aldinucci [obsil] & cristiano magi haridwar images by pras anand [uk] music by sharad anand [uk] new york image+sound by michele pesce [it]
colina images by tom denke [cl] music by maps and diagrams [us] valparaiso by jota [cl] camera: leonardo orellana [cl] music by pablo perez [mx] santiago exhibere / voyeur 1 minute excerpt image+sound by sebastian soto (hmstr) [cl] sao paulo life is coming images + sound by arthur tuoto [br] music by marcos ricardo [br] montreal water is falling [excerpt] image + sound by sophia male [ca]
CREDITS Cover images by Elle Dunn AND MAYA NEWMAN DEDICATION PAGE IMAGE BY FRANCA FRANCHI Postcard image by Franca Franchi MUSIC COLLECTION IMAGE BY EPIX VIDEO COLLECTION IMAGE BY TRYAND ERROR Image in this page by Franca Franchi Postcard words taken from www.wikipedia.org Contamination Zone words by Elle Dunn Miss TV words by Valentina Serrati Mujeres de Venezuela words by Franca Franchi Video Descriptions in Nowhere by Michelle Letelier
Citypulse staff George Lever:: Director Luis MuNoz:: Director/Music Valentina Serrati:: Director/Video Alvaro Quezada:: Director/Multimedia Arts Teresa Vial:: Cultural Management Constanza Jobet:: Artworks and web design
All artists participates in the Citypulse project
Design:: epix/Constanza Jobet
Some rights reserved under Creative Commons Attribution non commercial no derivatives license
www.citypulse.co.cl
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