Live Art Live Blog: Experimentica Update

Random People continue to cover daily happenings at Chapter Arts centre: http://liveartliveblog.net/?p=632. Performances continue from 7.30 this evening – follow the link to read the live feed.

Exodus Preparations - (Image: Daniel Ladnar)

 

 

 

 

Experimentica: remote following

Check out this great live blog from Experimentica 1.1 festival, by contributing artists Random People:    http://liveartliveblog.net/ The blog was launched Wednesday evening with a self-reflexive performative presentation, and Random People’s Daniel and Esther will continue to provide live coverage of Experimentica events for the duration.

Remote followers can also see more updates and photos from the festival as it happens at Culture Colony, who are filming and upload documentation of events daily: http://www.culturecolony.com/experimentica

Artists Good Cop Bad Cop (aka John Rowley and Richard Huw Morgan) will also be broadcasting Experimentica specific episodes of their art radio program ‘Pitch’ on Radio Cardiff 98.7FM. These Episodes are all archived online: http://www.culturecolony.com/pitch-on-radio-cardiff/videos

Episode 17, which includes an interview with myself on my contribution to Experimentica, will be uploaded soon. 

Experimentica 1.1: Workstation

‘Exodus’ at Experimentica 1.1, Cardiff

As a part Experimentica 1.1, this years incarnation of Chapter Art Centre’s annual live art festival, I have  been invited to create a new participatory action entitled Exodus. 

 In preparation for the main action, taking place this Sunday 16th, I will retain a continued visible  presence within the space of the art centre, constructing placards at a temporary workstation in the  foyer. The text below outlines the form of the action and all the practical details for interested participants:

Exodus | Sunday 16th, 2pm: Chapter Entrance

Cardiff residents, Experimetica 1.1 visitors and visiting artists -
This Sunday you are invited to take part in a demonstration march that will move from Chapter Arts Centre into the heart of nearby Leckwith woods. Interested participants will be invited to carry blank white placards which will be made onsite at Chapter Arts Centre in the preceding days. This action, entitled Exodus, seeks to explore and question conventional ideas of policital engagment, where it may be sited and what forms it might take.

In an era where public protest and demonstration have again become pervasive and frequently employed as tools of social resistance, we have a renewed opportunity and responsibility to raise questions about their usefulness and their limits. In displacing this fundamental form of collective action from its familiar contexts, and by removing its topical content, this project intends to draw focus onto the nature of collaborative agency in a state of raw potential.

Event Information:
The group will move off from the Chapter front entrance at 2pm on Sunday, and will be returning to the arts centre for approximately 4pm, where tea and coffee will be provided for participants.

If you would like to take part, you can leave your contact details at the Experimentica welcome booth, or with James, who will be working in the foyer area each afternoon. You can also call or text James at +35387 9596949, or simply arrive at 2pm on Sunday.

As part of this walk will take place in the woods, it is recommended that interested participants dress appropriately. Protective footwear can be provided for anyone who does not have access to waterproof boots.

http://www.chapter.org/24404.html

Ormond Studios peer critique 16th Nov

Tomorrow, Tuesday November 16th at 6pm, I will be presenting some recent projects at Ormond Studios monthly peer critique.

Ormond Studios Group Critique is a monthly open forum for artists to present their work and ideas to their peers, resulting in group discussion and critical discourse. This group critique will present myself and current resident artist at Ormond, Nicholas Dolan.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=141980192520062

TULCA 2010: Merlin Park Residency

James Ó hAodha - 'In Circulation' 2010 - Installation View (Photo Andreas Kindler)

Currently on show at the Fairgreen Building, Galway, as a part of TULCA 2010, In Circulation is a short Super-8 film produced during a recent residency in Merlin Park Hospital. I spent 6 weeks in conversation with dialysis patients and hospital staff at Unit 7, resulting in a film that explores the life of the Dialysis Ward. Tulca is curated by Michelle Browne and runs until Nov 21st.

See link below for more information.

http://www.tulca.ie/fairgreen_building.html

‘Taking Place’ at e.g. Dublin

Opening next Friday, Taking Place is an exhibition by resident artist James Ó hAodha.

Since Monday 10th of May, artist James Ó hAodha has been occupying Exchange Gallery, which is being used both as a working space and a base for a series of interventions being conducted in the streets around Exchange. Appropriating commercial waste materials left in the street for collection, Ó hAodha has erected barricades in the exhibition space which will be disassembled and reassembled over the period of the occupation, playing with visibility and accessibility of the space from without.

These waste objects populate the street-scape in mass on a daily basis, taking an ambiguous position in public space. In this they provide a unique material in-point to the particular economy and circulation of which they are part. Working tactically within the timescales and practicalities of placing and collection, the artist hopes to reinvest these objects with a more tangible communal value and to activate the political potential of their ‘taking place’. The interventions are centred around the tools of resistance, meeting and organisation, teaching and dissemination of information, in an attempt to suggest or prompt a return of these tools to common use.

Exchange Gallery will be reopened to the public on Friday May 21st at 7pm, and Taking Place will run until Sunday May 29th.

http://exchangedublin.ie/

Parallax Venice

Parallax is a platform for international collaboration that has been set up by invigilators at this year’s Venice Biennale, including myself. Initially set in motion by a small core group coming together to discuss ideas for some form of collaboration that might sit within the context of the Biennale, Parallax has gathered considerable momentum, with a large base of members in collaboration from many nationalities and disciplines.

In the month of July, three exciting events were held by the group: firstly an introductory evening in which members gave a brief presentation of their respective practices facilitated and hosted by the gracious Northern Irish contingent; the second event was an ambitious cross-town ‘Art Crawl’ comprising five individual happenings and a tour group that followed the route joining them; the third was a one-night viewing of work held in an intimate space within the palazzo that housed the Scottish exhibition.

The initial group of invigilators have now all returned from Venice, but the onsite torch has been passed to the new arrivals and they have not only been keeping the ball rolling, but are adding to it’s momentum and doing us proud. Those of who have departed Venice (in body at least) have not been idle either, with a new official website being constructed by our dedicated initiator, Connie Bree, and discussions commencing on future offsite events.

You can visit the Parallax blog at parallaxvenice.wordpress.com.

A Sign Of The Times (Project)

Below are some images from a series of public interventions made in spring this year. All were based around a large backlit billboard, which I appropriated from Adshel, one of the companies responsible for furnishing Dublin’s streets with bus shelters and other public advertisment displays. For the first series of outings, the sign was transported through various streets in the city using a modified handtruck. These were all circuits, i.e. continous loops, with no obvious destination.

Over the duration of these circuits, I hoped to create an ambiguity around the action and the sign’s presence, which might eventually, or immediately, reveal for the viewer a significance in relation to the context and architecture of the city.

Another series of outings was made, all at night, as opposed to the previous series, and without the use of the handtruck. This involved the sign being physically and laboriously pushed and pulled along the street. For me, these allowed for a slower reveal and an energy and weight that contrasted with the previous interventions. Being all set in the evening or late night, these journeys made use of the emergency battery packs that I installed to allow the sign to stay lit when disconnected from the mains.

A Sign Of The Times (Installation)

Finally, I have had a chance to upload some images from my graduate show at the National College of Art and Design’s Sculpture department. What you will see in the images below is an installation comprising a large, backlit, appropriated billboard facing a corner; a discrete digital video projection; and a flatscreen HD monitor half-hidden behind a pillar, presenting another video sequence.

The formal layout of the elements within the space was chosen to mirror certain concerns of the public interventions (described in the next post) to which the installation refers or reappropriates.