Video tour of 'Second Life' exhibition in Bern · 10 November 2007, 22:20 · File under: Doing Making
On land and in the sea · 9 February 2006, 07:49 · File under: Going Doing
A couple of weekends back we were in Whitstable for the opening of our Change My Life project at the Horsebridge Centre. The show opened on Saturday night and on Sunday after a B&B breafast we walked, with our friends Ian and Alison, from Whitstable to Herne Bay, with the wind against us all the way. It’s a good couple of hours walk, and just an amazing stretch of coast. An hour or so in and it was tea-break time. Nasty-but-welcome hot grey water. By this time I was already convinced that it’d be the most fantastic idea in the whole world to walk the full length of Britain’s coastline. In some ways, I still am.
Opening at Kate MaGarry · 19 September 2005, 01:10 · File under: Making Doing
Our show at Kate MacGarry opened last night. After a day of rain getting heavier and heavier it was rather pleasing that it finally stopped in time for the preview. Nobody wants to stand outside with a beer in the rain.
This will change my life · 13 April 2005, 05:30 · File under: Doing Going
Last weekend we were in Dublin for the opening of our new show. It’s a small group show with us and two artists from Ireland in a music school in the centre of the city. Until just a few weeks before the opening we’d been planning to make a new video piece. Everything was mapped out, we had a shooting script, time blocked out for filming and editing… but a new idea kept nagging at us and in the end we decided the right thing to do was to go for it. So, we made a completely new site specific project called ‘Change My Life’. There’s lots of details on the web site but, in short, we set up a mechanism for the exchange of things that have influenced and changed your life. Thousands of leaflets have been distributed around Dublin inviting people to participate by bringing an object that has, in some way, changed their life and exchanging it for something that has had the same effect on someone else. Each participant leaves a short statement with their object explaining what the object means or meant to them. It’s an experiement really, and we’ve no idea how it’s going to work out over the next month. Part of us is expecting a phone call to say the whole lot’s been nicked and the shelves are empty… There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere. We were quite surprised at the opening that a few people had been aware of the project enough in advance to come armed with something to exchange.
It was actually really exciting, realising the project actually had a lot in common with a live event. At least in so much as the planning up front is really important, then in the last few days you find yourself just running around 24/7 trying to pull everything together. Doing that in a city we’re completely unfamiliar with was especially strange – where the hell do you find an A5 clear perspex leaflet dispenser in Dublin? Strangely, the internet turned up nothing, but wandering aimlessly around the streets turned up two perfectly good suppliers. Printing the leaflets was more than a little nerve wracking. There just wasn’t time to use our usual printer in London and ship them over, so we had to run with a company we’ve never used before. We were a little wary and they, understandably, were a little wary of us… but a bit of blind faith and cash on delivery sorted that out and they pulled off a superb job. So if you ever need a printer in Dublin, hey, just ask…
Just to add an extra fun dimension to the whole thing the hotel we were booked into managed to run out of water on the second night we were there. How exactly do you run out of water?! Well they did… and with not even an estimate of when they thought they might find some more water we were forced to up and off to a new hotel.
Really? · 8 October 2004, 02:55 · File under: Doing Listening
Yes! Really. Siouxsie! 100 Club! How about that?
Actually, after getting really excited about it, we must have gone to this with the lowest expectations imaginable. Everybody who went on Tuesday that we spoke to said it was crap. Which either means they went to a different gig, or the second night was much better, because it because it was rather good. Sure, it wasn’t ‘76, and Siouxsie probably doesn’t look her best that close up, but really, it was a great show, even if it was almost impossible to not stare at the stage with the words “game old bird” running through your head.
The one thing it did do, more than anything else, is serve as an overdue reminder of what a spectacular drummer Budgie is. Absolute genius.
Opening Vinyl · 22 August 2004, 20:42 · File under: Doing Sacred-Music
Last night was the opening of Vinyl #2 at Redux on Commercial Street. After attempting to deal with a missing roof tile (don’t ask…) we arrived a little later than anticipated in the afternoon to deliver copies of File under Sacred Music (it always seems a good idea to travel with a stack of copies burnt on different machines with different branded stock to try and minimise those nasty incompatibility problems…) and File under Sacred Music (Reverberation), the lightbox containing our film poster. We met Peter on the doorstep, clutching a stack of soil covered records. Apparently they’d been underground for the past ten years, and had just been dug up for the show. A lovely Motown 7” sat at the top of the pile. Nice.
The plan then was quite simple. To go and meet our friends, Simon Third and Juliet, and eat sausage and mash in the Sausage & Mash Cafe opposite Spitalfields Market. Which was all well and good until we found out the place had closed at 5.30. So – lacking anything that might possibly pass for a good idea, we headed for Pizza Express. Keep it simple, and all that… pizza it is.
The event at Redux is a lot of fun, some new people to meet and some old friends unexpectedly stop by too, including the lovely Mr. Eliott Potts. A few “Vinyl” cocktails later, and we’re off back to Simon & Juliet’s to watch bad music television, play records, pluck guitars and wear hats.
Jane (left) and Juliet (right)
Simon (left) and a rabbit (right)
$1,000 wedding · 9 August 2004, 22:27 · File under: Doing
Time for a family wedding! And a slightly over the top web site:
Many Happy Returns · 17 May 2004, 04:18 · File under: Doing Sacred-Music
Of course it’s a real shame that the planned RE~TG event couldn’t go ahead this weekend, but fantastic that the band decided to go ahead and do something anyway. Seeing the crowds waiting to get in outside the Astoria on a Sunday afternoon was a little weird, but once inside it could almost of been antime/anyplace. Attempting to say anything about the performance would be… well, hard. Something really extraordinary happened, and we’re very happy to have been there to witness it.
Leaving the Astoria afterwards, we met Paul Noble, who’d seen File under… when we’d showed it in Sheffield. Nice of him to bother to say hello. We’ve always been completely crap at that, so it’s a good job some people aren’t. We’d probably only ever speak to each other and a handful of people otherwise. It’s not that we don’t enjoy meeting people for the first time, it’s just saying “hello, you don’t know me but…” Something we should practice more of really.
Garlic birthday · 15 February 2004, 01:39 · File under: Doing Loving
We spent Iain’s 31st birthday with Ian and Alison at Garlic & Shots!
