Our 2010 programme presented a series of residencies, performances, film screenings, commissions and artists talks spread over 12 months all with emphasis on developing a regular local audience for our events.
May
All Tomorrow’s Parties – film screening and collaborative Listening Session at Lanternhouse Ulverston.
Mogwai – Burning (with 44 Promotions) Film screening and Q+A at Lanternhouse.
Salon Event at Lanternhouse featuring Octopus turntable performances.
June
Salon event at Coniston Institute with Grizedale Arts.
July
Deck Wreckers – an evening of turntable based work, films and talks at Lanternhouse.
Lawson Park Open Gardens – Radio jingle workshop with Grizedale Arts. August
AGF – live performance at Lanternhouse
Lorn (with 44 promotions) – Live performance with US electronic act at Lanternhouse Ulverston September
Hildur Gudnadottir – live performance and film screening at Lanternhouse December
Coniston farmers market and art fair – pop-up music shop with Grizedale Arts
EAR: Chris Watson at Barrow In Furness Dock Museum, Oct 17 2010.
Sound Recordist and Musician Chris Watson gave a presentation to a large and receptive Sunday afternoon crowd at Barrow Dock Museum. Chris played some extraordinary recordings, including a passage of whalesong which caused a model of the HMS Duke Of Devonshire to vibrate in its glass case.
We had a typically wide ranging audience, including musicians, fans of experimental musIc and sound arts along with many who knew Chris’s work for the BBC and who left us plenty of positive feedback.. “..Excellent event – Great to find something like this in the area. Sparks off all sorts of creative ideas.”
EAR is an Education and Research project, funded by Arts Council, Barrow Regeneration and Barrow Borough Council. Many thanks to the staff of the Dock Museum.
Knut Aufermann and Sarah Washington AKA Mobile Radio have been back with us as this week, giving advice on setting up our FON AIR radio project and presenting a wine tasting at Coniston Institute. Knut and Sarah brought some choice bottles from thier home in the Mosel valley in Germany and Grizedale Arts provided some excellent soup. A nice mix of people turned up and heard of Mobile Radios’ doings and of the German Governments plans to build a bridge that will blot out the sun from a large slice of the Mosel valley and trash a bit more of it in the making. See the Save The Mosel Valley campaign.
Icelandic celist/composer Hildur Guðnadóttir joined us for a research and development residency at Lanternhouse in Ulverston during September 2010. Best known for her collaborations with Múm and guest appearances with Pan Sonic, Hildur has a rich catalogue of collaborations and projects behind her. As a composer she has written music for plays, dance performances and films, pieces for chamber orchestras, various instruments, voices and electronics. She also recently co-composed a live soundtrack to Derek Jarman’s 1980 film In The Shadow of The Sun with legends Throbbing Gristle. Her album Without Sinking was one of the most widely praised records of 2009 and this event was an extremely rare chance for Cumbrian audiences to hear Hildur perform her music live in an intimate venue.
Hildur presented new work and a set drawn from her albums ‘Without Sinking’ and ‘Mount A’ alongside performances from Octopus and Leicester based duo Daidhonau (www.myspace.com/daidono). You can hear some of Hildur’s music plus live sets from the Lanternhouse show over at the Phantom Circuit podcast:
Pupils from Lillian Bayliss school in Lambeth performing with Octopus on Barrow Park Bandstand with home-made vegetable instruments. The performance took place in Barrow-in-Furness Park as part of a Grizedale Arts project with artist Jeremy Deller. grizedale.org
FON’s residency programme provides dedicated time and workspace for artists to develop new site-derived work individually and/or in collaboration with each other, resulting in a public performance or presentation in local community buildings and public sites. Antye Greie (AGF / the Lappetites / AGF Delay) in August to undertake a week long research and development residency as part of our 2010 programme, supported by the Goethe Institut Manchester, Grizedale Arts and Lanternhouse.
The residencies are designed around each artists’ individual artistic practice and in Antye’s case, this involved exploring possibilities for performing in a completely rural context, leaving behind traditional music venues (and electricity) in an attempt to combine digital music and live performance with the natural environment. Joined by Octopus members Glenn Boulter and Fern Oxley, Antye approached this in a number of different ways, with one example being a multi channel installation that used battery powered radios and transmitters to turn an area of forest into a performance space. This resulted in an entirely unique and subtle experience wherein Antye’s music delicately interacted with the sounds of creaking trees, birds and streams to create an immersive environment.
This and other experiments were documented with sound, video and photography by Ulverston based artists Mary Stark and Ellie Chaney. Work in progress can be found at AGF’s website:
The results of the week were presented back as part of a public event at Lanternhouse Ulverston with support from Octopus and digital artist Stanza (www.stanza.co.uk) and alongside Grizedale Arts‘ potato cafe at the Coniston Horticultural Show, where Antye’s daughter Lumi swept the board with her decorated egg, garden in a biscuit tin lid and wildflower display.
Four performances with vinyl from Octopus members John Hall (Cardboard Lung), Fern Oxley (Shengi), Andrew Deakin (Yantantethra) and Glenn Boulter (Focal Gaol). Visuals from the Multiple Otomo DVD by Otomo Yoshihide. The performances took place at Lanternhouse as part of an evening devoted to turntablism.
Taking place on Friday 14th May, Full of Noises presented an evening of exciting new music taking place at Liverpool’s unique open air venue, the Rockscape. Co-produced by Glenn Boulter and Liverpool Biennial as part of the Light Night, this free event brought together cutting edge music from Liverpool and beyond. The night featured performances from the a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra, Noise Club, Aurelie and a Dj set from Andrew Ellis (Samizdat).
Rockscape: Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial International 08 and created by Japanese architects Atelier Bow-Wow, Rockscape is Liverpool’s newest and most diverse performance space. Rockscape has transformed a derelict city centre site into a unique venue for music and performance, taking its inspiration from the sandstone that (as much as the music) forms the bedrock of the city, and marries rocky topography with the classical form of the ancient Greek theatre.
The a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra is a musical ensemble of indeterminate size and instrumental content. An inclusive group for musicians of any background, the orchestra was formed to make traditionally ‘high-brow’ music more accessible to a wider audience. The orchestra performs time and space-specific music, including new work by local composers, and utilises the architecture of each venue as a compositional and performance tool. The a.P.A.t.T. Orchestra has performed works by John Cage, Steve Reich and Terry Riley, among others
Noise Club: Formed in 2003 by three guys who met at a kung fu club, Noise Club is Liverpool’s longest-running and most experimental noise group. Straddling the divide between stage performance and interactive intervention, the group creates dynamic soundscapes using homemade electronics, specially-constructed sonic sculptures, found objects, toys, plants, and even smells. Noise Club have played in a wide variety of unusual locations, from underground tunnels and public baths to shopping centres and public gardens, as well as more conventional stage performances. There is always a highly visual and dramatic element to the group’s performances, with an emphasis on interactivity, creating a total sensory experience. www.myspace.com/noiseclub1
Aurelie is an improvising music collective that formed in 2001, recording and releasing their first album ‘Desde Que Naci’ on Swim Records in 2003. Since then, they have regularly appeared in arts centres, music venues, theatres and other unusual places including a football ground, a corporate bank and Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbarn. Recent projects include performing their Barrow AFC inspired opera ‘An Unorthodox 1-2′ at the Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre and support slots with Volcano the Bear and Anti-Pop Consortium.
Samizdat: Andrew Ellis, a.k.a. Samizdat, has acted as a conduit for new and interesting music in Liverpool for the past five years. He has booked early shows for exciting emerging acts such as Foals and Deerhunter as well as acts from the independent music canon such as Liars and Charles Hayward, making Samizdat a hub for independent international acts in the north-west. In addition to independent music based events Andrew runs Samizdat Records (a vinyl-only record label), a regular music documentary night at art house cinema FACT, and can also be seen playing records at Blue (Collar) Mondays and various nights across Liverpool.
