Post-moves09 I’m still returning time and again to watch Shelly Love’s new commission for the big screens, a moves / Sadler’s Wells co-production conceived specifically for outdoor display. Greedy Edith features a grand lady (Polly Bowman, who also wrote and performed the score), sitting for a portrait in her 17th Century attire, but edited with discordant jump cuts and accompanied by a pie-fingered piano soundtrack that starts off demurely but soon runs awry. Utterly mesmerising, and hinting at a decay beneath the iced façade, a stuffed dog watches in silent judgement.
Staged in an enchanted wood as a virtual retreat from the actual urban environment, the avatars or virtual others have a surreal, puppet-like quality rather than the stereotypical Barbie & Ken analogy. Via camera-tracking technology the user/s will be able to control the puppet in a natural, intuitive way without recourse to keyboards or hand-held devices - existing in a dual dimension of both here, and there…
Ludic Second Life Narrative
Big Screen Liverpool (in association with moves09)
Saturday 25th April / 2 - 3pm
The programme for
moves09 has now been revealed, and we have not one, not two, but
three new commissions for the Big Screen Liverpool. First up, screen chum Sam Meech (of
The Model City notoriety and spoken of in reverential tones by local fame-crazed insects, eager for a starring role in the sequel) returns with
The Huge Entity - which will also include a live intervention by dancer Mary Prestidge. Take it away Sam…
“Using the camera on top of the Big Screen to provide a live video feed, the images are processed in real-time using a software called Isadora. As people move through the space, on screen this is re-presented as coloured trails of movement. This may or may not make people aware of their routes as they navigate through the passing shoppers. Those people who become aware of the trails of energy they leave may begin to then play with that, moving in new ways through the space and deliberately crossing the paths of other people.”
The Huge Entity
Big Screen Liverpool (in association with moves09)
Friday 24th April / 1 - 3pm
In the next few days UK director and filmmaker Shelly Love will begin a 5-week residency in Manchester as part of a new work for the Big Screen network in a co-commission with moves09 and Sadler’s Wells Theatre, where it will premiere upon the latter’s Polyvision screen (which hangs behind the glass facade at the front of the building and can be seen simultaneously from both the street and the foyer) before touring the UK. With the working title of A Moving Portrait, Shelly will be receiving additional support from Futureworks college in Manchester.
Having directed promos for Turin Breaks, Skin, Charlotte Hatherley, Mark Brown feat. Sarah Cracknell, Fionn Regan and others, it would be fair to say I am more than a little excited. The image above is taken from her latest work, The Forgotten Circus, commissioned by circus training school Circus Space and Arts Council England, accompanied by a lush score from The Irrepressibles.
You can watch an excerpt here. You really should.
Shelly Love official site
Shelly Love on You Tube
Shelly Love on Draw Pictures
Pending confirmation of the technical wizardry required to pull this sort of project together, I’ve received the full support of the folk at the North West Film Archive in plundering the 15,373 news and feature stories recorded to 9,763 cans of 16mm film and magnetic track containing items inserted into live studio shows at BBC North between 1973 - 1986. The archivists will be helping me to select content relating to those moments and occasions when large crowds descend upon Places of Public Resort
Initially intended as a response to the development of a new public plaza on the banks of the River Mersey, I began thinking about the authoritarian fear of large crowds when - in direct contradiction - footfall or turnstile numbers are massaged and multiplied beyond recognition to quantify success for outdoor activity or civic projects. Either we stay at home playing LardArse 5: Colonic Assault, berated for not dusting off our fringed parasols, or we’re being accused of loitering with intent for tying our shoelaces.
I’m old enough to remember the former Belle Vue Fairground and Zoological Gardens in Manchester, live not far from the former White City Amusement Park, attended with my parents and a then-unbelievable 250,000 others the Pope’s visit to Heaton Park, recall the long-derelict International Garden Festival site in Liverpool and hanker for Great Exhibition styled opportunities to wonder - point - pay homage - peer and gather en masse without having to source legal representation in advance.
Don’t you?
Can it really have been so long? Issue 12 of the sporadic and sort-of-quarterly PDF newsletter highlighting the best screen projects of the past few months, including the online launch of NOISE festival live in Second Life to the screen with Badly Drawn Boy and Zaha Hadid, National Poetry Day, 007 Mastermind and a massive ball of dung.
