Bren O'Callaghan » archive

Santa in Space

bren — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:07:38 +0000

There doesn't seem to be much on in Manchester by way of alternative seasonal fare this year, which is no great surprise. Sure, the Christmas Markets are bigger than ever, the ice rinks are multiplying and the most imaginative grotto experience for children appears to involve being plonked in front of an overpriced plate of sausage, chips and beans in Santa's dining hall. One saving grace is the news of a pop-up artist's collective shop in the Northern Quarter, Grotto, which I'll be making a beeline for this weekend. Spurred into action by the lack of imagination, IABF have allowed me use of their venue to host a Yuletide reading event... with a difference.

Instead of Victorian ghost stories or Dickensian gloom, we'll be reading from vintage pulp sci-fi and speculative fiction. Hopefully this might inject that sense of awe, majesty and wonder so sorely lacking. Christmas on alien worlds? You betcha. Warring high-tech toys? Tick. The true meaning of the holidays as interpreted by a sentient Cidorian jellyfish? It's all there. Tickets for Swamp Planet Christmas: Seasonal Stories from Outer Space are now on sale at only £3 and limited in number, the price simply covering some basic costs, so join us on Thursday 16th December at 6.30pm for a glass of wine, a gingerbread space rocket and an hour of grown-up storytelling.

Rule Britannia

bren — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:56:49 +0000

Jordan in Derek Jarman's JUBILEE (1977)

I am in no way a flag-waving patriot and the type of national hysteria in evidence at The Last Night of the Proms makes me shudder, but the closest I've ever come to a sense of national pride is my long-standing adoration of Derek Jarman's 1977 punk opus JUBILEE. Of course, the attachment I feel is not to Queen & Country but to alt-muse Jordan, Toyah, Adam Ant and Jarman's brilliant art direction in this tale of a dystopian Britain to which Queen Elizabeth I, aided by elemental spirit guide Ariel and court physician Dr John Dee (Rocky Horror Show creator Richard O'Brien), pay an eye-opening visit. Wasp waisted killer vixens run amok, while a twin-set and pearls paired with warpaint never seemed so subversive. I've always wanted to respond somehow, and flushed with adrenaline on the back of Peaches Christ decided it was time to have another pop at the Umbro Industries Creative Grants. Third time lucky? Who can tell.

Rinse and repeat

bren — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:46:23 +0000

Destination Earth (1956)

Although the central theme for this year’s AV Festival across Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Sunderland was Energy, it was the adhesive suture of Recycled Film that held the programme together and made a powerful case for shedding notions of ownership by allowing others to revisit and sculpt anew. Rick Prelinger of the Prelinger Archives and Library delivered a keynote speech that fizzed and popped with genuine truisms on the current conflict between archives and potential users, including the following:

Archives are like children; they are largely conceived to fulfill the agenda of their parents.

It takes more energy to repress information and material than it does to release.

The opportunity to physically touch archive content, rather than access the ‘born digital’ alone, has the ability to engage the user in a profound manner and should not be underestimated.

Man On The Land (1951)

Prior to a day-long symposium was an evening screening curated by Rick of shorts from the Prelinger Archive: A is for Atom, a 90-minute journey through vintage animated shorts on the topic of energy, power and perceived progress, from nuclear fusion to capitalist ideologies. All are available online, from the confident cleft-chins and rooster chests of Man on the Land (UPA, 1951) to the infant capitalist propaganda of Destination Earth (American Petroleum Insitute, 1956). The naïve yard-sale of nature’s resources never looked so good: imagine if UKIP hired The Powerpuff Girls to battle blue Venusians with no visas and the political arena would be transformed.

: Trying Things Out (2007) by Vicki Bennett  People Like Us

What became referred to as The C-Word, in every sense, loomed large despite repeat attempts by panelists and filmmakers to avoid an issue with no simple answer. Vicki Bennett of People Like Us, a Boudicea amongst artists working within archive-footage, stood firm and resolute. “It would cost me £200,000 to clear copyright within the clip of the film you are about to see,” she explained, before a musical-that-shall-not-be-named burst upon the screen in a mash-up of high notes and helicopter gunships. Both Vicki and Rick were of the opinion that popular film is part of our collective palette, a memory shared by many, and as such belongs to no one person or agency but to all.

: Scorpio Rising (1964)  Kenneth Anger

Of the multitude of radio hits including Elvis Presley that feature with such apparently subversive intent within Kenneth Anger’s experimental opus Scorpio Rising (1964), all were – astonishingly - rights-cleared and paid-up. But of Ich Will! (2008), his latest collage film featuring sourced footage of The Hitler Youth, his response to permissions was unique to say the least. “Don't need 'em. War booty”, he chuckled.

: Crossroads (1976)  Bruce Conner

Elsewhere the exhibitions programme tapped into a similar vein of repurposed work: Bruce Conner’s Crossroads (1976) seemed a much more crafted, personalised exercise in adapting existing material to create something new (footage of the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946), in contrast to Anger’s Ich Will!, which feels shallow, pedestrian and empty of any additional authored intention when shown alongside his much earlier but more outrageous works.

: Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

Over at the Baltic, Jordan Baseman mixed and mounted spoken-word reminiscence with the skill of a Victorian butterfly collector. An elderly female Botanist recalls seeing a donkey being eaten alive by maggots, while a cocksure London gangster boasts of his sexual magnetism… the first lacking images but for a few final seconds, the second underscored by footage of women slowly undulating at a retro disco, sourced at the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Even Jenny Holzer was busy adapting seemingly old-fashioned LED signage by using it to reveal censored text, piling tables with human bones and magnifying the obscured handprints of detainees, sifting traces of human ephemera to grant silenced voices a means of resurrection made all the more unnerving by her explicitly mechanical processes. Similar to the opening of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark, what at first seems like streams of disassociated data begins to form grinning skulls and howling souls.

Homework: check out the wealth of the copyright-free Prelinger Archives. Because you really should.

Tales of Two Cities

bren — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:27:48 +0000

With an OCD fury not seen since the woman in the Shake 'n Vac advert ground her Valium and mixed it with a glug of Bacardi, I've been plugging the cracks in this site and pasting up former production duties with a vengeance. My personal favourites A Wall is a Screen now have a page to themselves, as do the rapidly expanding MegaPhone team - flying the flag for those of us who see no reason why computer games should progress beyond the Atari era. Once upon a festival, The Light Surgeons conjured up a storm in a Gothic salon and The Royal Opera House treat us to no fewer than twelve outdoor relays in the past five years.

Bella Bella!

bren — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:21:36 +0000

Thanks to old friends, new friends and the generosity of An Outlet and staff in providing a snug location for our festive re-staging of one of my favourite projects from this year, Scratch 'n Sniff Cinema presents Gregory's Girl. I'm still not tired of it and laugh all the harder for silently mouthing the script in advance. The Tunnock's range of Scottish playground snacks were enjoyed by all (well, me), whilst the experience was enhanced by my friend Maria knocking over her drink as I shouted the cue "Number six!", which she followed up by loudly exclaiming "Sh*t!"

It turns out she wasn't too far from the truth..!

Wave Your Hands In The Air

bren — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:36:25 +0000

Thanks to friend and collaborator Sam Meech for riding to my rescue, a blonde knight upon his horse Isadora to deliver title animations for Unsilent Night tomorrow. I have blisters on my hand from carrying the 'portable' AnyCast vision mixing desk over from Manchester on the train (the approximate weight of a drowned man wearing flannel pyjamas) and just over 24 hours to remind myself how it works again.

Inspire Mark

bren — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:05:20 +0000

After sitting on this like a constipated hen for the past few weeks, I can now go public that Unsilent Night is one of the projects granted the London 2012 Inspire Mark which recognises exceptional and innovative projects inspired by the 2012 Games.

In this case, the association is through our work in throwing open the cupboard upon a wealth of archive film, pulling off kid gloves in fusing old with new and encouraging investigation of early cinema by stepping outside (literally) of the multiplex experience.

Unsilent Night

bren — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:18:27 +0000

The Great Train Robbery / image source BFI

I can now reveal that following the great response to last year's relay of Nosferatu accompanied by a live original soundtrack, similar plans are far advanced for what we hope will be an annual recurring event: Unsilent Night. In conjunction with Liverpool Music Week and BBC Radio Merseyside's PMS show fronted by Roger Hill, we'll be taking a foolhardy step forward from the single-film format to screen six silent shorts - many from the BFI archive - that will be treated to new and in some cases entirely improvised soundtracks by North West musicians a.P.a.T.t, Fonik and Frakture, in a one-off event on Thursday 29th October at 7pm.

Invaluable support comes from the brave and perhaps a little flummoxed folk at Liverpool City Council, Northwest Vision & Media and Liverpool City Central BID. The line-up will be revealed over the next few weeks, but will include arguably the first narrative film, The Great Train Robbery (1903), directed by Edwin S. Porter and 12 minutes in length.

This includes a now iconic final shot of a gun being fired at the camera/audience, said to cause those present to leap and squeal in fright. But will modern audiences well-versed in staring fear in the face by riding the upper deck of the night bus on a Friday night even bat an eyelid? At least we'll be well-ventilated should anyone backfire.

Addictive TV

bren — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:42:57 +0000

Last weekend I trotted over to support my colleague Louise Angell at the Big Screen Derby, which occupies a key spot at the heart of the Market Place adjacent to QUAD where much of the landmark activity for the three-day street celebration that is Feste 09 was taking place. Saturday night culminated in easily the LOUDEST big screen event I have ever seen or heard as Addictive TV fused a unique blend of classic and contemporary film, dance music and visuals for a spectacular VJ remix at the base and above.

Hopping between classic archive footage of Jazz greats coupled with Laurel and Hardy, they segued effortlessly into remixes of The Fast & The Furious, vintage Star Trek (oh, for a repeat burst laser button of my own), a mash-up between New Order and Franz Ferdinand and a finale involving The Italian Job that supplanted a caffeine drip as I nearly keeled over with sensory-stimulation. I had to be led shaking to the nearest pint before I could begin to make sense of it all.

TV Interruptions

bren — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:18:04 +0000

David Hall: TV Interruptions 1971

Video artist David Hall confusing the living hell out of the Scottish public during the 1971 Edinburgh Festivals with his seminal TV Interruptions series. Broadcast unannounced as part of domestic television schedules, those at home on the couch were suddenly faced with the perplexing sight of the goggle box slowing filling with water from a tap, ablaze in the middle of a field or switched to fast-forward in a communal viewing room to the sound of background screams...

David Hall: TV Interruptions 1971

In celebration we are showing these again on the Big Screen Edinburgh by kind permission of REWIND, a research and preservation project for early video art at the University of Dundee. Thanks are also due to Edinburgh Art Festival and curator Lucy Keany, for baffling a new generation of unwitting observers. Appearing daily from 5th August to 5th September, at purposely unknowable timings...