Curious Pursuits: open call
Art Historian Collective Porter & Jenkinson are looking for artists and writers for their first exhibition, Curious Pursuits, at the Portico LIbrary and Gallery Manchester from February 2nd - 29th 2012. Artists are invited to respond to the idea and aesthetics of Victorian Dark Societies, the Curious and the Peculiar. Submissions are welcome from the following that wish to exhibit work fitting this theme: illustrators, printmakers, painters, zine makers, writers, book binders, photographers, sculptors and I imagine anyone working in any mediums not listed also! More information here. I've had a pop myself with some micro fiction but hurry as there are only 24 hours left before the end-of-year deadline!
Sketch-O-Matic call for artists
In an age of buy to invest instead of buy what you like, the making of Art has been torn from human hands as mass-multiple prints flood the high street. Instead, the buying of art is seen as rarefied and reserved for a wealthy few. Sketch-O-Matic is a full size photo booth situated in the busy ground floor café-bar at Cornerhouse, Manchester's' international centre for contemporary visual art and film. But where the machinery should be is a tiny, fully equipped artist studio.
You the public are invited to sit inside the booth as if for a photograph and make a donation to an artist through an anonymous slot in return for a self-portrait. Wait five minutes (give or take) and the image will appear in the side wall, accompanied by the warm blast of a travel hairdryer. If you hanker for that still-wet sensation, they may even lick it for you. It could be a pencil drawing, doodle, cartoon, collage or even word-poem. Take it, frame it, consider it. Now you are both patron and muse!
Launching for Art Night on Thursday 24th November until Sunday 4th December 2011. News of additional activity including film screening and Cornerhouse Projects exhibition to follow. Please see booth for timings.
ARTISTS WANTED!
North-West and Manchester based artists are required to join our Sketch-O-Matic rota in one-hour slots. Lunchtime slots (1 - 2pm) and evening slots (6pm - 10pm). We're looking for pencil drawings, pastels, watercolours, illustrators, cartoonists, cubists, doodlers, poets (for word portraits), collage, ink-blot, dried pasta decoupage and just about any zany or straight-laced style you can imagine... as long as it can be dashed off in approximately 5 minutes. There is, I'm afraid, one exception. No caricaturists. We don't want anyone to walk away feeling crappy about themselves because you've managed to exaggerate a slight mole into a volcanic eruption on the scale of Eyjafjallajökull. Please contact bren@cornerhouse.org or via this website if you'd like to take part!
Santa in Space
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.
Harry Potty
Len Horsey & Brian Reed / PLANTA DE ANODIZADO (2010) image by Daniel Walmsley
Unrealised Potential, the collaborative group exhibition instigated by artist/curator Mike Chavez-Dawson, draws to a close at Cornerhouse this week before heading out on tour. The public are invited to follow in the footsteps of myself and the half-dozen others who bought the right to realise artist-specific projects. Here I am waffling on in Front Row fashion about Harry Hill's concept to revisit George Cruickshank's The Worship of Bacchus, which I bagged for myself. I say myself, but the wish is very much to partner with others to create a collaborative project.
There are a few ideas knocking around my head, some more nuts than others. Watch this space. In the meantime, any suggestions in helping me compile a list of celebrity alcoholics - living, dead, the living-dead, fictional or speculative - would be welcomed. Knock 'em down, send 'em over. Number 1: Keith Chegwin...
A Whore for the Gore
Peaches Christ / image: Jose Guzman Colon
What better date than Friday 13th to reveal the details (with some surprises still withheld) of the International Premiere of All About Evil; the directorial feature debut of cult horror hostess, Gore Couture icon and director Peaches Christ / Joshua Grannell. Appearing at Cornerhouse as part of Abandon Normal Devices (1 - 7 October), tickets will very soon be on sale - and are set to disappear just as quickly! I'm looking for contributors, volunteers and flat-out fabulous audience members, so read all about it, see some advance snapshots, roll the VT and get in touch!
Digital and Creative Futures: online footage
Steve Furber from Vision+Media on Vimeo.
Footage is now available to view online from the recent Digital and Creative Futures event, which I produced on behalf of FutureEverything in partnership with Vision + Media, including the full keynote from Professor Steve Furber. ICL Professor of Engineering at the School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, he was recently shortlisted as one of only three 2010 Millennium Technology Prize Laureates for his role as the principle designer of the now ubiquitous ARM 32-bit RSC microprocessor. Also available to view at present with further footage due shortly is Kid Carpet's kiddy punk set, complete with a supporting cast of moulded plastic assistants and a rather tipsy policewoman.