Children of the Popcorn
With Peaches Christ in transit - as of this very minute - from the US to the UK, strapped inside a wicker throne swinging from beneath the scaled belly of a monstrous beast, let us pause to reflect before she alights and shimmies down the flagpole at Cornerhouse for the International Premiere of All About Evil on Saturday, 2nd October. Not only do we have music from Trash-O-Rama in the bars from 8pm onwards, but Will and Rick will be squatting on a tabletop to pipe out an art-punk nozzle shaped trio of horror oddities... including Haunted Homes, Hotdog Man and a new song written in aid of the occasion, All About Evil: a aid memoir to the world's most prolific serial killers!
Peaches Christ / image: Leonardo Herrera
The queue outside Cinema 1 will begin to form from 10pm so get there early, as rumour suggests a live protest is planned by librarians from the region's most studious institutions; incensed at their depiction within the movie. Adding insanity to insult, the staff of the Victoria Theatre have travelled from San Francisco to help welcome you on behalf of deranged directress Deborah Tennis, with Adrian, Mr Twiggs and Veda/Vera all in attendance to help make this a night to remember. Don't forget, gore couture is encouraged - abstract, offensive and most definitely home-made. Prizes for the best!
For inspiration, see Peaches' incredible new short, Children of the Popcorn, featured above!
Knobby Owl
Knobby Owl: Peter Adlington
Today has been a productive if panic-laced day in many ways. I had to step into the role of choreographer for one, not because a professional didn't turn up for our first monster rehearsal, but because I blissfully assumed that the class would 'teach itself'. I was wrong. But thankfully everyone was absolutely brilliant, and we stumbled through the moves with the grace of a reanimated corpse, which was entirely the point. I then returned home to make two small coffins out of foamboard. That's not something you hear me say every day. And a last-minute knee jerk NEED for button badges to complement a secret intervention that forms part of the show led me to 999-design service Peter Adlington, that fella who helped transform my insane asylum earlier this year.
Books Not Drugs: Peter Adlington
Executing my desires with perfect if slightly worrying psychic-twinning, we see here two of the badge designs that you may be lucky enough to receive on the night if you have bought your ticket. The Guardian says you should buy a ticket. So does Attitude. No excuse. Without peeling back the Ready-Meal film on the nature of the intervention involved, it concerns bibliophiles swarming en masse, with hidden intent. Pete's brilliant mascot depicted above, Knobby Owl, might give a hint at the engorged blood pulsing beneath the calm exterior, pushing against a latex-thin veneer of propriety and threatening to burst forth, showering those gathered with... well, you get the idea. Ahem.
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!
The Rose
Caroline Parker: The Rose
I first saw Caroline Parker performing as Caro Sparks at the DaDaAwards 09, telling filthy jokes from the perspective of a deaf woman (let's just say it touched upon noisy sex), delivering an unexpected treat with her comic signed performance of the Kate Bush classic, Wuthering Heights. It was in direct response to that performance that I approached Ruth Gould at DaDa to explore the potential for deaf and disabled video art in public space, although I couldn't have imagined that twelve months later we would be unveiling four new works as part of DaDaVisions.
Caroline Parker: The Rose
With additional support from Arts Council England, for her contribution Caroline chose to perform The Rose by Bette Midler, minus the infamous music bed. Famously satirised using perfunctory sign in the cult movie Napoleon Dynamite, Sparkle Media added augmented images paired with gesture and movement – marrying visual with non-verbal language to release a world otherwise hidden to hearing viewers.
All four films are now appearing on the BBC Big Screens in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Rotherham, Derby, Cardiff, Swansea, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Swindon, Dover, Waltham Forest (London), Greenwich Arsenal (London), Norwich, Middlesbrough, Edinburgh.
Portrait of the Artist by Proxy
Alison Jones: Portrait of the Artist by Proxy
If you could never see your own reflection again, would you trust others to describe your appearance? Alison Jones has done just that for DaDaVisions with Portrait of the Artist by Proxy. Originally commissioned as a sonic artwork by the Bluecoat in Liverpool, we recruited the talents of Sparkle Media to create a deliberately offbeat approach to standard subtitles. The end result maintains a key emphasis upon the audio emitted via the screen speaker system.
Alison Jones: Portrait of the Artist by Proxy
In this way the viewer/listener has to switch sensory emphasis just as Alison must as it is impossible to follow the descriptive portrait by reading the text alone. The point-of-view dips, spins and curls across a landscape of 3-D typography, lingering upon key words as multiple voices share consensus, or becoming impossible to scan as the soundscape dissolves into whispers.
Pixie Dust
Gina Czarnecki: Pixie Dust
Gina Czarnecki's films and installations are informed by human relationships to image, disease, evolution, genetic research and by advanced technologies of image production. Pixie Dust blurs contemporary methods in scientific research – specifically, limb regrowth in salamanders and the harvesting of embryonic stem cells from pigs for use in human medicine.
Gina Czarnecki: Pixie Dust
Taking the form of a scientific televised report, observers will be drawn by the implicit ambiguity that appears to suggest the future has already arrived. What if those missing limbs through birth or accident were able to regrow, augment and fine-tune their bodies… becoming super-able? A DaDaVisions commission.