Hazard MMX
On Saturday 17th July outbreaks of hazardous behaviour will once again be unleashed upon Manchester City Centre and live guerilla art returned to the streets for the third hit-and-run. Cheeky, thought-provoking and sometimes raunchy sprees of eccentricity, look for a flash of yellow and black which should just be enough to give the game away... appearing alongside my own Scratch 'n Sniff pop-up cinema will be Eggs Collective (The March of 100 Dorothys), Alex Bradley (All the demos I've ever been on), Astrid Breel (The Dating Game), Jordan McKenzie (Monsieur Finds Himself Up Queer Street), The Muffia (Ask the question), Clare Charnley (Splat), Hannah Wiles (Beeline), Larkin' About (Various) and many more. See you there. Now scatter! Full programme.
Eye Candy
Hungry Hungry Eat Head from Bren O'Callaghan on Vimeo.
It's tough when you're in competition with 2098 shows in 265 venues in a city that for a month each year becomes home to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world. Tough, but not impossible. Thanks to Hudson-Powell, Joel Gethin Lewis and the leap of faith required by City of Edinburgh Council who were very polite about my asking if they wouldn't mind if we beheaded their citizens and placed them in a giant cartoon for the afternoon.
After this, our beta launch, we went on to delight the city of Liverpool during AND: Abandon Normal Devices Festival of New Cinema and Digital Culture. If you too can find a way to step into your daydreams and earn enough to get by, I definitely recommend it. Read more about Hungry Hungry Eat Head here.
Tales of Two Cities
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.
Into The Woods
You can never have enough magic capes, as I discovered earlier last year. Shamefully I have only just got around to documenting this particular project for the Big Screen Liverpool from Charlotte Gould in partnership with moves, although thanks are also due to my friend Mandy Tolley for creating the most intensely red cloak with the biggest button I have ever seen. Yes, even bigger than Kirsty Allsopp's secret cache.
Architectural Punch Bowl
Having missed the opportunity to attend Alcoholic Architecture (a walk-in cocktail fog of vaporised gin and tonic), Futurist Aerobanquet and Hendrick’s Horseless Carriage of Curiosities, there was no way I could pass up the chance to sample the latest culinary creation of Bompas & Parr (co-conspirators in this year’s summer silliness). Courvoisier's Architectural Punch Bowl was billed as the world’s largest cocktail, inspired by grandiose gestures of old by eminent gentry who really knew how to throw an OTT knees-up.
The Decontamination Chamber
Tickets sold out fast, but at a reasonable £6.50 for a one-off experience with drinks thrown in proved exceptional value. After hopping on a train south (as ever, it was to be in London, hosted in the bowels of 33 Portland Place – a Victorian mansion favoured by the celebrity party set and location of Amy Winehouse’s music video for Rehab), I met up with my pal Suzy P, creator/editor of counter-culture magazine Nude and bible of all things offbeat.
Positive discrimination... dirty beards, dirty!
Staff were dressed in surgical whites and requested visitors to sign a medical disclaimer before entry was allowed. I was tickled by a very specific question about whether or not we had recently suffered a seeping ear infection, which led to unhelpful throughts about cheese-like crumbling or projectile squirting. Having ticked NO to all, we passed through to the scrubs room, there to be disinfected and dressed in disposable pinnies, hairnets and beard snoods for those who required them.
HRH Suzy, Queen Ribenaberry
A strong scent of booze wafted through the entire building, the source being the adjacent games room and our ultimate destination. Here a small crowd had gathered, similarly attired, around the star attraction: a giant pool accessed by steps glowing a deep, regal purple, containing an estimated 4,000 litres of adult pop - enough for 25,000 servings. Lit by sunk lamps and garnished with radio-controlled lily pads laden with plastic fruits, we were served a generous glass directly from the waters while I eagerly signed up for the lucky dip… the chance to take a punt across the surface.
- My life on the ocean wave
It wasn’t long before my name was called and I gingerly stepped up and onto a raft in the shape of a man-sized slice of orange. Long suppressed ambitions to appear on The Crystal Maze bubbled to the surface as I propelled myself across the waters using a system of ropes installed at head-height, with no purpose other than sheer bloody wonderment at straddling a giant plastic citrus fruit.
Tea break at the Mr Kipling factory
All profits from the 3-day installation are to be donated to Article 25, a UK registered charity that designs, builds and manages projects to provide better shelter wherever there is disaster, poverty or need.
Magical, inspirational and completely unforgettable.
In my dark cupboard
Shhh! Are you coming? Just a few places left for an invite-only film screening of a 1981 classic starring John Gordon Sinclair, Clare Grogan (of Altered Images, above) and Dee Hepburn, although the true star of the title that I'm being deliberately vague about is Allison Forster, as the lead's little sister, steeped in a Yoda-like wisdom beyond her years. Here's a clue. Friday 11th December, An Outlet, Manchester.