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.
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.
Who Do You Think You Are?
So Many Excuses: Who Do You Think You Are?
...here comes DaDaVisions, a brace of opinionated new screen commissions developed right here in the North West and soon to appear upon TWENTY giant outdoor screens across the UK. Launching as a new strand of DaDaFest, four new artist film and video projects will face-slap shoppers with subversive and alternate interpretations of disability. I'll be posting further information upon each as the week progresses.
So Many Excuses: Who Do You Think You Are?
First up is influential agit-prop trio No Excuses, once fond of chaining themselves to buses to chant "Piss on Pity" and now reformed as So Many Excuses. Mandy Colleran, Mandy Redvers-Rowe and Ali Briggs (who some may recognise as Freda in Coronation Street) have revisited the classic Frost Report sketch from the 1960s featuring the Two Ronnies and John Cleese.
Then a comment upon the British class system but now playfully adapted to explore the stereotypes and labels that the disabled place upon each other, Who Do You Think You Are? is written and performed by SME, produced by Asta Films with vintage styling expertise by Maria Lloyd.
Encounters Short Film Festival
I’ll be speaking later this month at Encounters International Short Film Festival at Watershed, Bristol. Contentertainment offers a focus upon emerging methods for the distribution of digital media across different platforms. This year the loose curatorial theme of the panel is ‘real time’. Chaired by Vicky Brophy of Wonky Films, I’m told fellow panelists include Tom Melamed of Calvium, a company specializing in GPS-based experiences for mobile devices, and members of 1927 – an award-swiping mixed media theatre ensemble who after checking out their website I'd quite like to run away with.
Contentertainment
Thursday 19 November / 13:30 / Bristol Watershed
Inspire Mark
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.
A Small Cinema
If anyone is planning to drop by Liverpool City Centre this coming Saturday the 26th September to sample any of the heap of activities, from AND at the Big Screen (see below) to the Bold Street Festival, can I urge you to attend A Small Cinema. Sam Meech loves amateur movies, loves them in that special way, buys them giant padded birthday cards and scented blue wooden roses from Poundstretcher.
To this end he only went a bought a job lot of plush seats, put his design skills to good use and created a travelling, hyper-local moviemart that showcases local filmmakers. He even includes fake movie trailers and genuine adverts from local traders (Matta's speciality foods is a hoot, the whole family pile out front to wave to camera). Just like it used to be when we were kids, before newborns tumbled out with iPod charger cables where their umbilical cords used to be.
For one day only in the old Rapid store next to Christians Fruit & Veg, there are three shows for the princely sum of 25p - yes, that's right, twenty five pennies - per person admission. There will be popcorn, ice-cream and ushers, with each show lasting an hour. Call by the Big Screen on the way, fill the day with cinematic wonder and interactive wizardry - then go home and make a judgement call on that past-due bag of washed salad.