Shelly Love
In the next few days UK director and filmmaker Shelly Love will begin a 5-week residency in Manchester as part of a new work for the Big Screen network in a co-commission with moves09 and Sadler’s Wells Theatre, where it will premiere upon the latter’s Polyvision screen (which hangs behind the glass facade at the front of the building and can be seen simultaneously from both the street and the foyer) before touring the UK. With the working title of A Moving Portrait, Shelly will be receiving additional support from Futureworks college in Manchester.
Having directed promos for Turin Breaks, Skin, Charlotte Hatherley, Mark Brown feat. Sarah Cracknell, Fionn Regan and others, it would be fair to say I am more than a little excited. The image above is taken from her latest work, The Forgotten Circus, commissioned by circus training school Circus Space and Arts Council England, accompanied by a lush score from The Irrepressibles.
You can watch an excerpt here. You really should.
Shelly Love official site
Shelly Love on You Tube
Shelly Love on Draw Pictures
Places of Public Resort
Pending confirmation of the technical wizardry required to pull this sort of project together, I’ve received the full support of the folk at the North West Film Archive in plundering the 15,373 news and feature stories recorded to 9,763 cans of 16mm film and magnetic track containing items inserted into live studio shows at BBC North between 1973 - 1986. The archivists will be helping me to select content relating to those moments and occasions when large crowds descend upon Places of Public Resort
Initially intended as a response to the development of a new public plaza on the banks of the River Mersey, I began thinking about the authoritarian fear of large crowds when - in direct contradiction - footfall or turnstile numbers are massaged and multiplied beyond recognition to quantify success for outdoor activity or civic projects. Either we stay at home playing LardArse 5: Colonic Assault, berated for not dusting off our fringed parasols, or we’re being accused of loitering with intent for tying our shoelaces.
I’m old enough to remember the former Belle Vue Fairground and Zoological Gardens in Manchester, live not far from the former White City Amusement Park, attended with my parents and a then-unbelievable 250,000 others the Pope’s visit to Heaton Park, recall the long-derelict International Garden Festival site in Liverpool and hanker for Great Exhibition styled opportunities to wonder - point - pay homage - peer and gather en masse without having to source legal representation in advance.
Don’t you?
Screenzine 12
Can it really have been so long? Issue 12 of the sporadic and sort-of-quarterly PDF newsletter highlighting the best screen projects of the past few months, including the online launch of NOISE festival live in Second Life to the screen with Badly Drawn Boy and Zaha Hadid, National Poetry Day, 007 Mastermind and a massive ball of dung.
QUAD Derby Art Lounge
My mother's youngest son will be speaking at the first Art Lounge event at the newly opened QUAD Art Centre in Derby on Tuesday, 20th January. I'll be giving an illustrated talk on the creative use of outdoor screens and leaning heavily on the supportive shoulders of my colleague and friend Louise Angell, manager of the Big Screen Derby. There will be a Q&A afterwards and the official brochure asks artists to bring in examples of their work on the night, which makes it sound as if the pair of us will be sat in upholstered thrones upon an elevated dias, passing censorious judgement. Thumbs up - a knighthood, sirrah! Thumbs down - to the cells! And perhaps we shall...
Art Lounge
QUAD
Thursday 20th January / 6.30pm start
£3.00 includes refreshments
moves09: Movement On Screen
North West-based moves is the largest exhibition platform in the UK for screen-based work exploring ‘choreographed movement’ in the form of dance films, interactive installations, animation and experimental shorts at international level. moves09 will be looking at stories beyond movement, exploring the narrative possibilities of movement on screen through screenings, installations, live events and open-source forums. I'm lucky enough to be on the board of this excellent festival, which is getting bigger and bolder every year. The call for entries is now open!
Image: A Day at the Office / Dir. Robert Deleskie (Moves 07)
USM Photobook
One year on from Urban Screens Manchester 07, with USM08 Melbourne recently put to bed and USM10 in Toronto hurled, javelin-like, into the future mists, I've put together a photobook of our digital knees-up in the world's first industrial city using the deliciously bibliophiliac blurb.com.
I can't imagine who else might desire it but should that be the case, there is no profit added to the final webstore price, while the quality of the print, paper and inks used is second-to-none. Photo credits and thanks due particularly to Myriam Thyes, Rob Maclese and Johan Oldekop.
Bitten by the vanity press bug, I'm now scouring my environment for purposely niche subjects to inspire a photo challenge. The Secret Life of Fruit Labels? Mismatched Door Furniture of Old Trafford? A Journey to the Bottom of Sonya's Freezer Drawer?
Urban Screens Manchester: Art & Events Photobook
Cover image: Flag Metamorphoses / copyright Myriam Thyes