Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
If you should find yourself in the Liverpool area on the eve of Halloween, you'll be spoilt for choice for things to do. Not only is it the launch night of MTV Liverpool Music Week, but it's also the first attempt for the region at one of them fancy Nuit Blanche affairs, albeit prematurely curtailed by midnight (baby steps!) in the form of The Long Night of the Biennial.
But wait! All this pales in comparison to my own shindig that very same evening, which as a result all 3 are cross-promoting to pull in the punters, especially as we appear to kick the evening off at 7pm following which multiple routes through the city are possible. I'll be screening F.W. Murnau's classic silent horror film, Nosferatu, dating from 1922 and starring the spew-inducingly ugly Count Orlock (all needle teeth, wasp waist, bespoke tailoring and elongated fingernails) played by Max Shreck, and so brilliantly re-interpreted in Shadow of the Vampire by Willem Dafoe.
The whole caboodle has been made possible by collaborating with PMS: The Popular Music Show on BBC Radio Merseyside and Liverpool-based experimental band a.P.A.t.T. who are providing the live contemporary score within the Performance Space on Hanover Street. This, and a live feed of the band, will be relayed live to the Big Screen in Clayton Square via picture-in-picture, while the public are encouraged to move between the two sites during the transmission period.
It's all completely free, there are gratis glowsticks in it for you if you come along (that's Latin for 'chuff-all', how very Gothic of me), and for the 1000+ of you with tickets to attend the sold-out Vampire Weekend gig at the Carling Academy later that night, what better place to start the evening?!!
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
Big Screen Liverpool & BBC Radio Merseyside
Thursday 30th October 2008 / 7pm start
A Small Cinema
The grossly talented Sam Meech, recipient of a screen commission earlier this year for The Model City (at the heart of the Sizemology programme), will be premiering the one-off event A Small Cinema at View Two Gallery in Liverpool on Friday 24th October as part of the Local Heroes exhibition.
Designed to create an intimate movie-going experience, there will be plush velvet seats, popcorn, ice-cream, oh - the best short films by local filmmakers, if that should float your boat - and some beautifully designed screenprinted tickets and posters worth nabbing and framing if Sam's past form is anything to go by. Admission is the pocket money friendly price of 25p. Bargain!
A Small Cinema
View Two Gallery, Liverpool
Friday 24th October / 7pm start
NordiCHI
I don't know what it is about the lure of the North and of Scandinavia but I feel my gene-code twitching in response. As an only partly diluted Celt (by way of Salford) the chill, darkness and impeccable design aesthetic holds much more of an affinity for me than lying prone and singed-pink upon some yawnsome beach.
So it was with glee that I was fortunate enough to be invited to NordiCHI to contribute to the Digital Urban Living workshop in Lund, Sweden this past weekend courtesy of Martin Brynskov of the University of Aarhus, Denmark, with whom the Big Screens share the shame wish-list for public use and engagement.
Martin and his colleagues first came to pay me a visit earlier this year to check out our activity in Liverpool and to share information, including news of the impressive Aarhus by Light project in which the city concert hall was wrapped in an interactive media facade. Back in Lund, I had to follow an impressive presentation from Nokia's Head of Design Direction, Adam Greenfield, but fortunately I was armed not with buzzwords but heaps of images and video from recent screen projects. When in doubt, speaka da international lingo del pretty pictures.
University of Aarhus: Centre for Digital Urban Living
Hello Digital
Birmingham's first digital festival, Hello Digital, is a showcase of robotics, illuminations, animations, digital film, music and games. Held at Millennium Point between Oct 23rd-26th, Hello Digital is completely free to attend.
Hello World is the (inevitable) associated conference, and on Thursday Oct 23rd at 4pm I'll be contributing to a panel entitled Digital Art in the Public Realm, exploring the revolution in digital content development and the opportunities for digital media to deliver artistic content in public space.
The discussion will be chaired by Steve Manthorp and my fellow panellists include Marcus Romer of Pilot Theatre, Emma Chetcuti of Multistory and Sandra Hall of Friction Arts. We're on immediately after James Fabricant of MySpace talks about Faintheart, the world's first user-generated movie, so perhaps we might retain some of his audience. Hell, I'm not proud...
Interactive Commission Opportunity: Swindon
To mark the arrival of the Big Screen Swindon, South West Screen has announced a call for proposals to fund an interactive commission to the value of £8,000 for this site. For too long the North West has dominated this field within the UK (yay, go NW!), so it will be valuable to add some competition to the mix.
I’ll be sitting on the selection panel and although entries are limited to the South West area this looks like an early foam-breaker for an incoming tide of similar opportunities as the screen network and associated regional bodies engage with the 2008 – 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
Update: congratulations to Evil Twin!
Hamburg International Short Film Festival 2008
I’ve just returned from the Hamburg International Film Festival where I was made obscenely welcome as a member of the International Jury, alongside more esteemed colleagues in the shape of Netalie Braun, Jens Eder, Miranda Pennell and Holger Tepe.
Not only was the experience of watching a squillion short films both humbling and ego-puffing in equal measure (bowing to the audience as we arrived to take our seats), but the simple pleasure of being able to RIDE A BIKE without being hunted, Duel-style, by the fat frontage of the no. 86 bus along Upper Chorlton Road, stapled a stupid grin across my face that I haven’t been able to wipe off all week.
The winner of the International Jury award went to Puppet Boy (Johannes Nyholm, Sweden) for his frankly nightmarish docu-drama of a puppeteer more than a little closely involved with his repugnant creation. The Francois Ode award was awarded to Josh (Govinda van Maele) and a deserved special mention to the startling and insidiously creepy Mumbler (Marc Roels und Wim Reygaert, Belgium). Follow the links below for a flavour of each...
It’s going to be a difficult experience to top, while my friends behind the lo-fi, city-meets-cinematic projection tour A Wall is a Screen attracted a crowd of over 1,000 on home turf, with people carrying sofas as we walked the streets after dark. Hamburg is a handsome, chiseled jaw of a city, but if there are any other festivals out there who want to furnish me with a pair of rollerboots and a butt-cushion in return for my critical faculties I’d be more than happy to oblige!