Archive

  1. 9 Evenings: AUTOICON

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    AUTOICON was a dynamic internet work that simulated both the physical presence and elements of the creative personality of the artist Donald Rodney, one of the most significant and essential artists of his generation. After initiating the project, Rodney died from sickle-cell anaemia in March 1998.

    Re-Imaging – AUTOICON is a research project exploring the digital embodiment of the artist Donald Rodney, and the challenges of re-authoring a digital legacy.

    For 9 Evenings, Ian Sergeant and digital developer Antonio Roberts lead a salon to explore the development of ‘doublethink’, a beta website which has been produced through a series of workshops with participants of Wolverhampton Sickle Cell Care and Social Activity and Oscar Sandwell. The salon includes a rare screening of ‘Three Songs on Pain, Light and Time’ (Trevor Mathieson & Eddie George / Black Audio Film Collective, 25m, 1995).

    AUTOICON is produced by Ian Sergeant and delivered in partnership with Vivid Projects. The project is funded through Arts Council England.
    Presented in association with Black History Month

    This event is presented as part of 9 Evenings: Redux, a season of new collaborative commissions in which artists will critique, re-work and react to the seminal 1966 series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering. 

    Admission is free

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    Programme change: please note that the Dance Prototypes lab by Gabriel Shalom is no longer running.

  2. 9 EVENINGS: Breathing and Staring

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    We are delighted to present the first collaboration between Darren Joyce, George Saxon and Justin Wiggan. 

    Drawing on their recent groundbreaking projects with the health sector, the artists present new research exploring empathy, nostalgia and recall through audio, performance and film. Their individual contributions will clash, coexist and repel each other. 

    Justin Wiggan will explore the portrayal of nostalgia drawing from the empathy tests used to tell humans from androids in Philip K Dick’s cult novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the cultural phenomenon of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) – the pleasurable tingling sensation in the head, scalp, back, or peripheral regions of the body in response to visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or cognitive stimuli; and Harsh Noise Wall – in which artists produce unchanging, monolithic “walls” of static noise.

    George Saxon presents BREATHING TEST: Dying Melody, a new work focused on breathing (inhalations and exhalations), and the limitations caused by childhood respiratory illness and auto-immune weakness. Through live performance, archived video recordings, visual and audio soundscapes, Saxon will explore illness and its manifestations, highlighting the liminal gap between memory, recall and nostalgia.

    D Joyce, using binaural recordings (holographic 3D sound), will explore schizoaffective disorder – a brain disorder in which sufferers experience two vastly different worlds within one consciousness. Schizoaffective disorder is to experience both the world that non-sufferers perceive, but also a complex world riddled with auditory hallucinations and mood swings. Joyce invites the audience to listen to holographic sound in realtime through the medium of headphones and experience what it’s like to live in an audible parallel reality.

    Programme of events:

    Friday 02 October | 6-8pm
    Joyce, Saxon and Wiggan present a live event for Digbeth First Friday

    Saturday 03 October | 3-4pm
    Join the artists as they discuss their collaboration and wider practices.

    This event is presented as part of 9 Evenings: Redux, a season of new collaborative commissions in which artists will critique, re-work and react to the seminal 1966 series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering. 

     

  3. 9 Evenings: Vis-er-al

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    Polly Hudson, Katye Coe, Charlie Morrissey and Florence Peake have worked together, in different configurations, over the past two decades, and share underpinning approaches that focus on the viscerality of the body.

    In the spirit of 9 Evenings, Polly Hudson leads the Vis-er-al  salon, bringing the artists together as a group with musician Daren Pickles for the first time to explore live and screen works in the immediate, visceral environment. The salon artists take Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, and the ensuing Judson Dance Theatre as a particular point of reference.

    Presented through a sequence of salons, Vis-er-al includes classes, a lab, discussions, live performance, installation, single and multi channel screen works that share the viscerality of the body in space and on screen.

    Programme of events:

    Thu 8th Oct | 10 – 11.30am at DanceXchange, Thorp Street
    Skinner Releasing Technique class with Polly Hudson

    Skinner Releasing Technique is a pioneering approach to dance, movement and creative process that has evolved from the simple principle that when we are releasing physical tension, we can move with greater freedom, power and articulation.

    Polly Hudson is Co-course Director for Dance at Coventry University. She is a certified teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique which forms the underpinning of her practice alongside Contact Improvisation.

    Presented in association with Birmingham Dance Network.
    All are welcome. Admission £5

    Thu 8th Oct | 6 – 7pm at Vivid Projects
    Screening: Carriage Discreetness by Yvonne Rainer

    Yvonne Rainer founded the Judson Dance Theater in 1962, the genesis of a movement that proved to be a vital force in modern dance in the following decades. Rainer performed Carriage Discreteness as part of the original 9 Evenings series and it is the only one of her choreographed pieces to incorporate technology into its very structure.

    The screening is introduced by Polly Hudson and Yasmeen Baig-Clifford.

    Friday 9th October | 10am – 5pm at DanceXchange, Thorp Street
    Performance Laboratory: Florence Peake 

    Applications are open to work with internationally acclaimed dance artist Florence Peake in a one day laboratory and (re)making of her piece Remake. 
     
    The laboratory will take place on Friday 09th October, 10am – 5pm, at DanceXchange and the final work will be performed on Saturday 10th October, 10am – 5pm at Vivid Projects. You must be available on both days. Participants are also advised to take Polly Hudson’s Skinner Releasing Technique class on Thursday 08 October, 10 – 11.30am at DanceXchange in preparation.

    To apply, please submit your CV together with a statement of interest, and if possible, a link of you dancing to: hudsonpolly@hotmail.com. The closing date for applications is 28th August and successful applicants will be notified by 04th September.

    This is a free CPD event, and is supported by Vivid Projects, Birmingham Dance Network and Dancexchange. 

    Friday 9th October | 5.30 – 7.30pm at Vivid Projects
    Katye Coe and Charlie Morrissey – ‘This Thing That We Do’
    Polly Hudson- ‘Making Lemonade’ & ‘Vis-er-al’

    Saturday 10th October | 2.30-5pm at Vivid Projects
    Florence Peake – ‘Remake’
    Polly Hudson- ‘Making Lemonade’ & ‘Vis-er-al’

    Saturday 10th October | 5pm at Vivid Projects
    In-conversation: Polly Hudson and Florence Peake

    Vis-er-al  is convened by Polly Hudson and produced by Vivid Projects. Additional support from Birmingham Dance Network and Dancexchange.

    This event is presented as part of 9 Evenings: Redux, a season of new collaborative commissions in which artists will critique, re-work and react to the seminal 1966 series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering.  

  4. 9 Evenings: Yvonne Rainer

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    Yvonne Rainer founded the Judson Dance Theater in 1962, the genesis of a movement that proved to be a vital force in modern dance in the following decades. Rainer performed Carriage Discreteness as part of the original 9 Evenings series and it is the only one of her choreographed pieces to incorporate technology into its very structure.

    Rainer transmitted instructions to the performers, who wore FM pickups on their wrists, telling them to carry objects from one part of the floor to another. Props included slats, slabs, cubes, planks, sheets of different materials like Masonite, wood, and styrofoam beams. Rainer also had preprogrammed events which were set in motion when her piece began. They included a super ball dropped from the ceiling, a garbage can releasing pieces of foam rubber over the area, a lighted lucite rod travelling high over the performance area, and films projected onto screens that were cued to fall at the performance’s end.

    Source: 9 evenings brochure, E.A.T., New York, 1966

    This screening is presented as part of 9 Evenings: Redux, a season of new collaborative commissions in which artists will critique, re-work and react to the seminal 1966 series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering. 

    Admission is free

  5. 9 EVENINGS: Open Score

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    Robert Rauschenberg was among the founding members of Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a non-profit organization established to promote collaborations between artists and engineers within in industrial environment.

    Open Score is a movement piece that was performed as part of the original 9 Evenings series. Robert Rauschenberg derived the content of his performance from the characteristics of the performance venue.

    The tennis racquet suggested both the idea of the readymade (at other times tennis was played at the venue) and that of a dance improvised in accordance with specific rules. Each time a racquet hit a ball, the venue lighting dimmed, which conferred on the player’s actions a function bound up with a complex technological system. In the second part of the piece, a crowd assembled on stage in complete darkness, filmed by infrared cameras.

    Open Score is presented as part of 9 Evenings: Redux, a season of new collaborative commissions in which artists will critique, re-work and react to the seminal 1966 series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering. 

    Screening duration: 32m

    Admission is free

     

  6. 9 EVENINGS: BODY OF SONGS

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    Join singer-songwriter Bumi Thomas and Professor Hugh Montgomery, Director of the Institute for Human Health and Performance at University College London, for a live music experiment and discussion exploring the connection between the emotional, the medical and the musical.

    Vivid Projects, in partnership with Body of Songs, is inviting curious audience members to drop in on Saturday 26 September, between 2-5pm, to listen and observe as musicians interpret organs of the body through live, improvised music. The audience will be able to request an organ to be explored, learn more about its medical, emotional and metaphorical significance, and then ‘hear’ them as interpreted by local musicians.

    Body of Songs is an ongoing project in which challenges music artists to write music inspired by organs of the body. Vivid Projects is delighted to be working in partnership with Body of Songs to bring a one-off lab to Birmingham as part of 9 Evenings: Redux, a season of new collaborative commissions in which artists will critique, re-work and react to the seminal 1966 series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering.

    Are you a musician interested in taking part?

    The workshop will take place at Vivid Projects on Saturday 26 September 2015, 2-5pm and we are looking for amazing musicians who thrive on a challenge to take part! If you are interested in participating please e-mail Beth Clayton at beth@castironradio.co.uk.

    For more information on the wider Body of Songs projects, please visit www.bodyofsongs.com.

  7. 9 Evenings/ Autoicon

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    Advance tickets £5/3 conc. Book to reserve your place.

    AUTOICON was a dynamic internet work that simulated both the physical presence and elements of the creative personality of the artist Donald Rodney, one of the most significant and essential artists of his generation. After initiating the project, Rodney died from sickle-cell anaemia in March 1998.

    Re-Imaging – AUTOICON is a research project exploring the digital embodiment of the artist Donald Rodney, and the challenges of re-authoring a digital legacy.

    In conversation with original members of Donald Rodney Plc (a group of artists and close friends who acted as an advisory and editorial board in the artist’s absence) and colleagues from the Blk Arts Group, this salon convened by Ian Sergeant, explores Rodney’s practice and how his legacy informs ideas considering digital creativity, ethics and memorial.

    The salon includes a screening of John Akomfrah’s The Genome Chronicles (2009, 33m), the filmmaker’s response to the death of his mother and close friend Donald Rodney in the form of a ‘song cycle’ in ten parts. The film combines Akomfrah’s own footage of repeated trips to the Scottish islands of Skye and Mull with Rodney’s own Super 8 footage.

    Commissioned by Vivid Projects and convened by Ian Sergeant, Associate Curator. Participants include Professor Mike Philips (i-dat), Keith Piper, Marlene Smith and members of Wolverhampton Sickle Cell Centre.

    AUTOICON is presented as part of 9 Evenings: Redux, a season of new collaborative commissions in which artists will critique, re-work and react to the seminal 1966 series 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering. 

  8. 9 Evenings/ Sarah Angliss

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    In this short performance, the breaths and gestures of people in the room seem to be echoed in changes to the everyday clutter around them. Lamps, cups and other objects also play back traces of those who are absent. You can choose to observe these events as they unfold or influence them further by hooking yourself up to the set. How will this encounter feel to you? As a trace memory, an augmentation of your body or as something uncanny – a visitation of sorts? 

    Trace has been devised and presented by Sarah Angliss (composer and roboticist) and Emma Kilbey (theatre maker) and was developed at the Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol.

    The performance lasts 20-25 minutes and will be repeated at intervals throughout the afternoon. Catch the start at 12pm, 12.45pm, 1.30pm and 2.15pm.

    Presented as part of Digbeth Delights, an afternoon of avant-garde performances, workshops and talks across Minerva Works to coincide with Supersonic Festival. Join us 12-5pm for brutalist composition, contemporary improvisation, punk protest art, and poetic robotics.

    Admission is free

     

  9. 9 EVENINGS: John Cage

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    In 1966, ten New York artists and thirty engineers and scientists collaborated on a series of innovative dance, music and theatre performances: 9 Evenings:Theatre & Engineering. The programme included artist John Cage, whose Variations VII made use of electronic equipment and systems to capture and manipulate sounds present at the time of the performance.

    “The sound system was designed with the limitation that only sounds that arose during the performance were to be used — in other words, the performers would not make any actions to generate sounds deliberately, but rather would use technological means to discover sounds in the air ‘as through with a net’.” – James Pritchett

    Don’t miss your chance to see this rare and historical film – made up of archival footage of the performance and documentary interviews. The screening will be introduced by Dr Annie Mahtani, sound artist, composer and Lecturer in Electroacoustic Composition at University of Birmingham.

    Presented as part of Digbeth Delights, an afternoon of avant-garde performances, workshops and talks across Minerva Works to coincide with Supersonic Festival. Join us 12-5pm for brutalist composition, contemporary improvisation, punk protest art, and poetic robotics.

    Admission is free.

  10. 9 EVENINGS: REDUX | Preview Night

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    In 1966, Billy Klüver of Bell Laboratories initiated 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, a project which brought together ten New York artists and thirty engineers and scientists to collaborate on a series of innovative dance, music and theatre performances which blended avant-garde theatre, dance and new technologies. 9 Evenings became seminal – the event leading to the influential project E.A.T. or Experiments in Art and Technology.

    For 9 Evenings: Redux, Vivid Projects has commissioned a group of artists to collaborate, critique, re-work and react to this seminal programme. The programme combines new collaborative commissions with documentation of three key performances from the original 9 Evenings series. The groundbreaking inter-disciplinary collaborations seen in the work of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Yvonne Rainer are precursors of the creative collaborations between disciplines that now underpin digital culture.

    Line and language, digital ethics and the body, motion-capture and gesture. Join us for the programme launch as part of Digbeth First Friday and meet some of the artists we have commissioned including George Saxon, Rashaad Newsome and Gabriel Shalom. 

    Programme:

    ## – 05 Jun – Preview Night
    #1 – 14 Jun – Sarah Angliss/ Trace (music and poetic robotics)
    #2 – 14 Jun – John Cage/ Variations VII
    #3 – 27 Jun – Re-Imaging – AUTOICON (Salon 1)
    #4 – 24 Sep – Robert Rauschenberg/ Open Score
    #5 – 26 Sep – Body of Songs
    #6 – 01-03 Oct – Darren Joyce, George Saxon & Justin Wiggan / Breathing and Staring
    #7 – 08 Oct – Yvonne Rainer/ Carriage Discreteness
    #8 – 08-10 Oct – Polly Hudson and guests/ Vis-er-al
    #9 – 24 Oct – Re-Imaging – AUTOICON (Salon 2)