Archive

  1. Niya B.

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    POSTPONED DUE TO COVID 19 – NEW DATE 1ST APRIL 2022

    Niya B. | 912 | Friday 01 April 2022 6-8pm | Free, no booking required

    Vivid Live is delighted to present Niya B and her current project 912, a Virtual Reality 360o video experience based on participatory performance of trans and non-binary people, who have lived experience of waiting for an appointment at the Gender Identity Clinic (GIC).

    912 is dealing with the opposing forces of waiting and at the same time finding the strength to carry on, within a repeated life cycle of a day.

    Through the use of VR technology, the project aims to build bridges and create empathy and understanding with the wider public.

    This drop-in event will include an exhibition of work-in-progress material and a performative presentation by the artist.

    Background To The Project

    912 is a Virtual Reality (VR) video experience based on participatory performance of trans and non-binary people dealing with the opposing life forces of waiting and carrying on, within a repeated life cycle of a day.

    The starting point is the waiting time required for an appointment at the Gender Identity Clinic (GIC). 912 refers to the number of days Niya had to wait for her first appointment. The waiting lists at GICs across the UK are getting longer with estimated times for a first appointment ranging between 3 – 4+ years.

    912 is a project that departs from a specific trans lived experience of waiting and at the same time finding the strength to carry on. Through the use of VR technology, the project aims to build bridges and create empathy and understanding with the wider public.

    The project consists of 3 parts, each corresponding to 1/3 of 912 cycles, documented with 360 degree cameras in collaboration with artist and performance photographer Manuel Vason. Part one is completed by Niya in her locality in London. For Part 2, Niya engaged with the community of trans and non binary people in Birmingham through a workshop and a participatory performance act. Part 3 will follow the same engagement in Sheffield.
    The material of the above performances and workshops will be edited in the format of a VR video and experienced through a VR headset.

    The project is supported through a National Lottery Project Grant by the Arts Council England, a Vivid Projects commission and public engagement partners BOM, Site Gallery, SOL LGBTQ+ community café and Queer Circle.

    912 was conceived during research on 360 filming and performance, supported by a Jerwood Bursary.

    About The Artist

    Niya B is a transfeminist artist, working at the intersections of visual art and performance. She uses video, soundscapes, text, live acts and immersive installations to explore themes related to ecology, posthumanism, (trans)gender politics, class and equity in health and wellbeing. As a counteraction to political polarisation, Niya seeks to establish intimacy with her audience, creating a meditative space of vulnerability, affect and interdependence.

    Her work departs from the personal to expand beyond representation and identity politics.

    Niya has shown work in exhibitions, festivals, live art events and academic conferences including Tate Britain and The Yard Theatre (London), CCA (Glasgow), Performance Space (Folkestone), NEoN festival (Dundee); 5th Thessaloniki Biennale; 5th Moscow Biennale; International Print Biennale (Newcastle); Goldsmiths University of London; University of Leeds. Niya is the recipient of a Jerwood bursary and her projects have been supported by Arts Council England and the British Council.

    Niya B has shown work in academic conferences at Goldsmiths University of London and University of Leeds. Her work has been featured in Elephant magazine, Dazed and Future Now / Aesthetica Art Prize.

    Niya holds an MA in Landscape Architecture (University of Sheffield) and has worked for over a decade in the field of landscape architecture and the public realm.

    Niya is part of the performance duo InXestuous Sisters together with collaborator Giulia C. Their latest work was exhibited at the 2021 Every Woman Biennial in London.

     

  2. impermanence

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    Vivid Live in partnership with Shout Festival present a sharing of newly developed work by Pádraig Condron.

    Pádraig Condron is an Irish Italian queer body, finding catharsis in an autoethnographic practice. Their theory-led practice aims to untangle personal experiences; considering the human body, distinct from the mind, as a space we inhabit and perform in.

    Pádraig also considers the ways in which this ownership is challenged, our bodies are controlled and which social structures limit and restrict us.

    A multidisciplinary artist and performer they appeared in films The Image (2018) and The Burning Baby (2020). They are director of Gasleak Mountain in Nottingham.

    Instagram: @paud.c @gasleakmountain

    I’m Pádraig, and we are looking down at our hands
    then past our hands to our feet
    then everything else fades out of focus.

    The ground below finally retreats
    and we’re hanging, pulling ourselves forward
    or wherever
    with everything moving at the pace we have decided

    We’re existing between ourselves
    but it’s not close
    there’s plenty of room between the pieces

    And when we all speak
    the words ring in a chorus
    of everyone we’ve ever been

    Door open at 6pm with a live performance at 7pm.
    To book please visit here.
    shout-festival-logo-red-facebook  VP logo stack grey
  3. Vivid Live TV

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    Vivid Projects and Vivid Live are pleased to announce VLTV, a series of Live Art works made to be experienced digitally and available for seven days on our Vimeo channel. From 4th September there will be a new artwork presented each week every Friday at 7pm.

    VLTV 001 | ES MORGAN|between our wants, our needs |04/09/2020
    VLTV 002 | ROSA POSTLETHWAITE | Green Scream | 11/09/2020
    VLTV 003 | ELLY CLARKE | Performance Anxiety | 18/09/2020
    VLTV 004 | DEMELZA TOY TOY | URLology: 21.03.2020 – 31.03.2020 | 25/09/2020
    VLTV 005 | BRIDGET CODERC | Storm | 02/10/2020
    VLTV 006 | PIERCE STARRE | Fragile | 09/10/2020
    VLTV 007 | S A B O T A G E | neurotransmission |16/10/2020
    VLTV 008 | EOTHEN STEARN | SUDS | 23/10/2020
    VLTV 009 | DE’ANNE CROOKS | Break Bread with Me | 30/10/2020
    VLTV 010 | KÜHLE WAMPE | DETHKWUEST | 06/11/2020

    Curators Introduction 

    Hello.
    What is VLTV?

    Drawing from the public access tv stations of 1970’s America and the current experimental live art scene of Birmingham and beyond,  VLTV allows artists to make mistakes and play with the notion of what live art is and how it can exist virtually.

    Last year I looked at the format for Vivid Live and decided to change things up. I wanted to make live art more accessible to those who can’t make it to a physical gallery space while providing artists with the necessary support to experiment and  make work for different platforms.

    Then Covid 19 hit and the world changed.

    Suddenly every gallery was streaming everything they could find. Which kind of meant I needed to rethink VLTV for this new landscape. The focus shifted from the audience who are now dripping in glorious art and moved to supporting the artists. Ensuring that they are able to continue making art as they emerge from this global catastrophe.

    I’m delighted to bring you glimpses of these wonderful artists’ practices.

    Stay safe,

    Alex Billingham

    Vivid Live Curator

  4. VLTV 010

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    VLTV 010 | Kühle Wampe | DETHKWUEST

    A (DEATH) meditation (for Samhain(proper)) on the idea of death (and the death of ideas (and the death of reality/capital))

    The fuzz (of interference (crackle (morphological beast (oral transmission(Shape-shifting)chthonic)))old wives tale) of everyday KWUEST – for the last days of digital DARKAGE – NOFUTURE/NO REAL PAST/NO OBJECT/

    The material is dead/Words of flesh and slime/DUNGEON DREAMS

    A digi-offering to the underworld /Trapped in outdated TV-TRANSMSSION FORMAT

    Cyber-STYX incryptION

    Watch narrative die over and over for ur viewing pleasure

    Remember

    DETH is not the end

    CLICK TO VIEW

    KÜHLE WAMPE IS AN AWFUL ENMESHING OF SHAMBOLISM-TIME-REPROBATES/HORRIBLE COLLABORATIVE EFFORT/SERIES OF SUSTAINED FAILURES/OCCASIONAL WRESTLERS/EURO-DANCE NIGHTMARE

    kühle wampe is a horrible collaboration between amelia seren roberts, dinosaur kilby, craig david parr, joshua heathcote & james poyser. spread eagle across the midlands.

    in 2016 kühle wampe was formed from the simple ideas that: we could get more work done together, we could support and crit our work, we enjoyed working together. we wanted to wrestle.

    life intervened. working together is hard. we learned how to organise DIY projects/events. we tried to professionalise. we tried to be something that we weren’t.

    currently. we don’t want to do admin. we are making work together. we entered the black hole (club.) the world is currently a dark age shit show, mummers farce, apocalypse so our early DIY mutual support intentions are more necessary for us to look out for each other.
    2020 kühle wampe pulled a stone from a sword and became a band of merry knights.

    website: www.kuhle-wampe.co.uk | instagram: @kuhle_wampe

    CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO VLTV

  5. VLTV 009

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    VLTV 009 | De’Anne Crooks | Break Bread with Me

    Break Bread with Me is an exploration and reflection of how performance and text exist on various bodies; how the words that one individual has written resides in the mouths of those who did not write the words but live them. Break Bread with Me celebrates Blackness, investigates organic performance and uncovers fellowship through digital devices.

    The text is an amalgamation of automatic writings entitled Aisle 15 and Second-generation-ness written by the artist in January 2020. Although this began as an opportunity for De’Anne to appreciate and understand how her work is interpreted by and resonates with her peers, the work becomes symbolic of  intimacy, respect, and love amongst Black womxn.

    Using a collection of words De’Anne is apprehensive to call poetry, seven individuals unpack themes of migration, belonging and intersectionality in a collective Zoom reading. The selection of each participant is a deliberate representation of who they are in relation to the artist. To read in this way, with these individuals is personal, exposing and replicates the way in which members of De’Anne’s childhood church would read a bible passage together; it was in this Pentecostal church that De’Anne first explored her voice.

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW

    De’Anne Crooks’ practice revolves around the integral conversations that require a contemporary vehicle of communication. Generally, investigating large topics such as identity politics, but focusing on the strategically unexplored areas, she uses the necessary media to critique social constructs, the value of belonging and colonization as currency. In most cases her practice, and the outcomes are a result of play and the process of playing.

    As an artist-educator, much of her current work considers the collaborative and collective value of others. Viewing herself as a critical partner to her students, she has begun to use her pedagogical experience outside of the formal classroom space; considering her practice as a form of activism; existing beyond the role of artist and/or teacher. She considers her art to be a calm and collected delivery of unapologetic, deliberate and fervent explorations of a problematic society. In truth, she feels like this is a love letter to marginalised groups of people whose voice is often disregarded. If, through her art, she can represent and relay a fraction of one’s experience, then she feels that her art has done exactly what art is supposed to do.

    In her 2019 arts council supported solo exhibition, ‘Two Truths and a Lie’, she challenged the discounted experiences of existing at the intersections of Black British labels, the overwhelming stigmas clinging to mental health and the dangerous trend of embracing self-deprecation as an identity. Her current body of work was birthed from the premise of 3 of the exhibited paintings and now exist as references parallel to her recent commissions. She has found the journey between painting and video art to be the most fascinating aspect of her practice and it is what lies in her collection of sketchbooks that are most essential to her developing works.

    website: www.linktr.ee/de4annecrooks | instagram: @de4nnecrooks | twitter: @de4nnecrooks

    CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO VLTV

  6. VLTV 008

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    VLTV 008 | Eothen Stearn | SUDS

    A newly commissioned 20minute performative video set in Eo’s Glasgow flat.

    SUDS is a contemporized stream of consciousness approach to writing & image making as narrated by AI, in homage to Virginia Woolf and modes of automatic and free writing. This work explores themes of autobiographical thought, domesticity, object-hood and sentience.

    There is a blurring of authorship between the life model and objects that cohabit. We meet the washing machines, the fridge, the bed, the kettle, the boiler, house plants and other instruments.

    Heat and humours are ignited through the playing of drums and singing. A kind of mundane eroticism is brought about through projections onto Eo’s flesh alongside the everyday phenomenon of the sunset.

    All material written, performed and filmed by Eothen Stearn. (with guest appearance of Rachel Aggs on violin). Note this work contains some nudity.

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW

    Eothen Stearn’s art roams between the intimacy of personal relations, the detail of everyday life, music, feminism, queerness and science fiction. Eothen is interested in craft, memory, emotions and modalities of speech. Within Eo’s practice a space is made to dissemble hierarchies, so to look into the conditioning of bodies. The work produced questions social responsibilities and the intersections between private and pubic. Eo’s practice incorporates sculpture, performance and sound, which although appearing different from each other in their materialities and temporalities, they are made of the same attitude; one that looks into everyday politics. Sharp, intimate, touching, vulnerable observations are brought top the forefront using all kinds of materials: ceramics, textile, drawings, performance, song, all come tougher by Eo’s hand. Each bleeds into each other’s territories with a minimum of effort; as if they are each other’s magnets, hosts and extensions. Part of Eo’s practice is playing in bands; “NIGHTSHIFT” and “2ply” in Glasgow and Netherlands based band “Difficult”.

    website: eothenstearn.com | instagram: @eothenstearn

    CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO VLTV

  7. VLTV 007

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    VLTV 007 | S A B O T A G E | neurotransmission

    S A B O T A G E engages audiences from within the spectacle of a 24/7 news culture, reflecting and amplifying the chaos of contemporary politics and events. The project invites its audience to consider the audio/visual overload that is produced by a media within which news channels have moved towards sensationalism, entertainment and opinion, and away from traditional values of verification, relevance, depth and quality of interpretation. It highlights Kovach and Rosenstiel’s “Journalism of assertion” which focuses on how putting a claim into the arena of public discussion as quickly as possible undermines the accuracy of responding to the source of the report. This dissonance echoes the artist’s own neurological complications that resulted from a head injury occurring in 2014, forcing the artist to take a hiatus before returning in late 2017.

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW

    For VLTV, the artist presents a new iteration that appropriates public domain video and audio footage covering West Midlands surveillance operations and reports on organised crime investigations with the focus of illegal drugs. In July 2020, police arrested more than 700 suspects, seizing £54m in cash and tonnes of drugs in the UK’s “Biggest and most significant” operation ever against organised crime. The extent of the reach of these activities becomes newsworthy once the distribution happens over the county lines, effectively associating the working class alongside the more affluent classes. This often goes unnoticed when the epidemic remains contained within deprived areas, and leads to an almost sciophobic reaction to the cliche of the hooded drug dealer; a symbol of fear within suburban culture.

    website: www.jassingh.org |  instagram: @sab_o_teur

    CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO VLTV

  8. VLTV 006

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    VLTV 006 | Pierce Starre | Fragile

    “We are not as broken as we might believe” Dathan Horridge, Glimpse, 2020

    Fragile is an online live performance art work that takes time to explore the fragility of the human mind. According to a survey carried out by NatCen Social Research, in collaboration with the University of Leicester, for NHS Digital, 1 in 4 people will experience mental health difficulties of some kind each year in England. The same study found that the overall number of people reporting mental health difficulties has increased significantly in recent years.

    The word fragile derives from the old Latin frangere which means to break. A vase will be held, until its weight can no longer be physically endured, at which point it will fall to the floor.

    Vase, from the Latin vas, means “container”, or “vessel”. Human-like curves suggest the parallels of the containing function of the vase, with our own capacity to contain; to act as a vessel for our feelings, emotions and experiences and those of others.

    This work takes place within the context of collective and personal experiences of trauma, loss, isolation and grief, resulting from a global pandemic. According to the charity Mind, more than half of adults (60%) and over two thirds of young people (68%) have reported increased difficulties with their mental health due to the current COVID 19 pandemic.

    Fragile explores the limits of our capacity to hold and contain and takes time to connect with the moments in which we let go.

     CLICK HERE TO VIEW

    Pierce Starre is a Liverpool based artist with a practice situated in performance. Pierce’s first language is British Sign Language, as both of their parents are profoundly Deaf. Previous works have explored their experience of growing up as a hearing individual in a predominantly silent household. Pierce has explored through their work the territory which they occupy between the Deaf and hearing worlds and has further critiqued intersectionality in broader social and political contexts; highlighting the restrictive nature of the institution, institutional boundaries and oppression and the spaces between self and other.

    Pierce was awarded a commission by DaDaFest as part of their Artist Development fund and is receiving ongoing mentoring support from Ireland’s leading Performance Artist; Amanda Coogan. Pierce has undertaken residencies with Liverpool’s Hope University and METAL Culture UK. They recently performed Labels at Word of Warning in Manchester the work provided the viewer with an opportunity to explore the labels they place on others, through the externalisation of their own internal perceptions. In January 2020 Pierce participated in the CO-CREATION LIVE FACTORY “Dissenting Bodies Marking Time” at Venice International Performance Art Week where he explored altered landscapes due to administrative decisions made by institutional spaces.

     

    Web: piercestarre.com | Facebook: @piercestarreartist | Twitter: @mypiercestarre | Instagram: @piercestarreartist

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  9. VLTV 005

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    VLTV 005 | Bridget Coderc | Storm

    This work is best viewed on a screen in a quiet space.

    Storm explores feelings of melancholia as well as the links between reminiscence and wallowing. The piece depicts the artist’s family gathering filmed in the early 2000s. Taking inspiration from Walden (1968) by Jonas Mekas, the piece is influenced by the artist’s childhood memories. Taking a personal, first-person perspective, Storm magnifies mundanity and tradition, highlights how the brain distorts the past and questions if that is the reason for sadness. The soundtrack imitates the same motives as the moving image. Audio from the original VHS tapes is distorted and manipulated into an unpredictable synth based soundtrack.

    Soundtrack by Lee Roberts.

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW

    Bridget Coderc is a lens-based media artist working in Manchester. Her work focuses on introspection and draws from personal experience to create artwork which reflects upon mundanity, childhood memories and everyday life. Concepts are realized via media including photography, video, performance and installation. The artist often combines archive footage with self-portraits filmed on low-fidelity cameras. Layering these together Coderc distorts the images even more. She brings back the outdated technology and questions how it impacts our memory.

    Coderc is heavily influenced by psychoanalytic theory, including Sigmund Freud’s theories on the unconscious and Donald Winnicott’s transitional object. This allows the artist to enhance her exploration into how one can acknowledge what is suppressed and unconscious within them.

    She is currently working on ‘VIEUX’, a collaborative art project with musician Lee Roberts. This experimental project combines spoken word and abstract visuals made by Coderc, with electronic/psychedelic sounds created by Roberts. The words and melancholic imagery express emotional struggle, which is paired with a dreamy melody. VIEUX ventures into the themes of pain and frustration. The collaboration highlights how the mind is distorted through the struggle of consciously striving to be in balance with one’s emotions.

    website: www.bridgetc.link | instagram: @bridgetimage

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  10. VLTV 003

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    VLTV 03 | Elly Clarke | Performance Anxiety | 18/09/2020 7PM

    A doubt-riddled monologue to the sound of pleasure.
    Shot on Zoom and Quicktime; mixed, performed & recorded via DJ Pro.

    Am I taking too long?
    Is this taking too long?
    Are you comfortable?
    Is this good?
    Am i good?
    Does this feel good?
    Is your arm ok?
    Was it a good investment?
    Am i?
    Does it feel like the right decision?
    Are you glad         ?

    What good can yet another video do in this oversaturated world?

    Is it too rushed?
    Am I rushing you?
    Am I keeping you from doing other things?
    Am I too fast?
    Am I too slow?
    Should I speed up?
    Should I catch my breath?
    Should I allow you to catch yours?

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW

    Elly Clarke is an artist interested in the role, performance, value and burden (‘the drag’) of having and being a physical body in a digitally mediated world. She explores this through photography, video, music, writing & community-based projects and #Sergina, a border-straddling, multi-bodied drag queen who, across one body and several, sings and performs songs online and offline about love, lust and loneliness in the mesh of hyper-dis/connection. Some of these songs make it onto records released by Berlin-based record label Wicked Hag. Some performances are participatory; many are live streamed. Clarke is a current Chase DTP funded PhD researcher in Art at Goldsmiths and has shown work at venues that include The Lowry; Franklin Furnace, New York; Kiasma, Helsinki; Milton Keynes Gallery; ONCA, Brighton and Galerie Wedding, Berlin. #Sergina (plural) was also supposed to perform at the Roskilde Festival this summer – but that didn’t happen for obvious reasons. It will happen hopefully in full fleshy physicality next year instead.

    website: ellyclarke.com | twitter: @elly_clarke | instagram: @digitalb0dy

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