Archive for the ‘ events ’ Category

Ether Festival – Rebonds B (1988) – Iannis Xenakis, Fitkin Band Live (2010)

Ether festivalThis Thursday the Ether Festival opens at the Southbank Centre. Ether is an annual music festival, “of innovation, art, technology and cross-arts experimentation” (Southbank Centre website).

Iannis Xenakis
This year there is a strong focus on the work of the French composer, Iannis Xenakis. This includes an International conference comprising several talks, workshops and performances of the composer’s work. Xenakis is known for his use of processes and the application of mathematical theories as compositional tools. As well as writing instrumental and vocal music, Xenakis also wrote electronic music and devised a computerised musical composition tool called UPIC which he used for the composition of some of his electronic work. The festival is running a series of workshops on the use of UPIC.

One of Xenakis’ pieces that is to be performed is Rebonds which is for solo percussionist. Here is a taste of what could be expected at the festival concert on 3rd April:

The Fitkin Band
On the opening day of the festival (24th March) there is a performance by the Fitkin Band. This is the British composer Graham Fitkin’s nine-piece band, formed in 2009. They are joined by musicians and dancers from Trinity Laban Conservatoire in creating a site-specific event. Below is an extract from a live performance by the Fitkin Band:

Fitkin Band live in Nottingham from Fitkin Band on Vimeo.

Another event worthy of note is the world premiere of Will Gregory’s (of Goldfrapp fame) opera, Piccard in Space. For more details on this and plenty of other events, visit the Ether programme which is linked below.

Ether runs from 24th March to 28th April at the Southbank Centre. For full details about the festival, visit the Southbank Centre website: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/festivals-series/ether

For more information about Iannis Xenakis on this website, visit: Xenakis, Iannis – Info
To see and hear more of Xenakis’ work, visit YouTube and type his name – you’ll get plenty of hits.

For more information about the Fitkin Band on this website, visit: Fitkin Band – Info
To see and hear more of the Fitkin Band, visit: www.vimeo.com/fitkin

Hilum (2010) Part 1 – Les Antliaclastes, Dir. Patrick Sims

A few days ago I received an e-flyer about the forthcoming contemporary visual theatre festival, the London International Mime Festival. I hadn’t come across the festival before so I thought I’d look into it and I found this fantastic work by Les Antliaclastes. I’m no expert in this area so I won’t say any more about it, but I hope you enjoy the film.

Hilum part I (1+2) from franck littot on Vimeo.

Here is the description from the London International Mime Festival website:

“A micro comic-tragedy based on the cycles of the washing machine and set in the basement of a rundown museum of natural history. Orphaned and cut off from the ordered kingdom of curiosities upstairs, the cast of nursery rhyme characters, cartoon images, and mischievous urchins turn playtime into a theatre of cruelty. Whites mix with colours, delicates get hot washed, and a monstrous big toe devours holes in the socks.

Conceived and directed by Patrick Sims, formerly creative director of Buchinger’s Boot Marionettes whose Armature of the Absolute was a sold out hit at the Festival in 2009. Hilum – a miniature fantasy-land, distorting and disturbing, is his new company’s debut performance.”

If you like the video footage above, you can see the whole of the piece live at the festival from Sat 22nd – Wed 26th January at the ICA Theatre, London. For further details, please visit the festival website: http://www.mimefest.co.uk/antliaclastes-2011.html

If you would like to find out more about Les Antliaclastes and Patrick Sims, please visit the info page on this website: Sims, Patrick – Info

You can see more footage of Hilum on vimeo

As a final aside, whilst investigating the festival, I also came across a couple of other pieces on the programme that I think are worthy of note:

  • Du Goudron et des Plumes – Compagnie MPTA / Mathurin Bolze: A photo slideshow of the piece is available to see on YouTube
  • Tempesta – Anagoor: A preview is available for this piece, again, on YouTube (contains nudity)

London International Mime Festival runs from 15th-30th January, 2011.

Turner Prize 2010 – Winner Announced – Susan Philipsz

It has been announced this evening that Susan Philipsz has been awarded the Turner Prize 2010. She won the award with her sound installations, Lowlands and Long Gone. Philipsz will receive a cash prize of £25,000 whilst the three unsuccessful nominees will each receive a cash prize of £5000. It is the first time that a sound installation has been nominated for the award and thus the first time one has won it. Below you can see footage of the announcement and Philipsz’s acceptance speech:

The Medium of would like to know what you think about the judge’s decision. Do you think the right person has won?

For further information about the prize award you can visit the Channel-4 website and the Tate website.

Turner Prize for Contemporary Art 2010 – The Nominees

On the 6th December, the Turner Prize 2010 for contemporary art will be awarded to one of four shortlisted nominees. With under a week to go before the winner is announced, The Medium of takes a look at the nominees: Dexter Dalwood, Angela de la Cruz, Susan Philipsz and The Otolith Group.

The nominations for 2010 have been met with the usual mix of condemnation and praise. There are those that direct their feelings towards contemporary arts as a whole whilst others channel it toward the nominees themselves. A quick review of some news outlets shows no clear favourite, although William Hill has Dalwood as favourite and Philipsz as the outsider! To see what others are saying, check out the following: Richard Dorment – Daily Telegraph, Stephanie West – Channel-4 News, Jonathan Jones – Guardian, Shona Black – Suite101, Details on Request Blog, BBC News.

When all is said and done, it still remains to each their own. Have a look below and choose your favourite.

Dexter Dalwood

Reason for nomination:
“Dexter Dalwood has been nominated for his solo exhibition at Tate St Ives which revealed the rich depth and range of his approach to making painting that draws upon historical tradition as well as contemporary cultural and political events.” Tate website

Burroughs in Tangiers - Dexter DalwoodBurroughs in Tangiers – Dexter Dalwood (via Tate website)

Angela de la Cruz

Reason for nomination:
“Angela de la Cruz has been nominated for her solo exhibition, After at Camden Arts Centre, London. De la Cruz uses the language of painting and sculpture to create striking works that combine formal tension with a deeper emotional presence.” Tate website

Super Clutter XXL - Angela de la CruzSuper Clutter XXL – Angela de la Cruz (via Tate website)

Susan Philipsz

Reason for nomination:
“Susan Philipsz has been nominated for the presentations of her work Lowlands at the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art and Long Gone in the group exhibition Mirrors at the Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo, Spain. Philipsz uses her own voice to create uniquely evocative sound installations that play upon and extend the poetics of specific, often out-of-the-way spaces.” Tate website

Lowlands – Susan Philipsz (via Tate website)

The Otolith Group.

Reason for nomination:
“The Otolith Group have been nominated for their project A Long Time Between Suns, which took the form of exhibitions at Gasworks and The Showroom, London with accompanying publication. The collaborative and discursive practice of The Otolith Group questions the nature of documentary history across time by using material found within a range of disciplines, in particular the moving image.” Tate Website

Excerpt from Otolith I – The Otolith Group (via Tate website)

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2010

huddersfield-contemporary-music-festival-logoThis Friday, the UK’s biggest festival of contemporary and experimental music will launch for 2010. Over ten days it will consist of approximately 50 events spanning a variety of music/sound forms. The festival programme combines work by established figures such as John Cage and Mauricio Kagel with that of emerging composers such as Juste Janulyte, Patrick Allison, Edward Caine, Stephanie Conner and Johnny Herbert.

Huddersfield Festival is an important event for this art-form and almost certainly the largest collection of contemporary music works in one place over a given time span in the UK. What is worrying is that in comparison with the currently ongoing exhibition for The Turner Prize*, a comparable event in terms of credibility and standing for contemporary art, Huddersfield Festival is not very well known. This contrast in popularity is indicative of a wider issue concerning the place of contemporary (experimental) music within contemporary arts as a whole.

Lots of theories about why this may be the case have been proposed. In fact, in researching this article, I came across a post on The Wall Street Journal by Paul Sharma which points to a new theory on the matter in the form of a short book by David Stubbs entitled, Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don’t Get Stockhausen.

Irrespective of the reason why, contemporary experimental music does not seem to enjoy the same popularity as other contemporary arts forms and The Medium of is keen to at least redress the balance a little bit. We will be giving the same level of coverage to HCMF as we do to The Turner Prize. During the course of the festival we will be featuring some of the composers whose work is appearing at the festival. We will be featuring both established and emerging composers and hopefully bring you some contemporary arts that you may not have heard of before!

Please check back over the next few weeks to find out more.

And if you have any thoughts or opinions on the issues touched on within this post, please do let us know. This is a debate we’d really like to open on this site.

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival runs from Friday 19th November to Sunday 28th November. For further details, please visit Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival’s official website

*For further details regarding The Turner Prize, you can visit the official Turner Prize website and/or check back here over the next few weeks for details on the 2010 nominees.