2.12.12 We are participating in Open File: Hashfail in Birmingham:

HASHFAIL Event/Torrent/Publication

Friday 14th December 2012 7 - 11 pm

Grand Union 19 Minerva Works, Fazeley Street, B5 5RS Birmingham

Featuring work by: Rhys Coren, Joey Holder, Polly Fibre, JK Keller, Yuri Pattison, Oliver Sutherland and Pil & Galia Kollectiv, alongside a text by Gil Leung.

Hashfail is the first in the series of 3 nation-wide events by Open File investigating the distribution and production of art via virtual and digital platforms through sound, performance and digital media. Hashfail coincides with (On) Accordance a project by or-bits.com and Grand Union A Torrent file is a file distributed via the web through rapid peer-to-peer 'seeding' of information. Becoming representative or pirate and copyright-infringing distribution it is also a mode of sharing that relies upon direct connection with other anonymous users of the internet. A Hashfail occours when 'seeded' files have become corrupt and therefore certain 'bits' of data cannot be recieved. Numerous Hashfails leed to the loss of quality and gradual decomposition of a file, shifting it ever-further from its origin, subjecting it to a new type of physicality and texturing.

You can download the Open File Torrent here.

A publication will also be produced for the event.

Designed and printed by Whiteroom Press

Open File is a curatorial project by artist Jack Brindley and curator Tim Dixon

We are also contributing to Poster Production:

For this exhibition Dean Kenning has worked with art students from Morpeth School, Central St Martins and Reading University. Each group of students has produced posters based on different themes and according to various methods of working. Year 12 students from Morpeth have created Social Body Mind Maps which are self portraits stemming from a problem or mystery initiated by an artwork, and connecting outwards with social life worlds of families, friends, passions and the imagination. St Martins students have attended a seminar on Maps, Diagrams and Schemas, and have produced new diagrammatic artworks. Reading University students have created posters with a political theme after being involved with a workshop on Political Posters. Poster Production brings all this work together in one place, and alongside posters by 11 other artists.

Artists: Morpeth School 6th Form Art: Sadeeq Adan, Hamida Begum, Resna Begum, Holly Farrell-Kelly, Tufayel Karim, Usof Khan, Sabil Miah, Joanna Webb.

Central St Martins BA Fine Art Joseph Evans, Emma Vidal Tais Bean, Madeline Bohrer, Amy Geyer, Edward Gillman, Alexander Skorobogatov, Jeff O'Loughlin, Ana Gold Chumillas, Nural Moser, Katie Tindle, Tom Camm, Alex Pascall, Kavan Balasuriya, Anna Olenicenco, Alina Buzea, Tosin Ogunsanya, Lou Macnamara, Nashrath Lameer, Aram Kim, Thea Mulvey, Ullrike Nordseth, Joanna Knott, Claudia Rowland, Lilly Vogor

Reading BA Fine Art: Beth Colman, Esther Shilliday, Rosie McCarthy, Faye Nelson, Melanie Aston, Rosanne McNamara, Natasha Day, Lucy Hatch, Robyn Appleton, LEWDJAW///Jack Wilson, Laura Prime

Plus: David Burrows, Sophie Carapetian, Pil & Galia Kollectiv, Emma Hart, Kate Janes, Kommunist Sex Klub, Esther Planas, Clunie Reid, John Russell, Eva Weinmayr, Mary Yacoob Curated by Dean Kenning

14.11.12 We are participating in a Q&A with Neil Cummings in Lanchester Gallery Projects, Coventry, Friday 16th November:

ON THE DESPERATE AND LONG-NEGLECTED NEED FOR SMALL EVENTS

2 November - 9 December Launch Night 1 November 6 - 8pm

The art historian Alexander Dorner declared in the 1920s that the new museum would be “more like a power station, a producer of new energy”. How has this idea manifested in the institutional production, consumption and distribution of art? How significant is the site of the institution and how does this redefine its activity? What is the task of the art institution in a post-Fordist city and can this energy translate into an agent of social change?

Taking its title from Barbara Vanderlinden’s 1990s curatorial project subtitled On the desperate and long-neglected need for small events, LGP will stage a multi-faceted programme of live research. The gallery will include a library and cinema and be the base for lectures, readings, screenings, conversations, club nights, performances and print. Each event will contribute to an examination into alternative strategies and policies for the art institution in post-Fordist Capitalism.

Coventry is a symptom of modern British history, representing homogenous structures of power, state, culture, finance and commerce. Built on the factory-city model, it’s marked by sheer industrial transformation and succeeding political decisions. Once, the symbol of the modern at its brightest, its architecture holds the political aesthetic of a grand social vision. With the sharp fading of these ideas, Coventry is a strong template of a post-industrial city in which to examine the position of the art institution within these parameters. LGP will use the period On the desperate and long-neglected need for small events to invite active local civic associations, community groups, federations and artists to coffee mornings in the gallery.

LGP will discuss exchange and engagement in order to contribute to and build, a sustainable cultural ecology in Coventry. The aim is to develop long term and active relationships with the occupants of Coventry.

SCREENING and Q&A Neil Cummings & Pil and Galia Kollectiv : Museum Futures - Distributed

Friday 16 November 6 – 7.30pm Neil Cummings will introduce his work MUSEUM FUTURES:DISTRIBUTED and following the screening, there will be a Q&A with Pil and Galia Kollectiv.

MUSEUM FUTURES:DISTRIBUTED explores a genealogy for contemporary art practice and its institutions, by re-imagining the role of artists, museums, galleries, markets, manufactories and academies. The project was commissioned by Moderna Museet Stockholm, Sweden, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary in 2008.

Plus, upcoming gigs for WE:

23.11.12 Lupa 13 @ Behind James Campbell House, E2 9QE London, 19:30

23.11.12 My Bataille @ Bruno Glint, , 38-40 Upper Clapton Road, E5 8BQ London, 21:30

30.11.12 LGP, The Hub, Jordan Well, Coventry CV1 5QT, 20:00

13.12.12 The Wreck, 65 Camberwell Church St, SE5 8TR London, 20:30

14.12.12 Reactor Halls E02 @ Primary, 33 Seely Road, Nottingham, NG7 1NU, 20:00

29.10.12 We are showing video work in:

Red, White And Blue: Pop/Punk/Politics/Place

07.11.12 – 08.12.12

Private view: Tuesday 11th November 2012 6 – 8.30pm

CHELSEA space
Chelsea College of Art and Design
16 John Islip Street
London SW1P 4JU

Red, White and Blue explores relationships, influences, and appropriations in political, pop and punk imagery. Critically positioned in the context of this Jubilee and Olympic year, the exhibition reflects upon corresponding historical moments: the 1951 Festival of Britain, the birth of punk and the Silver Jubilee. Picking up where our last show, DOME, left off Red, White and Bluelooks again at how the recently re-emerging themes of austerity, legacy, and national identity have resonated across the last half century, both in the UK and internationally. Red, White and Blue combines film, photography, graphics and contemporary art to expand the relationship between pop and punk culture, politics and place, reflecting back upon the past as well as examining the present. Whilst ideas of Britannia and Britishness permeate this exhibition, the show includes international perspectives of place and political defiance from Sao Paulo, Sarajevo, New York, and Ljubljana. The exhibition begins with plasma screens and video projection; a control room or nerve centre; a video immersion tank. Next, a kind of billboard alley of photographic images, pop art, graphics and posters; imagery piled high, international, and layered with histories. Anti- government protests from South America and civil war in the Balkans are depicted through posters and the moment of the Royal Jubilee of 1977 and the emergence of a Punk sensibility is evoked in black and white photographs. At the end of this graphic walkway a TV on the floor acts as an abject sentinel, a cathode tube at the end of the tunnel. In the main space, ideas of pop, punk, politics and place are consolidated within vivid, colourful artworks. Emptied out and cleaned up abstracted details of political symbols and music related graphics find new materiality and new meanings in a contemporary context.

Including Barney Bubbles, Nicky Cavell, Neilo Clements, Richard Evans, Jaime Gili, Derek Jarman, Laibach, Antonio Manuel, Cildo Meireles, Simon Periton, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Jon Savage, Jon Smith, Richard Smith, Daniel Sturgis, Paul Tickell, Steve Thomas, Mark Titchner, Trio/Fabrika

Curatorial concept and design: Donald Smith with Daniel Sturgis An illustrated publication is available with foreword by Donald Smith and main text by Michael Bracewell

Also, WE are playing live at the Buffalo Bar, 3.11.12:

Flashback 15 @ Buffalo Bar Saturday, 3.11.12, at 20:00 259 Upper St, N1 1RU London Flashback 15th birthday @ The Buffalo Bar, HighburyCorner.

LIVE FLASHBACK BANDS: Primitive Parts (of Male Bonding/Sauna Youth) Ace Of Wands WE (www.kollectiv.co.uk/WE) Zamos! (ex Toehammer) Plus Flashback DJs playing very vinyl. Free entry with flyer or email ossie@flashback.co.uk to get on the list if you can't grab a flyer. Otherwise it's £5 on the door. Saturday November the 3rd, 8 til late. http://www.flashback.co.uk/

And finally, Katia Barrett's exhibition at xero, kline & coma, opens 8.11.12:

Katia Barrett Three Series: The Geology of Piss, Multiple Lives of Pearl Roundabout and Knots

xero, kline & coma
258 Hackney Road
London E2 7SJ

www.xero-kline-coma.com

Exhibition runs:
10.11.12 – 2.12.12
Sat. – Sun. 12:00 – 18:00

Private view:
Thursday 8th November, 19:00 – 21:00

Three series is composed of a trio of works in loose relation to one another. Beneath their repetition of materials and signs, and similarly laborious processes of materialisation, they share an underlying critical urgency and political dissatisfaction. Multiple Lives of Pearl Roundabout chronicles the various transformations of a monument that once stood in a prominent roundabout in Bahrain. In March 2011, the Bahraini regime tore down pearl monument as a means of un-grounding the resistance movement. In a swift response to the destruction, makeshift replicas began to appear sporadically across the island. This series archives this co-performance by re-materialising the re-authored forms, investigating the political potency imbued in them. Based on mathematical knot diagrams that depict homeomorphic shapes, each Knot painting delineates new curves that have extended its form, further complicating the shape from the original. In one of the diagrams the limbs of protesters have linked to form a mutation of the same knot, suggesting a tension between political vitality and essentialism. The Geology of Piss was initially conducted over two working weeks, whereby documentation of urine soaked buildings was collected every night within the financial district. In an article in the Metro, a spokesman from The National Gallery suggested that urine from late night drinkers was corroding the stone of the listed building. The Geology of Piss is an attempt to locate a correlation between these imperceptible constellations of erosion and the seemingly immaterial social and economic formations within the city of London. What are the material linkages between physical and societal erosion?

20.10.12 New film and performance Terminal will premiere in Rijeka, Croatia, this Friday, 26.10.12, as part of the exhibition From Below, As a Neighbour:

Terminal: A Miracle Play with Popular Music from the End of the World

Friday, 26.10.12 at 20:00

HKD on Sušaku, Strossmayerova 1

Terminal: A Miracle Play with Popular Music from the End of the World is a film and live performance project exploring the politics of post-apocalyptic fiction. A theatrical staging of a morality play for end times and future folk music, it recasts eschatology, or the study of the end of history, as a foundational myth for a future society. Post-apocalyptic writing and cinema are grounded in an ethos of survivalism. Invoking Rousseau’s state of nature, or time before government, these fictions propose violent scenarios in which nuclear holocaust, environmental catastrophe and other disasters generate an individualistic politics of pure pragmatism, negating the possibility of democratic deliberation. Terminal narrates this familiar scenario, but at the same time questions its validity. The film, shot on black and white VHS at Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbarn in Cumbria, dramatises a series of conversations between future-historical archetypes about the needs and pressures of the situation in which they find themselves at the end of the world. The performers then gather to play worshipful songs about acid rain, radiation sickness and eating the dog, using a mix of conventional, obscure and makeshift instruments In the tradition of books such as Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker and Arthur M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Liebowitz, Terminal imagines artistic expression and new folk traditions for a world to come after the apocalypse. If, as Slavoj Žižek would have it, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to think of the end of capitalism, the project juxtaposes these two endpoints to test out how alternative scenarios might emerge from the collaborative practice of making theatre and music against a setting of social collapse.

Terminal is a collaboration with a group of London based artists and musicians, featuring Katia Barrett, Emily Rachel Beber, Victor M. Jakeman, Joseph Lewis, Rosie Ridgway, Stefan Sadler and Jamie Sutcliffe. Katia Barrett is an artist and a member of the bands Peepholes and Cover Girl. Victor M. Jakeman and Emily Rachel Beber are both members of WE, with Pil and Galia Kollectiv. Victor also plays with Whitby Bay, Gold Bars and Human Hair, and Emily is a writer. Joseph Lewis, Stefan Sadler and Jamie Sutcliffe make music together as Swinething, as well as pursuing individual art, writing and curatorial practices. Stefan is also a member of publishing group Famicon. Rosie Ridgway is an artist and curator at Sauna.

More information here.

7.10.12 We are participating in :

AFTER/HOURS/DROP/BOX

13 October 2012 - 9 December 2012

Exhibition opening: Friday 12th October 6-10pm

Andor Gallery
237 Hackney Road
London E2 8NA

Artists: George Barber, Michael Bell-Smith, David Blandy, Paul B Davis, Mark Dean, Graham Dolphin, Peter Donaldson, The Duvet Brothers, Gery Georgeiva Guthrie, Lonergan Andrew Mania, Christian "Megazord" Oldham, Hannah Perry, Juha Van Ingen, James Robertson, Roy Voss, Pil and Galia Kollectiv

AFTER/HOURS/DROP/BOX examines the influence of the music video and its relationship to contemporary art. A consistently experimental genre, the music video spans a changing technological period. From the early documentation of live performance, artists have both incorporated and influenced the narrative techniques and marketing devices employed by the music industry. AFTER/HOURS/DROP/BOX, an exhibition conceived by artist John Lawrence and developed in collaboration with ANDOR, draws upon the reciprocal relationship of the artist as both a radical innovator and as an active and influential consumer of the medium. The exhibition displays seminal works by early British Scratch video artists, such as George Barber and the Duvet Brothers, and marks the enduring influence of the music video up to its current significance in contemporary art.

AFTER/HOURS/DROP/BOX entails an additional programme of curated screenings and performances from its opening up until the end of 2012. http://www.creativeandorcultural.com/index.php/after-hours-drop-box

10.9.12 We are participating in Cave Art Fair:

CAVE is an artist led art fair for the city of Liverpool coinciding with the opening of the Liverpool Biennial 2012. Presenting 45 of the UK’s most exciting unrepresented artists whilst taking no commission or exhibition fee from those participating; CAVE is a new model of art fair.

Opening Hours: Thursday 13th September - 6pm - 12am (Preview)

Friday 14th September - 11am - 11pm

Saturday 15th September - 11am - 6pm

Sunday 16th September - 11am - 12am (Closing party)

Baltic Creative Campus, Jamaica Street, Liverpool, L1 0BW (entrance at 45 New Bird Street).

We are also delivering a performative lecture at the Remake Symposium in Bristol:

Remake Symposium (Arnolfini Auditorium):

Saturday 15th September 2012 A day considering the legacy, potency and potential pitfalls of re-staging live performance via lecture, panel discussion and conversation.The Remake symposium offers a space to discuss specifically the use of other artists’ documents in the creation of new work. What are the political, aesthetic and historical issues that attend this type of work? What does it say about the way performance is valued more generally? Includes performance of work commissioned for Performing Documents by Every house has a door and Performance Re-enactment Society. Also includes a special (re-)performance of Stuart Sherman by Robin Deacon. Confirmed speakers include: Adrian Heathfield, Robin Deacon, Rosemary Butcher, James Yarker, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Janez Jansa, Every House Has a Door & the Performance Re-enactment Society.

Tickets: £30 basic rate/ £50 institutional rate To book tickets, please click here.

Lastly, our essay on re-enactment has been published in Memory, edited by Ian Farr for MIT's Documents of Contepmorary Art series:

12.8.12 Next up for WE, one weekend, two shows - playing live at Power Lunches on 25.8.12 at 20:00 and at Red Market on 26.8.12 also at 20:00:

WAGE RAGE

massive party at power lunches, FUNDRAISING FOR THE INDEPENDENTS OUT THERE and behind the bar.

8pm - 2am

We're selling Frozen Margheritas like from Paris or New York ... and now:

Power Lunches Arts Cafe
446 Kingsland Road
London E8 4AE

Starring -

PEEPHOLES// http://wearepeepholes.co.uk/

WE // http://www.kollectiv.co.uk/WE/

MERLIN CARPENTER// DJ http://www.merlincarpenter.com/

MIKE LEVITT// www.cool.com ROSIE RIDGWAY// Vibes provided by http://benvickers.tumblr.com/post/10247254823/rosie-ridgeway-sauna

club MILK// DJ http://www.milk-records.co.uk/

TRANNY ADAM// DJ more !!

BASEMENT - £3 in

GROUND FLOOR - FREE ALL NIGHT

Hackney WickED Weekend @ RED Market
Bank Holiday Weekend
Saturday 25 August 12pm - 12am & Sunday 26 August 12pm - 12am

Followed by after party on Sunday 26 August 2012

RED Market
288 Old Street
London
EC1V 9DP

As the Olympics move in, we move out! Relocating Artists back to familiar terrain for a weekend extravaganza. They brought you Hackney Weekend we bring you Hackney WickED Weekend.

LET THE GAMES COMMENCE! FETE FOR THE WICKED ARTIST STALLS– SITE SPECIFIC INSTALLATIONS – PERFORMANCE – ARTIST FILM SCREENING – LIVE MUSIC AND MUCH MORE

Hackney WickED goes on Holiday. Pray for SUNSHINE!

RED GALLERY & RED MARKET

In spring 2010 the RED GALLERY launched as a pop-up gallery and events space and has continued to host a series of notable art and music events including the critically acclaimed EASTEND PROMISE exhibition that celebrated the East End’s ever-changing visual and cultural landscape with particular emphasis on the ‘cultural migrants’ who made the area their home. In summer 2011 RED MARKET took over the 20,000 sq.ft car park next to the gallery as a pop-up street market fusing food, drink, art, music & leisure. In summer 2012, RED MARKET returns to the scene of last year’s successful run with more food, traders, a fully licensed bar with large covered seating area, entertainment and an urban beach.

2.8.12 WE are next playing live on 11.8.12 at the Old Police Station:

100 yrs of The (Old) Police Station ! - Edwardian summer party / Annual Open Studios /

114 Amersham Vale
SE14 6LG
London

100 YRS: Constructed in 1912, our beloved Edwardian police station is celebrating it's 100yrs anniversary this year and we're throwing a party in its honour. On Saturday August 11th (the last weekend of Deptford X festival), we will have a day-long party to include all things Edwardian/Victorian/steampunk. Expect gramophones, corsets, deerstalkers, pipes, bloomers, big hats, big moustaches and Edwardian futurism. There will be the usual bar and live music plus a BBQ during the day and a Victorian tea party.

MUSIC: OLO WORMS - As part of this celebration, we are chuffed to be hosting OLO WORMS for their brand new album launch 'Yard is Open' http://www.oloworms.co.uk/

WE - Challenging the individualism of the Western pop song, WE reveals the latent politics of the love song and transforms chart hits by annihilating their liberal subject and replacing it with a collective consciousness.

more acts to be announced soon.....

FOOD & DRINK: Vintage tea party in the Fingerprinting Room by Enclave's tenant Kitsch in Sync

OPEN STUDIOS: This centenary celebration coincides with the Old Police Station's 2012 open studios which will be 12-6pm on August 11th and 12th. You can also pop round to our neighbors at the ASC studios (Goodwood Road) and Acme Studios (Childers Street) who are both having open studios at the same time.

11.7.12 Westworld opens at xero, kline & coma on 28.7.12:

Westworld

xero, kline & coma
258 Hackney Road
London E2 7SJ

www.xero-kline-coma.com

Exhibition runs:
29.7.12 – 19.8.12
Sat. – Sun. 12:00 – 18:00

Private view:
Friday July 28th 19:00 – 21:00

Artists: Russel Chater, Factice (Ludovica Gioscia & Corinne Felgate), Jade Heritage, Joey Holder, PLAZA (Oliver Herbert & Edward Simpson), Julika Gittner, Matthew McQuillan, Sophio Medoidze, Jon Purnell, Ben Seymour, Lex Thomas, Jonathan Trayner & Stephanie Dickinson, The Unstitute

The show is accompanied by a publication with contributions by Ben Seymour, Shama Khanna & Nina Manandhar, Jade Heritage, Beatrice Schulz, Emily Rosamond

In Michael Crichton’s 1973 feature Westworld, a high-tech hovercraft transports selected guests across a desert zone into the hyper-engineered oasis of a secluded adult amusement park. Westworld allows its guests to reinvent themselves as sheriffs and medieval knights with limitless powers for the duration of their exclusive vacation from reality.

Similar to the artificial world imagined in Westworld, the multinational shopping centre group Westfield has successfully paved its generic fiction of an ideal commercial city over countless brownfield sites across the globe, including the recently opened Westfield Stratford in East London. Crowned with its own postcode E20, Westfield Stratford is a carefully controlled environment that is entirely shielded from the daunting reminders of recession and social deprivation that mark the surrounding reality of Stratford’s existing urban landscape.

The automatic exclusion of context coupled with the desperate simulation of 'life' that characterises large scale corporate environments such as Westfield is surprisingly reminiscent of your average 21st Century art institution. Assuming that Westfield must therefore be the perfect space to show art, Scare in the Community wants to imagine what it would be like to put on an exhibition at the shopping centre. The artworks in Westworld indulge in escapist fantasies of a perfect consumerist world where everybody is rich, healthy and eternally entertained...

Westworld is curated by Scare in the Community.

Also, we have some work in this show, where WE are also performing on the 27th of July:

PLASTIQUE FANTASTIQUE: THERE IS NOT AND NEVER HAS BEEN ANYTHING TO UNDERSTAND!

ASC Gallery Erlang House, 128 Blackfriars Road London SE1 8EQ
John Russell, Dean Kenning, Suzanne Treister, Simon Davenport, Reza Negarestani, Lawrence Leaman, Joanne Tatham & Tom O'Sullivan, John Gillis & Aline Bouvy,
Benedict Drew, Peter Rockmount, Mark Jackson, John Cussans & Roberto Peyre, Pil & Galia Kollectiv, Neil Chapman & Ola Sahl, David Burrows & Simon O'Sullivan.

ASC Gallery Erlang House, 128 Blackfriars Road London SE1 8EQ 020 7274 7474 info@ascstudios.co.uk

June 8 - August 3, 2012, Monday to Saturday, 2 - 5pm.

Opening 7 June 2012, 6 - 9pm.

July 27: Performance by WE and Neil Chapman & Ola Stahl.

In January 2012, ASC invited David Burrows and Simon O'Sullivan to produce an exhibition as Plastique Fantastique. They explained that they were not Plastique Fantastique, this was instead the name of a fiction, and proposed a Plastique Fantastique Communiqué in the form of a group exhibition. Initially, discussions went well. However, in the last few weeks the pair have preferred pointing, humming, or nodding to talking. ASC believes this is probably a ruse or the result of a strange pact they have made between themselves but are committed to seeing the exhibition through. ASC are in an embarrassing position however, as writing a description of the exhibition is very difficult. We can only offer the communiqué the pair sent and ideas discussed at our first meetings. Burrows & O'Sullivan told ASC they were interested in making an exhibition through layering or accretion, a process more akin to the production of a noise or crystalline object than curation. When asked why, they told ASC they believed that it was what the times or situation demanded - a mixing-up or refusal of genre - and pointed to the peculiar diagrams that some of the contributors had submitted for the show, and this was as far as the conversation went. ASC only knows for sure that the work in the exhibitions ranges from painting, texts and diagrams, objects and film and sound work.
Plastique Fantastique Communiqué:

Plastique Fantastique is for Skizzcretion... as an interference with the processing of stimuli by the nervous system... as secretion over-load... as semantic under-load... as a burning of the ear and splitting of the eye... as an accretion that is neither transparent nor opaque but a vibration... as dense and crystalline rather than a complex and rich source of information... as a surplus that is a store of energy... as an oscillation rather than a movement from A to B... as disorganisation and disorientation... as noise... as a refrain yet-to-come:

THERE IS NOT AND NEVER HAS BEEN ANYTHING TO UNDERSTAND!

For more information on Plastique Fantastique, visit: www.imagemusictext.com orwww.plastiquefantastique.org

28.6.12 We have made some propaganda for this exhibition:

And we are showing new video We Are Equilibrium in this exhibition:

Hackney Wicked Retrospex

26.5.12 We are showing recent video work at the following exhibition:

MOCA London presents:

Gradient Change

Rowan Durrant
Alexander Hidalgo
Joanna Hoffmann
Niki Kyriakidou
Pil and Galia Kollectiv
Joanna Mires
Curated by Martin Rasmussen

June 3 - June 30, 2012
Private view 3 June, 12 - 3pm

Opening times: Thursday - Saturday 12pm - 6pm
Museum of Contemporary Art, London
113 Bellenden Road
London SE15 4QY
www.mocalondon.co.uk

“Tiny masters of metabolism and movement are often ready and willing to associate with larger forms when environmental pressures encourage togetherness. Evolution’s menagerie is far more responsive to immediate environmental forces than the “random mutation” contingent would have us believe.”

Acquiring Genomes, A Theory of the Origins of Species, Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan, p. 20

This exhibition is inspired by biologist Lynn Margulis’ critique of evolutionary theory that emphasises systems’ tendency to organise from gradients in their immediate surroundings rather than from their own internal components. Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan, in their research, stress the importance of symbiotic or cooperative relationships between species, for instance how cells collaborate with bacteria to produce a working functioning body. Sperm cells are not racing against each other towards fertilization; it is more a matter of making sure at least one cell gets there in time; however the sperm cell is as caricature depicted as being competitive (“Whenever you feel worthless, REMEMBER you were once the quickest sperm cell” - joke found online)

Complex ecosystems have the ability to reduce gradients; as they mature, the energy and material cycles become larger in scope. Tropical forests have a superior ability to cool themselves relative to grasslands and deserts.

The works in this exhibition respond to these ideas and highlight how competition relates to one aspect of evolutionary theory only. This approach to the development of the world is very apparent in culture. Capitalism holds on to a Darwinian inspired approach reflected by human endeavor. Put simply; these ideas allow for a sigh of relief in conversations concerning inequality and how capitalism may not be operating in it most effective mode!!

Also, WE are playing at:

Reprobate Revue IV

Tuesday, 19 June 2012
19:30 until 23:30

Roadtrip & The Workshop
243 Old Street, EC1V 9EY London, United Kingdom

WE
http://www.kollectiv.co.uk/WE/index.html
Through the simple substitution of the plural for the singular, WE reveals the latent politics of the love song and transforms chart hits by annihilating their liberal subject and replacing it with a collective consciousness.

Foul Geese
Foul by name but not by nature, ludicrously original Geese have the capacity to wring a smile from granite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCn9jzbVJo4&feature=relmfu
http://www.myspace.com/foulgeese

The A Band
British musical collective formed in Nottingham in the late 1990s, and in 2005 The Wire compared the band's importance to that of AMM and SME. Back for the second of two residency slots at RR4, with a contrasting set to last time.
http://www.thewire.co.uk/details/artists/?artist=4626
http://www.myspace.com/72692603
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Band

Protagonists of David Gadsdon
With a new song called Bunny trap, and promising a much more upbeat set than last time. Throwing shards. About: Comically-vicious, totally depressing, Magazine-esque jazz-crunch 3-piece with morbid voiceover/singer.
£5/£3 before 8pm (or before the second act begin)

And finally, we are showing some work in this:

13.5.12 WE are playing live at Hackney Wicked, 26.5.12:

Hackney WickED presents an evening of artist films and performance at Sugarhouse Studios, a pop-up cinema space run by Assemble:

SUGARHOUSE STUDIOS, 107 HIGHSTREET, STRATFORD, E15 2QQ

Showing films that represent the urban landscape and our decaying culture. 6.30pm – 2am .Films to commence at 7:30pm.

Live performance from WE: Challenging the individualism of the Western pop song, WE reveals the latent politics of the love song and transforms chart hits by annihilating their liberal subject and replacing it with a collective consciousness. Through the simple substitution of the plural for the singular, intimacy becomes a form of collective action and the unique the universal. Despite being the mass product of an anonymous culture industry, the very premise of the pop song is one of extreme individualism, elevating the ‘one’ subject of romantic desire above any other and declaring one moment in time more significant (‘when I first saw you’) than any other. As a result, even though the pop song is often the outcome of the labour of producers, engineers and technicians, it is associated with the strong fictional character of the pop star. WE reinjects collectivity into this framework, exploring the tension between the dystopian quality of the totalitarian mass and the utopian promise of a communal project. Inspired by the dystopian fiction of Yevgeny Zamyatin and the minimal synth covers of pop classics made by obscure DiY groups in the late 1970s and early 1980s, WE follows in the footsteps of bands like The Better Beatles, who sought to improve on the canon of popular music by stripping it bare, even.

Brought to you by Hackney WickED Curated by Laura May Lewis

www.hackneywicked.co.uk | www.sugarhousestudios.co.uk

We are also participating in this discussion panel at the ICA to launch the book The Sensible Stage: Staging the Moving Image, which we have contributed an essay on the dialectics of performance:

Theatricality and Staging

26 May 2012
£10 / £8 concessions / £5 ICA Members

Chaired by curator and writer Bridget Crone. With curator Vanessa Desclaux, artist Beatrice Gibson, and Pil and Galia Kollectiv.

Recent debates have disrupted and complicated the separation between theatre and performance, but what do these debates mean for the moving image - how does the image itself become live and material in form? A distinguished panel tackles subjects raised in The Sensible Stage: Staging the Moving Image, a new collection of essays edited by Bridget Crone.

The biennial hosts a high-profile series of chaired panel discussions and talks, in association with Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN).

LUX / ICA Special Offer: 4 for the price of 3
Offer available on full price and concession tickets. Call our box office on 020 7390 2176 to book. This offer does not include performances.

Members tickets are half price, £5 for screenings & talks, and free for performances. ICA Membership starts from £10.

And, we are giving a talk at Chelsea on Wednesday, May 30th, 18:00 - 19:30:

Pil and Galia Kollectiv’s practice is collaborative and interdisciplinary, based primarily in film and performance. Their work addresses the legacy of modernism and the avant- garde and the relationship between art and politics.

Pil and Galia will discuss the inherent contradictions of post-Fordist labour, the myth of meritocracy and their art band WE. They will also introduce this artist’s talk with a recent two-channel video work, 'We Are Equilibrium,' which was recently shown in Israel, and presents a dialogue between two computers.

Public Programme & CCW Graduate School Free Talks Series
The talks series is free and open to the public and will take place in the main Lecture Theatre at Chelsea College of Art & Design, 16 John Islip St, SW1P 4JU.

And finally, Kirsten Glass - A Spritz of Absinthe opens at xero, kline & coma on 1.6.12:

Kirsten Glass
A Spritz of Absinthe

Voodoo Dolly 2010

xero, kline & coma
258 Hackney Road
London E2 7SJ

www.xero-kline-coma.com

Exhibition runs:
2.6.12 – 24.6.12
Sat. – Sun. 12:00 – 18:00

Private view:
Friday June 1st 19:00 – 21:00

“I wanted a spritz of absinthe”.
Guy Maddin explaining his use of a green coloured filter in a scene from Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary

The thinking is... roughly... that the models from magazines are re-employed as templates for my painting activity and as hostesses to a stranger's encounter with the painting. They are professional actresses so they don't mind. They are skilled at playing a variety of roles but mostly their faces are kept blank for projection. Models are meant to be copied. This is an act of possession, like taking a photograph, but, through the painting process, the copied model becomes flawed and reworked many times until she becomes part of an abstract negotiation and eventually emerges as a character or presence which is both less knowable and more particular

The models know that later, when they are fully prepared, they will play hostess to an audience (Their poses are well rehearsed, the studio is backstage, the paint is cosmetic, girlish even, but then unruly, ugly, primal, unfashionable, awkward, emotional. The paintings are frozen performances). The ideal commodity image gets 'lived in' until she acquires a new life in a painting, following her perfect death in the photograph. The impossibly perfect commodity image, like any ideal, is never attainable; it is a modern Siren, shape-shifting and endlessly seductive, inviting us towards an eclipsed 'something else'.

Painting itself - as a physical medium and a cultural fantasy - is fetishized and reimagined as a decadent vanity, an empty styling, an eroticised living death and ancient chameleon language which perhaps uses us to continue.

This is a vampire story.

For more information go to: www.kirstenglass.com.

3.5.12 WE are supporting Harry Merry at Liars Club 11.5.12:

21.4.12 Annabel Frearson - Bad Brain Call opens at xero, kline & coma on 3.5.12:

Annabel Frearson
Bad Brain Call

Skin Trader Trash 2012

xero, kline & coma
258 Hackney Road
London E2 7SJ

www.xero-kline-coma.com

Private view: Thursday May 3rd 19:00 – 21:00
Exhibition open: 5.5.12 – 27.5.12 Sat. – Sun. 12:00 – 18:00

Bad Brain Call marks the launch of a new album of pop songs written by Annabel Frearson using only words from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1831), set to music by Joe Howe. Bad Brain Call is the latest in a series of works, including the writing of a new novel, using all and only the words from Shelley's Frankenstein. To date, various extracts have appeared in a magazine, a Slimvolume poster edition (now in the V&A collection), and performed by actors, including at Arnolfini, Bristol and most recently at Haifa Museum of Art, Israel. Bad Brain Call is Frearson's first solo exhibition.

Joe Howe is a young composer and sound designer, working under a series of aliases, including most recently, Ben Butler & Mousepad. He's produced 5 albums in the last five years on various EU and US labels, including Joemus, an album written in collaboration with Japan-based Scot, Momus. His most recent work was to compose and arrange music for SWITCH ON: Konferenzoper, a contemporary Opera based on the pioneering work of women in early synthesizer music, in collaboration with director Santiago Blaum.

For more information go to: http://www.annabelfrearson.com/ | http://joe-howe.com/ or contact: info@xero-kline-coma.com

Also, we are showing work in this show in Amsterdam:

'There Was A Country Where They Were All Thieves'

Abigail Reynolds, Gary Colclough, Gauri Gill, FIELDCLUB, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Helen Mirra, Edward Clydesdale Thomson, Jasper Coppes & Stijn Verhoeff

Alongside# Residency: curator Natasha Ginwala

4 May - 9 June, OPENING 4 May 17-19 h.

Jeanine Hofland Contemporary Art
De Clercqstraat 62
1052 NJ
Amsterdam

phone +31 6 06-24 34 32 90
email mail@jeaninehofland.nl
website jeaninehofland.nl

0pen from Wednesday till Sunday 13-18 h.

What might it mean to be overexposed to a land? Such that one is like a glacial striation on bedrock- a pattern of selfness and crystal The countryside is as much an imagined terrain as it is an assemblage of components: rock, crops, air, people and histories. Hence, the look and shape of land is a production of labour, industry and capital as much as it is a factor of wind speeds and sedimentary formations. This exhibition is an accumulation of fictions that are registrations of/from place, taking the form of immersive dispatches, field notes and temporal mediations.

And WE are performing in Wroclaw, Poland on 30.4.12:

OUT OF STH vol.3

30 April – 17 June 2012

2 Awangarda Gallery
50-149 Wroclaw
ul. Wita Stwosza 32

opening: 30.04.2012, 7 pm
- Talkaoke / The People Speak
- concerts: WE (Pil and Galia Kollectiv), Tour de Vinyl

EXHIBITION

Les Fleurs du Mal - New Art from London

OUT OF STH vol. 3 is yet another stage of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning projects: “External Artists. Out of Sth” (2008) and “OUT OF STH Presents” (2010), carried out in BWA Wroclaw and city space. The former showed world urban art in the context of gallery approaches to contemporary art, the latter presented the most original examples of artists interfering in city space. This time the project includes exhibitions, realizations and activities concentrating on the issue of the City in its social and political dimension, City as a source of counter-cultural and alternative aspects of street activism, whose idea annexes new spheres of culture.

“OUT OF STH vol. 3” is a multi-layered interactive event aiming to change the perception and co-existence of art in city space, within the trends of contemporary visual art, through the presentation of a spectrum of aesthetics, techniques and media, as well as its permeation into mass design. It is a broad presentation of the work of artists tackling urban themes, a new definition and function of the city, common public space, urban design, complimented by music events, performances, meetings, workshops and lectures, during which the artists will be sharing their visions of the city and its unique aesthetics. This art has gone beyond the gallery space and has drawn the attention of much of the wider world, far beyond counter culture.

OUT OF STH vol. 3 is two exhibitions in Awangarda Gallery BWA Wroclaw (Les Fleurs du Mal – New Art From London and Free Ride Art Space) as well as realizations and international activities within the framework of the project’s experimental city space (Ex: City, Re: Design and Neighbours), involving the Wroclaw audience in artistic activities.

PART ONE: Les Fleurs du Mal - New Art From London The artists: - kennardphillipps, John Russell, Tod Hanson, Max Reeves, Laura Oldfield Ford, Francis Thorburn, Edwin Burdis, Clunie Reid, The People Speak /Talkaoke, Emily McMehen, Kieron Livingston and Ian Allison, -Tate Shots Music: Ruth Ewan, Liam Gillick, Pil and Gaila Kollectiv, Tai Shani - The Beer Mat Show: Gavin Turk, Bob and Roberta Smith, Ben Eine, Sarah Baker, Olaf Brzeski, Antoni Wajda Curator: Cedar Lewisohn

Charles Baudelaire’s classic collection of poems, Les Fleur du Mal, is widely regarded as masterpieces of the genre. The text showcases the thoughts of an isolated phantom who wanders the metropolitan landscape in search of some unobtainable respite from the conditions of modern life. This idea of the flâneur and the artist seeking salvation and beauty in an ever more morally corrupt world is central to the working methods and ideas of the group of artists in the exhibition. At once political and aesthetic, the works highlight a growing trend among artists working in the United Kingdom that mix historical reference points with an artistic practice that seamlessly merges with their everyday lives. The project will include photography, video, sculpture, installation and performance works, all of which represent the idea of the artist as a traveller though the urban landscape.

The exhibition, Les Fleurs du Mal, is accompanied by an offsite project and exhibition, within the exhibition; The Beer Mat Show, which features beer mats made by Gavin Turk, Bob and Roberta Smith, Ben Eine and Sarah Baker. The project was first presented in an old fashioned pub in Peckham in London. It will be re-presented in Wroclaw along with the addition of two Polish artists: Olaf Brzeski and Antoni Wajda.

Tate Shots Music, is a series of four short films by Liam Gillick, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Ruth Ewan and Tai Shani, which explore the artist’s use of music in their practice. The project was originally commission by the Tate in London and will be shown in Wroclaw as a project within a project.

14.3.12 WE are on the radio:

F.I.R.E.I.N.C.A.I.R.O.

We Are The Time: Art Lives in the Age of Global Transition.

Conference-festival week at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie 12th – 16th March 2012

http://wearethetime.info/

F.I.R.E.I.N.C.A.I.R.O. daily 13h30 to 19h30

F.I.R.E.I.N.C.A.I.R.O. is a Live Radio/Event space inspired, in part, by the renowned Belfast independent record label, Good Vibrations. The project is a collaboration with the artist-run space Goleb, the UK community radio station Soundart Radio (102.5FM), and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie’s very own Radio Rietveld.

http://projectgoleb.wordpress.com/ | http://www.soundartradio.org.uk/ | http://radio.rietveldacademie.nl/

Art and music have long contributed to society and our way of life. But in these dire financial times where media has been swallowed by giant conglomerates, and culture has fallen under the scrutinizing eye of market capitalism; where is the unifying ‘space’ that announces its difference to the prescribed status quo? Throughout the history of popular culture this collective space, appearing both physically and conceptually, has been a hub of creativity, exploring both new and old technologies and giving birth to new sounds and new vibrations. In Belfast, caught between the conflicts of its time, it was a little known record shop and label called Good Vibrations. Famous for producing the first record that was ever played twice in a row on British airwaves, it was also a project that recognized the potential of music to be a unifying force. A little over a year ago it appeared that the Internet, with its use of social media, could be the free space where this difference could be heard; the apparent spark that lit the fires of the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid, which later reverberated to the cities of Cairo, London and New York. With the recent censorship laws being proposed on the Internet, our question as a group has been: If we could freely express ourselves, what kind of vibrations would we want to send out there? And the workgroup’s answer has (so far) been: F.I.R.E.I.N.C.A.I.R.O. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEkG3raANtU which after all is an intense love song.

Throughout the week, different radio programs will take place with a variety of guests and a range of live musical acts. The entire project will be broadcasted as a Live Feed through the Radio Rietveld website, and will also appear on the UK community radio station Soundart Radio (102.5FM)

Follow the week’s events on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/FIREINCAIRO/374246752600653

The entire project will also be streamed live on www.fireincairo.org

The streams will later be accessible through an archive on the website We are the Time.

9.3.12 File Transfer Protocol opens Sat. 10.3.12, 20:00 at the Haifa Museum of Art as part of the exhibition Haifa-Jerusalem-Tel Aviv:

File Transfer Protocol

Participating artists: Jem Noble, John Russell, Annabel Frearson, PollyFibre, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Fieldclub, Darren Banks.

Curators: Pil and Galia Kollectiv

At the opening Ayelet Lerman will perform PollyFibre's instructions for scissors music

21.2.12 WE are playing live on Wednesday 7.3.12 at 19:30 at the Dalston Victoria, 451 Queensbridge Road, London E8 3AS:

and next at xero, kline & coma:

Sophie Carapetian
Art Labour Compendium

xero, kline & coma
258 Hackney Road
London E2 7SJ

www.xero-kline-coma.com

Private view: Thursday March 1st 19:00 – 21:00
Exhibition open: 3.3.12 – 25.3.12 Sat. – Sun. 12:00 – 18:00

Art Labour Compendium is an on-going body of works that seeks to interrogate the relation between art and capital through reflections on labour and wage struggles within the arts economy. The compendium is in a constant state of recomposition and flux. In its current guise, it comprises film, sculpture and photographic work.

For xero, kilne & coma, the compendium exhumes the buried histories of the London branch of the Artists Union (1972-1983) and the Art strike action committees of London and San Francisco (1990 - 1993). It also investigates the problem of the vanguard by staging reconciliation between Marx and Bakunin in the style of De Kooning, and explores the question of the labour bound up in the making of an artwork.

17.1.12 AAS at xero, kline & coma:

AAS
The Cult of Quatermass

xero, kline & coma
258 Hackney Road
London E2 7SJ

www.xero-kline-coma.com

Private view: Thursday January 19th 19:00 – 21:00
Exhibition open: 21.1.12 – 12.2.12 Sat. – Sun. 12:00 – 18:00

Live performance at 21:00

‘Pump the right frequencies into the streets and the youth will act like vultures, pure lizard brain greed. 50 cycles per second, two scans per cycle, prime the pumps.’ – Journal entry six months ago

Quatermass failed to register his research with the authorities. The machine is just beyond current knowledge, equations flash into his mind, without him having to understand them. His thoughts are forbidden, but he has them nonetheless. The Ministry demands his presence.

‘Silence. Even a vacuum may contain vibrations. Space itself is the dark matter we seek. All of time is compressed into a single vibrating filament, a new form religion emerging from alphawaves.’ – Journal entry three months ago

Outside, the air is punctured by sirens as the 'Receivers' amass in public spaces to celebrate the eternal drone. The British Sonic Research Unit is investigating - they suspect the drone is assimilable to thought. Quatermass has disappeared. No one knows what has become of him.

‘True violence is not cinematic, nor spectacular. The true function of government is to make you believe you enjoy their disruptive signals: Maximum force at minimum expense. Questions containing “why” are increasingly less permissible. In the north, it is snowing.’ – Journal entry last month

For more information go to aasgroup.net

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