Dead Fingers Talk

I've just posted my first review to Interface, about a group show in response to William Burroughs' Tape Experiments. Please drop by and let me know what you think.

Something wordless called me to this exhibition, the dry hissing of ghost tapes echoing sibilantly around the streets. As I entered the space, a portal reached out to me, bending space with cones of acceleration and deceleration. Plastique Fantastique's three-dimensional diagram was charged with a subliminal feline Scientology spell. It pricked my skin with a strange energy, and my brain was infected with the parasite-thought of Burroughs' reality-changing playbacks of tapes.

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Dead Fingers Talk: The Tape Experiments of William S. Burroughs
IMT Unit2/210, Cambridge Heath Road,
 London, E2 9NQ
28 May - 18 July 2010

we.assimilate

Here are some images and video of the Insectoid performance we did a few weeks ago in a double bill with Tai Shani. Performers on the night were me (Ana Benlloch), Alex Marzeta, David Miller, Paul Newman, Vanessa Page, Antonio Roberts, Stuart Tait and Vickie Wood.

There were lots of glitches with technology, as usual, but the beauty of doing something like this is that the mask covers most of your emotions, and everything seems like it's intentional. This is probably the most successful performance we've done, and although I'm not a fan of such a theatrical layout and setting, there's lots we can take from it for the future.

If that's whetted your appetite, here's the video in 2 parts:





And links if you can't get the embedded versions
we.assimilate (part 1)
we.assimilate (part 2)

More on Insectoid's YouTube channel

Insectoid website

Insectoid! Last.FM page

The Institute of Psychoplasmics

Did a performance for the opening night of The Institute of Psychoplasmics (as undercover as staff at the Institute looking for friends that had gone missing there). We decided to experiment with Twitter for updating it as it was going on, which seemed to work quite well: http://twitter.com/aasgroup We also had an audio piece in the stairwell.

There's a great video by Pil and Galia to do with a cult-like group that developed after the catastrophic Ikea riots and some amazing sculptures by Diann Bauer of merged people after some ambiguous Science Fiction disaster

The Institute of Psychoplasmics curated by Pil and Galia Kollectiv
Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, London, SW11 4NJ
9 April - 26 May 2008
Featuring: a.a.s. / Insectoid / Diann Bauer / Amanda Beech / Mikko Canini / Seth Coston / Rod Dickinson / Pil and Galia Kollectiv / Tai Shani / Francis Upritchard / Roman Vasseur

Pil and Galia Kollectiv Psychoplasmics page
a.a.s. Psychoplasmics page

DY-66

I've been busy with the a.a.s. installation at Five Years Gallery, Unit 66, Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Rd, E8 4QN. It runs 29th September - 7th October 2007, gallery open Sat - Sun 1-6pm. The installation was based on a spy game that started in Birmingham (as KR-36 - part of The Event) and has evolved into a London mission as well.

Photos of events from Birmigham and London became merged in an overall story, there was a key to the photos on an old rolodex and a microfiche with slides of Birmingham gas mains

Visitors playing Cat's Cradle, an important metaphor in the show, as there were lots of threads tying things together, but they were always shifting and uncertain. We'd also been talking about Schrödinger's Cat, so this visitor was perfect

There's some information here, we'll add more after the show has come down.

*News: DY-66 reviewed by Lucinda M Holmes here

a.a.s.
Five Years
DY-66 on YouTube
Photos from a.a.s. Flickr page

Frozen Tears III Launch

Frozen Tears III Launch at Koenig Books on Charing Cross Rd


I turn up early. I'm hot, sweaty and obviously from out of town. Someone I recognise takes pity on me, but I end up rambling.



Thankfully I can hide by watching the readings, all crammed into a downstairs cupboard, the writers and audience have to smell each others' discomfort, Christ do my tits keep getting in the official photos?



Everyone seems to be talking about cunts, I'm feet away from Stewart Home as he recites his clever porn, I try to listen intelligently and not stare like a stalker-pervert.

I only see fragments of No Bra from the stairs and have to sneak up to snap her for blog purposes.



As I'm clock watching for my train back, I suddenly see more people I know and should give more of my attention to, like David B & Esther, but I just twitter about having to get back to Birmingham (I always worry this makes me seem less cool, but seem to have a compulsion to mention where I live all the time, maybe it comes across as having an admirable committment for coming in the first place).

On the train I crack open the skin around the book with a nearly erotic pleasure, and read with the tingling ginseng-alert feeling good writing gives me.

Protest and Propaganda

Went to do a talk at Chelsea at short notice, after having been recommended by the very lovely Pil and Galia. Had to do a talk in the morning to some students from Poland, and then had a nightmare getting there (One train cancelled, one delayed, one tube line closed after an 'incident'). Freaked out, sweaty and stressed when we arrived, but they were very nice and hopefully it added to the crazy, intense artists from Brum vibe.

So wired after all that we had to go to some art to calm down. It's probably a bit of a faux pas to go to Tate Britain if you go to Chelsea College, but we wanted to see the Mark Wallinger Protest Installation, which I liked. Most people were looking at the front and not the other front, but we like to look at the other front. (There's a show title in there somewhere)


Mark Wallinger
State Britain 2006
Photo: Sam Drake © Tate 2006

Enjoyed the Chapman Brothers room too, full of casts of stupid/dark body/technology interfaces with great names. It was pretty dumb, but intentionally so. Of course the idiots don't realise it's not good because it's rude, it's good because it looks like it's good because it's rude...


Jake and Dinos Chapman
When Humans Walked the Earth 2006
Photo © Tate 2006

Walked past where Brian Haw has been protesting, there still seemed to be something there, but couldn't see what from the other side of the road

Managed to nip into Tate Modern just before it shut to see a blur of the Media Burn show. There was a pleasant aesthetic to a lot of the work, but it all felt like a lovingly preserved Situationist punk zine rather than a genuine call to arms.


Ant Farm (Chip Lord, Doug Michels, Curtis Schreier, Uncle Buddie) Media Burn 1975, re-mastered 2003 Courtesy the artists and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York

Might try to get back there, cos you've gotta try the slides, right?

... So Sad

Went to this exhibition opening at the Guy Hilton Gallery, 35 Fournier Street, London E1 6QE

It was curated by Mark McGowan with works from Brian Catling, the Centre of Attention, JJ Charlesworth, Sacha Craddock, Richard Dedomenici, Sarah Doyle, TheFucks, Marcia Farqhuar, Andrew Hunt, Mark McGowan, Harry Pye, Will Self, Bob and Roberta Smith, Stella Vine, Jessica Voorsanger.

The main draw of the show was Mark McGowan supposedly eating a swan, as a protest against the Queen (all his work courts the media, trying to be provocative and essentially making video art using their technology)





The rest of the 'swan' was offered to the audience, they could have some marmalade with it too



There were plenty more art offerings, exploring the title of the show in different ways. Smashed pot held together with sellotape and Centre of Attention's floral tribute



Flag made by Andy Hunt, based on a real flag he took a photo of at a Luton football match. He got the flag for free after the World Cup, apparently. Also a video by the guy dressed as a dog called 'Peanut Buddha', note Slade poster in background



Other stuff down in the basement, like this little Cyclops painting hidden in an alcove, a pinball machine covered in cut outs from magazines



Will Self was doing some kind of counselling, didn't get close enough to hear what it was all about as he was very popular



Another one of Mark's celebrity friends is Bob and Roberta Smith, who included some paintings and possibly a sign over the door that said this was the best gallery in the world



This guy was great, he tried to introduce himself to us a few times, but I've forgotten his name. He had a dog's head too. A costume one, not a real one or anything.



Another thing Andy Hunt did was give an old painting he did when he was 17, and it was shown along with a letter of explanation



Mark McGowan's site

There's usually plenty of press about his stuff, here's some I found online from Friday Cities and Times Online

And, if you want larger versions of pictures go to our Flickr page

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NEW: One of the artists, Sarah Doyle, has some photos of the show on her Flickr page about So Sad

Vyner Street Virgin

Met up with Pil & Galia so they could interview us for Plan B magazine. John Brainlove joined us at The Approach after a bit and we had a really interesting chat about art and science fiction.

They took us to some galleries around the Bethnal Green area:Between Bridges (which has something to do with Wolfgang Tillmans and we saw him walking down the road, my what a celebrity packed weekend!). The exhibition was of 1960s posters by Sister Corita, a Californian nun


Then went down Vyner Street, where there are loads of little galleries, mostly fairly commercial (in the London sense). Modern Art have a couple of spaces, Matthew Monahan did lumpy sculptures, disjointed and pathetic, like Frankenstein's monsters made from scraps left behind in the art cupboard and behind stage. Someone more clever than me in our group said that they seemed designed to appeal to buyers who wanted art that gave a nod to classicism while being suitably post-modern and ironic. Didn't get any pictures of the show as my battery ran out, but here are some pictures of his work in general, since I like to illustrate my ramblings for your entertainment.


Katy Moran was over the road in their other gallery, similarly hinting at art history, she paints images taken from the internet, then repaints them to a blur. They seemed like cheap fakes that had run in the rain, and made my eyes hurt, trying to figure out what they might have once been


Anj Smith had some tiny paintings in the show Feral Demosphere at Ibid Projects (more pics on their site)

In another mood I might have liked these, but found them too twiddly and arch, they reminded me a little of the Chapman Brothers' adjustment of Goya prints, although less well handled. They seemed to explore fashion as a nightmare, as if trying to get hold of that Takashi Murakami Louis Vuitton handbag has given her the sweaty night-horrors.

Vilma Gold had a show by Aïda Ruilova, there were slides of items from an architect's house that he thought of as a Pyramid-like tomb.

I was more interested in her videos of chains being pulled through models of buildings from films, or more accurately I liked the industrial music made by the repetitive loops, and how the visual rhythms of what was on the screens conditioned the viewer to behave in a certain way.

David Risley Gallery had Jonathan Wateridge's huge images of wrecks in landscapes, painted on layers of plexiglass that gave a tacky 3D effect that reminded me of postcards that change as you move them, or waterfall lights in restaurants. Some said "Found on Sky One", I couldn't possibly comment.


The rest is a bit vague, the only other one I can remember is that Fred had the Simon English drawing/collages Banks Cream and the Somerset Owls

there may have been others we went to but I was art blind by this point. Hope you're not.

Larger versions of my pics on my Flickr page; the rest are from the galleries pages