Test Bed
Test Bed is almost upon us - launch party 6.30pm, Thursday April 19th, 2007 , The Curio City Shop, 11am, Auchinleck Square, 5 Ways Shopping Centre, Birmingham B15 1EW.
If you would like to see quality contemporary artworks in a 'real world' setting, please come along, the shop is also open daily from 1pm until 6pm, from the 20th until 28th April (excluding Sunday).
The artists comissioned for Test Bed are:
Pauline Bailey, Nelson Douglas, Darryl Georgiou, Sandra Hall, Julie M O'Neil, Harry Palmer, George Saxon and Mark Storor.
Each artist has been challenged to make a project, in, or within ten minutes walk of the Curio City Shop and must include local people in the research, making or execution of their project. Each artist has a very different practice and approach to the problem, click on their name to be taken to information on them and their Test Bed project.
If you'd like a sneak preview, and a chance to meet some of the artists, we are holding a series of seminars at the shop, from 6-8pm, on 1st, 8th, 14th and 21st March, admission free.
The latestpress release for the project is below, for your enjoyment, see you at the show!
8 Artists
1 Shop
25,572 People
5 Ways
TEST BED Launch Thursday 19 th April 2007 6.30pm
Exhibition continues until Saturday 28 th April.
Launch Party: Thursday 19 April 6.30pm to 9.00pm
The Curio City Shop, Five Ways Shopping Centre, Auchinleck Square,
Birmingham B15 1EW
TEST BED challenges 8 artists with international reputations to create new artworks with the people and places in the Five Ways area of Birmingham.
Commissioned Artists:
Pauline Bailey, Nelson Douglas, Darryl Georgiou , Sandra Hall , Julie M O'Neill, Harry Palmer , George Saxon, Mark Storor
The public face of Birmingham has never been easily defined, the city can and does mean so many different things to so many different people.
Images of Birmingham 20 or 30 years ago still resonate today and the city of a thousand trades continues to struggle with an identity crisis that perplexes the people who call it home as much as those on the outside looking in. Nowhere is this more apparent than Five Ways. A gateway to the glittering lights of the 24-hour hedonistic Broad Street and a lasting reminder of the concrete collar of the 1960s. It is one of the most socially and economically deprived wards in Birmingham and yet is one step away from all night party street and affluent Birmingham society.
TEST BED is a Friction Arts project. Acknowledged experts in the field of socially engaged arts practice, they have delivered seminars and projects across the UK and Europe that achieve social outcomes. The project is supported by Arts Council England, Business Link West Midlands and West Midlands Creative Alliance.
TEST BED consists of exhibitions and performances devised by eight of the most exciting and innovative midlands based established artists, this 10-day celebration will focus on a myriad of artist-led practices and exhibitions in such a way as to implicate the whole city. Each of the artists will respond to people and place and their resulting new work will be shown and exhibited within the community and location that it was made and informed.
Four of them, Daryl Georgiou, George Saxon, Sandra Hall and Mark Storor , tackle some of the issues and questions facing the community and Birmingham today.
Video artist George Saxon , best known for his work with ‘HouseWatch' and ‘PaperHouse', has created new work through a series of closely observed audio-visual recordings, where the passers-by become the protagonists in an event which will evolve though their conscious and unconscious participation and actions.
Saxon is interested in cinematic architecture for pedestrians, rather than making work for galleries or cinema. He has shown and created his innovative works across the globe, including London, Tokyo, Melbourne, Paris and New York. His multi-screen projections and site-specific work for TEST BED, ‘Passage of Disappearances ', will explore the dynamics of movement and perception of fear.
By responding to ‘activity' and lack of ‘activity' within the confines of a specific urban space, he hopes to develop a dialogue with the passers-by - the ‘temporal and frequent users' of this space. This will be an exploration of the commonplace - habits, rituals, brief encounters and urban disorientation, where the videotaped material provides a way to edit and process in such a way as to create a space of both silences and frenetic activity of comings and goings of passers-by; of vocal utterances, fleeting moments, stopping to talk or hurriedly walking past.
Nostalgic Media Artist Darryl Georgiou , originally from Birmingham but more well know for his work elsewhere, including Vienna Art Week (06), Berlin (05) and Moscow (04), will explore the perception of visual and public art as it shifts from the values of civic permanence and memorial towards process, engagement and the idea of temporary installation.
His work for TEST BED, ‘ Looking for Kline' takes its starting point from the 1975 Play For Today ‘Gangsters'. Set in Birmingham, with a real sense of place outside of London, Gangsters is arguably the most unusual series ever shown on British television.
“For me, Art is about heightened awareness - awareness of spaces we usually don't notice or sounds we don't listen for,” he states. “The ‘Looking for Kline' work and related ‘locations' are for me - childhood memories, but it's that audience indifference - to these personal spaces - that interests me.
“It's also about intervention , f or the duration of the project - there will be glimpses of relational artworks - seemingly mundane happenings. A patchwork of small ideas, as opposed to the site of art spectacle. I'm concerned with how the audience engages with it - or not - in a transient way. The art works are ultimately ‘non sites'.
“I watched Gangsters being made, as a kid, back in the seventies. Wide collars and ties, I recall talking to some of the characters. It was the red-hot summer of 1976. It has consequently retained an almost mystical admiration, maybe because one week they where ‘real' and the next they where on the telly. Occasionally using sound bites from 'The good, The Bad, and the Ugly', it cracked along with a mix of slap stick violence tempered with humour.”
Quoting the White Devil character in Gangsters upon arriving in Birmingham: "On the whole, I would rather be in Philadelphia," G eorgiou has made and curated inter related art works in response to Gangsters. Comprising of a simple animation, intervention and street tour.
The short animation produced for TEST BED, pays homage to the cut and paste methods used in the original Gangsters title sequence. Participatory practice will include a ‘guided tour' - with the artist mapping fictional scenes and key locations onto contemporary Broad Street and the surrounding Birmingham landscape.
Sandra Hall , co-director of Friction Arts and established artist and performer. Sandra originally trained as a physical theatre performer and has journeyed from this to more awkward live art, interventionist, installational and ephemeral public artwork over the last 14 years. She is interested in people, conversation, mapping (emotional, geographical, sociological), altered and ruptured histories; navigating communities.
Her work for TEST BED, ‘Amygdala' – is a collaboration with John McQueen. The central theme to the project is fear. Through in-depth conversation with local people, they have identified and interpreted key fears people live with. Through photography, they will represent these images.
Questions posed by the work – Are there images that exist in our heads that act as a backdrop to a complex set of feelings? How, through conversation, drawing and collage can we frame these together? ‘Amygdala' attempts to focus and frame these untold stories.
A rtist and director Mark Storor works in the space between live art and theatre. Most of his work is devised, responsive, site specific and collaborative. Often working with the most vulnerable to produce exquisitely beautiful work. He describes the work; Pillow Case: A Study , “ Thirteen candlelit photographs: Walter Smith's the butchers, A sleeping prince, on a marble slab, Is lulled by a song.” Overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities offered in the title alone, ‘Test Bed' meant I could not get past it.”
“The implications of Test Bed as a concept, is a gift. Not only is it an opportunity for me to create a piece of work that celebrates all that is joyous in my life; it allows me to continue to mine the rich source of material to be found: ‘at home.' The domestic environment, the ordinariness of everyday life is an endless source of fascination for me.
The very thing that I have been vilified for, has brought me the greatest happiness; pole axed by the notion of test bed, I could do nothing but make it.”
Mark continues to describe his test bed, “It is a clean bright white one, like a blank canvas, full of possibility and adventure. It is a bed I am proud to lie in.”
The project is a real 'test bed' for the artists, known for their work internationally and nationally, and also for participatory art itself, seeking to prove that art made with and informed by people, and located outside the usual places and institutions, is of outstanding quality.
Consisting of exhibitions and performances devised by eight of the most exciting and innovative midlands based established artists, this 10-day celebration will focus on a myriad of artist-led practices and exhibitions in such a way as to implicate the whole city.
The TEST BED Launch Party, on 19 th April 07, from 6.30pm, will premier the eight artists exciting responses to the Five Ways area in Birmingham.
TEST BED will continue until Saturday 28 th April 2007.
ENDS
For press information, images, photo-opportunities and interviews please contact
Paul Groves pdg_journalism@yahoo.co.uk or Nicola Shipley Nicola.Shipley@tesco.net
Editors Notes:
TEST BED
The eight artists are informed by communities, sites and locations, but they are not ‘community artists'. Instead of working for a gallery environment and audience they will showcase and exhibit TEST BED where it was made and in front of those communities.
TEST BED will showcase challenging and diverse new work by these artists with national and international reputations for socially engaging and edgy work of the highest quality. The work will result from collaborations with the community who live and work in the location.
Darryl Georgiou – Media Artist Georgiou works across a wide range of intermedia disciplines. He was born in Birmingham and trained in Time Based Media at Art and Design School in Bristol. His early practice focused on photography, film and video art installation. He currently works across art, design and digital contexts in the development of multi-disciplinary public art commissions internationally. These collaborative projects are often linked to areas of urban renewal or regeneration.
For TEST BED his starting point is a 1970s Play for Today set in Birmingham ( Gangsters ), to produce inter related art works c omprising of a simple animation, intervention and street tour.
George Saxon – George Saxon is a video artist working internationally and nationally. His artistic practice has ranged from early experimental performance interactions with film and video in the late 1970's, through to the multi-screen projections working with both existing and prefabricated architecture. An early pioneer of digital and video art, George's work has been shown in places as far apart as Iceland and Japan. His work has involved creating a gigantic paper house for his projections, ‘in-car' video performances and, as part of ‘house watch', taking over a city street and making the houses themselves into video installations. His work seeks to embrace and reflect ways in which we understand our private and social environments though our interaction with the urban (and rural) spaces we inhabit and our encounters with technology. His work is essentially a series of explorations of time-based environments displayed as ‘cinematic interventions' and re-presentations of the “familiar”, which provoke, surprise and challenge expectations.
For TEST BED George will develop a series of video taped moments with the community. These will involve simple act of looking over your shoulder is explored when it relates to the urban surroundings of Five Ways and the feelings of intimidation and vulnerability away from the sanctuary of the Curio City Shop.
Harry Palmer – an artist who cannot be categorized (artist, publisher, radio journalist, video experimentalist and avid collector of eccentrics).
For TEST BED he has been inspired by the question: “W hat, in your life, is the most valuable or meaningful thing you have had to sign for?” This will be the building block behind the short films created for TEST BED, entitled ‘Signature'. The films will convey a very simple message – attempting to authentically present biographies, different accounts of people's lives that mean something genuine, touching and powerful.
Pauline Bailey – produces installations and participatory projects focused on identity, heritage, sense of place and, dereliction with the stories behind those spaces. She uses her work as a tool for empowerment, especially when using video, performance, photography, collage or other mixed media forms when collaborating with excluded groups.
For TEST BED she will provide a space where women can celebrate or acknowledge their “warrior marks” - anything from a celebratory look at stretch marks from baring our children, to scars from domestic violence or an operation. This will be a mixed-medium installation.
Julie O'Neill – also an installations artist who often combines a performance element to her work. Whilst Julie's practice takes her into the Live Art, Performative and Fine Art exhibition platforms she has considerable experience working on socially interactive projects in the wider communities where her skills as a multi medium practitioner are ideally suited to the individuality of off site projects. Activity within community settings is a area of strong interest for Julie with in particular to working environments (buildings and spaces), history of place and transformations of spaces.
For TEST BED she will produce a live piece of work sited in the entranceway of one of the main disused office buildings at Five Ways which will explore the idea of “Redundancy in the Leisure Square”. The artist has gathered elements form stories and chats, voices; past and present, energies and essences, objects, music and sound. She has combined them into a particular recipe, tasting and sampling for the final metaphorical served dish.
Sandra Hall – a co-director of Friction Arts and established artist and performer. Sandra originally trained as a physical theatre performer and has journeyed from this to more awkward live art, interventionist, installational and ephemeral public art work over the last 14 years. She is interested in people, conversation, mapping (emotional, geographical, sociological), altered and ruptured histories; navigating communities.
For TEST BED she will collaborate with photographer John McQueen to produce
‘Amygdala'. The central theme to the project is fear. Through in-depth conversation with local people, the artist has identified and interpreted key fears people live with. The fears will be presented as photographic images. Questions are posed – are there images that exist in our heads that act as a backdrop to a complex set of feelings? How, through conversation, drawing and collage can we frame these together? ‘Amygdala' attempts to focus and frame these untold stories.
‘Amygdala'(?-mig'd?-le)
An almond-shaped mass of grey matter in the front part of the temporal lobe of the cerebrum that is part of the limbic system and is involved in the processing and expression of emotions, especially anger and fear.
Nelson Douglas - photographer and lecturer.
For TEST BED he will use Five Ways s hopping centre as a starting point. The work will draw on the uncanny images produced by William Eggleston and John Szarkowski. Using natural and found objects and surfaces, sanitised and fabricated, for decorative purposes. The photographs produced for exhibition will consider erosion, surface and reflection.
Mark Storor - An artist and director, working in the space between live art and theatre. Most of his work is devised, responsive, site specific and collaborative. Often working with the most vulnerable to produce exquisitely beautiful work.
For TEST BED and his work ‘Pillow Case – Study 1' a “Prince” will populate the butchers shop, individual visitors will be led to the installation, the bed and a photographic exhibition. They will be tucked up to listen to the conversation people have in the moments before they go to sleep.
