Friday May 25th / 8pm / Kro bar on Oxford Road M13 9PG (across the street from The Academy)
Free Entry

Let’s explore sonic and visual information through improvisation.
The role of technology is considered, with each artist prioritizing it differently with regard to their own practice and human creative potential.
Performances . Talks from the artists . Q&A

Oh…and I’ve made this all tie in with my MA assessment, which means you will probably see me get grilled by my tutors (Helmut Lemke and Louise Brookes) at the end — but I welcome it!! Should be a really great night.

FEATURING

HELOpg
HELOpg (the Huddersfield Experimental Laptop Orchestra postgraduate group), established since October 2009, is a laptop ensemble based within the music department at University of Huddersfield. Interested in exploring the use of the laptop as a performance tool, HELOpg performs, records and tours experimental laptop composition and improvisation with a diverse mix individually created instruments. HELOpg currently consist of Samuel Birkhead, Julian Brooks, Sam Freeman and Scott Hewitt.

Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern
Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern is Angela Guyton and Rodrigo Constanzo (And on this night, sound diffusion artist Sam Salem will be working with us). We try to create moments where the boundaries between visual information and sonic information get muddied. We do this through performance. We do this through improvisation. We are trying to receive and transform information. The result is a feedback loop of interaction between two disciplines and three humans, hopefully yielding subtlety, grit, focus and beauty.

Richard Knight
Raised in the surroundings of conflicting natural beauty and industrial decay of northern England, many of Knight’s primary influences are based around the clash between organic and electronic. He began producing music and playing in diverse experimental bands/projects in and around Leeds, but had always been motivated by the the possibilities of encapsulating avant-garde stylings within more immediately unassuming mediums. In addition to using computers as artistic tools, Knight often utilises specifically controlled feedback as an instrument. The unique method uses mixing desks as sound sources: a typically passive audio device subverted to become an expressive instrument. Of most intrigue is the tenuous area between feedback and feedforward – the hazy and perplexing cusp between order and chaos.

Kate Freeborough
The artist highlights idiosyncrasies by merging with gathered items whilst responding to the space around her.

and a virtual appearance by
Danishta Rivero
Danishta Rivero is a musician and sound artist who resides in San Francisco. She performs solo improvisations on the Hydrophonium, a water-based electro-acoustic percussion instrument, with which she has toured the Pacific NW. Danishta also does vocals and digital processing in Blood Wedding, a just intonation noise duo with Chuck Johnson on steel guitar and modular synth.

I’ve recently been informed that my course is being gutted.  Lecturers, the only two that are familiar with my work–Helmut Lemke and Louise Brookes–are being fired, and half of the demonstrating staff are being fired. Not to mention all the administrative staff within the school of art and design as well. Here’s a petition you can sign (and I hope you do) opposed to these front-line lecturer and demonstrating staff cuts. There was a physical copy up in Allerton Studios but it was taken down so they could have a nice conflict free hallway while giving tours.  Its pretty disgusting.

So what’s all this for? Its called the “Transformation Project”. Firing everyone that makes the school worth going to is “phase 2″. Basically, the University is trying to save £7mil because at the top, monkeys with double windsor neckties are burning money to light their cigars…and they had to hire more monkeys…and they’ve ordered more cigars. They’ve just spent £50mil on MediaCity (just a shiny new building–good PR I guess. Even the Duke of Edinburgh got a tour–that’s the Queen’s husband for you non-English folk) and 300k on rebranding. Basically they added the word Manchester to the University name and chose a new font. Looks like shit and will look even worse in a year when the mildew on the white signs really starts to set in.

In light of this, I’m putting some questions to University management. We’re all having a meeting this coming Tuesday to ‘discuss’ it all. I wonder if they’re just planning to sit us in front of a powerpoint? We’ll see.

QUESTIONS POSED BY MACFA

1.Quotation from the Terms and Conditions for Home/EU applicants:

“Changes may be made to programmes before they start or during their delivery (e.g. the amalgamation of modules or the substitution of a designated supervisor). However, the University will give effected students as much notice as possible of any change and any change that does not arise from a mandatory legal requirement and that is disadvantageous to any students will not be implemented without the prior written consent of those students.”

A. The Student Union has advised us that the University has stated that documents, including an applicants terms and conditions, do not “substitute a contract” and thus the University does not have to honor them. Is that accurate information?

B. Note: Available to each student is the support of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator who do hold universities accountable to what is stated in printed material, such as student handbooks and the terms and conditions as per judgments on numerous case studies.

C. Advise whether the university interprets the word substitution in this case as allowing for the elimination of that role. As in ‘substituting a designated supervisor with no one.’ (emphasis on the definition of substitution. We are not disputing that staff may be replaced.)

D. Advise how the University rationalize that a significant reduction in lecturing and demonstration staff is not a disadvantageous change for students currently enrolled.

E. What specific mandatory legal requirement has required that front line lecturing staff and demonstration staff be eliminated?  If there is such a requirement the students request to see the letter of the mandate. (emphasis on mandatory—reason: the decision to raise tuition fees was a choice most universities made, but was not a required by law.)

F. Has prior written consent been secured by the University if there is no such mandatory legal requirement?

2. As per the T&C: “…the University will give effected students as much notice as possible of any change…(see above)”

A. By what date is the University going to be able to give the students on the MACFA and BAVA courses formal notice of the changes that will be implemented to staff due to phase 2 Transformation?

B. We were advised only administrative and demonstration staff were at risk—there has still not been any formal mention of front line lecturers having been at risk. Please advise on how phase 2 effects our lecturers.

C. We require a list of the staff that are being made redundant. We also require  information regarding how these changes effect the hours for the remaining roles, so we might know what resources are still available to us enrolled on these courses.  We need this information to make an informed decision about whether we’d like to continue our enrollment at the University of Salford.

D. NOTE: The Student Union has informed us that the University is not prepared to divulge such information until mid June (90 days from the beginning of negotiations with the UCU) for “legal reasons” as per Allan Walker. Expand on how this effects formal notice, as communication with students regarding their course will not be made available to them until well into the final year students’ double module. This time scale does not allow these students to make an informed decision regarding their enrollment.

3. The MACFA students do not receive a summer break—we are engaged in our final double module (1/3 of our course credits). What provisions has the University made so that there is no break in continuity, as far as lecturing staff are concerned, since we require the same level of supervision during this time?

4.  Are we at risk of losing access to our studio space or our workshop facilities?

A. The Student Union advised us that they were informed that the Allerton Studios could have been shut down due to prior health and safety concerns (which she said have since been remedied)—are you aware that the MACFA studios are not in Allerton studios but rather in the Allerton building? Please advise on the threat to the MACFA studios.

B. Note: In the 2011-2012 student handbook it states “All MA Contemporary Fine Art Students have access to studio space on campus, if they need it.  Students have access to all workshop facilities provided that they carry out appropriate induction courses.” (Available to each student is the support of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator who do hold universities accountable to what is stated in printed material, such as student handbooks and the terms and conditions.)

C. Access to workshop/studio facilities are one of the selling points of the course, diminished access represents a disadvantageous change for the students who rely on those workshops to create work required by their courses.

CONSIDERATION FOR MANAGEMENT

Should more tact have been employed during the scheduling of the phase 2 roll-out, there would not have been such tension during this period of transition.  The tactful thing would have been to see through the duration of our courses, as sold to us when we enrolled. Then make the phase 2 changes, and offer new intake an accurate representation of the course as it would then be manifest.  As the concerns we raised do not represent a perpetual problem (we do plan to graduate), this strategy may yet still be employed. We request that the University consider our proposal.

I helped Rod put this movie together. I shot/edited a little play he had with the Frantabit. He’d been putting it off for months, and I finally supported the shit out him to get it done. I hope the Frantabit dude likes it.

Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern performed at Trinity Church on March 15th 2012 for a Videoformers event. I used the new set up, which means I was controlling the light source using a wii-mote, in conjunction with my voice/breathing, in conjunction with Max/MSP.  There are still lots of things to improve on with this set up. I’d like to get my left hand free again. I feel too restricted not being able to use it, even if its not the hand I draw/paint with. It wasn’t the best performance, and didn’t yield the best painting, but it reinforced my feelings about refining things and needing to push forward.

On the video you’ll also be able to see other performances from Helmut Lemke, and Kate Freeborough.

I made this movie for the Distractfold Ensemble. It documents their second concert held on February 16, 2012 at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, here in Manchester.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/COMJ_e_00084

Wolf Scarers – Throat
house paint, plaster, and ink on canvas

HAQ – In Free Fall
ink on paper/animation

HAQ – Walking Walking Falling
paint and wood/photograph

Rodrigo Constanzo – 16 Figures
linoleum cut block print

Aaargh! EP
linoleum cut block print (excluding text)

Rodrigo Constanzo and P.A. Tremblay – Drum and Bass and the Horse You Rode in On
silkscreen

Rodrigo Constanzo – Jew Point Owe
silkscreen

Atemnt – defines movement as
house paint on canvas

The Noise Upstairs – The Best of Noise (vol. 1)
house paint on canvas

Ohvaur
paint and ink/photography

Rodrigo Constanzo – The Beatles White Album
linoleum cut block print

Note: if you are unable to play the sound files below due to the computer you are on, please click on their titles (in blue). Doing this will redirect you to the page from which they are linked, allowing you to play them there.

Construction01 (2:30): improvised on viola Dec. 3, 2011.

Between Ends and a Common Place (2:32): 36 drawings as audio, laid end to end. 

5 Spheres (26:49)

Reflective Statement Metadata Pages Audio

FURTHER CONTEXT

   FILMS
Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog
   VIDEOS
Mortal Engine by Chunky Move
Graham Hancock interview on the Joe Rogan Experience
The Stoned Ape Theory by Terence McKenna
Bacteria’s Amazing Communication System by Bonnie Bassler
How Architecture Helped Music Evolve by David Byrne
Drawing circuits (Patterns+Pleasure: Ground)
Christine Sun Kim (deaf sound artist)
Using Arduino to dim a light bulb
Draft-sensing nose light
   BOOKS
Supernatural by Graham Hancock
Art, Technology, Consciousness edited by Roy Ascott
Truth in Comedy by Halpern, Close, and  Johnson