March 2017, Rogue Cinema, Manchester: the masked, straw-festooned shamanic vagabond Lord Mongo and new-fangled three-piece band TuskmothĀ (Lord Mongo, Dave Bez, Otis Jordan) performed live music to cinematic visuals by Film Material artist Nick Jordan, assembled from the artistās recent film works that feature Lord Mongoās soundtrack scores; including excerpts from Jordanās new film Thought Broadcasting (2017), plus The Rising (2014), The Atom Station (2015), and MERZMONGO (2016) – which was originally made for ā100 Years of Dada: Film is Dead, Long Live Dadaā (ICA, London) and performed live at Supernormal Festival 2016.
Part of four weeks of artists moving image, experimental film and performances featuring local and international artists, programmed by Film Material. From archive works to film premieres, 16mm exhibition and live sound scapes, digital experiments and analogue shorts
Film Material was delighted to be invited to take up ‘residenceā in the all new Vortex stageĀ at Supernormal Festival, Aug 5th ā 7th, 2016, presenting expanded filmic performances, screenings and projections that animated the space throughout the weekend.
Kicking off proceedings on the Friday night was Lord Mongo, with The Slate Pipe Banjo Draggers, presenting anĀ improvised electronic and vocal performanceĀ to the expanded version of Nick Jordan’sĀ filmĀ MERZMONGOĀ (2016), originally made for āFilm is Dead, Long Live Dadaā festival at the ICA. FeaturingĀ stream-of-consciousnessĀ vocals, Babylonian masks, and one forlorn, masticated, bug-eyed ferret marionette, the stupefying/electrifying Lord MongoĀ kicked off the residency with wild and derangedĀ abandon.
Lord Mongo & Nick Jordan, with Slate Pipe Banjo Draggers
Performance videos:
Following Lord Mongo, Mary Stark & David Chatton Barker’s 16mmĀ performance encompassed three separate works: āBoingā – springs sourced from abandoned film projectors transform into 16mm photograms with optical sound and live spriinngggg action. Then ‘Solar Spellā – saluting the sun through fogged and scorched film with optical sound, pre-arranged soundscape and live lens based light play. Finally, āBreadā – a filmic ritual giving thanks to tactile magic and domestic alchemy, the craft of making bread. Premiering at Supernormal, theĀ 16mm performances were made only this year at Film Farm in Ontario, Canada, and were shown at Film Farm as well as at CineCycle in Toronto.
Ā Mary Stark & David Chatton Barker
On Saturday, following film screenings from Film Material artists Chris Paul Daniels, Clara Casian, and Dave Griffiths, Mary Starkās ‘Film as Fabric’ performance summoned the obsolete industries through 16mm film projection with optical sound, mechanical noise and sounds associated with the production of cloth. Incorporating audience participation and live stitching into 16mm film stock, the work made great use of the dramatic, triangularĀ Vortex space, with multiple projections and light.
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Ā Mary Stark ‘Film as Fabric’
excerpt from performance:
Following Sunday’s screening of experimental short film programme, Back Roads to Far Places, curated by Nick Jordan, collaborative duoĀ David Chatton BarkerĀ andĀ Sam McLoughlin enacted their ‘Cognitive liberation happenings and ritual instruments’ performance. A mysterious, exploratory, alchemical, visual and sonic transformation of everyday objects, rudimentary electronics, instruments and natural elements.
In partnership with BEEF (Bristol Experimental Expanded Film), Mary Stark concluded the weekend festival residency with ‘Your Cup of Tea’, Ā a 16mm film with original soundtrack, plus live sound including a whistling kettle and clattering tea cups, and of course freshly brewed cups of tea, served to the audience in BEEF’sĀ Cephalopod space, located in the Supernormal woods…
Mary Stark, ‘Your Cup of Tea’ (photo courtesyĀ BEEF)
Rooted in a documentary approach, the programme features an eclectic selection films that have screened recently at major international film festivals, such as Berlinale, Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Clermont-Ferrand and Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival.Ā The films range fromĀ an esoteric, collaged, architectural fable; a strident protest against tree planting; a subjective roam through the post-industrial former East German landscape; a mystifyingĀ intervention on the Brooklyn Bridge; the hidden, inner world of a homeless hostel; and a child’s imaginary film and make-believeĀ games, played-out in the backyardsĀ ofĀ an indigenous Brazilian village.Ā The programme is titled after Lawrence Ferlinghettiās single long poem of inter-connected verses and drawings.
MERZMONGO
A live performance by Nick Jordan & Lord Mongo with The Slate Pipe Banjo Draggers. An improvised electronic and vocal score to the expanded version of their film MERZMONGO (2016); originally made for ‘Film is Dead, Long Live Dada’ festival at the ICA.Ā play video:Ā MERZMONGO
Toots & Purrs: 16mm Solar Spell
Saluting the sun through fogged, scorched and solarised 16mm film with optical sound and live lens interventions.
Saturday Aug 6th:
David Chatton Barker & Sam McLoughlin: Cognitive liberation happenings and ritual instruments.
Sunday Aug 7th:
Mary Stark: Film as Fabric. A film performance with optical sound summoning obsolete industries through 16mm film projection, shadow play, mechanical noise and sounds associated with the production of cloth.
SUPERNORMAL is a three-day, experimental arts and music festival taking place at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire. It offers a platform for artists, performers and musicians to work collaboratively and creatively for a new kind of audience seeking experiences out of the mainstream. It is determinedly small and intimate with an audience of 1,500 and has been born from a place that values the currency of ideas and imagination rather than commercialism and profit.
Following a week long residency in September 2015, with Manchesterās FILM MATERIAL visiting BEEF in Bristol, this year three artists from Bristol Experimental and Expanded Film (BEEF)Ā took part inĀ a micro-residencyĀ with FILM MATERIAL in ManchesterĀ from 11 to 15 April.Ā Matt Davies, Laura Phillips and Alexander Stevenson were basedĀ inĀ Rogue Project Space before it opened for an event on Friday 15Ā April with film installation, performance and screenings from Matt, Laura and Alex, as well as Vicky Smith and Film Material’s Mary Stark.
Matt Davies showed a three projector 16mm film performance using film loops and sounds created from recording the transformers inside film projectors. Imagery included found macro footage of plants photosynthesising and at one point he burned film live in the projector.
Alexander Stevenson showed a 16mm film interpreting Ā The Mechanical and Chemical Processes of 16mm Film though dance. DuringĀ his time in Manchester, Alex worked on a foley soundtrack to accompany the filmĀ before showing it for the first timeĀ at the event on Friday.
Ā Laura Phillips installed a 16mm cyanotype loop made by exposing filmstrips with fabricĀ in windows around Rogue Studios. Threading across the ceiling,Ā Ā the installationĀ held aĀ sculpturalĀ presence in the event space.BEEF screened a 16mm film by Vicky Smith made by a bike being ridden along and across a length of clear film leader.
Mary StarkĀ tested outĀ new developments ofĀ a 16mm film performance, Film as Fabric, before showing it at Sound is Sound is Sound at The Albany in Deptford the following night. She experimented with new developments involving the audience being measured with film. Thanks to John Lynch of Manifest for these excellent photos documenting the performance.
During the week Film Material and BEEF also held an artist show and tell evening to share their practices. It was a pleasure to host the artists from BEEF, with this exchange marking the beginning of fruitful filmic relationships between artist filmmakers from Manchester and Bristol. Look out for more information about upcoming events at BEEF and with Film MaterialĀ in Manchester as the two collectives forge further communal cinematic creations!
Members of FILM MATERIAL visited BEEFĀ (Bristol Experimental and Expanded Film)Ā duringĀ September 2015 for a week-long residency and public event. We’re pleased and excited to host a return residency for BEEF artists, along with a performance of expanded film installation on Friday 15 April.
Featuring: Ā Matt Davies (Expo Leeds/ Kitev Oberhausen / Spike Island / Schmalfilmtage Dresden), Laura Phillips (Cortoformo / Annexinema / Spike Island / KARST, Marcy Saude (IFF Rotterdam / Ann Arbor FF / Other Cinema San Fransisco / Filmwerkplaats), Vicky Smith (Alchemy FF / London SFF / Arnolfini / Tate Britain / London Film Makers Co-Op), Alexander Stevenson (KARST / Bristol Biennial / GoMA / Grand Union).
This event is part of Rogue21Ā series in 2016 – celebrating 21 years of Rogue Studios in Manchester.
Third Floor Studio & Project Space, Chapeltown Street,Ā 26 February 2015
Site-specific film performance by Mary Stark exploring voice, optical sound and industrial noise, featuring works made during her September 2014 residency at the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto. Since 2012 Mary has worked with the filmmaking technology of optical sound, deriving āvoicesā from fabric, lace and thread. Optical sound involves visual forms in the soundtrack area of the filmstrip translating into sound through film projection. This performanceĀ develops these explorations by engaging with the industrial heritage of Manchester in an atmospheric location, summoning absent voices, obsolete machinery and ghosts of industries past. Works involve live performance, 16mm film projection, sculptural light and shadow play, voice, industrial noise and music associated with the textile industry. Ā
FMSĀ at VideoFAG, Augusta Ave, Toronto, 16Ā DecemberĀ 2014, 7.30pm
Curated by Mary Stark: “Film Material SoupĀ presents a diverse range of approaches to artist film: studio tests with sculptural forms; projected light and shadow; repetitive actions performed for the camera; photochemical sonic processes; rhythmic interrogation of the filmstrip and the video codec; romantic technological obsolescence; animated microfilm; far flung manmade habitats; flickering urban wilds; data traced through peripheral landscapes.”
VideofagĀ is a storefront cinema and performance lab in Toronto’s Kensington market dedicated to the creation and exhibition of video, film, new media, and live art.Ā
Another seasonal show-and-tell, of international photographic adventures. Ahead of his CFCCA show, Chris Paul Daniels test-screened his latest twin-screen video, A Tiger’s Skin. ShotĀ during his journey withĀ Transnational Dialogues Chinese Caravan 2014, to Hong Kong and five Chinese cities, Chris’ film is a contemporaryĀ echoĀ ofĀ Chung Kuo, Cina. Revisiting similar locations to Antonioni’sĀ 1972 feature, andĀ reframing aspects of China’s economic, cultural and recreational daily life, Chris’s workĀ highlights howĀ documentary assumes authenticity, and the how the filmmakerĀ strugglesĀ to speak about otherness. It’s also a subtle study of the photographic as a regime possibly more powerful than nation-states and broaderĀ geopolitical structures.
In another Asian project, Dave Griffiths reported on his and Joe Duffy’s field tripĀ to Ordos-Kangbashi ghost city in 2013, and his recently completed commission for Full Circle Arts. The plain our bed the stars our blanket is a Google API hack, hostingĀ Dave’s dense, navigable photo-collages of various locations inĀ a depopulatedĀ mining mega-city of Inner Mongolia. Featuring pit heads, power stations, migrantĀ workers, leisure zones and failing real-estateĀ projects, hisĀ microfiche and online work documents a brief extinction event, the GDP-driven life and death of Xanadu.
Jo Byrne presented her poetic, acutely observed stills photographedĀ during a visit to the redundant Coney Island resort of lower Brooklyn. In her depictions of the uncanny, of broken freakshow attractions and seaside surrealism, we were again reminded ofĀ photography’s potential for weird anthropology within the fractured remains.
Castlefield Gallery, ManchesterĀ 16 October & Laban Centre, London, 6 November 2014, 6.30pm, free
Film Material Soup are pleased to present a double-programme withĀ LUX13 Critical Forum,Ā 15 artists working with the moving-image who in May 2013 formed a monthly discussion group at LUX for artists no longer in education. At each meeting two members presented their practice, discussing work-in-progress, sharing texts, considering broader theoretical ideas, and viewing works from the LUX archive. Continuing the groupās process of discursive exchange, each artist has made a work no longer than three minutes in response to a word or phrase provided by another group member.
BEEF screened a 16mm film by Vicky Smith made by a bike being ridden along and across a length of clear film leader.
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