‘A Fete Worse than Death’

At MOCA 113 Bellenden Rd, London SE15 4QY http://www.mocalondon.co.uk/

Dash and Dem have been working with a team of Casualty trainers who act out and demonstrate in the most vivid and realistic way what accident specific wounds look like and how to handle the wounded.Who is the Casualties Union? At inception of the Casualties Union in 1942 it’s founder Eric Claxon stipulated that dummies were forbidden and instruction was only taught on real casualties. Today it exists to provide casualties and patients as teaching aid.
Dash and Dem passed me The Dictionary of Injuries, published as a guidebook for rescue operators after World War II bombings. One of the aims of their project is to extend the content in collaboration with the Union and update the dictionary. Dash and Dem instigated research into the kind of wounds that modern and future weapons like the laser gun can cause.

Shock-
“…It.all… happened… so quickly…” is the slogan for the photographic exhibition inside MOCA and it illuminates the extend of burning and tissue damage to the body such a lazar weapons cause.

A Video piece in the exhbition has one of the volunteers trapped under a piano simulating increasing pain a real time performance by one of the Casualty members lasting a 3 long hours.

Today, The Casualties Union provides trained volunteers to simulate injuries and medical conditions, to improve the realism of training in first aid, nursing and emergency rescue services.

Fete worse than Death was staged as day long performance event including a ‘Free injury face Painting disaster tour’ involving shops and businesses along the street where a series of staged incidents of ‘worse -case scenario’s that could happen when shopping.

Soon everyone all along the Bellenden Road was bleeding and had protruding facial or arm wounds. In the spirit of the fun of the fete the injuries were illusionary but real in the sense that it produced in us that instinctive panic that we can only describe as that deep down in the stomach shock when confronted head on with ripped tissue and blood and disaster. That is if you are squeamish!

There were competitions on who could limp better, and who could win at playing dead, and guess the accident! Medals and Rosettes were presented and prizes awarded for best act in faking pain. Fascinated spectators and participants engaged in pain and dripping with blood were having fun at the fair!

I left the scene unscathed, dipped into one of the new coffee shops in this lively street, to eat a most delicious cake with the excuse that it would stave off that sinking traumatic feeling one get’s in associations with injuries. So be careful it can ‘all happen so quickly’!
More about the Casualties Union here: http://casualtiesunion.org.uk/1organization/history.php
More about Dash and Dem here: http://www.dashndem.com/Home.html

Simon Tyszko: Modern Neon Lights

Simon Tyszko: Modern Neon Lights
29th April-6 May 2011
Mol’s Place
23 Macklin Street
London WC2B 5NN
The gallery is the home and occasional exhibition space of Dutch art collector Jan Mol.

Last night in preparation for tomorrow’s finishing party, I was invited to attend Photographer David Ellis in conversation with Simon Tyszko. A program which will be broadcast on Resonance Radio shortly.
Simon Tyszko’s work is varied and includes neons, photography, and the moving image and texts.

Ben Wilson at ‘For One Week Only’

For One Week Only

presents

BEN WILSON – THE CHEWING GUM MAN
The last time I stumbled across Ben Wilson’s figure crouched on the pavement and amongst his working utensils was in front of the Royal Academy. I had just been to see the Van Gogh Exhibition when I saw Ben, was putting the finishing touches on a commissioned piece outside the gates of the RA. Ben is a long time and dedicated pioneer of, Pure Street Art in and around London. See previous entries and an interview on this blog. The opening of his solo show at ‘for one week only’ included bigger canvases and a series of humorous pieces of carefully painted figures and scenes on reclaimed finds of the everyday rubbish in the street. The event was so busy, that it was not the right time to ask Ben about the stories that had prompted him to make the individual pieces on show. But catch him another day and he will tell you how every one of the small gum pieces links to a person he comes in contact with or relates to an event he witnesses on his working days out in the streets. ‘For one week only’ website provides a map to the Ben Wilson’s ‘gum trail’ in and around St. James’s. The exhibition is on until the 8th of May. Recommend!

at the

Julian Hartnoll Gallery
37 Duke Street St James’s
London, SW1Y 6DF

2-8 May 2011 10-30-4.30

For more information please visit our website.
foroneweekonly.com
vivienne@foroneweekonly.com
+44 (0) 7973 932271
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‘the width of your arms unfolded’

Athanasios Argianas sculpture is a work where the physical object is integral to the sung performance. I caught the performance from above and from the balcony of the Barbican Exhibition Halls I had the added advantage of being able to enjoy the shadows drawn by this delicate and sophisticated metal construction and its performers. Later on closer inspection I found that loosely draped over and part of this sculpture was a long chain of flattened gold links, engraved with a poem titled: ‘The length of a Stand of Your Hair, of the Width of Your Arms Unfolded’, the lyrics of which were sung and performed.

Does one ever consider what might be the width of one’s collarbone or the with of one’s shoelace, or a sheet of the wingspan of a plane? I was delighted to be able to follow this performance and read the lyrics on the printed sheet available to visitors. For more about Athanasios Argianas work: http://tetraktysmag.com/2011/02/athanasios-argianas-of-the-length-of-your-arms-unfolded/is

This work can be experienced until 22. May at The Barbican Exhibition featuring Pioneers of the Downtown Scene in 1970 Gordon Matta Clark Laurie Anderson and Trisha Brown. Check out the Program of Events.

I am adding some of the lyric’s by Athanasios Argianas here:

Clockshower Gordon Matta-Clark

Clockshower Gordon Matta-Clark
1973, 13.50 min. color, silent 16mm film on video
In this film of one of his most daring performances , Matta-Clark climbed to the top of the Clocktower of a 13 storey building in New York and washed, shaved and brushed his teeth while suspended over the streets in front of the huge clockface.
Currently on show at the Barbican. www.barbican.org.uk is a great exhibition featuring Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark’s works. The three leading figures active in downtown Manhatten during the 1970 explored and developed new relationships to the urban environment. The exhibition includes live performances and I highly recommend to go and see it 3March-22May 2011.

Lost Sounds…

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/cafe.shtm

Lost Sounds is a project that started with Rolf Julius, Miki Yui and Rie Nakajima in 2009 with the idea to explore sounds, the environment, objects and one’s visual acoustic perception. For the Lost Sound performance at Café Oto on 11th February 2011 Miki and Julius developed the idea and the concept together. Sadly Rolf passed away on the 21.January 2011 and the project now continues without his physical presence. There is an installation in the window of Café Oto, where I found myself listening to a stone.

An Gee Chan at Tintype Gallery

An Gee is currently artist in residence at the Tintype Gallery. Over the week end she is inviting passers by to contribute to a print work. On a table in the gallery are rolls and rolls of lovely colored paper, wherefrom we are invited to tear out a figure. The story is of a village and its people having been uprooted.
The finished piece will be exhibited on the 26th of February in the form of a print. See more of her work: http://www.tintypegallery.com/

SoundFjord|London

Sound Art Gallery & Research Unit.
Unit 3b Studio 28 28 Lawrence Road, London, N15 4ER
Rie Nakajima /Ken Bodden
I Can Hear it.
11th Dec 2010 – 29th January 2011
The Sound Art Gallery & Research Unit is a new exciting space: http://www.soundfjord.org
After attending, Parfums Pourpres du Soleil des Poles at the SLG and in the same week I was on a mission to seek out the Soundfjord gallery to witness a piece by Rie Nakajima who is working with Ken Bodden a piano tuner. See Press release. A friend had been present at the recording, and so we tried

This is an Art that sits on it’s Ass in a Museum

Future Map at the Zabludovich Collection 176 Prince of Wales Road, Camden

Let’s consider for a moment : What if we did not Work?
For the second time in two days I came across that notion of no longer working suggested as an action in protest against the many grievances uttered by many in today’s living environment.
Image: Catherine Wharfe,MA Photography, College of Communication.

At the Zabludovich Collection , the following evening I attended Future Map. The Zabludovich Collection hosts the exhibition showcasing promising talent from the graduates of the University of the Arts London. The opening was very well attended and busy.
A burly man at the entrance seemed to have walked out of The Madame Tussaud saving a little fledgling bird

Werner Herzog’s 1970 Film: Even Dwarfes Started Small

PRESSRELEASE from the Museum of Everything

http://www.museumofeverything.com/exhibition3.php#events

4:00pm – Sunday 23rd January 2011

Hello little friends, this week why don’t you skip into de verld ov bleck und weiss mit unsere neuer bestest freund Werner Herzog in this his second motion picture, unleashed in 1970 and entitled Even Dwarfes Started Small.
The film is quite unlike any other you will ever see. Call it unsettling, disturbing, austere or even hallucinatory, it is one of our most abstracted favourites, a seemingly brilliant metaphor for something, albeit that no-one has actually worked out what that metaphor is.
Also still on until the 11th February is the 3rd Exhibition co-curated by Sir Peter Blake. Featuring the recreation of Walter Potter’s lost Museum of Curiosity.