Archive - 2009
MEANTIME occasionally publishes small print-runs of books and text arising out of projects which can be read online or purchased during events or by email/post. Available books here.
RESIDENCY: LAURA TAYLOR
18th November - 13th December 2009
Joyful and surprising, chancey and unpredictable, Laura Taylor's work derives from experiment and play. Characterised by loose and chaotic assemblages of motorised scrap, dismembered toys, daubed paint, and hanging string, it could be seen as a care-less antidote to the season's reductive proliferation of saleable goods. More photos here.
LIVE MUSIC: Stranger Songs presents...
Thursday 3rd December 2009
MEANTIME was very excited to welcome the return of The Great Park to its doors all the way from Berlin, for an evening of visceral, tragic, heartbroken folk, and electro fun. With King James, Men Diamler, and Brown Torpedo.
MUSIC WORKSHOPS: Time-structured Scores
Friday 27th and Saturday 28th November 2009
Pete M Wyer's system of 'Time Structured Mapping' has been used to create improvised musical pieces for all sorts of musicians, from full professional orchestras through to world musicians and school-children and was used for the 60 minute work 'Insomnia Poems' commissioned by BBC Radio 3 earlier this year. The system is intended to enable sometimes large and often disparate groups to explore improvisation. Pete, along with musicians Robert Perry and Chris Cundy will be working to develop a workshop form whereby entire pieces can be created from scratch, working together.
MT SCREEN: RADIO ON (Christopher Petit, 1979)
Tuesday 17th November
"Radio On offers a unique, compelling, and even mythic vision of a late 1970's England, stalled between failed hopes of cultural and social change and the imminent upheavals of Thatcherism."
RESIDENCY: TOM DOWN
20th October - 15th November
Tom Down constructed Zegema Beach, an installation unifying disparate elements centred around a large architectural model, with satellite forms of futuristic paintings and a floating light-box. Zegema Beach refers to a distant hedonistic planet fleetingly referred to in the Paul Verhoeven film Starship Troopers. Never actually shown in the film, it is purely the idea of such a place that fascinates the artist. Like Hilton's earthly paradise of Shangri-La or More's island of Utopia, his practice explores the romantic notions we hold of these fictional places, combining various strands of idealistic thinking and aspirational concepts ranging from sci-fi illustration to modernist architecture and role-playing games. Installation photos here.
LIVE MUSIC: MEN DIAMLER/ANIMAL MAGIC TRICKS
Saturday 10th October 2009
Men Diamler playing previously unheard new songs; Animal Magic Tricks singing along with found sounds, recorded narrative, taped concerts and keyboard, perfect for Meantime's acoustic heavens.
RESIDENCY: BEN GARROD
PHOTO-UNREALISTIC PAINTING
26th September - 11th October 2009
Following Ben's MEANTIME residency last September, he plannned to convert the upper space into a low-res version of itself. Forcing an issue with time-efficiency and drawing parallels between painting-and-decorating and computer-graphics processes, Ben's working practice constructs its own logic: "This piece is concerned primarily with the creeping dissolution of the gap between space & information, & is inspired in part by Gregg Egan's PKD award winning novel Permutation City." More photos here.
MT SCREEN: ZIZEK! (Astra Taylor, 2007)
Tuesday 22nd September 2009
"Zizek! trails the eminent and intrepid thinker as he crisscrosses the Globe and obsessively reveals the invisible workings of ideology through a unique blend of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Marxism and pop culture critique." Martin Wooster led the post-screening discussion - read his introductory essay here.
LIVE MUSIC RESIDENCY: THE WEEK OF SMALL MIRACLES
27th – 30th July 2009
The Week of Small Miracles was a festival of collaborative, experimental and improvised music with musicians from Cheltenham’s twin town of Gottingen in Germany.
Co-ordinated by Chris Cundy and Stuart Wilding, in association with Xposed Club. See photos from events here.
RESIDENCY: FREYA GABIE
June - July 2009
DESIRELINES
Starting with observing the objective nature or surface of things, Freya Gabie employs a strategy of dismantling and reconstruction resulting in work which both exploits and subverts familiarity, and reconfigures the material terrain. During her stay at MEANTIME Freya was running with ideas, ripping out the floor, playing with the light. Zigzagging through the building the work resolved into a haphazard topography of subjective impressions. More photos here.
LIVE MUSIC: STRANGER SONGS presentS…
Saturday 30th May 2009
An evening of eerie folk and outlandish noises - BIRDENGINE, KIRSTEN McCLEMENT, MEN DIAMLER, FRANZ REICHELT & MORTIS TOBIAS
Film Screening: I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007)
Tuesday 26th May 2009
Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where six characters embody a different aspect of the musician's life and work.
RESIDENCY: SIMON RYDER/ANTHONY ROWE
TUNED LANDSCAPES #01 WETLANDS
15th - 16th May 2009
In this ongoing collaboration between sound/video artist Simon Ryder and interaction designer/digital artist Anthony Rowe, Tuned Landscapes: #01 Wetlands is the first in a series of sonic excavations of ecologically sensitive landscapes around the UK. The starting point is a visual interrogation of the landscape, using different modes of looking (Romantic, structural, process-based, durational) to produce a collection of source videos. Then, using bespoke software, each video source is used to generate real-time soundscapes; the audio tuned to the topography, colour, movement and time in the landscape. These sonic fragments build on each other, together forming an all-enveloping spatialized aural environment that responds to the presence of the viewer through shifting frequencies and tones. More photos here.
RESIDENCY: SHEILA FARRELL
UP THE WALL
3rd - 10th May 2009
Sheila wrote on the walls of MEANTIME words composed during her residency, reflecting her response to being in the space. More photos here.
A book of images from Sheila's project 'Up The Wall' is available from MEANTIME.
Film Screening: Mister Lonely (Harmony Korine, 2007)
Tuesday 21st April 2009
In Paris, a young American who works as a Michael Jackson lookalike meets Marilyn Monroe, who invites him to her commune in Scotland, where she lives with Charlie Chaplin and her daughter, Shirley Temple. Introduced by Tico Romao in association with the University of Gloucestershire
RESIDENCY: ROB MULLENDER & MICK GRIERSON
S P E C T R A - Analogue Audiovisual Distortion Device
30th March - 3rd April 2009
Discussion event with Rob Mullender and musician, writer and sound curator David Toop.
S P E C T R A was discovered by Mick Grierson and Rob Mullender as a result of a their research into early twentieth century Audio Visual distortion techniques. S P E C T R A takes natural light sources, and manipulates them through analogue phase distortion processes. These processes, based on machines developed in the early 1930’s, simultaneously generate sound from phase modulated light emissions, resulting in an audiovisual distortion experience from a purely non-digital, mechanical system.
Further information here, and read an Anonymous Account of the work here. More photos here.
RESIDENCY: PATRICK LOWRY
8th - 22nd March 2009
In partnership with The Open West, shortlisted artist Patrick Lowry was awarded a residency at MEANTIME.
Pursing his interest in making connections between spaces/places though the use of replication and displacement, Patrick built a life-size reproduction of the basement stairwell at The Exchange, Newlyn (Cornwall), rotated. More photos here.
Film Screening: El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)
Tuesday 3rd March 2009
Cult classic midnight movie of the early 1970s. A cross between a spaghetti western and avant-garde psychodrama, El Topo is a surrealist tale of death and rebirth that uses the conventions of the western as its mythical landscape. Introduced by Tico Romao, in association with the University of Gloucestershire.
FILM SCREening: THE HOUR OF THE FURNACES
Saturday 14th February 2009
A documentary shot and shown clandestinely between 1966 and 1968 in Argentina, the film examines the relationship between neo-colonisalism, violence and liberation. Introduced by Florencia Schoo.
RESIDENCY: ALLAN SIEGEL
3rd - 14th February 2009
Budapest-based Allan Siegel drove to Cheltenham from Hungary to investigate the phenomenon of the 'global marketplace' in its most basic and human form - that of local food distribution. From farmer's markets to Tesco, Allan presented an interconnecting profusion of photographs, data and string exploring the relationship between people and food, and notions of 'locality'. More photos here.
RESIDENCY: NATASHA HOUSEAGO
26th January - 1st February 2009
With chainsaw, blow-torch, and neo-dymium magnets embedded in wood, Natasha worked with ideas of repellence and attraction, hacking, burning, pushing, pulling, and engaging with the bizarre and unpredictable nature of magnetism. More photos here.
VISIONS 5: Insomnia Poems
Saturday 3rd January 2009
Award-winning poet, New Yorker Steve Dalachinsky and composer Pete M Wyer perform a new work combining performance poetry and an improvised time-coded score. With Evelyne Beech, Chris Cundy, Michael Cross and Robert Perry.