archive
MEANTIME occasionally publishes small print-runs of books and text arising out of projects which can be obtained during events or by email/post. Available books here.
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MT SCREENING: EDWARD SAID:The Last Interview (Mike Dibb, 2004) SATURDAY 30TH JANUARY 2010, 7.30pm Introduction by Manzu Islam Syed Documentary profiling the cultural theorist, Edward Said. Internationally acclaimed for his books on literature, politics and the intersection of politics and culture, Said was the most prominent spokesman for the Palestinian cause outside the Middle East as well as an accomplished musician. Diagnosed with incurable leukemia in 1991, Said stopped giving interviews. But in November 2002, less than a year before he died, he made a final exception and over the course of three days spoke with unparalleled intimacy about his life, illness and work. |
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NATASHA HOUSEAGO Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th January 2010 Rosegarden Project Natasha experimented with form, materials and motion for a forthcoming outdoor project, embedding found-objects and high-strength magnets in wood. More photos here. |
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RESIDENCY: LAURA TAYLOR 18/11/09 - 13/12/09 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.
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LIVE MUSIC: Stranger Songs presents... THE GREAT PARK, King James, Men Diamler, Brown Torpedo. 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, and well-pronounced, folk and electro fun. |
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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. |
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MT SCREENING: RADIO ON (Christopher Petit, 1979) Tuesday 17th November, 7.30pm "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." |
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RESIDENCY: TOM DOWN 20/10/09 - 15/11/09 Birmingham-based artist 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. |
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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. |
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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 time I stray further from PBW. Taking a JPG from the MT website, I made it a BMP & using MSP pixelated a section with the simplest resizing operation possible, thus losing much of the already sparse 411. With an R285 @ BSU it went from RGB to CMYK, & @ the DDC the colours were re-photographed and mixed into the appropriate VM bases. So through the process described PBW became 15 others, mainly 30BB38037 & 1015R70B with some Martian Skies. 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. |
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MT SCREENING: 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. He is also unafraid to turn his critical gaze on himself, offering cutting commentary on his personality, private life and growing international celebrity. Zizek! is both an unforgettable lesson in philosophy and a compelling portrait of an intellectual maverick." Martin Wooster lead the post-screening discussion - read his introductory essay here. |
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LIVE MUSIC RESIDENCY: THE WEEK OF SMALL MIRACLES 27th – 30th July 2009 The Week of Small Miracles was a festival celebrating experimental and improvised music with musicians from Cheltenham’s twin town of Gottingen in Germany. It is part of an on-going cultural exchange that offers a unique window into the thriving independent music scenes on both sides of the channel. Co-ordinated by Chris Cundy, in association with Stuart Wilding/Xposed Club. See photos from all events here. |
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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. |
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LIVE MUSIC: STRANGER SONGS presents an evening of eerie folk and outlandish noises... Saturday 30th May 2009
BIRDENGINE FRANZ REICHELT & MORTIS TOBIAS |
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iTuesday 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. |
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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, and video link here. |
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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. |
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Gloscat Performing Arts students present... DEATH OF THE ACTOR Saturday 1st May 2009 Students from Gloucestershire College's HND Performing Arts & ND Acting course present an evening of personal live art studies upon their perception of the 'Human Condition'. |
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iTuesday 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. |
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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.
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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. |
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iTuesday 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. |
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MT 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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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RESIDENCY: GLYNN GRIFFITHS Earth Seed No5 13th - 21st December 2008 Glynn Griffiths returned the upper space at MEANTIME into use as a hay-loft, echoing a previous incarnation as a feed-storage barn for the dray horses of the brewery, formerly opposite the building. Glynn made rope from the hay, coiling it into a formal sculpture incorporating sisal string, industrial cable-ties and unfired clay. More photos here. |
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RESIDENCY: TERESA CARNEIRO Failed Screws 17th - 30th November 2008 Teresa's drawing practice engages with the politics of space and place, aesthetics, and labour, via a universe of 'tiny things'. Her drawings are frequently displayed in ways that disrupt and question the formal boundaries designating the institutionalization of spaces. At MEANTIME, Teresa enlisted artists and art students to collaborate on a large-scale drawing from an image of a small, value-less, discarded screw. More photos here. Participants: Agnes Wolkowicz, Beth Firman, Chris Thomas, Claire Leach, Cherry Smith, Cynthia Whelan, James Pilsworth, Judith Barker, Michelle Ohlson, Oscar Gaynor, Patrick Bull, Rachel Pearcey, Ralph Naden, Samantha Francis, Sarah Byng, Sarah Frydenlund, Sarah B, Tom Gowen, Teresa Carneiro. |
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SCREENING and discussion: Jacques Rancière - 'The Emancipated Spectator' Wednesday 26th November 2008, 8pmLeading from discussions taking place around the drawing table during the residency of Teresa Carneiro, there was a screening of Jacques Rancière delivering his text 'The Emancipated Spectator' in 2004, in which he analyses the longstanding bias against the viewer that is written into received notions of spectatorship, arguing that that looking, listening or observing is never passive. |
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RESIDENCY: DAVID BEHAR-PERAHIA 26th Sept - 18th October 2008 David Behar-Perahia arrived from Israel for a three-week residency. His multi-stranded project (including light installation, live performance and below-ground film/audio projection) drew on his experience of conflict in Israel and the pervasive influence of the printed word, alluding to its influence in perpetuating resentment and revenge, and repelling the idea of reconciliation or forgiveness. More photos here. |
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SCREENING: JEAN LUC GODARD'S "HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA" Saturday 4th October 2008 A day-long screening of this 8-part journey through ‘the story of cinema and the century in which it flourished', with discussion lead by Martin Wooster. An introductory text can be seen here. |
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TOUR OF RECONSTRUCTION #3 Tuesday 30th September 2008 Meantimers visited this year's Reconstruction #3 at Sudeley Castle with a tour of the work from Lorna Trupec. |
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RESIDENCY: BEN GARROD POST-EFFICIENT ANTICLIMACTICISM, MY 9/11, & other stories 1st - 12th September 2008 Ostensibly, Ben's fantastically labour intensive wall-piece (taking something like 150 hours to complete) served merely to reproduce the invite he'd hastily put together on MS Paint some months before. In the event the work was compelling, neatly inverting the usual considerations of time and effect. More photos here. |
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RESIDENCY: KH JERON 9-5 31st July - 15th August 2008
Karl-Heinz arrived from Berlin for a two-week residency at
MEANTIME.
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THE FLOOD ARCHIVE 19th - 20th July 2008 Fiona Kam Meadley was in residence at Meantime during the weekend of 19th and 20th July to compile and map a collection of images and video of Cheltenham taken during last summer’s floods and their aftermath, from public submissions. Intended for a folk archive, recording alternative viewpoints outside of media representations, the Flood Archive was displayed at Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum in May 2009. |
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LIVE MUSIC: STRANGER SONGS ACOUSTIC FUNDRAISERS 18th July & 23rd August 2008 Featuring inspired sets from: GREAT PARK (Brighton), FIONA CRAWFORD (Edinburgh via USA), MEN DIAMLER (Wales via Cheltenham). MATT EATON (DRIFT COLLECTIVE/ACTRESS HANDS), KRISTIN MCCLEMENT (WOODLAND RECORDINGS), FRANZ REICHELT (DRONE/NOISE PROJECT FROM MEN DIAMLER). |
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RESIDENCY: BENEDICT PHILLIPS Following Footsteps
7th - 13th July 2008 |
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RESIDENCY: HELEN HARDAKER Love Poems 23rd - 27th June 2008 Seeing through a departure from the work realised during last summer's residency at Meantime, Helen left the dog behind (though he's been visiting) and focused on flight. Although the power struggles and latent tensions of family life are still in evidence (see the curled fingers), the subjects are solitary figures. And seagulls. More photos here. |
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COLLIDING SUBJECTIVES: The Events of Mai 1st - 17th May 2008 A series of events investigating the legacy of May 1968 in art, film, politics and thought with film screenings and discussions of Lyndsey Anderson's If... (pictured), Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend, Guy Debord's La Société du Spectacle, Chris Marker's Le Fond de l'Air est Rouge, and the documentary Derrida. Artists' projects included an installation of abandoned objects by artist-in-residence Xavier Gunther, an audio-work by Gavin McClafferty relating to the Anti-Criminal Justice Bill demonstrations of 1994, a downloadable audio/walking tour by KH Jeron imagining Cheltenham as Paris '68, images from Paris '86 from Sebastian Craig, a live enactment of Fluxus scores by Dominic Thomas (photos here), and an audio/visual appraisal of the Viennese Actionist movement by Rupert Howe. The events concluded with a Symposium and a presentation by Allan Siegel, co-founder of the Newsreel collective, examining the events of '68 on a global scale. A commissioned text by Martin Wooster interrogating the legacy of '68, 'May '68: the impossible space of contradiction', is available here, and as a publication here. Symposium funded by ALIAS. |
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RESIDENCY: ADAM BURTON 16th February - 1st March 2008 Adam set up a basic letterpress printing workshop, and asked 'Does the concern for the welfare of others stem from concern for the self?'. The question served as a starting point for talking, thinking and arguing about the state of humanity, and visitors composed and printed posters expressing their thoughts. More photos here. A letterpress printed book from this project is available from MEANTIME and some good bookshops. |
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LIVE MUSIC: MEN DIAMLER 31st January 2008 Men Diamler's performance celebrated the release of albums 'Sea Shanties For The Far Inland' and 'Lon Chaney Vs. Dandelion Batman'. |
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RESIDENCY: KRISTY CAMPBELL 1st - 8th December 2007
Resident artist Kristy Campbell transformed the upper space with the construction of FORMATIVE EDIFICE (1ST DRAFT), an installation of architectural models using found materials and boundary tape, which drew on the fabric of the building and its history. More photos here. |
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VISIONS 1st December 2007
First of the Visions multi-media events at MEANTIME curated by Robert Perry, presenting music, poetry, film + video. |
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SOUL DISTURBANCE 2
Jean-Marie Kados unleashed his inner Breton in an evening of anarchic songs, soundscape, poetry and improvisation. |
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THE MEANTIME M.O. 12th - 17th November 2007 A week-long multiple occupancy by artists approaching drawing as a ‘map of mental process’, with a wall drawing by Gloucester Cathedral artist-in-residence Onya McCausland, Corner - Erased Drawing, in which graphite is systematically erased from one surface and restored to another in a cycle of exchange; a cleaning/drawing installation from CLEAN - Tea on the towel , with hand made tea towels canvases to the public in order for them to create their own piece of art, or do their own bit of cleaning; and drenched, intense pastel panels by Oliver Marsden. With live performances by Dominic Thomas - Drawing Out, or They can teach you how to drag a tea bag round on the end of a piece of string, but what do they know about the Quality of Line? (pictured); Colin Glen - Drawing on Memory, an exercise in remembering thoughts about the space before having seen it, and how, in anticipation, one already occupies the space before getting there; and Rupert Howe, reinterpreting Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing. More photos here. |
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LIVE MUSIC: CHAPTER 24 PRESENTS…
Chapter 24 co-ordinated an evening of internationally acclaimed musicians to play acoustic sets at MEANTIME, including Thee Stranded Horse, Nancy Elizabeth, and Z+. |
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RESIDENCY: NATASHA HOUSEAGO 5th - 9th November 2007
Natasha Houseago developed, constructed and presented the drawing project SCRATCHING THE SURFACE during a week-long residency at MEANTIME. The project coincided with the arrival of the Jerwood Drawing Prize in Cheltenham. More photos here. |
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LIVE MUSIC: THE WERNER ALARM 2nd November 2007
Israeli garage band, The Werner Alarm, played MEANTIME on their European tour. |
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RESIDENCY: WOJCIECH KOSMA Wojciech Kosma, who had performed during MEANTIME LIVE!, proposed a project to stage a waterfall cascading from the upper floor of the MEANTIME building, recreating a sight he saw as a child in Poland. After a weekend’s doubtful experimentation the public event delivered a waterfall, an experience which was at once uncanny and extraordinary. More photos here and video here. |
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RESIDENCY: ROWAN O’NEILL 4th - 9th November 2007
Rowan arrived at MEANTIME out of the blue – walking back to Wales from London. She stayed a while and presented a performance of CERDDED ADRE – The Long Walk Home, a document of her time in the city and its impact on ideas of identity and home... More photos here. |
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JAKE LEVER
22nd - 23rd September 2007
CENTRE + CIRCUMFERENCE - An installation of prints by Jake Lever. |
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ZERO GRAVITY 3 MEANTIME LIVE! 16th September 2007 The final event of the weekend of live and performative events concluded with both a frenetic jam and a curious noise, with Brickwerk's homemade electronic sound machines. Co-ordinated by record label elbandito. |
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A LIST OF THINGS WORTH DOING MEANTIME LIVE! 15th September 2007 Peering into and around the space between live art and filmed actions ‘a list of things worth doing’ presented an evening of screenings, performance and discussion of the work of 10 artists including Paula Davy, Oogoo Maia, Jessica Rost, Sarah B and Martin Wooster, Wojciech Kosma, Katrina Horne, Dominic Thomas, Cynthia Whelan, a.group, and Amy Freeman. Further information here. More photos here. |
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INTOLERANCE MEANTIME LIVE!
Oogoo Maia transformed MEANTIME into a velvet-draped cinema for a live performance of his new composition – a soundtrack to D.W. Griffith’s 1916 cinematic masterwork Intolerance. |
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RESIDENCY: GAVIN McCLAFFERTY Gavin McClafferty occupied the upper space for the construction of HORIZONTAL COLUMN – an attempt to create a spanning structure of interlocking doors, representing social models in various states of cohesion and collapse. More photos here. |
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RESIDENCY: HELEN HARDAKER 6th - 10th August 2007 MEANTIME’s first resident artist, Helen Hardaker occupied the lower space, using it as work-space for the development and realisation of notebook ideas, creating an immersive installation in multiple series’ of drawings and film-works produced during the week. More photos here. |
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ZERO GRAVITY 2 30th June 2007
MEANTIME played host to a number of the area’s key musicians, including Chris Cundy and Longstone, participating in an evening’s improvisation and collaboration, co-ordinated by the Xposed Club’s Stuart Wilding. |
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T.A.Z. - OPEN DISCUSSION 28th June 2007
A group discussion on the text of Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone (1985). |
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Lorna Trupec OFF MESSAGE 27th May 2007
On a soaking wet Sunday at the end of May artist Lorna Trupec took the inquisitive on a ‘walking tour of legendary moments in Cheltenham’s neglected cultural history’. Funded by ALIAS, artists’ advisory service. More photos here. |
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ARTISTS’ OPEN DAY 5th May 2007 MEANTIME kicked off with an Open Day to introduce the building, discuss the aims of the project and invite artists' proposals. In the evening MEANTIME launched the first ZERO GRAVITY, with jazz-funk dj Martin Wooster, which happened to coincide with Cheltenham Jazz Festival. |
