SIX OF THE MAJOR ART EXHIBITIONS, INSTALLATIONS & 'HAPPENINGS' at AV FESTIVAL 08
Artists Inspired by the Festival's Theme of 'Broadcast'
SCATTER! by Marko Pelijhan and collaborators Extraordinary Outdoor Closing Event on the banks of the River Tyne
Slovenian artist Marko Peljhan works with telecommunications technology, contemporary architecture and sustainable energy. An artist of truly unique ambitions, Peljhan has worked with the Russian Space Programme, and he has plans to launch his own telecommunications satellite!
After building the art-science laboratory, Makrolab, which has been installed in inhospitable and remote locations around the world, Peljhan is currently working on laboratories for the most challenging environments on earth - Antarctica and the Arctic circle. He was the featured artist at the world's most prestigious electronic art festival, Ars Electronica, in 2007.
In 'Scatter!' Pelijhan will conduct an audio-visual 'mapping' of the radio landscape of Newcastle. As solar radio interference recedes he and his collaborators will scan the night sky at different frequencies, picking up chatter from passing planes, amateur radio conversations, satellites, digital data streams and natural radio sources. These will be used to create soundscapes and large video projections.
Pelijhan describes SCATTER! as 'like opening a large window on the sky', and is the latest in a series of outdoor events he has created which begin at dusk as the Sun sets, and often end up as late as dawn.
DEEP PLAY by Harun Farocki The 2006 World Cup Final from Every Angle on 12 Screens! First Major exhibition for German Film-Maker and Artist
Harun Farocki is a celebrated German film-maker and artist who for decades has explored how cinema and other image technologies affect our understanding of the world.
For his first major exhibition in the UK he focuses on football. 'Deep Play' is a huge, 12-screen work offering a dozen different perspectives on the World Cup finals of 2006 between France and Italy (which Italy won on penalties 5-3) The 2006 World Cup stands as one of the most watched events in television history garnering an estimated 26.29 billion non-unique viewers, compiled over the course of the tournament. The final attracted an estimated audience of 715.1 million people.
'Deep Play' unpicks the nature of 21st century media spectacle: it bombards and dazzles our senses with an excess of data and digital images as well as camera footage. From one viewpoint, we watch the stadium guards and see their tedium, literally behind the scenes of the pitch. From another angle, we watch the team coaches howling and hollering at the field. On a third screen, the channels' directors control our viewpoints. On a fourth, the players become avatars, uncannily moving in synchronisation with their live counterparts. On a fifth image, we can see each player's speed in k/ph, the percentage of possession each has had, the number of shots on goal undertaken – and more. Every conceivable aspect of the game is surveyed, assessed and processed in real time.
'Deep Play' originated as a collaboration between the artist and Documenta 12, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona (MACBA), DFB Kulturstiftnung Berlin, and FIFA..
BROADCAST YOURSELF - an International Group Exhibition showing artists' continuing fascination with Television
This is the centrepiece exhibition of AV Festival 08, which has been developed in partnership with Cornerhouse, Manchester where the show will be on view later in the year (13 June - 10 August). www.broadcastyourself.net
Co-curators Sarah Cook and Kathy Rae Huffman explain: "Broadcast Yourself includes artists who have taken TV technology and turned it into a performance space, a cultural forum for debate, and an interactive media platform".
They continue: "We have gathered together installation, video and web-based works which demonstrate how artists have successfully challenged and responded to the dominating influence of television from the 1970s to the present day, by putting themselves on-screen".
Artists have been fascinated and affected by television since its inception, and continue to be inspired by the potential of new formats such as on-demand TV and video file-sharing sites on the Web, which reflects a new world where the broadcaster doesn't govern our viewing habits.
Highlights include: Bill Viola's 'Reverse Television: Portraits of Viewers' (1983/4), where he filmed American television viewers watching TV and then broadcast the footage back at them as they watched television; Shaina Anand's 'Khirkeeaan' (2006) from New Delhi, an exploration of what happens when you connect people via an open circuit TV system; the pioneering 'Hole in Space' (1980) by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, which was the first public live communication sculpture, and 'Piazza Virtuale' by Van Gogh TV (1992) where the audience took control via post, telephone and fax of what was on the channel for 100 days.
Visitors to the exhibition will also be able to make and stream their own performances in the gallery with the restaging of MakeTV (2006) by artist group Active Ingredient.
PLUS, Broadcast Yourself: In Person and On Screen, a day's discussions with the co-curators and the artists in the exhibition, and screenings including a 1983 documentary about the first reality TV show, "An American Family", produced and directed by Alan Raymond and Susan Raymond, at the Star and Shadow Cinema, Stepney Bank, Byker on 2 March (from 11:30am).
Broadcast Yourself is a Touring Exhibition produced by AV Festival 08 and Cornerhouse in collaboration with Hatton Gallery.
AERIOLOGY by Joyce Hinterding Wrapping the Reg Vardy Gallery in 20 km of Copper Wire!
Australian artist Joyce Hinterding is fascinated by energy and sound, and those things we can't see but are all around us and which pervade our everyday lives. These invisible things are what she strives to make tangible.
At the Reg Vardy Gallery she will recreate one of her best known pieces, 'Aeriology', which explores these forces which inhabit the air, by wrapping the gallery in at least twenty kilometres of copper wire, transforming it into a beautiful, yet operational, giant radio antenna, which will enable visitors to the gallery to literally 'listen' to the Earth!
ATLAS OF ELECTROMAGNETIC SPACE Displaying Radio Waves for the Naked Eye to See!
The Atlas of Electromagnetic Space visualises the radio spectrum in a spectacular interactive screen-based installation.
Initiated by Spanish cultural researchers and new media enthusiasts Jose Luis Vicente and Irma Vila and brought stunningly to life by Barcelona-based creators Bestiario, this installation reveals the unseen landscape of the electromagnetic spectrum to the naked eye, by deploying the forces of art, science and technology.
Displayed on several large plasma screens located in the central foyer of Middlesbrough's brand new Institute for Digital Innovation, this new installation enables visitors to interact with the electromagnetic spectrum, and learn more about it. VIsitors can see its the structure and topology and find out what kinds of activities occur there, from television and radio, to mobile telephony and wireless internet.
After the exhibition in Middlesbrough as part of AV Festival 08, the installation will tour internationally including showing at the Centre de Cultura Contemporania in Barcelona.
NOW HEAR THIS Site Specific Audio Based Work in Public Spaces in Middlesbrough
Artists Marcus Coates, Zoe Irvine and People Like Us have been invited to install various audio works in unexpected public spaces across Middlesbrough Town Centre, sites include The Mall shopping centre and the Tourist Information Centre at the Town Hall. All loosely themed around the idea of broadcast and public address, the artists were selected on the basis of their interest in the complex relationships between sound, space and location.
Each installation will offer a range of listening experiences and unexpected interventions into our ordinary urban environment, creating engaging and interesting encounters with broadcast material!
Marcus Coates video installation 'Journey to the Nether World' won him many fans in the North-East when it was displayed at Baltic in 2006 as part of the British Art Show, followed by his subsequent piece, 'Dawn Chorus' at the same venue. He has also exhibited at Gateshead's Workplace Gallery. Deeply serious yet also extremely accessible, his working methods and results ensure that he is in demand, so his site specific piece for 'Now Hear This' is sure to be intriguing.
Curated and produced by Forma. For full details of this series of audio installations, locations etc see: www.nowhearthis.org.uk
A guided tour with project artists and curators takes place on Monday 3 March at 4pm, starting at the AV Festival Hub, Blue. This will be followed by a reception and artists' talks at IDI at from 5- 6.30pm. Places are free but places must be booked via the AV Festival box office on 0191 232 8289 or bookings@avfestival.co.uk