ReAwakening of a City - a micro-performance

Joseph Young aka Giuseppe Marinetti will be the latest Artist-in-Residence with Blast Theory, in Brighton from April 26th-30th.

"In this latest piece of research, I will work solo, using field recordings from Portslade, found objects on the street and text, to present a short binaural location performance for an audience of 8 people at a time. I am interested in the theatricality of the binaural medium, whereby the listener is immersed in a 3D soundscape. To create the illusion of an aural stage, I will be using the “dummy head” technique. Supported by the lovely people at Blast Theory, I intend to develop a short performance score, weaving together text and sounds, both “live” and recorded, to create a noise network, following Russolo’s classification system in the Art of Noises manifesto."

"This work-in-progress will be experienced via headphones in a forgotten corner of 20 Wellington Road on Friday 30th April 6.30-8.30 p.m. I hope it will be both playful and insightful; an unusual way of experiencing those sounds/images that we normally ignore or consciously block out."

RSVP to Dan Lamont by Thurs 29th April

A Pause and then a New Beginning

NeoFuturist Falicitations!

It's been a long while, my comrades and friends, since I posted here - but I am delighted to announce that NeoFuturism is flourishing and actively making links all over the globe.

Recently, I was delighted to reacquaint myself with my dear friend, Luigi Russolo, and to be able to report that he is alive and well and living in the Netherlands. His current project Prof. Russolo & His Noise Intoners has been making (sound) waves since 1995, and after nearly a century of absence, he is back with us, stronger and more vital than ever. His vision and mine have endured across a difficult age - our troubled world needs (now more than ever) a vision of optimism, where technology, art and humanity will unite to overcome pessimism, despondency and futile utopianism in all its spurious forms.

Saluti! Great and dear Marinetti and friends,
Via! Usciamo, pioche non potremmo a lungo frenare in noi
il desiderio di creare finalmente una nuova realta musicale. (Away! Let us break out since we cannot much longer restrain
our desire to create finally a new musical reality).

How surprising and fine to hear again from you!
With acute ardour and accelerating heartbeats I took notice of
your recent efforts to impregnate ‘our world’ with joy and inspiration.

Never must we slacken, the global hunger for absurdity is almost unappeasable!

With respect and love,

your true and most humble servant,

Prof. Russolo.www.russolo.nl

Some photographs from A CALL TO ARMS June 14th 2009

Here's a few photos and (below) the film of the performance; expertly shot by Mark Birbeck and edited by my son Louie Young. Several months late - no excuses for that... but hopefully providing a flavour of the climax to an incredibly creative and challenging project. Our thanks go out to the community of Upnor(s), Fuse Medway Festival and Medway Council for their unflagging support, and to all the artists and students who took part, led workshops, performed, put themselves out on a limb for the sake of Art.

ART WILL NOT SAVE THE WORLD

© Rowena Easton

A Call to Arms - finally!

the speech that never was...

Of all the Lowers and all the Uppers in all the world –
the Upnor that is uppermost in our hearts is
UpUpUppityUpnor. Up in Arms Upnor!
A Tale of Two Upnors that is one,
a tale of one Upnor that is two;
but only one Upnor,
not Upper.

A tale of four pubs in the morning
and a blood red sky,
no community centre, no shops,
no schools, a seagulls cry,
Wake up Wake up
it’s modern times.

A sand pit and a playground bare
Both empty now, no children there
Deserted beach where was once were ice cream shops
A bus so infrequent it hardly ever stops.

And The Lady in a Box who cannot see the sea,
so what does she see?
A WC?

M.O.D.
M.A.D.
the killing ships that fill the Medway
stream from Upnor to Afghanistan it seems.

Fleet House empty,
thinking tidy,
scrubland-wasteland,
get off my land,
fortress Upnor,
border Upnor.
Subject to closure at any time…

St George the patron saint of
Queen Elizabeth the great
and all her majesty,
the queen is here,
will tell you stories for the small price of a beer.

The Tudor Rosy,
Kings Arms cosy,
Pier and Ship relief,
where old friends meet and sing together,
Sunday roast goes on forever.
Where folk songs reverberate in the street,
near long-gone Post Offices where nobody can meet.

And artists come to weave a red thread
through the town,
A critic burns them down…

This is Upnor,
UpUpUppity Upnor,
Up in Arms Upnor,
the pride of Upnor is here.
For here in the smell of the rivers wake
we stand and watch the fretful dawn awake,
Wake up Wake up
A Call to Arms!

We don’t need no updating...

The Burning of the Red Thread

This is what happened when some unknown and unseen vandals/art critics (?) decided to burn Eva's red thread wrapping of the viewing platform beside Upnor Castle. A curious act, not without its own barbed beauty, but odd nevertheless, given that a lot of the thread survived.

It's part of what has made this project so fascinating. The relatively low turnout for workshops despite numerous leaflet drops and notices to the community, although this has changed in the last week; the sometimes heated debates with members of the public on the streets; the apparent friendliness of the locals, whilst expressing a certain irritation at having to share their village with the tourists. The contradictions of Upnor, its two halves, both literally and metaphorically, have come to characterise the place for us, as artists.

And now we are in the final phase of the project, where we are creating the ceremonies and interventions that will happen on the streets on the 14th, it is time to reflect back on the last few months and try to encapsulate that experience in our performance.

The Queen of Upnor (no really!!!)

More photos from our first weekend - Sunday

A delightful afternoon having tea in the garden of the house with the best views of the River Medway at Upnor... Eva weaving her thread around the viewing platform and the view from the tower above.

More photos from our first weekend - Saturday

Ways of seeing - changing the way we view the world through simple worn and handheld devices.

Photos from our first weekend - Saturday

2 weeks to go...

Well, it's hard to believe after all the planning and site visits, that the project is due to start very soon. We had a great Press Launch on April 14th, where we arrived on a fishing boat to be met by local councillors, residents and the press. We engaged them with a short absurdist ceremony where we set out our plans for the project and then walked the proposed route of the final performance, for a buffet lunch at the Tudor Rose pub on the High Street. Residents seemed genuinely interested in what we are doing, as we stopped and talked to people en route; it was also very gratifying to see our local artist partners engage with the excitement of the project in the same way that we all did when this project first kicked off.

So... what is it we are actually planning to do? The short answer is that we intend to facilitate the making of a parish map - documenting the past, present and possibly even the future of the village of Upnor. What is it that residents like / dislike and wish to change about the community that they live in? One of the big issues for us has been that the village has no obvious meeting places outside of the 4 pubs. No shops, no schools and no community centre. If the community want to meet they have to get in a car and travel to Frindsbury Extra, where the Parish Council meets. Hopefully, these and many other issues will arise and be discussed during the workshop process, but this will be for the community to decide. We, as the collective, have our own agenda of things that we want to investigate and portray through performative actions on the streets. Tthe other half of the partnership, the community of residents, will have their own ideas about what and how they would like to celebrate about their village - both on the map and in the final performance.

The only givens, so far, are that we will arrive on the day of the performance at the Arethusa Jetty, we will make our way via some preselected sites in Lower Upnor to Upper Upnor (or Upnor, as the residents of Upper Upnor know it...) and declaim a new Upnor manifesto in the grounds of the castle. I am personally taking responsibility for the manifesto, but again what is finally included will be down to the residents. There will then be a post-performance reception in the castle, where all the work and documentation of the project will be on view to the public.

So, watch this space for furtther updates - myself and the rest of the artists will blog during the workshop process, as A Call to Arms takes to the streets.

The Neo-Futurists vs. The Anti-Ismists