ISAM live in Graz

Ragged Kingdom Closing Party

Artist and anarchist Jamie Reid, perhaps best known for his work with the Sex Pistols, is currently exhibiting a retrospective of his work at Temple Works in Leeds. The exhibition is on until the July 14th closing with an evening of experimental music and art curated by the Urban Exploration collective.

Interview with Jamie Reid
Urban Exploration Page

Urban Exploration will present a 4 hour epic set involving collaborative improv with Oliver Knight (spoken word), Jenny Komowsky (classical singing), Rowan Reid (singer/songwriter), Umcorps (modular synthesist), and a Navajo indian spirit dancer….all with a backdrop of tipis, interactive visuals and the largest reverb room ever!

More info on this event from Temple Works

Who’s George? Find out on the final night of Jamie Reid’s Ragged Kingdom at Temple.Works.Leeds, July 14, 7:00 pm – 1:00 am.

A fundraiser for St George’s Crypt homeless shelter in memory of our much loved porter Brian Bird (1959 – 2012), the night will see Jamie himself back at Temple.Works.Leeds.  An evening of extraordinary experiences will include experimental electronic ambient collective Urban Exploration collaborating with an opera singer, a poet, a singer songwriter (Jamie’s daughter Rowan), a hip-hop mc and a modular synthesist, and an acoustic set by Brian’s friends the Urban Stage Band – moving  from the Joiners bar into the Open Loading bay for a night of sound, light and …dancing by our surprise guest, Dennis Lee Rogers, the Spirit Dancer of the Navajo Nation in proximity to Jamie’s immense tipis which form part of his ongoing work around the Eightfold year. Celebrated dancer, artist and educator, Dennis met Jamie Reid in 1998 while on tour in U.K and returned to open Ragged Kingdom.in London in October 2011  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2Impc6pM8. Jamie’s piece Corporate Slavery currently hung in the Joiner’s Bar Main Gallery Space features Dennis himself.

Facebook Event Page

The Absurd Contradictions of Capitalism

Tesco Value Slave Labour

Manchester Apocalypse

An exhibition of works by artist James Chadderton has gone on display at the Incognito Gallery in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. The images depict a post-apocalyptic vision of the city. Photographs have been shopped to great effect, transforming modern-day Manchester city centre, into an urban wasteland.

Chadderton said he was inspired by “the visuals and themes of post apocalyptic films, books and games. The quality of films like 28 Days Later, The Road, Children of Men and games such as Metro 2033, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and the Fallout series has given me a huge amount of inspiration for creating work”.

Hope I get to see it before it closes on the 4th Jan 2012!

Here are some previews from the beeb. 

Headcleaner Blog

For those of you that liked the video we posted from “20 years of Braindance”, you will be glad to hear that you can keep up to date with Headcleaner’s movements on his new site:
http://headcleanersound.com/

It includes live videos, information and even some videos demonstrating the devices he has been building recently. Check it out!

Three of the North’s finest….

I want to introduce you to three artists whom I consider to be extremely talented. They were all living in the West Yorkshire area at time of publishing.

First in the list is Andrew Reynolds; a self proclaimed stress head and master of the stream of conciousness, these traits appear thick and fast within many of his works. I love the flow of these pieces and the way you could imagine seeing a glimpse of something like this in water, smoke or clouds. It is almost as if he captures a snap shot of natural imagery, only existing because of the layers of other things around it. Whilst at Staffordshire University, he undertook a monster of a project, drawing lines on A4 paper and taping them together to form a behemoth of a piece. Much of this was done whilst listening to Venetian Snares and at the time he told me that it aided his creativity, allowing himself to adopt a ‘breakcore mindset’. Some shows in which he has exhibited include: HALLelujah, Princes, Glasgow April 17th Reception, Plan 9, Bristol, 13th March 2009 – Sale-Royal Standard Liverpool Jan – late Feb 2009 The PaperMarket @ Jibbering Records May – July 2008, Live performance drawing @ Soul Monkey for Airspace @ LRV – Light box gallery shop, Jewellery quarter, Birmingham – current Studio 4 commercial gallery, Custard Factory – current Airtrade auction viewing, for Airspace – 11th – 13th December 2007 Airspace, Cultural quarter, Stoke-on-Trent – 22nd September – 20th October 2007 Future Shorts, The Underground, Stoke on Trent – 21st September 2007 Nog Gallery, Brick Lane, Whitechapel, London – 16th July – 13th August 2007 Brick House, Brick Lane, Whitechapel, London – 12th July – 16th July 2007 Graduate show, Staffordshire University, Stoke – 8th June – 16th June 2007

For more information or to contact him please visit this address: http://www.myspace.com/spastiserendipitous

Secondly we have the unbelievably skilled filmmaker and animator, Ben Daure. If you like twisted visions of the future, apocalyptic goings on, dark, intense comedy and a sprinkle of nonsense, he is the man to watch. Combining awesome digital manipulation techniques with simple yet effective ideas, Ben consistently pushes his art to extremes and still regularly manages to get a message in there too! Nothing short of awesome.

Here is one of my personal favourites:

For more videos including the absolute masterpiece music video, for Mishkin’s “Good Day To Die” please visit: http://www.grape-productions.com/

Last, but by no means least, is the best sketch and character artist that I have ever met, Dan Barritt. If this guy doesn’t work in comics or computer games at some point, then the world will have missed out! He recently exhibited a large, highly detailed piece at the Leeds Art Gallery, of a very recognisable part of Leeds, being invaded and terrorised by giant robots. I expect that in Dan’s mind, this is the image he sees every Friday night when walking past the Dry Dock at closing time. There are definite messages within these pictures, but you have to look long and hard to really know what is going on. This is what I particularly love though, as anything with this level of detail immediately catches my attention and is an ongoing inspiration to me. There is also a consistent feeling of impending doom throughout his work, but if you, like me also hate many elements of the world, I guarantee you will enjoy!

Self Portrait:

For more information and artwork please visit: http://www.ragadabah.co.uk/portal.html

To add his page on Facebook please click the following link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ragadabah/26753390995?sk=wall

Peace.

The Shape Journal

Interesting, strange and alternative views on Science and Philosophy from writer Jim Schofield.

It’s all up there for free. It’ll warp your mind and challenge your assumptions. What’s not to like!

http://www.e-journal.org.uk/shape/