Tag: Performance

Orphaned Limbs – In Residence

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date May 30, 2016

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A week long residency followed by performance by dance collective Orphaned Limbs exploring connections and notions of ‘home’, When in Roam. The residency included live music performance from musician Ross Whyte, and open performance workshops.

Working alongside Orphaned Limbs, ‘stovies interactive’ Michael Sullivan and Donna Winter were commissioned to make responsive work alongside the When in Roam project.

The Stovies Interactive kept a video diary, available to view online here

The performance itself, a mixture of projection, dance, spoken word and sound took place across both floors of the Stove, followed by a Q&A with the performers and artists involved.

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This commission was supported by:

Tags Artist Residency, Commission, Dance, Orphaned Limbs, Performance, Performance Art, Spoken Word

Musings Project Updates

As Above So Below

Post author By Katie Anderson
Post date July 31, 2015

From Ivor Gott

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“Hey Ivor, it’d be pretty neat if you could write a blog to tell us about your project for nithraid” announced Katie Anderson excitedly at the last Young Stove meeting. The first thing that went through my mind upon hearing these words was “CRIKEY!! How on earth am I ever going to explain this to the general public?” . . . After much careful consideration, i have come to the conclusion that the best approach would be to just tell the truth.

So here goes. . .

It all started with a pirate ship, a great big pirate ship. A great big pirate ship made out of recycled plastic bottles. . . So how did i get from a pirate ship to two pyramids or should i say tetrahedrons, a chrome unicorn and an art performance based loosely around the concept of enlightenment. The truth of the matter is I didnt get there on my own. The pirate ship was a snap decision made during a meeting with my stove mentor Denise Zygadlo. i was feeling under immense pressure to make some sort of decision on the project, at this point it had been two weeks since the commission had started, and my initial idea, although perfect for the dock park site (where nithraid was originally intended to be) was just not going to work on mill green. . . “come on Ivor” My inner voice urged. . . “what are you going to do? It must be good, no better than good, It must be fabulous!” . . . so before i had even properly thought about it i found myself telling denise that i might make a pirate ship out of plastic bottles.

This idea then grew from a pirate ship into a viking long boat, inspired by a workshop held at stove that evening. However this was not to remain the case for very long. After a few meetings with my fellow creatives the Mad Jackals (Majikals) the idea of making a viking long boat was starting to seem pretty tiresome. I just couldnt get excited about it. It wasn’t a reflection of me nor was it a reflection of my wonderfully creative friends. . . Then it just came to me i said. “We need to make a pyramid and float it down the nith!!” . . . “We have to have a unicorn inside the pyramid!!” . . . the words of a mad person? Yes, probably.

At this point there was myself, sophie and michael at the studio. You could feel the collective excitement crackling between our minds. I started scribbling ideas down. it MUST and I repeat MUST include the mer-ka-ba, rainbow smoke, flash grenades, horned elementals . . . i was really getting away with myself, credit to Sophie and Michael they were running with me, we were organic and free, if not a little overly optimistic.

The next day I met with my little brother. We were sat in the queensberry, and i was expressing anxiety over the size of the project as it stood. Conor very often being the voice of reason, is somebody who i consult when mashing around creative ideas. He is himself a creative, but where I go off on tangents and allow my concepts to grow bigger than my mind can handle, he has a real skill for reducing it down and keeping it real. i can always trust him to tell me the truth, and to be realistic. . . “one question?” he pondered with his eyebrow raised ” How are you going to do this in 2 weeks?” . . .

I knew he was right. The idea had to change again, and it had to change fast. More of the jackals were arriving at this point. ideas were being thrown around, the ideas were coming thick and fast –

“time capsule” . . . ” Did you say time capsule. . .

Thats perfect. the mer-ka-ba. . . As above so below. . . We’ll make a time capsule and we’ll make it in the shape of an inverse tetrahedron. . . of course we’re going to need a non-inverted tetrahedron too. . . ahhhh its perfect. . . there will be two tetrahedrons. . . the unicorn thats staying, the rainbow smoke has to stay too. “

In order to maintain some mystery about the performance and workshop I’m going to stop there, but in a nutshell thats how an idea that first birthed itself into consciousness as a plastic bottle pirate ship evolved into an exciting interactive art performance based loosely around the theme of enlightenment. We look forward to seeing you all on sunday, when all will be revealed. . . One thing i’d like to say before I get back to putting the finishing touches on everything is that this commission although applied for as a solo project has been a collaborative effort, I often find collaboration so much more exciting than working alone, and have the most fabulous team of creative individuals in my life. We are the Mad Jackals because, they think we’re mad, but we know that we are majickal.

Tags Artist, Blueprint100, Commission, Emerging Artists, Guest Blog Post, Mad Jackals, Nithraid, Performance, Performance Art

News Project Updates

Bill Drummond in Dumfries

‘Why Andy Warhol Is Shite’

In 1973 Bill Drummond was coming to the end of his first academic year at Liverpool School of Art. He was studying painting. He loved painting. He wanted to spend the rest of his life painting. But something was troubling him. He thought even if he became a successful painter, even a great painter, all it would mean that his paintings would hang on the walls of a rich man apartment in New York.

The young and idealistic Drummond instinctively felt that this is not what art should be about. He put down his paint brush, walked away from the easel and out into the streets of Liverpool, in the hope that he could discover a way of making art that… The rest of his professional life to date has been about trying to work out what the “that” might be.

Some months before he laid down his paintbrush, he had visited the first Andy Warhol retrospective in the UK. It was at The Tate (Britain). The exhibition had blown him away. But over the next twelve months what had initially done the blowing, began to trouble him. The troubling progressed to the point that he thought what Andy Warhol represented was everything that was wrong with Art in the world at that time.

All the first year fine art students were expected to write a 4,000 word history of art essay on a topic of their choice. This essay was to be handed in by the end of the first academic year. Although he had a title for the essay he was unable to put any more than a few unconnected words on the page.

Most of the several hundred thousand words that Drummond has written and published since the summer of ’73 have been a continuation of this uncompleted essay. What he hopes to present in Dumfries will be 45 minute performance lecture based on where he is at with the essay at the moment. The working title is, as it was then, the now rather naïve: “Why Andy Warhol is Shite.”