Circuit Bending/Avant Electronics Performance, and “This is not boring”.
Circuit bending or weird electronics live performance is alive and well, but not necessarily everywhere. In Portsmouth there have been some discussions about the topic, and some agreement that we can find it difficult to locate venues and promoters that are willing to host these types of events. Don’t get me wrong, they have happened in the past, most famously the VJ/Live electronics night, Shindig which hosted a handful of different artists and VJ’s in a small art house in central Portsmouth. Sadly those days are gone, and we look for other opportunities to play live.
The Beekeeper - Shindig - August 2008
Some cities have a great (and I hate using the word…) ‘scene’, London, Brighton and others have a wider cultural network, and are more inclined to this type of performance. Portsmouth is working at it, I’ve already mentioned Shindig, but I suspect there are a wealth of talented artists that produce work that isn’t the norm, but just don’t have a calling, or a platform to play their material live. This is one of the many reasons prrk industries began.
So with that context, I received an email from One000 Plateaus www.one000plateaus.com regarding an event they are putting on in July. Billed as “This is not boring”, artists from our surrounding area (and beyond) have been invited to respond to a performance brief about the following theme:
b/order crossings; unreal boundaries that refuse to melt in the heat of (de)territorialisation, a line of escape from an institutionalized apparatus of capture.
Big.
The breath of talent spans a range of art forms , from audio visual performance, electronica, spoken-word, installations, psycho-geographers, interstitial architects, kinetic sculptors, live artists and theatre makers. The curators are keen for artists to collaborate on the evening too.
So here at prrk, we’ve accepted the challenge, and will perform two very different pieces on the night.
Firstly, our long term video collaborator Silly Little Man and I will be presenting a piece entitled “Back to the Bronx”, a document about the cultural/historic/geographical boarders of New York City, paying homage to the film, The Warriors, only in reverse… Live soundtrack, live visuals.
Then in the garden I shall be working on a live piece with one of Portsmouth’s most talented artists Los Dave, featuring live painting and sound improvisation.
There are a host of others already signed up, I know the organisers are keen for more. Visit their site if you’re interested in joining in, better still, come down and watch it all unfold.
Coastguard Studio
91 Clarendon Road, The Strand, PO4 0SA Southsea
2 July at 19:00–1:00. FREE.
https://www.facebook.com/events/845144195628950/
