Last Man Sitting

The last man sitting watching a Monty singing alien serenade Riply. (Gordon Culshaw's The Light Side)

Part 3

Dark and Daring saw over 100 people across two nights pack into a cold and (normally) deserted church on Ipswich Docks to witness live VJ sets interspersed with video work, installations and a showreel of submitted audiovisual treats from international artists and students.
On day one the VJ sets were well recieved despite being taken out of the context of having 'live' music or DJs to respond to - maybe this is something that can be included next year, although the sound system will have to be given a lot more thought. Visually the sets looked excellent but the sound sucked. However, with the organisers working with an extremely limited budget and much of the equipment being begged and borrowed - coupled with the fact that the acoustics of empty churches are not generally famous for their bass resonance (Hell will always have a better sound system) - the sound could have been a lot worse.
The video work inbetween the sets helped gel the whole evening together. Included were; my own film DigiDigitDigital getting it's first screening; Steven Ball's Defenestrascope, which in my opinion managed the correlation between sound and image the best of all the films shown on the first night; Malcolm Moseley's Bison, the most organic piece on show, (drawing directly onto film) unfortunately suffered the most from the digital process with the DVD being scratched, (Bison was shown in all it's glory the following night); Simon Wild's beautiful illustrations given a transparent kaleidoscopic treatment set to Paraguayan harp music and Alex Pearl's work made the transition from small screen to large with dramatic, dark and humourous effect. The lollipop sticks deserve Oscars for best performance by confectionary packaging in a film!
Day two saw a showreel that included work from Suffolk College FE Art & Design students alongside Paul Masters, Mark Sargeant, Liam Frankland, Gordon Culshaw and Tom Poultney. However, the highlight of the evening in my opinion came when Mostefprod's W Project was unleashed onto the Ipswich audience. Their menacing ambient electronic/noise soundtrack perfectly matched their brooding neon visual scapes and sucked me in and hypnotised my senses. I'll be looking out for any live VJing they do if they come to the UK.
A resounding success for the arts in Ipswich and congratulations to all involved. Sorry to the guy who turned up in flurescent jacket on his push bike who, cycling past the church at 8.50pm on the last day on his way home from work, found Tim and me packing away the installation monitors with one hardcore audience member left watching the repeating showreel. He exclaimed that he saw the lights in the church and thought the event looked really interesting. Who says you can't entice the British public off the streets to look at art?

Dark & Daring are gone!

Jim Horsfield

John Rixon

Tim Holmes

Alex Pearl

Steven Ball

Dark & Daring are go!

The latest info on Dark & Daring can be found here. A Dubdog publication planned to coincide with Dark & Daring is having to be put on hold due to time constraints but expect a book from Dubdog by the summer. Details will be posted here nearer the time.

Now that's what I call a death threat!

DigiDigitDigital

DigiDigitDigital is now finished ready for the Dark & Daring exhibition and explores digital culture and how it is changing our perception of the world around us and what we consider to be reality. This film is a natural progression from a previous post entitled Evolution.
DARK AND DARING (part ii)
22 – 25 MARCH 2006
ST MARY-AT-THE-QUAY CHURCH, IPSWICH.

Crying Car - ahhh

I'm getting pretty pissed off with the amount of emails I'm getting asking me to sign the Anti-Road Tax Petition so here's my stock response:

This petition is for those that think driving is a right, not a luxury. People who complain about paying tax rather than campaigning for their taxes to be spent for the benefit of all annoy me. Yes, the surveillance bit of this legislation bothers me, a lot. But why aren't these car huggers backing and promoting Anti ID Card campaigns with as much fervour? I actually want to see a reduction in cars on our roads, for lots of reasons other than just the excellent green argument.

2 million anti-war protesters on the streets of London get ignored but the car lobby makes the government go weak at the knees! Try campaigning for the bottomless pit of money allocated to the war machine to be put into creating a forward thinking 21st Century affordable public transport system instead, then I'll sign your petition.

- More tax on cars/fuel
- More tax on planes/air fuel
- More taxes to be spent on public transport
- Scrap this obsession with collecting data and monitoring people

Rant over.

Dark and Daring

Dubdog is currently making a new film exploring digital culture and how it is changing our perception of the world around us and what we consider to be reality. This film is a natural progression from a previous post entitled Evolution.
This new film, working title "DigiDigitDigital" will be shown as part of the following exhibition:
DARK AND DARING (part ii)
22 – 25 MARCH 2006
ST MARY-AT-THE-QUAY CHURCH, IPSWICH.

There is an open call for artists wanting to participate in Dark and Daring.

This is Ipswich

Now this is what Ipswich usually looks like.

This isn't Ipswich!

Ipswich has had a bit of a beating recently. Nightclub shootings and a serial killer immediately before Christmas, bird flu up the road in an animal concentration camp and now a body in the boot of a car. Thanks Jarvis, we could have done without you rhyming where we live with Auschwitz.