Curated by Kate Murphy: “An event to celebrate and discombobulate the marvellous medium of film! An evening of films and moving-image work that splice, squiggle and savage celluloid. Featuring screenings and Q&A’s with artists Chris Daniels and Dave Griffiths, plus a live expanded cinema performance Cleanse, Tone, Moisturise, (Conceal) by Joanna Byrne.This event is suitable for both art and film lovers as we take the moving image and put it under the microscope… and the paintbrush!”

over+out, Lincoln, 11 – 25 May 2012

Contagion and Symbiotic Practice

Curated by Andrew Bracey and Kate Buckley: Crocodiles with a Second Skin Thrash is an exhibition that explores the re-use of existing material within an artist’s practice. This material is specific and highly loaded, being either that of existing artworks by the artist or incorporating the work of other artists into new artwork.

The exhibition is a sequel of sorts to A Blind Python with Jewelled Eyes, shown in 2011 at Greestone Gallery, Lincoln, which explored the idea of an artwork containing two parallel elements within it, being both in one state and another, almost like a parasite occupying a host. Both exhibitions take their titles from imagery in JG Ballard’s The Crystal World, a dystopic novel where an unidentified and beautiful disease spreads through a rainforest turning everything into shimmering crystalline forms, like a Midas touch. The artists in these two exhibitions all, in some way, have the ability to transmute material and imagery from one thing to another, performing a kind of artistic alchemy.

Artists: Chris Bagnall, Nathan Baxter, Andrew Bracey, Kate Buckley, Joana Cifre Cerda, Fiona Curran, Thomas Cuthbertson, Laura Dodgson, Cinema Elective (Rebecca Steward & Thomas Went), Dave Griffiths, Toby Huddlestone, Peter Lamb, Ross Oliver, David Osbaldeston, Aislinn Ritchie, Alec Shepley and Emily Speed

16-20 April 2012, Wimbledon Space, Wimbledon College of Art, London

Curated by Taneesha Ahmed & Holly Black: “The exhibition will coincide with the final deactivation of analogue television on 18th April 2012. Focusing on contemporary materiality as a defining concept, SWITCH/OVER explores relationships which are currently being forged between analogue and digital media. As the first generation to experience a sizeable shift in the ways in which we record, process, store, and preserve forms of audio and video, we are encountering conflicting concerns with regards to the durability and stability of these formats. Cultural incongruity has also emerged at this technological tipping point. The analogue is disregarded and fetishised in equal measure, whereas the digital is often viewed with contempt by those whose lives it has revolutionised.

Each of these artists have taken an experimental approach to the way in which we, as both viewers and listeners, experience these technologies. Whether presenting a collaborative audio-visual concept, manipulating the materiality of a format, or focusing on the actual process of recording and documenting as an integral factor, we are encouraged to view these media in new ways, and explore their possibilities in a less conventional and more exploratory manner. SWITCH/OVER offers a perspective from which the audience can experience these continual shifts prompted by the imminent death of analogue broadcasting. Binary opposites such as materiality and immateriality, virtual and reality, analogue and digital are amongst the themes communicated by the presented artworks. These works activate and encourage ongoing discussions surrounding the disposability and preservation of technologies within contemporary society.”

Artists: Matthew Bamber, Savinder Bual, Annie Carpenter, Rosie Farrell, Dave Griffiths and Nicky Teegan

Performance: The opening will feature Infinite Playback; spoken-word and sound by Rosie Farrell in collaboration with poet Katy Evans-Bush

Essay: Future Shock by Laura Hensser, here

Artists:  Taneesha Ahmed, Matt Bamber, Fran Blythe, Hannah Brown, Savinder Bual, Kevin Burns, Annie Carpenter, Mike Chavez Dawson & Len Horsey, Sophia Crilly, Nick Crowe & Ian Rawlinson, Daniel Fogarty, Dave Griffiths, Tony Hall, Ian Hartshorne, Hilary Jack, Mark Kennard, Ross McCarry, Jenny Steele, Liz West

Plus: Unravel – the longest hand painted film in Britain!

Part 1: December 2011: Private Galleries & Emergent Practice

Corridor8 moves from being an annual publication to a quarterly series of editions focussing on particular locations and facets of the visual art ecology. Over 2012, the four parts will accumulate into a final bound edition, visiting the cities of the North and creating a portrait of their visual arts culture at this particular moment.

Using the insights of long-time observers, and preserving snapshots of practice in the process of radical change, Corridor8 will traverse the North in a quick, slow dance; zooming from long shot to close-up. By employing the clarity of the traveller and the knowledge of the inhabitant, it will explore art in transition as it changes and adapts during a time of constraint and the movement of people and practice working in the creative ecology of the North.

The health of the sector can be judged by the manifest activities such as pop-up art shows, travelling exhibitions, emerging artist collectives and the growing numbers of private galleries despite the so-called interesting times. In this issue we look at arts practitioners’ resilience and adaptability, their increasing localisation, and the vitality with which they endure and thrive. This year’s annual has been split into four parts, each dealing with a different set of spaces; private galleries, artist-run spaces, fine art departments and entrepreneurial space.

Free stuff: Part 1 comes with a free print from Northern Art Prize nominee James Hugonin and a poster from poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw.

Articles: Matthew Hearn on Newcastle / Mark Doyle & Rebecca Morrill on commercial galleries / Iris Priest on Cerith Wyn Evans / Paul Usherwood on James Hugonin

Artists: Cerith Wyn Evans / Lavina Greenlaw / Dave Griffiths / James Hugonin / Marcus Coates / Matt Stokes / Héctor Arce-Espasas / Jen Liu / Andrew McDonald

Galleries: Bureau / Ceri Hand / The International 3 / Vane / Workplace

The Manchester Contemporary 2011

Bureau Gallery: with work for sale from Sophia Crilly, Daniel Fogarty, Dave Griffiths and Mit Senoj

Launched in 2009, The Manchester Contemporary, coordinated by International 3 is committed to encouraging and developing a market for critically engaged contemporary art in the region. It provides an opportunity for audiences to access high calibre contemporary art by internationally exhibiting artists alongside those that are new and emerging.

Curated by Katie Rutherford: “Enter a Small Room Arranged for this Purpose is a series of three exhibitions in Project Space Leeds’ version of Untitled Gallery, an intimate contemporary art space in Manchester. Enter a Small Room Arranged for this Purpose: Part Two presents laser- and solar-plate etchings by Mike Chavez-Dawson and Dave Griffiths, alongside a new performance written by Dawson with Len Horsey. Dave Griffiths will be talking about his practice during an event on Friday 18 November.  Part One featured prints and drawings by Rick Copsey and Lee Machell.

Untitled Gallery’s pop-up space is a part of Peering Sideways, an exhibition and events programme at PSL, bringing together artists’ groups from around the UK (London, Manchester and Wakefield).

Etching in E-Ink

Download from Amazon, price 86p!

Anna Frew, Dante Between the Realms

Organised by Dave Griffiths & Joe Duffy: “This show brings together 5 artists who share an archaeological urge, encompassing film, publishing, print, photography, sculpture and embroidery. The Lost Thread inhabits a passing place between analogue and digital worlds, reinventing old media and devices as future formats for reading the image. Joe Duffy’s slide-viewer installation explores authenticity, memory and trauma from appropriated eye-witness accounts of a famous death. Anna Frew investigates the Kindle’s intersection of traditional paper and E-Ink book-making. Dave Griffiths‘ microfiche plate offers the opportunity to reconstruct a model human from photographic remains, and Mary Stark creates tactile woven artefacts from abandoned celluloid film. Claire Thomas‘ handmade film installation provides an insight into personal recollection locked in a physical space, whilst also remarking on the recently bankrupt knitting factory in which this exhibition takes place.

The Lost Thread also launches a new Kindle zine Etching in E-Ink, designed and edited by Anna Frew and published by Vapid Media. Featuring images and texts by the artists, it can be downloaded from Amazon, price 86p!

Claire Thomas, The Button Box

2 x 35mm filmloops, 2 x filmstrip projectors

Fragments of found advertising for 1970s cigarettes Players No 6.  Two men and a dog. Flatness expanded in Möbius strips. Testing the cinematic and sculptural dynamics of occupying and crossing a corner.

Part of Peering Sideways at Project Space Leeds, 10 September – 10 December 2011

In Sorry for the Inconvenience, five artists affiliated with Manchester’s Rogue Artists’ Studios come together to show sculpture, video and installation. Although not working to a group manifesto, their practices display intrinsic commonalities. These artists explore and exploit the synergy between them, through experiments with mass, temporality, movement, material, and narrative.

Paul Cordwell, Dave Griffiths, Jessica Longmore, Lee Machell, Dan Mort and Untitled Gallery

About Peering Sideways: “This ambitious project brings together three artists’ groups from London, Manchester and Wakefield in a new exhibition at PSL. The title suggests looking askance, or taking a fresh look, at something familiar. It hints at the artist-peers taking part in the show, which aims to examine the idea of artists’ groups – how and why artists come together to create work, share studio space, network and exhibit together. The project also aims to grow the networks of the participating artists and groups, sparking new relationships and collaborations. Some of the work will form a static exhibition, whilst some will develop in the space over the course of the project.”

Each group from Peering Sideways will be publishing a 12 page colour newspaper consecutively throughout the project, on sale at PSL for £3.

Featuring peers from the MA at Goldsmiths, Other People’s Problems brings together eight artists whose foundation for production is conceptual criticality and a shared concern for basing work within a socio-political field of enquiry. Art, here, is a tool with which to take responsibility, an idea that is perhaps often shied away from. Featuring Sophie Carapetian, Tom Crawford, Frauke Dannert, Ross Downes, Patrick Goddard, J L Murthaugh, Megan Rooney and Rehana Zaman.

Welcome To The Real World: these individuals have been united as part of a national network of people, through their commitment to the same principles laid out by the charitable organization Art House. Autonomous motivations and remote geographical locations are reflected in these practices, however through the physicality of the gallery space the works presented ultimately form associations as part of a network of ideas. Featuring Ben Cove, Gill Greenhough, Victoria Lucas, Marion Michell, Aidan Moesby and Lois Palframan.

Oriel Mwldan, Cardigan, 21 May – 2 July 2011

Curated by Michael Cousin (Outcasting): “The ability to understand and bestow importance to moving images is embedded in the cultural psyche. From cinema, television and the Internet there is an endless stream of content to view, one that we can never hope to keep up with. A hundred films to see before you die. A thousand. A hundred thousand. But the beauty of this is choosing your own hundred, your own thousand. You make your own list.

For this show Outcasting, the online moving image gallery is screening a hundred films from those that it has screened in three years of programming. The films come from a variety of genres and styles and hopefully reflect the full breadth of artists engagement with this medium. Over the course of the 43 days that the show will be running audiences will be able to see a truly international range of work with the 100 films being rotated throughout that time.”

Featuring Edward Adam, Louise Adkins, Simon Aeppli, Beard & Ferguson, Beck & Calvo, Birkbeck & Duffy, Andrew Bucksbarg, Dana Cooley, Leandro Cordova, Anne-Marie Creamer, Herve Constant, Boldi Csernak, Gordon Culshaw, David Cushway, Ron Diorio, Sarah Doyle, Antonello Faretta, Kim Fielding, Hondartza Fraga, Rabab Ghazoul, Dave Griffiths, Henry Gwiazda, Anton Hecht, Tetsushi Higashino, Richard Higlett, Sam Holden, Stephanie Hough, Neale Howells, Ronee Hui, Olga Koroleva, Yaron Lapid, Derek Larson, Lemeh 42, Rebecca Lennon, Lauren Moffat, Patrizia Monzani, Kika Nicolela, Daniel & Marianna O’Reilly, Stephen Palmer, Robert Pearre, Guilherme Pedreiro, Yannick Puig, Nicolas Ramel, Giulia Ricci, Liz Rodda, Henrique Roscoe, Jennie Savage, Selina Shah, James Snazell, Lisa Stansbie, Alysse Stepanian, Jacki Storey, Jennie Thwing, Katri Walker, Kim Walker, Anders Weberg, Christopher Webster, Jessica Westbrook, Rachel Wilberforce, Tina Willgren and Dawn Woolley.

Bureau

Curated by Sophia Crilly: “We Are All In This Together is a celebration of both Bureau’s fifth birthday and the current contemporary scene across the UK. It appears prescient in the face of the recent arts cuts, as Bureau extends an invitation to UK based artists to exhibit work at their Manchester gallery. The exhibition aims to feature new and existing works by as many artists as possible, as in a challenging curatorial exercise, Bureau relinquishes control of their curated gallery programme and issues a call out to artists to provide the exhibition content.

We Are All In This Together pays tribute to preeminent curator Walter Hopps’ seminal 36 Hours project at MOTA (The Museum of Temporary Art), Washington, USA in 1978. The concept for 36 Hours was for any artist to take a single work to the gallery, without any chance of rejection or censorship, and Hopps would personally hang the works as they arrived. The show was inclusive, making no distinction between artists or selection of works, the only limitation being a size restriction. Bureau will adhere to this framework in an attempt to explore curatorial models and boundaries, and experiment with exhibition formats, extending the timeframe from 36 hours to 36 days.

Cornerhouse, Manchester, 14 May, 4pm, free

Organised by Kate Taylor as part of Future Everything 2011: “Bringing the visual arts community and Manchester’s thriving digital design sector together in a playful and informal setting, this event will  give you a taste of what’s happening inside the mind of some of the city’s leftfield innovators. Ten artists and designers will make lightning presentations about a current project, experiment or source of inspiration.  The event is in tribute to the city of Sendai in Japan, to highlight their creative energy and links with Manchester, as they begin to rebuild following the earthquake in March.

Dave Griffiths will present Babel Fiche first in a series of new web-based artworks commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella.

Also: Design By Day, John O’Shea, Brendan Dawes (Magnetic North), Jon Grant (Cahoona), Manchester Modernist Society, Hwa Young Jung (MadLab), WOW (Sendai), Elliot Woods.

Photos: MadLabUK

Cine Esquema Novo 2011. Programme selected by Madrid Experimental Film Week:

Dave Griffiths,

Edited by John Davidson: “The 21st installment of the JSF presents eight existential texts questioning what it means to be human. The works of this volume dissect this riddle through the use of narrative, archival footage, computer-manipulated images, video and the art of flexible film to show us a well-rounded mix of the many forms of human expression. Hypothesis, experiments and conclusions travel through the realms of musical abstractions, technological interfacing, human memory, and visual/physical pleasure. However most of the artists find that these existential mysteries remain enigmatic.”

Tara Samuel, Shun Yu Mo, Clint Enns, Kevin Van Scoder, Grace Carter + Holly Andres, Dave Griffiths, Adam Levine, Cathy Lee Crane

Babel Fiche launches 18 March 2011 at www.babelfiche.net, the first in a series of new web-based projects commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella.

For this collaborative film, I invite members of the public during 2011 to gather and select a set of amateur video clips that describe contemporary, everyday life around the Earth. These movie fragments will be transformed into a set of colour microfiche films – a photographic medium capable of lasting 500 years and simply requiring light and a lens to expand its contents. This analogue throwback might even outlast our current reliance on fragile digital storage.

Babel Fiche is an imaginary media for future anthropologists. It asks which behaviours, objects, traditions and conflicts we want to communicate to a future world. Today’s human cultures, physique and technology will inevitably develop out of all recognition. So how might a future species translate our current times?  Babel Fiche will ponder the problem by animating and remixing the microfiche contents as a series of new short films. This production stage is driven through Wreckamovie, an online platform to help organise participatory movie projects.

The project thus surrenders authorial control in favour of a crowd-sourced, democratically produced artwork. Members of online communities will write, design and compose a series of animated shorts using the microfiche as a resource. You are welcome to participate by suggesting storyboards, scripts, or other experimental approaches to direct the animation. Speculate how a far-future researcher might re-interpret these fragments.

Process and conversation are given equal value to the eventual end product. The final results of this endeavour are as yet unknown. Babel Fiche wonders if it will be possible to resolve coherent films under these social conditions, and viewers and collaborators are invited to follow the progress of the project as it develops and changes.

Babel Fiche is a production residency commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, with support from North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Curated by Wago Krieder & Jessica Allee of Studio 27: “A program of avant-garde and underground works that reframe the uncanny, transgressive, and grotesque”.

Max Hattler, Tony Gault, Dave Griffiths, Jerstin Crosby, Jonathan Monaghan, Melissa Potter, Todd Herman, Actung Fittor, Ricardo Sleiman and Emilie Crewe

“Dave Griffiths presents his film and lightbox installation Seer’s Catalogue, a series of variations on a theme that, with deadpan earnestness, takes in primordial myth and post-nuclear apocalypse, accompanied with a melodramatic voiceover: “They penetrated my eyes … I needed to find an explanation … So I peered in their nests … That was my downfall …” The film is a flickering collage of naff B-movie sequences overlaid with a faded soundtrack. Images quiver as if stuck on the film reel or fixed in the distinctly paranoid protagonist’s memory. The whole thing would come across as an exercise in cult retro film cliches if it were not for the strangely compelling insistence of that narration: “From the start there were imperfections … variations … This one the size of Poland … This one a grain of sand.”  RC, Bureau, to 29 Jan.