It’s an exciting time in the cultural life in the North West at present. Abandon Normal Devices Festival kicked off in Liverpool last night and tonight, Manchester celebrates the opening events of Asian Triennial 2011. I planned to be The Shipping Forecast in Liverpool for a special AND ‘Happy Endings’ (good music, good people) but have received some not too great news tonight. To be honest, I am only writing this now to keep my mind distracted.
Liverpool had a buzz for the first time in a while last night. Glorious weather rolled on the back of the Labour party conference and Newsnight being filmed at the CUC. Down at FACT, their staff masterfully talked up the fantastic experience of their new installation on social media, only to have to turn away visitors due to the need to pre book. This denial only seemed to increasing the desire to go back and see it. The free wine compensated for the inconvenience for many. Outside of AND, the Bluecoat had an opening of their new show and Mercy rounded the day of with the vibrant Spectres of Spectacle at Static Gallery.
I am particularly looking forward to Brody Condon’s performance Level 5 at the Bluecoat tomorrow as part of AND. His talk this afternoon introduced me to the suprisingly popular Nordic interpretation of LARP (Live Action Role Playing). Condon will be running and part of a ten hour performance where participants will assemble new personalities in a critique of 1970’s method ‘self actualisation’. From his past work, the relationship between Condon’s performance work and present physical forms intrigued me. Twentyfivefold Manifestation (2008) is a direct example of this, with him using LARP performers to carry out rituals on outdoor sculptural works at the Sonsbeek International Sculpture Exhibition in Holland.
I have documented the remaining pieces in my studio and will be moving out tomorrow. It’s good to go out on a high note by having work alongside fellow Royal Standard members in the exhibition ‘Space Exchange’ at Aid and Abet in Cambridge.
My first week of classes on my course ended today. There is a good mix on the course, from recent BA graduates to experienced professionals working within various arts bodies. There are diverse backgrounds as well with event managers, economists, literature graduates and outreach specialists. A classmate from America is the only student apart from me from a practice based background. I look forward to speaking to her in depth.
Just a word about Arts Management as a discipline. One of it’s key factors is that as a subject, it is a shape shifter – it is not tied down to a rigid framework, and is able to dip in and out of subjects, from arts practice to economics to sociology. It is this energy that convinced me to study it and look forward to tackling it in a creative manner than dispels preconceptions of dryness.
>> I can’t seem to upload a video link using A-N option so here is a video of Condon’s performance; http://vimeo.com/23955790
