In March/April 2003 Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum co-ordinated ART SHEFFIELD 03 – a city-wide contemporary art event which took place within the city's major galleries, project spaces, non-gallery venues and public sites. The programme included contemporary art by national and international artists which related to the urban experience. It was shown in established and newer more unusual venues around the city. Partners in the project are Sheffield Galleries & Museum’s Trust, Site Gallery, S1 Projects, Bloc Space, Lovebytes and other organisations which are engaged both with the international contemporary art world and with a highly active constituency of Sheffield-based artists.
A Black Thread
Site
Gallery will premiere the Shooting Live Artists commissions in this exciting
crossover area between performance, digital media and installation.
The exhibition exhibits several works, including an investigation of
what "Englishness" means to us today creating a living bank of postcards,
stories, images, objects and identities (Third Angel); a re-enactment
of The Cramps seminal 1978 performance at Napa Mental Institute (Iain
Forsyth & Jane Pollard); a recreation of four Suffragette performances
in a modern context to highlight the basic citizenship rights still denied
to the lesbian and gay community (Leslie Hill and Helen Paris); an Interactive
digital drama set in the lost 'reality' department of a tv station (Ronald
Fraser- Munroe); Skin/Strip Online - an exploration of body identities,
building an intimate human gallery on the internet (Completely Naked/Further
Field); and the documentation of a sleepless winter hitch-hike to the
Norwegian Arctic Circle (Daniel Gosling)
See more at www.bbc.co.uk/arts/shootinglive.
[In association with The Culture Company, The Arts Council of England,
The BBC and The Studio of the North]
Uncle Judge is a new body of work by Jonathon Owen created in response to two paintings from Sheffield’s art collection. Through sculpture, painting and video Owen examines conventions of patriarchal control and display, taking conventional masculine images and turning them upside-down. This experimental work explores issues surrounding the restriction of people to prescribed rules of behaviour.
29 March - 19 April
Various works will be installed in the foyer and in the walkway through to the Winter gardens, including:
A video work in which a woman stands at various key locations in the city - next to derelict buildings, outside the Millennium Galleries and at "beautiful downtown Bramall Lane". She is holding a copy of the "Sheffield Star" in her hand. As she waves the newspaper in the air, as if to try to sell it to passers by, instead of hearing the familiar cry of "Star" we hear her emit a faint cry, simply what sounds suspiciously like the word, "art". When reversed the familiar newspaper vendor's cry of "star" in fact is transformed into the faint and plaintive cry of "art". Through repetition, the cry, which is initially perplexing, becomes almost plaintive and what begins as a positive affirmation becomes an altogether more fallible incantation.
A series of bricks cast as houses which explores the conformity of modern housing estates and the image of the ideal home. The bricks are arranged as a city plan, which gets across the sense of distance felt looking down on a city, showing the structure as a whole, something we seldom feel when on the ground.
Continuity and discontinuity are a central theme in the video work "Link", but here everything seems to be accelerated. As his point of departure and basic material, the artist uses the classic film "Sleuth" by Joseph L. Mankiewicz from 1972 (with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier). Production partners are being sought for the "remake" - the existing film is filmed again - who will each "produce" 170 seconds of the film with an original length of 138 minutes. Each separate take of the original film is then re-filmed scene by scene on continuously alternating television screens in continuously alternating private homes, until the original film is finished. This work thus shows a chronological sequencing of all the takes in different interiors. Both works introduce a double dramaturgy, which paraphrases the location of the action and slows down or accelerates the perception of it.
Mel Jordan & Andy Hewitt
Show Flat aims to question culture-led regeneration by examining the future planning and redevelopment of Sheffield. The artists are to pre-empt the inevitable by redeveloping their studio at S1 into a Show Flat. The studio office will become a small one bedroom first floor apartment with fine views toward Devonshire Green. The Show Flat will act as a place for a series of events, with seminars being held for Architecture students at Sheffield University.
A video piece documenting the journey along the 'B' roads from Bristol to Sheffield with his giant pumpkin strapped to the top of his car. See - events.
Yael Bartana’s work often deals with the visual observance of everyday urban life, from which she reveals innate poetics. Trembling Time was filmed in Tel-Aviv from a highway overpass on Soldiers Memorial Day. It depicts a moment of silence as it is observed in traffic during a cross-country siren. This piece looks at State organised memorials, ceremonies and military events, and the way they define tradition and shape national identity; they are powerful and therefore dangerous phenomena that perpetuate patterns of loyalty and ignorance. The artist was born in Israel, and lives and works in the Netherlands and Israel. She studied in Jerusalem and New York.
This exhibition shows painting and graphics work by Sheffield-based visual and audio artist Stephen Carley.
Dawn Chorus is a sound piece in which urban noises are transformed into birdsong. The artist takes field recordings of urban sounds, such as traffic and building sites, and uses them as the input for music recognition software, using the midi bird tweet setting. The sounds emanate from small boxes, which intermittently play ten second bursts of 'birdsong'. The nesting boxes hint at attempts to reintroduce something lost, while the sounds, sanitised sound bites of noise pollution, are appropriately enough experienced within the quasi natural environment of an ersatz jungle.
Showroom
Cinema
29 March - 19 April
A tableaux photograph taken on the periphery of the Sheffield landscape. The piece depicts the space between the outlying boroughs and the greenbelt, disused industrial sectors and fallow ground. By daylight these spaces seem mundane, but as the light recedes, they become transitory, a malleable hinterland which is just out of reach of the street lamps. The image is made using a series of exposures on the same piece of film, with the flash illuminating particular elements of the composition.
29 March - 19 April
A video of a person’s eye, as they walk through a city-centre. Using a tiny camera mounted on a frame, the movements of the eye, as it scans and searches its surroundings, are shown for scrutiny by the eyes of the viewer. The environment is clearly reflected in the eye, as are the movements of the eye as it processes this information, giving a glimpse of the thought processes behind the mechanisms of perception.
Workstation
Focusing upon an actual brown-field site in Sheffield, Sons of the Desert present a text-based work based upon the idea of a brown field site as a potential site for cultural regeneration and imagination. A brown-field site anticipates the process of a city’s natural entropy but it also suggests an opportunity for regeneration and reconstruction. Sons of the Desert are Steve Dutton and Steve Swindells.
The artist contacts by email several hundred people who, (through research on the web) she knows to work on a specific street in Sheffield. In the initial email, she asks them to describe their offices, the aim being to try to build together a written picture of the street. Through conversation, cross references are made and a dialogue develops with a great number of people who are unlikely to know each other, but who are all closely linked by location.
Bloc Space
The paintings in this exhibition cohere around the use of urban architectural motifs - buildings are what perhaps signify a city, yet this 'structured' environment is associated with cultural and social fragmentation. The artists’ varied use of photography - transposing modes of communication to image aspects of the contemporary urban experience. The title 'Citi-zen' refers to the discipline of painting as a practice, whilst being a wry comment on the sometimes antithetical desire for anchorage and enlightenment.
A mini ferris wheel structure made up of n-scale model railway track is constructed in Persistence Works. A video camera points at the track and the image projected creates the illusion of looking out of the back of a full-scale train in motion. The work relates to the artist’s first TV memory - of all US channels simultaneously showing the image from the back of Bobby Kennedy’s funeral train.
Mon and Tues 11am-5pm
Sheffield Hallam Uni
Brought together by the changing face of Sheffield and the diverse opportunities on offer, the artists seek to activate the space and produce new dialogues with their work, which consist of a broad range of media, including sound, video, performance, photography and installation.
Taking
us on a little tour of Sheffield City Centre; Charlie Youle has
created a leaflet outlining an anecdote and a guided walk; exploring
narratives within space and connecting the personal and the public
experience of the city. Pick up the leaflet from participating venues.
Showroom
Cinema and Site Gallery
Lovebytes International Festival of Digital Art
20 - 22 March
A unique international festival celebrating all aspects of digital creativity
with an extensive programme of events and exhibitions open to everyone.
Lovebytes 2003 offers the chance to get behind-the-scenes of digital cinema,
music and interactive media. Meet the people involved and experience firsthand
some of the world's most innovative and exciting computer based art.
There will be exhibitions, performances, hands-on technology workshops
and film screenings, including contributions from Aardman Animation (UK),
Apple Computers (UK), Channel 4 (UK), Dextro (Austria), Chris Evans (UK),
Film Council (UK), General Magic + Tina Frank (Austria), Motoshi Chikamori
and Kyoko Kunoh (Japan), Lia (Austria) and Miguel Carvalhais (Portugal),
Carsten Nicolai (Germany), Nullpointer (UK), Kurt Ralske (USA), Nobukazu
Takemura (Japan), Warp Records (UK), and Chris Watson (UK).
Corporation nightclub
Sounds recorded for an empty Nightclub
co-ordinated by Host artists group
28 March 5.00 - 7.00pm
A working nightclub uses sound and light to construct a dynamic or vibrant
atmosphere. The night club becomes a very different experience when the
house lights are raised. For ART SHEFFIELD 03 Host artists group have
invited over 30 artists to produce sound pieces for the alien environment
of a Sheffield nightclub in the daytime with the main house lights switched
on. The selected works will be archived as a limited edition CD and made
available for purchase.
T C Mccormack
Auto-Cavalcade
Friday 28 March - 6.30-8.00pm
T C Mccormack will stage an auto-procession, inspired by celebrations
of weddings in southern Europe, all noise and decoration. A group of cars
of matching colour will be assembled to follow a set route through the
city at night. The cars will be lit from within and partially covered
by panels to diffuse the light, so the cavalcade will appear like a procession
of travelling lightboxes. The vehicles will play a synchronised audio
piece of
sampled sounds. The uniformity of colour, light and sound, coupled with
the close proximity of the vehicles, will combine to suggest a travelling
sculptural form. As an event-spectacle, the auto-cavalcade challenges
popular notions of public art. A documentary film of the event will be
shown at S1 Artspace
Kieran Brown
Feeding the Five Thousand.
A performance involving a car, pumpkin crash helmet, roof rack, tannoy loudspeaker, tape player, giant pumpkin and bunting. Kieran will journey along the 'B' roads from Bristol to Sheffield with his giant pumpkin strapped to the top of his car. A performance event based on the bible story of the feeding of the five thousand, one of many legends from history that have changed, objects that have altered through time and migration, something of a Chinese whisper. A film of the event will be shown at S1 Artspace
Kevin Reid
Harry Butler Stuntman Extraordinaire
S1 Artspace 28 March 6.30 - 8pm
Harry Butler has been with artist Kevin Reid for over two years creating
adrenaline-fuelled madness. He is a flamboyant alter ego, a part of the
artist that comes alive when he slips on the Lycra head sheath and flame
red tasselled jump suit. He has taken Reid through 10 feet high flaming
Rings of Fire, over the burning wreckage of many a toy police car and
jam biscuit meltage. His dulcet tones have been heard in far corners of
the globe including Sicily, New York and Germany, and his bravado and
truth has touched many a heart and mind.
Mark Melvin
Intervals
Outside Site Gallery
Saturday 29 March 12.00 – 5.00pm
Musicians play live music in the street in the guise of buskers. As people
pass, they stutter and glitch in the manner of a scratched CD. This iteration
of notes, riffs and lyrics is triggered by the movement of people as they
pass each of the players. The music therefore acts as an impersonal, repeating
accompaniment for the audience, who unknowingly become performers as they
disturb the flow and progression of the process . To be performed by Maria
Leahy (vocals/guitar) and Eleanor Rogers (vocals/guitar)
Katie Exley
Wednesday 2 April
60 yellow helium-filled balloons are given out to
passers-by on Sheffield train station in the morning rush hour; an offering
to brighten the day, a free gift, a visual spectacle and a live act. It
brings the symbol of celebration to a regular, ordinary pattern of daily
life and attempts to disrupt the monotony of the 9-5 lifestyle and stands
counter to consumerist exchange.
Screening
Bunny Lake is Missing
Saturday 29 March 6pm
Showroom Cinema
Georgina Starr will introduce Otto Preminger's 1965 film, which is one
of the inspirations for her installation Bunny Lake Drive-In.
£5.00 /£3.60
Sheffield
University School of Architecture is organising an Interdisciplinary Symposium,
Saturday 12th April, 2003.
Body-Space: Architecture and the Contemporary Body
Body-Space gathers an interdisciplinary panel of speakers to discuss their
own work and then to join a round table session exploring issues of architecture
and the contemporary body with the audience. Speakers include theorists
and practitioners from Architecture, Medicine, Visual Culture, Performance,
Art, and Choreography.
Speakers:
Rachel Armstrong (London) "Extended Anatomies of the Body"
Franko B (London) "Still Lives"
Sander Boer/ Oosterhuis.nl (Rotterdam) "Architecture Goes Wild"
Malcolm Fraser (Edinburgh) "Dance Base"
Arie Graaflaand (TU-Delft) "Architectural Disciplining of the Body"
Doina Petrescu (University of Sheffield) "Bodies, Folds and Strange
Minds"
Paul Hegarty (UCC Cork) "Accommodating Noise"
Amy Simpson, (University of Hull) "Biomechanics"Registration
10.30am; presentations begin 11.00; event ends 5.00pm.
Tickets: £15/ RIBA members £10/ concessions £5/
Tickets: n.j.lewis@sheffield.ac.uk
University of Sheffield Western Bank Sheffield S10 2TN
telephone (00 44) 114 222 0399 fax (00 44) 114 279 8276
TALKS/PRIVATE VIEWS
Saturday
29 March
Starting at 1.00pm at the Site Gallery
Starting at 3.00pm at the Site Gallery
Join us for an informal gallery tour, which introduces you to Art Sheffield
03. Through various talks, we will bring together different perspectives
and thoughts on the work exhibited.
Saturday 22 March
Jonathan Owen
Millennium Galleries Learning Centre 2.00pm
Jonathan Owen will talk about how the exhibition has developed, contextualising
his current work with slides and video footage.
Lovebytes
Site Gallery 4.00pm
Screening and discussion event in which artists Motoshi Chikamori and
Kyoko Kunoh will be talking about their work and reflecting on its relation
to interactivity, digital media developments and Japanese culture.
Saturday
5 April
Bright Lights artists Akiko Usami and Yoko Obata
Millennium Galleries Learning Centre 2.00pm
These two Japanese artists will talk about the developments in their work
Derek McQueen
A Child Could Do It
Cupola 4.00pm
The artist will reveal the inspiration behind his paintings in his new
exhibition
Steven Carley
Access Space
Friday 28 March 5.30pm
The artist will present his new exhibition, Under the skin, using music
and words.
Theo Price
Connector Sensitive performance
Simunye
Saturday 5 April 7.30 pm
Connector Sensitive is a live interactive installation where the artist
ensnares his audience by manipulating aggressive technology. This is
a
continuation of the artist’ wire work. An exhibition of the event
will run from 6 April until 10 April.
Corridor
Studios
Tuesdays 8 April 2.00 – 3.00pm
Tuesday 15 April 2.00 – 3.00pm
Artists talks relating to the Chiaro-scuro exhibition
Sheffield
Hallam University
Sense of.... Private View Thursday 3 April 6.00-8.00pm
Late night Thursday 10 April until 8.00pm