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David Blandy
Between what was + is yet to come in the middle ages of Medieval-City One at Leicester’s Two Queens
The Medieval-City One group exhibition at Leicester’s Two Queens, opened June 17 and is running to September 2.
The show features newly-commissioned video and installation works by Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, Ashley Holmes, Georgia Horgan, Pil and Galia Kollectiv and Medieval Helpdesk (Lara Eggleton & David Steans) that explore, “the constructs of bureaucracy, colonialism, national identity, immigration, ethnicity, posthumanism, the gendered body, and tourism.”
The exhibition is also part of a series of events that studies the idea of the ‘Medieval’ in relation to the future and takes its title from Judge Dredd’s Mega City One. The programme aims to create a space to open up discussions around the middle ages in popular culture, and as a space to explore the ‘between’ of what was and what comes next.**
share news itemCycle Music and Art Festival, Oct 27 – 30
The second Cycle Music and Art Festival is taking place at Kópavogur’s Gerðarsafn Museum and various other venues around the Icelandic city, opening October 27 and running to October 30.
Dedicated to the intersection of art and music, the focus of the event is deeply rooted in the natural landscape as “an echo chamber in order to explore questions of deep time and peak futures.”
There is a long line-up of exciting events and exhibitions, including a performance by Rachel de Joode, a live concert by the South Icelandic Chamber Choir, ‘music chess deal #3’ by Curver Thoroddsen, a film screening of Finding Fanon II (2015) by Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, and a synthetic choir by Marguerite Humeau.
There’ll be an inclusion of Constant Dullaart’s media player invention (a product successfully funded Kickstarter campaign of company DullTech™), multi-media work ‘100% OTHER FIBRES’ by Heather Phillipson, a research performance by Johannes Paul Raether, film screening of Kwassa Kwassa (2015) by SUPERFLEX, a new body of sculptural work by Vanessa Safavi, and Alvaro Urbano‘s new He would always leave the window open, even at night (2016).
See the Cycle Music and Art Festival website for the full programme.**
Header image: Marguerite Humeau, ‘FOXP2’ (2016). Digital Image. Courtesy the artist + Le Studio Humain (Benjamin Penaguin) for Marguerite Humeau.
share news itemLarry Achiampong + David Blandy @ The Showroom, Jun 30
Larry Achiampong and David Blandy will be in conversation with Rizvana Bradley at London’s The Showroom on June 30.
The London-based artist duo who often work together will screen and present their work ‘Finding Fanon’ (2015) an ongoing film series inspired by the lost plays of Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), a radical humanist whose practice dealt with the psychopathology of colonisation and the social and cultural consequences of decolonisation.
Both parts of ‘Finding Fanon’ thus far deal with the relationship Achiampong and Blandy have to each other and the impact that the inherited conversation around colonialism and promise of globalisation has upon on them.
Also involved in the discussion are members of Network 11, a peer network of artists working on questions regarding the positions of Britishbased artists of colour and LGBT communities in the art world.
See the Showroom website for more details.**
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David Blandy + Natalia Skobeeva @ RCA Dyson Gallery, May 11 – 23
Artists Natalia Skobeeva and David Blandy will show three new videos in joint exhibit, Oracles of Humankind at London’s RCA Dyson Gallery, opening May 11 and running to May 23.
Oracles of Humankind is the final show in the current series, ‘Rise Up & Envision’ held in Dyson Gallery, and will be presented by curatorial platform, A- – -Z, who recently organised the premiere of Evan Ifekoya‘s video ‘Okun Song‘, which runs in an exhibition until May 31.
According to the press release, Blandy’s ‘Hercules: Rough Cut’ (2015) is a four screen installation that layers archival political imagery with “pulsing poetic rap (that) narrates an alternative history of the City of London”, taking heed from “language, style and cadence of Roman declamations, Thomas More, Samuel Johnson, William Blake, 1950s Beat poets and contemporary street talk”.
Skobeeva will present both ‘The Horrors of Archiving’ (2015) and ‘Lewis Carroll meets Godzilla’ (2016), the latter of which also takes and constructs content from across a vast timeline including “quotes from St Augustine, Hussels, Lewis Carroll, contemporary theatre productions, songs and conversations”. Apparently “the work needs to be watched at least 50 times”.
See the RCA Dyson Gallery website for more details.**
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Larry Achiampong + David Blandy @ Toynbee Studios, Feb 25
Artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy will host an informal evening of video screenings and debate around the postcolonial and the posthuman at London’s Artsadmin Toynbee Studios on February 25.
The discussion will surround their new film commission, ‘Finding Fanon Part Two’, a work that explores post-humanity in and via the digital realm of Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto V’s in-game video editor.
On the evening Achiampong and Blandy will also feature screen-based works by other artists making in a similar territory. They are: Harold Offeh, Jesse Darling, NT, Evan Ifekoya, Junior Boakye-Yiadom and Hannah Black.
See the EventBrite event link for more details**
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David Blandy @ Channel Normal, Feb 9 – 23
David Blandy will present a tutorial video for online platform Channel Normal between February 9 and 13.
The work will be a step by step tutorial/video guide to how to make a video about extinction and the end or beginning of the world, using just editing software and the internet.
The event’s image is an interesting version of a press release-cum-guide in its own right to the ensuing work, or show. It reads: “Use key frames to start at nothing, flicker up for a moment, then go to ultimate brightness”. There is something ironic but really sad about the text that presents itself forward and you don’t quite know where it is in relation to the video, or the show.
Look out for the channel normal site as of the February 9.
See the FB Event page for more details**