protoPLAY

PERMANENT GALLERY

PUBLIC EVENT: 30th January 7pm / £4

Commissionned Artists: Mim King, Got any Rice, Sylvia Rimat, Anne Gaelle Thiriot.

“Myth is not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this message: there are formal limits, there are no ‘substantial’ ones.” Roland Barthes, Myth Today.

The works in this event could each be defined for a large part as construction of mythology, a construction of basic tropes in stories- as Barthes suggested, the human mind endlessly creates stories to process and interpret the world. The constructed narratives for Testing Grounds propose a fictionalised reality of the world, through different approaches: autobiographic elements; anatomic and sound examination of a town from an outside stance; stories that reflect an ambiguous presence somewhere between text and reality; and finally the re-exploration of fairy tales and folk tales in order to create a bridge between narrative and abstract features of live performances.

This event is organized in partnership with Permanent Gallery and is the 4th edition of a series of 6 events to be produced in the South East of England. Testing Grounds is financially assisted by the Arts Council England South East.

SOUTH HILL PARK – BRACKNELL

PUBLIC EVENT: 31^st of October 5pm – 8pm / £4 (inc. a drink)

Pre-booking essential (01344484123)

Testing Grounds is a Live Art and Music event where artists are invited to make new work, rather than reproducing a set performance. This edition is a collaboration with both the visual art department and the music department at South Hill Park and we have commissioned artists to make works with a strong cross over between music/sound and live art.

Jo Bannon

We’ve constructed the event through playing with the rhythm of each individual work; the performances suggest an invisible other, always on the edge of falling into a potential of conflict.

ARTISTS: Holly Bodmer, Christina Jensen, Jo Bannon, Leah Lovett Stavroula Kounadea, Daniel Hunt

This event is organized in partnership with South Hill Park (Outi Remes and William Trevelyan) and is the 3rd edition of a series of 6 events to be produced in the South East of England.

Testing Grounds is financially assisted by the Arts Council England South East.

7pm Saturday 29th August 2009

Bargate Monument Gallery, High Street, Southamton, UK

Testing Grounds is a Live Art and Music event. Artists are invited to make new work, experimenting with new ideas and projects, rather than reproducing a set performance. Testing Grounds is an experimental meeting place for artists, audiences and ideas and aims to be an environment supportive of artistic risk.

This edition will feature a very eclectic mix of works, yet each occupies its own self defining ‘testing ground’, a space where ideas can be pushed beyond limits, emotions felt and attitudes re-questioned.

Each work has been selected for its capacity to twist meaning and expectation through the process of being performed. We hope that through the 6 new and exciting performances, spanning from ceramicist Keith Harrison to East London band The Coolness, the audience will appreciate the diverse artistic attitudes and approaches to finding a space for exploration, and will take the opportunity to reflect, discuss the works and socialize with each other and with the artists.

Free Event But Booking Is Essential. Contact: info@aspacearts.org.uk / 02380 338 778

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Two of the artists for the next Testing Grounds on Sat 18 July seek collaborators… Read the rest of this entry »

Testing Grounds at Permanent Gallery

Saturday 18 July
7pm (map)
£4/3 Concessions

“The fate of thought depends and will depend for a long time between regret and assay“. Jean-Francois Lyotard, What is post-modernism? 1982

Permanent Gallery hosts Testing Grounds, a Live Art or Music event where artists are invited to make new work, rather than reproducing a set performance. Testing Grounds is an experimental meeting place for artists, audiences and ideas and aims to be an environment supportive of artistic risk.

This edition invites 4 artists from the UK and abroad proposing to explore the dislocation between text and image, focusing on structural fragmentation.
Sian Robinson Davies (Nottingham) creates subtle and humorous constructions of different narratives which translate formal spatial arrangements into language. David Berridge (London) will adapt texts from Kafka’s notebooks into musical and visual choral pieces. In his improvised music piece, Phillip Henderson (Nottingham/Farnham) will question “vertical temporality” with an electric harmonium, metal detector and improvised arhythm on drum kit.
Also showcased is a new performance by Catalan artist Joan Casellas (Barcelona). Joan Casellas has been performing extensively worldwide since the 1990s as an outstanding representative of the Spanish parallel art scene. This will be Casellas’ first UK appearance since 1994, when The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London, organised an exhibition documenting his performances and interventions.
The event promises to be a stimulating and playful selection of works for the imagination. Read the rest of this entry »

See info sheet in detail.

protoPLAY are currently developing a new piece called 2(two). So far the work has been made twice with the same funamental structure but quite different aesthetic outcomes. The work is at once playfull, engaged, engaging and conceptual, and we are very keen to explore how it can be developed in the near future. To this end we’d be happy to hear from potential partners and venues who would like to consider being involved in the next phases of the projects development as a performance, installation, video-work or performance-installation. 2(two)’s new incarnations will persue new aethetics, and new media.

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