Join us at Metronome for an audio-visual journey and immersive experience from Multimodal. The one-off event will take you from ambient tones through rhythmic melodies to an expansive crescendo.
From the sold-out four-wall projection in the One Thoresby Street Attic to the AV quadraphonic dome with Wigflex & Craig Richards, Multimodal creates bespoke, conceptual and visually immersive experiences.
For this event, a hand-picked selection of artists will be taking you from the ambient, tonal soundscape of Simone Salvatici into the minimalist synthesiser compositions of Will Plowman, to a crescendo with a brand-new AV performance from artists, Throwing Snow and Matt Woodham. The evening will conclude with a new phase conducted by the masterful hands of Lukas Wigflex, winding through experimental, ambient and beat-driven dance.
Join us for a full day of workshops led by artist and Near Now Studio member Matt Woodham. Taking place at Broadway, you will learn to use specially designed software and hardware systems to create live video, interactive installations and generative art – utilising technologies such as virtual reality, machine learning and analogue devices.
In partnership with Near Now, Matt presents a series of six creative, DIY workshops over two days, led by expert artists and toolmakers. Participants will learn a cross-section of cutting-edge techniques to create generative and computational artworks.
Book your place now
10.30 am – 12.30 pm
Fragment:Flow with Paul Fennell
1.30 pm – 3.30 pm
Generative artwork in VR with Prefix Studios
4.00 pm – 6.00 pm
Cymatics with Zach Walker
Matt Woodham is an artist, designer and technologist. He creates interactive installations, experimental websites, moving image and graphic design. His practice and research explores system dynamics, informed by his background studying psychology and neuroscience. He investigates the common dynamics between systems of various scales, from quantum mechanics, to human behaviour. He uses hardware and software to harness behaviour such as feedback loops and randomness, to create organic generative visuals. He is particularly focussed on building entertaining, interactive and playful experiences which have underlying theory. He feels that harnessing nature’s mechanisms has the power to delight an audience, acting as a Trojan horse to ignite interest in the laws, rules and biases which govern us.
Listen to Dutch curator Anselm Franke speak about his career to date in this free public talk. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to confirm your attendance.
Anselm Franke has been Head of Visual Arts and Film at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) since 2013. There, he initiated and curated the exhibitions Parapolitics: Cultural Freedom and the Cold War (2017/18), 2 or 3 Tigers (2017), Nervous Systems (2016), Ape Culture (2015), Forensis (2014), The Whole Earth and After Year Zero (both 2013).
He previously worked as a curator at KW Berlin and as director of the Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp. In 2005 he and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus founded the Forum Expanded for the Berlin International Film Festival of which he has been co-curator since. He was the chief curator of the Taipei Biennial in 2012 and of the Shanghai Biennale in 2014.
His exhibition project Animism was shown from 2009 until 2014 in collaboration with various partners in Antwerp, Berne, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Shenzhen, Seoul and Beirut. Franke received his doctorate from Goldsmiths College, London.
CAMPUS is a year-long and city-wide independent study programme in curatorial, visual and cultural studies, based on collaborative knowledge production and innovative research practices. It is a free-to-attend programme of monthly closed-door gatherings and free public talks.
Taking place in different locations in Nottingham (Nottingham Contemporary, Primary, Bonington Gallery, Backlit), CAMPUS welcomes participants from different backgrounds who wish to engage in conversations about contemporary debates and further explore interdisciplinary practices. CAMPUS is a space of encounter between researchers, practitioners, activists, scholars, institutions and organisations.
Join us for a full day of workshops led by artist and Near Now Studio member Matt Woodham. Taking place at Broadway, you will learn to use specially designed software and hardware systems to create live video, interactive installations and generative art – utilising technologies such as virtual reality, machine learning and analogue devices.
In partnership with Near Now, Matt presents a series of six creative, DIY workshops over two days, led by expert artists and toolmakers. Participants will learn a cross-section of cutting-edge techniques to create generative and computational artworks.
Book your place now.
10.30 am – 12.30 pm
Touch Designer with Studio Above&Below
1.30 pm – 3.30 pm
Runway with Matt Woodham
4.00 pm – 6.00 pm
VDMX with Dan Tombs
Matt Woodham is an artist, designer and technologist. He creates interactive installations, experimental websites, moving image and graphic design. His practice and research explores system dynamics, informed by his background studying psychology and neuroscience. He investigates the common dynamics between systems of various scales, from quantum mechanics, to human behaviour. He uses hardware and software to harness behaviour such as feedback loops and randomness, to create organic generative visuals. He is particularly focussed on building entertaining, interactive and playful experiences which have underlying theory. He feels that harnessing nature’s mechanisms has the power to delight an audience, acting as a Trojan horse to ignite interest in the laws, rules and biases which govern us.
For the tenth iteration of Bonington Film Nights, we’re pleased to present four films by Annette Kennerley, Ian Giles, Stephen Isaac-Wilson and Charlotte Prodger to coincide with LGBT+ History Month.
Each of the artists explore queer space through film, focusing on differing geographies, from the club to landscapes, documenting the erasure and reclaiming of queer spaces. The artists utilise numerous techniques such as voice overs and verbatim theatre to explore both personal and collective subjectivity. Collectively the films explore queer desire, (in)visibility, relationships, resistance, collective action, and the body’s relationship to space and technology.
If you would like to attend this event, please RSVP to confirm your attendance.
After the Break (1998)
Annette Kennerley
13 minutes
Trojan Horse / Rainbow Flag (2019)
Ian Giles
25 minutes
Fleshback: Queer Raving in Manchester’s Twilight Zone (2018)
Stephen Isaac-Wilson
17 minutes
SaF05 (2019)
Charlotte Prodger
39 minutes
Ian Giles completed his MFA in 2012 at the Slade School of Fine Art. He was a LUX Associate Artist 2012/13. Recent exhibitions and screenings include: Outhouse, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Studio Four, OUTPOST, Norwich; Trojan Horse / Rainbow Flag, presented by Gasworks at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, London (all 2019); After BUTT, NY Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, New York; Video Club: Sex Talks, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; After BUTT, Chelsea Space, London (all 2018). Ian was an inaugural winner of the Shannon Michael Cane Award in 2018. He was a New Geographies commissioned artist 2018-20 and is currently a recipient of the Jerwood New Work Fund.
Annette Kennerley is a writer and filmmaker based in London. She was born in Cheshire and started making films in the 1980s. She was awarded a BA in Fine Art (Film & Video) at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London in 1991 and has worked mainly with Super 8 and 16mm film, experimenting with optical printing techniques and with the support of production awards from the Arts Council. Her work has exhibited at cinemas and film festivals nationally and internationally.
Annette’s films explore themes of childhood, motherhood, love, loss and sexuality. She draws on personal experiences in many of her films, though she has also made experimental documentaries with transgender people and directed a Transgender Film Festival at the LuxCinema for several years in the 1990s. She is also a writer and a teacher/mentor to young people.
Stephen Isaac-Wilson is a black queer London-based director who has directed films for Channel 4, i-D, Victoria Miro and the Tate, and worked with artists including Jorja Smith, Isaac Julien and Klein. Stephen grew up in southeast London, and in 2013 was accepted onto the BBC’s prestigious production trainee scheme, where he began his filmmaking career. In 2015/16, he worked across the Emmy award-nominated series about LGBT rights, Gaycation, presented by Elliot Page.
Last year he was commissioned to direct a portrait film for the Tate’s Queer British Art exhibit and also produced a 40-minute Mykki Blanco documentary about black queer alternative culture in Johannesburg. Stephen combines both his journalistic background with his visual art sensibilities, to tell beautifully emotive and thought-provoking stories.
His work has been screened at the ICA, Tate and the Barbican, as well as a film festivals including Outfest and Iris Prize.
Charlotte Prodger lives in Glasgow and is represented by Hollybush Gardens and Koppe Astner. Last year she represented Scotland at Venice Biennale and won the Turner prize in 2018. Solo shows include Subtotal, Sculpture Center, New York (2017); BRIDGIT, Hollybush Gardens, London (2016); Kunstverein Düsseldorf (2016); 8004-8019, Spike Island, Bristol (2015); Nephatiti, Glasgow International (2014); Markets with The Block, Chelsea Space, London (2014) and Percussion Biface 1-13, Studio Voltaire (2012), London. Group shows and screenings include Lichtspiele, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2017); British Art Show 8 (2016); Weight of Data, Tate Britain, London (2015); The Secret Life, Murray Guy, New York (2015); An Interior that Remains an Exterior, Künstlerhaus Graz (2015); Assembly: A Survey of Recent Artists’ Film and Video in Britain, Tate Britain (2014), Holes in the Wall, Kunsthalle Freiburg (2013) and Frozen Lakes, Artists Space, New York (2013). Performances include Orange Helvetica Title Sequence, NY Book Art Fair, MOMA PS1 with Bookworks (2014).
Just outside the gallery, you’ll find the Bonington Vitrines – two display cases that present an ever-changing series of projects that run alongside our exhibitions.
For the 15th instalment of our Bonington Vitrines programme, we are delighted to welcome Nomadic Vitrine, a curatorial project run by Recent Activity in Birmingham. Nomadic Vitrine invites artists to respond to a nomadic display case, either using it functionally to present work or intervening with it sculpturally. The vitrine in itself is a redundant sculpture, replacing the gallery as a space for artists to create work in/on/for. It builds on historical notions of display and visibility, both within and beyond the gallery, and is placed in various locations around Birmingham and further afield.
This instalment will be inhabited by Glasgow-based artist Mick Peter. Mick’s playful installations incorporate imagery influenced by illustration and commercial art. His work for Nomadic Vitrine wittily undermines the assumed hushed reverential attitude of the gallery goer. Using the inverted vitrine, the space becomes a site for an unexpected sight gag.
Recent Activity is a curatorial project based in Birmingham, delivering exhibitions and events. It is organised by artist Andrew Gillespie, with support from Ryan Kearney.
Mick Peter lives in Glasgow, UK. He has recently had solo shows at BALTIC, Gateshead (2019), Deborah Bowmann, Brussels (2018/19), Glasgow International (2018), Galerie Crèvecoeur, Paris (2017), Workplace, Gateshead (2016), Tramway, Glasgow (2015), and Drawing Room, London (2016), Popcorn Plaza, part of Generation: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland, Jupiter Artland (2014) and Almost Cut My Hair, part of Generation: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland, Tramway Hidden Gardens, (2014). Recent group shows include ‘Voyage au long cours’ at FRACNormandie Caen (2018), Natural Selection’ at Galerie 5, Angers (2016), France and & ‘Corps narratifs’ at the Domaine départemental de Chamarande, Chamarande, France (2016). Puddle, pothole, portal at Sculpture Center, New York (2014), L’Echo at HAB Galerie – FRAC des Pays de la Loire, (2014), Monument at FRAC Basse-Normandie, (2014), British British Polish Polish: Art from Europe’s Edges in the Long 90’s and Today at the Centre for Contemporary Art, and Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, (2013).
Sensing Systems is now available to stream online. For the remaining Sensing Systems exhibition dates (until Saturday 28 March), Matt Woodham has re-situated all of the moving image works from his exhibition onto the streaming platform Twitch – allowing for full interactivity. After a quick registration and scan of the instructions, you can type in commands and values via the ‘stream chat’ to adjust the visual effects within the works.
Note: Depending on streaming speeds, there can be a four to five second delay.
Matt Woodham’s debut solo exhibition Sensing Systems will fill the gallery with a composition of connected installations, positioning visitors within a system of light, sound and motion. Visual and kinetic events will be sequenced by a central processing unit which distributes signals around the room. You can interact with the system, which, alongside random data sources and a sensitivity to initial conditions, creates a unique experience for each viewer.
“… It’s all live and being generated in real time… you can control it and you can influence it.”
Artist Matt Woodham speaks about his exhibition, Sensing Systems.
Alongside the exhibition, a number of offsite events have been developed:
Video courtesy of Matt Woodham and Reece Straw.
Matt Woodham is an artist, designer and technologist whose practice evades disciplinary definition. After specialising in visual neuroscience during his degree, he channelled his skills and interests into generating auditory and visual experiences – including music videos, live visuals for club nights, light installations, and experimental websites.
In recent years, Woodham’s research into the complex systems of the brain has evolved into a broader interdisciplinary practice. Inspired by the emergent, irreducible states of perception, he utilises experimental techniques such as feedback loops, generative algorithms and randomness. He employs code and electronic circuits to exploit the liminal space between order and disorder. These processes reflect the common non-linear dynamics which are shared between systems of various scales – from quantum mechanics to the economy. He feels that harnessing nature’s mechanisms has the power to delight an audience.
Listen to visual and performance artist Quinsy Gario speak about his career to date in this free public talk. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to confirm your attendance.
Quinsy Gario is a visual and performance artist from the Dutch Caribbean. His most well-known work, Zwarte Piet Is Racisme (2011–2012), critiqued the general knowledge surrounding the racist Dutch figure and practice of Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), later bringing into the open the governmental institutional support that keeps the figure alive in the Netherlands.
He has an academic background in gender studies and postcolonial studies and is a graduate of the Master Artistic Research program at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. In 2017, he received a Humanity in Action Detroit Fellowship.
Gario is a board member of De Appel, Keti Koti Table, and The One Minutes, a member of the pan-African artist collective State of L3, and is a recurring participant of the Black Europe Body Politics biannual conference series.
CAMPUS is a year-long and city-wide independent study programme in curatorial, visual and cultural studies, based on collaborative knowledge production and innovative research practices. It is a free-to-attend programme of monthly closed-door gatherings and free public talks.
Taking place in different locations in Nottingham (Nottingham Contemporary, Primary, Bonington Gallery, Backlit), CAMPUS welcomes participants from different backgrounds who wish to engage in conversations about contemporary debates and further explore interdisciplinary practices. CAMPUS is a space of encounter between researchers, practitioners, activists, scholars, institutions and organisations.
Warping worlds, clashing colours and floating shapes are central to Bruce Asbestos’ Spring/Summer 2020 collection, imagining a world where you can have a new wild look each and every minute of the day.
Inspired by the Motif exhibition, his collection utilises video game technology to generate ready-to-wear looks. Unlikely accessories, objects, shapes and motifs are combined into assemblages of creative possibilities and impossibilities.
The collection will be presented via a multi-video/audio experience, accompanied by a specially produced soundtrack – all situated within the Motif exhibition at Bonington Gallery.
Conceived by Bruce Asbestos using the Unreal Games Engine.
Between 16 December 2019 and 10 January 2020, Nick Chaffe worked within the gallery as our ‘Motif Artist in Residence’ alongside Bruce Asbestos. During this time, Nick embraced laser cutting technology to further explore his illustrative style of minimalising and fusing together everyday items to create new meaning and possibility.
Concurrent to Bruce Asbestos’ Spring/Summer 2020 collection launch, Nick will be showcasing outcomes from his residency in the form of jewellery, sculpture and prints, as well as experiments and samples from the various processes he has been exploring.
Nick is a graphic artist, illustrator and brand designer based in Manchester. He has worked with Amnesty International, The Oscars, Time Out, London Jazz Festival, Manchester International Festival, and more locally Nottingham Contemporary and 200 Degrees Coffee.
Visit Nick’s website for more information on his work.