In this free live stream, remote viewing provides access to the Gold Ones’ Dummies. See inside the Cosmic Care Home and discover the mysterious lives of The Gold Ones.
What can be seen here is an increasingly incessant transmission from within the Cosmic Care Home. As the Gold Ones move through cycles of activity – rest, care, affirmation, exercise, games, and treatment – we get to know each of them, their relations and woo-woo beliefs.
This free online event is part of the residency and new video-installation by the art collective Reactor. Currently on show at Bonington Gallery, it documents the lives of a cohort of higher spiritual beings known as the Gold Ones.
Reactor is an art collective, comprising Susie Henderson, Niki Russell and an undisclosed number of secret members. Recent and forthcoming projects include: ‘Ivan Poe’ (online), Kunstraum (London), Southwark Park Galleries (London), Quad (Derby) and Hexham Arts Centre, ‘The Gold Ones’, Radar (Loughborough), Plymouth Art Weekender, Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo), Gallery North (Newcastle) and xero, kline & coma (London), ‘Log!c ?stem’, Flux Factory (New York), ‘Dummy Button’, KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin).
Due to the current lockdown restrictions, the Reactor exhibition will be in residence at Bonington Gallery from 7 April – 29 May 2021. This will be punctuated by live events streamed from the gallery. The exhibition will open to the public from 17 May 2021.
[COSMIC SOUP – RECORDED MESSAGE STARTS AGAIN]
Can you hear me?
Yes we can hear you quite clearly now.
It’s good to speak with you again.
What is it like there?
Here, there are endlessly repeating cosmic planes.
Visions of the past and future are accessible.
That’s how we remember it anyway.
So, we’re projecting now.
You’ll need to read between the lines.
Piece together the glimpses. The pieces.
You’re about to arrive.
[INTERFERENCE – LINE CUTS OFF – IMMENSE, BUBBLING, COLOURFUL PATTERNS]
The Gold Ones have existed across time, and now reside in the Cosmic Care Home (CCH). On this particular cosmic plane they are cut off from a wider community, and lead a bureaucratically controlled existence, cared for by elusive Helping Hands. What can be seen here, is an increasingly incessant transmission from within the Home. As the Gold Ones move through cycles of activity – rest, care, affirmation, breakfast, exercise, games, and treatment – we get to know each of them, their relations and woo-woo beliefs.
This performance-fiction is an evolving narrative, using video, performance, games and installation to explore an imagined present-future-past inhabited by characters collectively known as the Gold Ones. When Max Gold’s first video broadcast came through, he designated himself as ‘one of the Gold Ones’. An undetermined cohort of higher spiritual beings, or so they claim. After tracking Max for a period, we began to watch them intensely, to uncover them one by one. Initially remaining in the back spaces of the CCH, looking through the transparent walls, or listening in on voices from the other side. Here now, if and when we’re ready, you can join the Gold Ones in the main gathering room.
Saturday 1 May, 5 pm – 8 pm
Remote viewing provides access to the Gold Ones’ Dummies.
What can be seen here is an increasingly incessant transmission from within the Cosmic Care Home. As the Gold Ones move through cycles of activity – rest, care, affirmation, exercise, games, and treatment – we get to know each of them, their relations and woo-woo beliefs.
This event is part of the residency and new video-installation by the art collective Reactor currently on show at Bonington Gallery, which documents the lives of a cohort of higher spiritual beings known as The Gold Ones.
Thursday 13 May, 7 pm – 8.30 pm
A live performance roll-thru of the Ivan Poe video game, as this cuboid character keeps truckin’ on through the Cosmic Soup.
The Ivan Poe game has been developed in collaboration by Reactor, Bruce Asbestos and Jez Noond. For this event they will be joined by Kitty Clark, Mark Jackson and Jamie Sutcliffe to discuss video games, performance streaming and the myriad overlaps.
This event is part of the residency and new video-installation by the art collective Reactor currently on show at Bonington Gallery, which documents the lives of a cohort of higher spiritual beings known as The Gold Ones.
Monday 10 May, 5pm – Saturday 29 May, 3pm
What’s happening in the Cosmic Care Home today? Tune into the CCH 24hr TV transmission. Scrolling through the numerous cameras in the Home, the Helping Hands choose what you can see, around the clock. These cycles of slow-rest, care, break-fast, and well … what you can see now, is that time for the Gold Ones travels differently.
Thursday 15 July, 7pm – 8.30pm
Reactor and Plastique Fantastique have been talking about producing a performance fiction for some time.
We/they (Reactor/Plastique Fantastique) said that there would be a get-together to discuss this performance friction at some point in the future.
We (Reactor) called them and said now might be the time.
They (Plastique Fantastique) agreed and said: one hot summer long ago – 21 June 1998 – after travelling back to a pleasure park and forecasting what would later be said to have been called forth (our, Reactor’s, performance fiction), they (Plastique Fantastique) had created a set of protocols (a recording) for our (Reactor’s) performance.
They (Plastique Fantastique) claim an enunciation, or a type of performance diction/dictation was cast, for us (Reactor) to follow – an enunciation derived from tarot reading and looping sessions.
We (Reactor) listened in at the other end of the line, but wouldn’t quite hear correctly, and so the performance prediction didn’t happen (they, Plastique Fantastique, said it did and it was followed by us, Reactor, precisely).
So, we/they (Reactor/Plastique Fantastique) thought best to make that known beforehand. Are you (you) OK with that? You (you) are OK with that, so thanks for your attendance.
Reactor is an art collective, comprising Susie Henderson, Niki Russell and an undisclosed number of secret members. Recent and forthcoming projects include: ‘Ivan Poe’ (online), Kunstraum (London), Southwark Park Galleries (London), Quad (Derby) and Hexham Arts Centre, ‘The Gold Ones’, Radar (Loughborough), Plymouth Art Weekender, Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo), Gallery North (Newcastle) and xero, kline & coma (London), ‘Log!c ?stem’, Flux Factory (New York), ‘Dummy Button’, KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin).
Nottingham Trent University is delighted to invite Ruth Angel Edwards to speak as part of the 2017 Fine Art Live Lecture Series.
Edwards is a multimedia artist whose work explores the communication of ideology through popular culture. Drawing from mainstream and subcultural youth movements from the past and present, Edwards looks at the way audio and visual content is used to manipulate an audience and disseminate information.
Working between video, audio, sculpture, performance and print, Edwards explores subcultures, tracing their paths and examining the wider socio-economic environments that give rise to them, exposing their failures and flaws and uncovering lost spiritualities and hidden positive potential.
This live lecture coincides with Edwards’ solo exhibition Wheel of the Year – ! Effluent Profundel Zone ! which is showing in Bonington Gallery until Friday 16 February 2018. A new commission for Bonington Gallery, this immersive installation considers the inescapable cycles of waste and decay, a by-product of all our consumption, personal or material.
The exhibition explores how these ecologies overlap at different scales – from the futile pursuit of personal purification and ‘clean living’, to the increasingly rapid turnover of cultural ‘content’ in the media and popular consciousness, to the wider perspective of the waste which is polluting our oceans, and threatening our very existence.
Ruth Angel Edwards is a Nottingham born multimedia artist based in London. Her recent exhibitions include: Enema Salvatore! Almanac, Turin, 2017; Light Deception / The Great Imitator, Auto Italia South East, London, 2017; solo exhibition at Arcadia Missa, London, 2016; Info Pura, The Residence Gallery, London 2016; Derivatives and Futures, Human Resources, Los Angeles, 2016; A British Art Show, MEYOHAS, New York, 2015.
A selection of images from the opening of Ruth Angel Edwards: Wheel of the Year ! Effulent Profundal Zone !
A huge thank you to everyone who came to the preview of Krísis last night! It was great to see so many new faces. Special thanks to all the artists who came along and to all those who were involved in the performances! Here’s a selection of photos from the night – with more to come of the individual performances later (next week):
For the opening of Krísis, several artists were invited to perform by Something Human. The opening performance was Tuan Mami’s In/Visible Borderline Project II: The Act of Ceremony & Game.
Tuan Mami welcomed guest to the preview, before handing over to Kittipanyo and Ven. Tuan, who led the audience in a moment of meditation, followed by a group reading of a prayer.
Tuan Mami then invited audience members to interact with a drawing on the wall, which he had prepared earlier. Now that the act of “ceremony” was complete, the “game” could take place.
Visitors and fellow artists took turns to shoot water at the drawing using water pistols, which began to erode and run down the wall – creating a visual parallel to the previous act of pouring water over the sculpture. The drawing / game remains in the Gallery as part of the exhibition, alongside work from Aida Silvestri, Dictaphone Group and other work by Tuan Mami.
To find out more about the artists involved in the show take a look through Something Human’s guest posts here on the blog.
In the run up to the opening of Mastered, we’ll drawing your attention to just a few of the artists and designers who will be exhibiting their work in the show – bringing together the best work from across Nottingham Trent University’s School of Art & Design postgraduate courses.
Project Distorted Lines: An Investigation into Anxiety
“Anxiety is a lasting feeling of unavoidable doom. Anxiety is a state of tension and expectation of disaster.” [1]
The MA project ‘Distorted Lines: An Investigation into Anxiety’ looks at the subject of anxiety and the ways in which it can be translated through the medium of knitwear. The project takes the contrasting ideas of restriction and comfort, contorting and altering the surface of knitwear to reflect the ways in which anxiety binds and restrains, creating physical and mental suffering. Against this, comfort is juxtaposed as a means of lessening these negative effects, brought through in the softness of the lambswool and the oversized, engulfing garment silhouettes.
The work incorporates handcrafted, dubied machine knitted techniques and crochet to create pieces that are at once unique and high quality. A huge importance is placed on sustainable design practices, from the careful sourcing of premium, organic yarns to the fully fashioning of all pieces to eliminate unnecessary waste.
[1] (Ed) Wolman, Benjamin B/(C0-ED) Striker, George, Anxiety and Related Disorders, A Handbook, New York, John Wiley & Sons, INC, 1993.
Images: © Fiona Nugent
Tong’s series of self-portraits explore the differences between oriental and western women in social status – the old society and the new society. The photos can be divided into 3 groups: playing the part of celebrities, self-expression and regional culture.
As an international student, Tong hopes to make oriental feminist culture known to more people through her works based on her experience and study overseas.
The composition is important too: the photos are all taken from the same angle, and there is a large space left above the top of the heads of the characters. This not only endows the photos with a sense of space, but more importantly, Tong hopes to express that there is a large space for women to improve their social status and pursue freedom in the future.
Images: © Tong Zhang
Ellen is an artist who is intrigued with the colour grey. She is inspired by traditional black Chinese ink, which when diluted and applied to rice paper, produces a variety of shades of grey – soaking into the paper layer by layer.
Ember- Floating space’ is a performance piece, in which Ellen attempts to make invisible space visible, through wax formations in water.
Something unpredictable and uncontrollable emerges in the process of conflict; and beautiful, mountain-like spaces are created as the liquid wax cools and solidifies in the water.
All images: © Yi-Ying Chen
Here you can find a selection of blog posts about the exhibition Performing Drawology
RECAP DAY ONE
Taken from Monday 8 February: John performs ‘durational drawing’ in the space, using charcoal and a black marker.
Join us from 2 pm – 3 pm today in the Gallery, for an open discussion with John.
Last week, 80 five and six year old’s from West Bridgford Infant School contributed to a collaborative drawing, inspired by our current exhibition, Performing Drawology. Led by Holly Mills, Ana Souto and Anja Bendix (academic staff from the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment at NTU), there were three drawing sessions, consisting of 20 minutes each and approximately 25 children.
The first class used black pen to draw on four pieces of paper four metres long. Classical music was also played, which some of the pupils responded to:
The second class then used oil pastels to colour in some of the shapes drawn by the first class, and the third group used paint sticks to colour in the shapes and add more lines:
These drawings will be exhibited in the Atrium Space at the Performing Drawology closing event on Thursday 11 February 2016 from 5 pm – 8 pm, along with drawings created by Architecture and Interior Architecture students from NTU. If you’d like to attend the Performing Drawology closing event, simply RSVP via email to confirm your attendance
Recently, we invited our invigilators (who are all current students here at NTU) to contribute to the blog. Here’s the first piece – written by third year BA (Hons) Fine Art student, Reece:
This remnant artwork has existed OVER my head for nearly three years.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
My Fine Art degree spans OVER three years.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
It is nearly OVER.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
This corrugated ceiling, belonging to the fine art studios at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) has seen many things.
Realisations, celebrations, accidents, reflection, tears, conversation, break downs, friendships, relationships, hard labour, scolding, disaster, enjoyment, perseverance, triumph… All connected to the OVERarching landscape of Fine Art.
Each individual journey, of each student, each member of staff, each technician and each visitor has been charted by this roof.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
Due to the cycle of presenting work throughout each of the years on the course, artwork remains very temporary when in the studios. Any work that survives the annual degree show set up, becomes rather special, dodging the fresh paint, the wood filler and sandpaper. These hidden works are reminders of the past students’ expedition through their practices’, mirroring my own current exploration here at NTU as its end draws ever closer.
I have had three years to solely explore my concepts and discover contexts, constantly working alongside other artists working in every different media and area available. This adorned light enclosure, and the ceiling it hangs from has housed this voyage, watching OVER us, each struggle, each encounter, each accomplishment. To that I owe it something.
The inanimate, unfeeling metal, I owe it.
Asking the question of why we instinctively look up for answers, towards something higher. In this case this is interrupted by the ambiguity of the ‘OVER’ light shining down from the lofty heights of the Fishbowl (a nickname for a space that stuck, its origin also forgotten). A relic of an artist’s legacy that has long left the nest, spread their wings and took flight onto the next journey.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
(‘If these walls could talk’)
(‘If these walls could talk’)
Reece Straw
IMAGE: Reece Straw 2016
Artists will work to an open brief and create a unique and unplanned artwork in a novel drawing exhibition here at the Gallery.
Performing Drawology – which takes place between Friday 15 January and Friday 12 February – will see the creative process unfold live as eight artists undertake separate residencies to create a collaborative drawing on the gallery walls.
The exhibition – which will evolve from one practitioner to the next – is curated by humhyphenhum, a collaboration between Nottingham Trent University lecturer Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon, an honorary fellow of Loughborough University.
“It’s very experimental, and we have no way of being able to foresee what’s going to happen,” said artist Harty, a researcher in what drawings say about a person’s mind and movements, who also works on her own projects.
“Phil and I asked each artist to bring their drawing toolkit with them, but have left it completely open as to how it manifests in the gallery.
“It could be a major success or a complete disaster – that’s the risk we’re taking. We’re not sure what’s going to be left behind when it’s all finished.”
The artists include Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon (as humhyphenhum) Lorraine Young, Catherine Bertola, Maryclare Foa, Andrew Pepper, Martin Lewis and John Court. They were invited on the basis of being open minded to collaborating in an experimental way.
The drawing will be initiated and completed by humhyphenhum. There will be a closing night celebration on Thursday 11 February during which visitors can view the final artwork.
“It’s an incredibly exciting project and we hope that the entire space is engaged in some way,” added Harty.
“In many ways it could be daunting to be faced with what is essentially a considerably large blank sheet of paper. But we’re sure it’s going to be a great success.
“We’re hoping that people will enter the space once the project is completed and see it as a walk-in drawing.”
Sitting in the Gallery today I have had time to reflect on the evolution that has occurred here over the last few weeks. As I had to be knowledgeable when on shift, I made time to visit and revisit the exhibition, and have watched the changes, which at first seemed subtle, explode outwards.
For me what began as simplistic has become anything but. I was unsure how I would feel when returning to the space each time. The first few weeks, I remember wanting, craving almost a mark to be made upon the clear skin of the white gallery walls, a blemish to appear on the pale rolls of paper. I had enjoyed the feeling of wonder when stumbling on the snail shells and small drawings pinned to the walls like an insect in a specimen tray. But despite this, I have struggled with feelings that the activity was too stuffy or reserved for such a large open space.
I understand the title of the exhibition “Performing Drawology” to mean the actions or performance of drawing, the strokes and movement. Like a dance. With the marks made the evidence of the action. As a Fine Art student we are always reminded to question: “what is the work? Is it the drawings? Or the act of making them?”
I feel my stance on this issue shifted during the continuation of the exhibition. I at first saw the appearance of the sculptural snails and the miniature drawings as the work, only now realising that in the later weeks, I found watching the workings of the artists to be the work and the results almost a by-product.
When returning to view Joe Graham in residence in the exhibition I had the chance to not only be part of the work by assisting him but was able to observe the decisions being formed. Despite what I felt to be a fast-paced approach to the space, I could see each movement made with his body as calculated; each mark made, each incision, each drip. When turning up for my shift, I first felt uncomfortable as the level of change from the almost sleeping state of the exhibition over the weekend of rest had awakened in to a very big and playful scene. I did not think I would like the changes, as someone who does not like change I felt almost anxious seeing the carefully folded concertina paper installations altered, cut up and strewn across the floor.
I did not think I would like exhibition after this but I was wrong. I quickly got in to the groove of Graham’s work and left my shift with a smile on my face, having enjoyed having fun in the gallery.
I return to the act of reflecting. Actively absorbing and thinking. Adjective, doing word. Today, on the last day of the exhibition, I see the finished gallery and conclude that I am among a stage set, an active space. I feel it is impossible to do nothing here now, my eyes wonder around the space in continuous movement. I watch the time-lapse video, noticing the moment where I am present. The sped-up movement return my thoughts to dance. I spin around to look at more of the room, more of the projection.
I take away my conclusion as to what the work is. For me, ultimately, I was the work. The way I now move around the Gallery in response to the performance of the artists is almost as if they had written the play and I am the dutiful performer.
Dominique Phizacklea
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Year 2.