The [the gathering…the chewing] is Gillian Whiteley and Geoff Bright. Gillian and Geoff have been improvising together with Walt Shaw under different monikers using various instruments, objects and materials since 2009. Working beyond conventional composition or design practice, a central aim of our various collaborations has been to activate visual and sonic serendipities as they occur in spontaneous collision. See Alchemy/Schmalchemy and [the gathering…the chewing]. We believe this approach allows us to articulate a specifically ‘politicized’ contemporary multimedia practice that is neither propagandistic nor programmatic.
Artists/improvisers – Gillian, piano accordion, performance drawing/collage; Geoff, bass saxophone; Walt, drums, cymbals, gong, hand percussion, home-made instruments (amplified) and bowls. Video created and produced by Gillian and Geoff.
‘…there is even a stage of darkness, but with an intensive propensity to clear…’ is an audio-visual work that develops a recent thread in our collaboration, working with themes from dissident German Marxist Ernst Bloch’s writings (see Daily into the Blue premiered at ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ at AC Institute New York, 2021). The title is taken directly from Volume 1 of Bloch’s monumental compendium of utopia and imagination, The Principle of Hope (originally published in Germany in 1959).
Watch the 10 mins video here
The work itself was specifically created for a 12 hour live-streamed multimedia performance and video screening event featuring 72 international artists – Here & There – on 22 May 2021 organised by Window Room (Philadelphia) and PARKHAUS15 (Orlando). Our 10mins video is a freely improvised assemblage of visual and sonic materials produced through live performance drawing/collage and an exploration and re-sonation of the properties of site-specific materials and objects. The work was made under Covid-19 restrictions in our studio at Eagle Works, a former steel foundry in Sheffield, UK.
May 2021