ARTIST (DE)COUPLINGS
Charlie Fox charliefox.org
Anne Robinson http://Mountain-film
Sur L’Envers Blues (In-side Out Blues) – Performance/ Song-film by Anne Robinson
A blues invoking the spirit of Artaud and the workers of Marseille, bringing them back to the place their time was waste. This is a song in blues form that draws on the text Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society by Artaud. The song is passed on from singer to encountered listener to singer again through the streets of Marseilles until there is a moment of voices all at once singing through the city. Voices rise in a deranged, murmuring wave. The singer dances and the spirit of Artaud, Van Gogh and a thousand un-named workers dance ‘as in a frenzy of dancehalls’ back in the streets of Marseille.
Anne Robinson is a multi disciplinary visual artist, mainly working with ideas about time, who lives and works in east London and teaches at London Met University. http://www.talkshow.org.uk/artist/show/Anne_Robinson
Calum F. Kerr & Miyuki Kasahara www.miyukikasahara.com www.seeyouincourt.info
Rhone Nuclear Routes & the Folklore of Cultural Capital
There are 59 nuclear power stations in France. France relies on nuclear power for nearly 80% of its electricity. Although consuming only 20% the rest is exported to other European countries, the UK is one of the biggest importers of this electricity from France.
The Rhone is one of the major European rivers, rising in Switzerland and running throughout southeastern France. The Rhone has been an important inland trade and transportation route since Greek and Roman times, connecting the cities of Arles, Avignon, Valence, Vienne and Lyon to the Mediterranean ports of Fos, Marseille and Sète.
The Rhone has 5 different nuclear plants along its banks – Bugey, St. Alban, Cruas, Tricastin and Phénix with a total of 15 power stations. Miyuki Kasahara and Calum F. Kerr (See You In Court) will walk the ‘nuclear corridor’ of the Rhone valley. They will start at the town of Pierrelatte near Tricastin one of the largest plants run by major suppliers Areva and EDF*. The 70km journey will be North-South touching on the towns of Pinolec, Avignon, Beaucaire and Arles. Their experience will be recorded through sound, image and other ephemeral means.
In a popular medieval legend, the ‘Tarasque’ is a terrible, scaly, bison-like dragon that burns everything it touches. The Tarasque escaped from hell near Nerluc on the Rhone, destroying boats and swallowing riverside inhabitants. The story of Tarasque and Saint Martha is very similar to that of Beauty and the Beast. The French government and other countries have fallen in love with Nuclear power; have they become a modern day Tarasque falling in love with Saint Martha? Or are they ‘Dracs’ another local legend, a creature that draws humans into the river, tempting them with precious materials?
A related strand will examine the work of the mysterious William Branch-Johnson the English writer of ‘Among French Folk: A Book for Vagabonds’ (1923), and ‘Folktales of Provence’ (1927). During the 1920’s he also published a collection of Folk tales from Brittany and Normandy. Branch-Johnson wrote ‘The Age of Arsenic’ (1931) on 17th Century French poisoner and alleged Satanist Catherine Monvoisin then resurfaced in the late 1960’s with ‘Industrial Archaeology of Hertfordshire’, and in 1967 is described in the UK as a ‘local historian’.
Jeanne Louise Calment (1875-1997) the oldest documented person lived her life in Arles and died age 122. Born in 1893, William Branch has no recorded death day. If alive (and retired in Provence?) he would be 120 years old. The journey through Marseille-Provence will combine Branch’s local folk knowledge with a search for the unofficial stories surrounding Marseille Capital of Culture. What omens appeared during the opening ceremony? Are new legends and myths arising?
Steven Ounanian & Joanne Wardrop http://www.stevenlevon.com/
“Anything can happen, any place and at any time, without reason or cause.”
(Anything is Possible: A Reading of Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude, Peter Hallward)
Is this a warning or a hopeful statement? I’m unclear. Either way, with the influx of Culture, it appears that the Euromediterranee is trying to make Marseilles into a proper-modern city, a “dynamic hub of global investment” with a skyline and everything; like New York, or Paris. Again, is this a warning or a hopeful statement? Either way, Culture is here, but for those of you struggling with your Modern-Life in your Modern-City, we empathize and ask you not to lose hope. (Steven Ounanian and Joanne Wardrop – Marseille April – May 2013)
From 27 April – 3 May, out of a cardboard scale model of Marseille’s very own Zaha Hadid highriser, Joanne Wardrop and Steven Ounanian will be selling custom ex-votos, tinctures and potions for all your physical and metaphysical concerns. If culture has created for you a Modern-City, and you still feel uneasy, don’t worry, we are on our way to cure the anxiety and ailments of the Modern-City.
The year is 2082:
‘We have developed a number of Medical technologies to ease the anxieties and concerns of the transition. Knowing what we do, we feel an obligation to aid our ancestors with their growing pains. Thus we have sent forth two Hadidist time travellers, with cures from our new world to help the ancient civilisation transform itself into the new Hadidist Order.’
The Zaha Hadidists have touched down in Marseille, to heal and to worship before the kaaba of Euromediterranee. Offering potions, tinctures and remedies from the near future. They will be working their healing and well-being in and around the Vieux Port from May 1-May 3.
A Steven Ounanian and Joanne Wardrop project for DeCentreDerSpace mini-residency (Marseille-Provence Capital of Culture 2013). Sponsored by CSM, counterproductions, Radio Montagne Noir, the Hadidist Foundation, Marseille OFF and the Reunion Island Distillery.
DisruptDominantFrequencies: http://www.disruptdominantfrequencies.net/
Disrupt dominant frequencies: Translocation Project at Linz European Capital of Culture (2009)
Durch das Zerlegen verborgener Inhaltsstränge und Strukturen vor Ort eröffnen vier Gastkünstler aus der Türkei, Deutschland und Großbritannien alternative Perspektiven auf die Kultur, die Umwelt und die Politik der Stadt und ihrer Umgebung.
Deconstructing hidden narratives and structures of the local, a group of artists in residence from Turkey, Germany and the UK present a series of alternative perspectives on the culture, ecology and politics of the city and its surroundings.
with thanks to the artistic partnership Penny Whitehead and Daniel Simpkins
Sisters From Another Mister sistersfromanothermister
Sisters From Another Mister was first formed as see-saw group in 2010 by; Amelia Prazak, Milda Lembertaite, Hannah Dolan and Michelle Houston through various collaborations. They are now represented by Amelia Prazak, Milda Lembertaite and Michelle Houston.
We work in site responsive manner that blurs the distinction between sculpture, performance and installation. Our practice is represented in gallery context and public space, through documentation including propositional objects, sculpture, film and photography.
Central to our practice are; process, concept and material, which have a symbiotic relationship in order to create work. We work towards a non- object based approach, which is manifested in its temporal state of existence. Where form is dependent upon our actions and presence, the engagement between ourselves and the material, and when absent or non- present it succumbs to the eventuality of time. We work to the philosophy that through subtraction, an artistic gesture that produces its own slowing down, works towards the decline of objects and brings about a different economy of production. In using ritual and repetition of an action, the meaning of the work reveals itself through the cyclic process.
Our environment very much dictates the work that we create, in that we live where we work and work where we live. This has a direct correlation to the ephemeral nature of our work and the choice of material. Materials all have their own connotations and histories, and we try to use them as objectively as possible, in a context where their inherent qualities act for themselves.
Anne-Catherine Le Deunff & ArtauDada: annecatherineledeunff artaudada
Bosco rides again, a donkey with a bucketful of words, clad in joyful culottes takes to the Marseille-Provence artistic byways and neighs thinking. Culture has never been so inclusive and reclusive… print….tread… print….tread….print…thread
Ron Henocq CGP outside/in projects: outsidein.GoldRunRemix
Beth Elliot Bethlam: Museum of the Mind
Andrew Cooper http://andrewcoopers.benjamin
Mikey Georgeson http://Mikey_Georgeson.biography.Mr.Solo
Further Artists will join the mini-residency programme from March 2013
Culture/Art DeCentreDer Space: in an Other Capital of Culture 