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Issue 41 Dec 2011
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JOIN THE BLANK MEDIA COLLECTIVE TEAM IN 2012 We are ready to build upon our dedicated team of volunteers to enhance and support the growing reputation of the organisation, and we’re therefore looking for committed creative people based in Manchester to join the team.
Positions Available • Communications Coordinator (Exhibitions) • Funding & Sponsorship Coordinator (Exhibitions) • Community Arts & Learning Coordinator (Exhibitions) • blankpages Music Editor • Web Content Manager • External Exhibitions & Events Manager (BLANKSPACE) The roles, (with a minimum expectancy of 8 hours a week) offer participants the opportunity to advance their current skills, provide experience of working with an arts organisation, along with mentoring and support from our established team, thus gaining an edge within the competitive arts industry. For further information on the different roles and how to apply CLICK HERE Questions? Interested? Email Mark and John at info@blankmediacollective.org
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contents Get in touch Welcome Spotlight - Alex Jones Fiction - Dan Carpenter Blankverse - Chris Reisco This month’s mp3 - The Shivers Feature - ‘A Year at Blank Media Collective’ Blankpicks - Curriculum Vitae Blank Media recommends Credits
you are listening to
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calling out for contributors!
Used to Be by The Shivers
blankpages is always open for submissions.
cover art
Every month we showcase writers, artists and musicians who deserve to share their work with the wider arts community and the public as a whole. blankpages is about supporting all artists, not just writers. If your work crosses genres, that’s fine with us. We’re looking for talented creatives with a unique style and ability to produce interesting pieces. New works are preferred, but previously published pieces will be considered.
By Alex Jones
For further information on the submissions guidelines, click here
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welcome Greetings all (or should I say season’s greetings?) Welcome to our December edition of blankpages. It’s been a massive year for us, and we’re pleased to announce the New Year wont be the only thing we’re celebrating this month... Blank Media Collective has been awarded a lovely £10k to award YOU, the artists, for exhibiting work at our creative hub, BLANKSPACE. A big thank you to Arts Council England and all of our supporters for making this happen. We’re also celebrating the arrival of our shiny new fiction and poetry editors; a very warm welcome goes out to Dan Carpenter and Chris Riesco, who have provided our literary content for this edition. They’ll be reading your work moving forward, so get those submissions coming in! Now then, I hope you’ve all been good little boys and girls, because I’ve brought you a sack full of Christmas presents for this edition. Go on, treat yourself with our metaphorical stocking full of literature, poetry, music and art. See you in the new year!
Abby Ledger – Lomas Assistant Editor
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spotlight
Alex Jones
Drilling - 2011 Video still - drill, heatgun, ladder, trestles, clamps, threaded rod, nuts, wax
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My work consists of assemblies of objects and performance. I use hand tools, power tools and other DIY and building paraphernalia to create performative installations. Power tools have great spectacle in their noise, power and violence. They are ferocious objects, full of as much destruction as they are used to build and create. This aggressive energy is limited or suppressed within the work. I explore the relationship between function and application. Making small alterations to the tools they still retain their function and bravado but are rendered useless or impotent. They carry out their monotonous jobs to an impossible or worthless end. The tools are not merely placed as objects of art; my inclusion within the work as their operator or conductor highlights their dependency on man’s presence to activate them. Without it they become models of their former selves. In placing myself in intimate situations with the tools, their potential to be dangerous is emphasized. This element of danger is apparent within the work but never exploited to an explicit level. The overall control of the work is what underlines its effort to harness and articulate such brash, loud and violent artefacts of masculinity.
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Clay axe - 2011 Sculpture - wood, clay, paint
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Cutting Disc - 2010 / 2011
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Cabinet - 2011 Video still
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Tree axe 1 - 2011 Sculpture - wood, axe head, paint
Alex graduated from The University of Brighton in 2011. His work was selected for the final show at the Royal College of Art for the BBC television programme ‘Show me the Monet’. He currently lives and works in Brighton.
For further information about Alex Jones and his work, follow the link below: www.alexjonesart.com
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ficton
Dan Carpenter Left the Party It starts at the party when the dancing and the music make my head sway and spin and I want to go home. I tell Ted but he’s only listening to half of what I say and just nods and says ‘yup, totally’ when I tell him I want to go home so I tell him to go fuck himself but he probably just hears it as ‘I want to fuck you’ and gets that look in his eyes. So I leave the party. I grab my coat as dramatically as possible and storm out the long way, through the kitchen and lounge and down the hall, so as many people as possible can see me and will spend the rest of the party talking about me. I slam the door and notice just how much the street was being lit up by the hallway lights. Even walking down the street I can hear the laughs and shouts coming from the house and I swear, I swear I hear Ted’s voice above everyone else’s, that hoarse bark of a laugh that sounds like the noise in films when someone puts a dog out of its misery. That laugh
reminds me of days in the flat, sat at the other end of the sofa, that laugh reminds me of shrinking in my seat at the cinema, that laugh reminds me of nights in the pub and conversations about girls whose names I didn’t know but I really wish I did. I pull my coat tight over me to cover up the costume. The October air chills through me and I think about warm fires in my parents house. When was that? Years ago. Tonight I went as Groucho Marx, a joke I thought no-one would get, a costume that no-one would recognise. Ted didn’t want to go as anything, he went as himself and made some kind of joke about it when he got there. I smirked on the way there thinking that him not being in a costume on Halloween, he’d look like the idiot. But no, we get there and it’s me who’s the idiot. I’m still trying to work out when it stopped being a relationship and started being a competition. Maybe it was just a gradual descent, after all, there was no starters gun to tell us it had happened.
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It must be about eleven, the current of people flowing in the opposite direction, heading into the town, still searching for a club or a bar to stay in for the rest of the night. Me, I don’t know where I’m going. Not home. Definitely not home. Somewhere they won’t look for me, somewhere he won’t look for me, just once. People are staring at me and for a moment I forget why, then I realise how ridiculous I must look, a girl crying with a pair of fake glasses and a moustache. Fuck. I tear them off and let them drop to the floor. There’s the flat clunk of the plastic hitting the floor as I carry on, behind me, some drunk guy yells out ‘Hey, you dropped some-’ but I just keep on going. I’m walking with determination, even though I have no idea where I’m headed. I head away from the dark side streets and past St Anne’s Square, with the drunken revellers, freezing to death, caught between bar and club, staring you down like you’ve burst in on them in the shower. I pass the Hilton, the foreboding tower unseen in the darkness except the red light of the bar in the middle. Like a beam floating in the middle of the sky. Looking up I can just about make out a few people drinking in the windows and I consider heading up there for a drink, but I keep on walking. I pass under a bridge and cross the tram line, past the docks and alongside the office buildings people avoid at night. I light a cigarette and that’s when I see him. He’s sat cross-legged on the floor, off the pavement. Leaning against a wire fence. Even if you were walking past, you wouldn’t see him. At first I think he’s a statue, his legs
crossed and his arms jerked up, hands clasped over his face. I think he’s an art project, after all, the University building is around here, halls are only a few minutes away but when I get up close I can see the wrinkles of the skin, the wisps of hair on his hands, and I know that no students are this good. He’s sat there completely still, not moving an inch, and that’s when I start to worry. ‘Hey, hey kid, hey, you alright? You ok?’ there’s no response, no murmur of a drunk, no outburst of a kid on coke, nothing. I lean in closer, his chest isn’t moving, he’s not breathing. I lean in closer still, no sound of breath behind his lips, nothing. His hands look like they’ve stuck to his face, clinging onto it, contorting it. Pushing the left cheek up, dragging the mouth with it, pulling the right one down, tearing at the mouth, stretching it to its limits, exposing teeth, tongue limping out over them. Two people walk by, I shout to them, ‘hey, hey! Can you help? There’s this kid and I think…I think…’ I don’t know, I think he’s…I don’t want to say it because if I do then it’s me and I’ve run away from a party and ended up with some poor kid who’s sat on the floor and he’s… …left the party too. I stay close to him but I can’t bring myself to touch him, to try and shake him awake, to try and pry his hands from his face. I get my phone out of my bag and there’s the rub, no messages, no missed calls, no frantic answering machine messages asking where I am, what I’m doing, telling me he’s left the party and he’s on the streets looking for me. Nothing. ‘Is this how it was for you?’ I ask, ‘this what hap-
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pened?’ I dial for an ambulance and the woman on the other end asks me if he’s breathing. No. She asks me if I can lie him on the floor and put him in the recovery position. No. No? He’s too stiff, he’s cold and he’s stiff, I don’t think I can move him. Though I don’t try. She says an ambulance will be along right away. I sit in silence for a few minutes, staring at my phone, as still and silent as the kid sat on the ground. Fuck, what do I do? Do I try and… do I grab his hands, just pry them from his face, just shake him, try and wake him up, just do something, something, fucking something. I hold my hand out, inches from his face, it’s cold, freezing. I move my fingers, close them over the front of his face, not touching him, I can’t do it, I can’t touch him but I’m edging my hand forwards towards his lips, and fucking hell I can’t do this, not tonight, not tonight. But I do it, I let it linger there a moment just to see if I can feel air escaping, anything coming from his mouth. There’s nothing, I can’t feel a thing against me, I can’t see any breath in the air around him, and it’s a cold enough night to see something like that. I let my hand fall back to my side. My phone hasn’t done a thing. No lights. Nothing.
Illustration by Simon Meredith
In the distance, a siren sounds.
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Daniel Carpenter has been published in Rainy City Stories, Shoestring Magazine, and co-hosts Bad Language, a platform for new writing in Manchester. He is currently blankpages Ficton Editor and blogs at daniel-carpenter.blogspot.com
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blankverse
Chris Riesco The Unknown Flower Pretended to be itself, in order to escape death, Pretended to be death, in order to escape itself, Pretended to be itself in order to escape itself, Pretended to be death in order to escape death, The unknown flower in the house of petrified fruit, This, the house of carbonised bodies, here, the machine For dying, the unknown flower in the iron lung, Not here here, not now now, never never, The unknown flower, steel in the heart of life, In the concentric maze which is the terror at its centre, When all is broken concrete, only concrete only Broken, which this reached out a hand as if to touch.
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Not Suerat Figures Caught in different attitudes along a horizon No longer Seurat nor any splendour Only an attenuated luxury no smiles Only swimsuits shorts cheap jewelry Sunglasses and a line of blue parasols Drawn out by the heatwave There are people bending to kiss to greet Walking looking in different directions An arbitrary number have cancer cells Multiplying at the breast the lung The throat and this year’s crowd will Come each one a certain number of times To this swimming pool some to lie Content beside another or to drink A bottle of fizzy pop or to be touched up Afraid and shivering in convenient Changing rooms empty but for two And the water’s calisthenics flicker In the sunlight and the universal Vacation must turn to the off-season These motifs these scenes an Absolute horizon here at the very Last layer of plastic time everything A flat treated surface
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The Feather and the Steel Bar – The feather and the steel bar are made to be – in the instant when the difference between them – is observed. This is a crime. – She stared into the mirror, putting on her makeup. – The feather and the steel bar are revealed null, – when the fact of pure difference without positive terms – is observed. That is punishment. – Someone had struck her. She had a black eye. – The feather and the steel bar remain, in a world – of meaningless extension, down to the proton, further, – up to the atmospheric shell, and further, a totalised – lack – that is imprisonment. – She had a black eye. Someone had struck her. – When both are negated – that is release. – ‘I’m not real’ she said. ‘I’m not real’, she said in the mirror.
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Chris Riesco recently completed an MA at MMU’s Writing School. He lives and works in Manchester. ‘The poem, the hole that is a poem, and the nothing that is not poetry.’ Recently he has been trying to read Paul Celan, and Dante’s ‘Purgatorio’ still, and thinks (how convenient) that trying to read is more important than having read.
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this month’s mp3
The Shivers - Used to be
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N
THE SHIVERS are a rock-pop group, based out of Queens, New York, comprising the talents of Keith Zarriello (lead vocals, guitar) and Jo Schornikow (vocals, keys/organ).
ow and again a band comes along and, without even trying, manages to generate bucket-loads of interest amongst promoters and effortlessly attracts the rest of the gig-going public.
Keith is your typical East Coast American tortured neurotic /love-lorn romantic, and part time estateagent; Jo, your typical Australian travelling dreamer, virtuoso keyboard player, and occasional churchorganist. Together, they’ve created one of the most beautifully compelling albums you’re likely to hear all year: MORE.
This is what is currently happening [at the time of writing and no doubt will continue] throughout the UK in anticipation of The Shivers, who are embarking on a series of dates to promote their signing to the very fine Fence Records label, based in Fife, Scotland, and their newest album, More. Based in New York, Brooklyn, the band came to Fence Records’ radar via a South By South West 2009 showcase in the US. Johnny Lynch (label manager and fantastic musician in his own right who records under the name of The Pictish Trail) had not heard them before but found amongst a zillion bands playing SxSW, a kinship that had to be acted upon. At first it seems like the old story of a label seeing a gig and saying, “We have to have them on
The band recently signed to the Fife-based DIY record label, Fence Records - birthing ground to The Beta Band and KT Tunstall, and home to Mercury nominee King Creosote, James Yorkston, The Pictish Trail and more.
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our label!” but further research shows this to be far from a straightforward story. Johnny recalls seeing them playing over the course of SxSW at various venues. “I’m not really paying attention to anything else in the room other than the two people stood in front,” he says of The Shivers as they make their way through an incredible set in a second hand bookstore in Denton, Texas. “It’s the harmonies that hit you first,” says Johnny. “Keith’s voice couldn’t be more different from Jo’s: his is a hardened Springsteen-esque burr, the texture of gravel but drenched in soul. I’ve never seen the guy smoke, but I swear to god he must literally eat tobacco, his voice is that raspy. Her voice, however, is much softer – that lilts with her accent, whilst it gently coos at you. It’s the sound of milk and honey, to Keith’s coffee and cigarettes. Similarly, their playing styles complement each other in their differences. Jo plays the keyboard like she’s in some psychedelic gospel group. Keith’s staccato guitar playing has flashes of rockabilly, and soul. And, as if the songs weren’t enough, the banter in between is just as captivating: Keith usually going off into some nervous, neurotic tirade about finding it hard to find the right girl, only to be tempered by Jo’s calming-yet-authoritative character.” Johnny knows what he’s talking about. And take note, because if you look at the artists signed to Fence, you’ll notice that over the last decade they’ve been quietly going about their business and releasing artists’ records that have been very influential to the underground music scene in the UK. Fence itself was set up by Mercury Award
Nominee, King Creosote, and had an agenda that mainly focused on alternative, lo-fi folk; The Shivers mark a slight departure from their usual signees, but God have they got it nailed! Having recently done a show for The Shivers in Wigan I can honestly say they are one of the best bands I’ve seen in the last five years and I’ve seen quite a few! They came off stage and were instantly surrounded by people wanting a piece of them, their merchandise and to say thanks. The show attracted a wide range of people from all kinds of backgrounds too and ALL said how good they were. I mean there has been much appreciation of
“Keith’s voice couldn’t be more different from Jo’s: his is a hardened Springsteen-esque burr, the texture of gravel but drenched in soul’. bands that have played Imploding Inevitable (Wigan-Manchester based promoters) and, if you ask me, all have been inspired, diversely creative and original in their own right, but there has only been total unanimous and unequivocal appreciation for one other band that I’ve down a show for before and they were also signed to Fence Records (Francois & The Atlas Mountains, now signed to Domino
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Records). I mean The Shivers WERE that good that it snapped people from their usual meanderings through life and raised their awareness with inspiration and hope that actually made people feel they were witness to something really special that night. This was on the back of a 4-500 mile round trip that saw them leave Durham (where they had just played for good friends A Deer For Your Lamb… check them out if you’re up that way) around 8AM and head straight down to London for a last minute Radio 1 show with DJ Rob Da Bank, at Maida Vale. Right after that finished they left London and came all the way back up the country to Wigan, to play Imploding Inevitable. So they were shattered, but regardless of this, they stormed the place. They arrived after a gruelling round trip, tucked into pie and peas, gave thumbs up, hit the stage and were awesome! (Later Keith was ‘kidnapped’ and taken into Wigan to sample the delights of one of the North West’s oldest boozers,The John Bull Chophouse. We found him supping a fine ale like he’d been a Lancashire lad all his life). The next day myself and good friend, Paul Ryding (now booking for Imploding Inevitable along with myself), drive the band up to Fife, home of Fence Records, to play their label extravaganza Hott Loggz. Again, they go down so well that whilst stood with them after the show it was, seriously, every ten minutes or so that someone would stop them and say how much they loved their set. This amount of enthusiasm is only garnered after spending time honing their craft and considering they have been together for almost ten years, it’s safe to say their formula is finally
gaining the recognition that they so deserve. It’s not what the band care about though, to be honest. After asking Keith and Jo on the way up to Fife whether they thought they had finally broke through their mutual response was that whilst it was nice to have so many people buzzing about seeing them play, they will always prefer travelling to some town they’ve never heard of, playing in someone’s living room and seeing people singing along to their songs both old and new. So The Shivers have bags of integrity, too. Along with creative talent and originality, they also have an ability to take the best of their influences as well as the best of their own records, to create this amazing album. Let’s delve a bit deeper into how they were unearthed by Fence because
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it’s a rather interesting story. As I said earlier, their signing may sound like it’s been a fairly straightforward affair, but it’s been far from that. In fact, at times, it’s been downright weird (according to Johnny Lynch, Fence Label Manager). Before leaving Texas in 2009, Johnny and the band set up an informal agreement to release their previous album, In The Morning, through Fence in the UK, but the plot thickens. During the next few months and despite keeping in touch regularly, the band ended up signing a contract with a San Francisco-based producer that actually prevented them from working with anyone else for twelve months. Johnny was delivered a conundrum... Then things got even weirder. Johnny headed over to the US for a summer break and arranged to meet up with them in New York for a day to chat about the next step.
“Keith is wearing a pair of those oversized “fit-over” sunglasses that you get in chemist shops. He walks around with a limp, and appears to have cuts and bruises all over him. It’s all quite bizarre.
“There’s all sorts of weirdness happening [at this point]. For example, when I go around to his apartment Keith performs a rap in front of me. Like, proper rap. When we go out to eat, Jo has an argument with Keith about what food we should have, and then suddenly disappears. When I return to the UK and call up Keith to ask about how the negotiations with this producer guy are going, he answers the phone pretending he is someone else … and then, when he realises it’s me, becomes himself again.” Johnny decided to maybe give up on a release as things were looking down but invited the band over to play Fence Records’ Hallowe’en show, in 2010. The band arrived and, well, in his own words: “Keith is wearing a pair of those oversized “fit-over” sunglasses that you get in chemist shops. He walks around with a limp, and appears to have cuts and bruises all over him. It’s all quite bizarre. And it’s all an act. With the aid of some joke-shop blood he’s pretending that he’s fallen over by the rocks, and has badly damaged his knee. Oh, there’s a bit of seaweed in his shoe, too. However, later that night he’s spinning on his back, break-dance stylee, in the middle of Legends night-club. Incredible.” The next day they performed for Fence, a sizable crowd and went down a storm clearing all of their merchandise. Keith was still walking around with ‘the limp’! Eventually the twelve months ran to a finish with the San Francisco producer and they arranged to come back and record their latest album, More, in Manchester (at Analogue Cata-
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logue Studios). Johnny is thrilled and rightly so: “It’s probably their best album, too. And the more I listen to it, the more I realise it’s kind of a love album for New York. A cursory glance at the black and white front cover photograph, coupled with the first few bars of piano on opening instrumental My Mouth Is For My Love, and you’re transported to Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Irrational Love drives us around New Jersey, with its E Street hustle, before Kisses takes us back into Harlem Shuffle territory. The propelling synth and wailing guitars on Used To Be make it the best song The Strokes have never written; and the segue of Love Is In The Air with its soulful sway into the noisenik, organ-drone of Two Solitudes’, conjures up New York wannabe Jonathan Richman and New York’s forgotten heroes, Suicide. With the Leonard Cohen of Chelsea Hotel, and the Bob Dylan of Greenwich Village making appearances on Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars and More, respectively, this is undoubtedly classic New York – albeit soaked in Keith’s personality and sympathetically cradled by Jo’s arrangements.” With such widespread critical acclaim sticking to The Shivers like hot glue, you really do need to get yourself a copy of their LP. If you ever thought that your record collection was complete, if that’s ever possible, I can tell you now that unless you own More, it will never be complete. Head to Fence Records’ website and you can pick up this brilliant album in vinyl form (with accompanying CD) for the outrageously bonus price of just £12.99. They’ve also recently been featured on Media Centre in Blackburn that
works in partnership with Saatchi Gallery Magazine Art & Music and The Tate Gallery Liverpool. (Search for it on Vimeo) So let’s find out a little more about this band… What is the background of the band? Keith: The band was formed in NYC in 2001 by me and briefly with two other members who left less than a year later. Then, from ‘01-’06, I played solo and with a revolving cast of friends when I could wrangle others. Do any of you have solo projects? Jo: Both members write and record music on their own as well. Keith: I have a rap/R&B album in the works under my rap name, Chicken Face. How does the band get along musically? What do each of you bring to the melting pot? Keith: We fight a lot and it is miserable. I bring the fire. How did you guys meet? Keith: We actually met at a Sexaholics Anonymous meet-
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ing. Nah, I’m just clowin’ you dawg.
Coming from NYC is bound to influence you in some way... How?
How did the connection with Fence Records come about? We met Johnny while on tour in Texas. He was travelling the USA with American folk singer Viking Moses who we’ve known. He introduced us and the rest is history. You’re now a part of the Fence Collective guys... What is it you’re looking forward to regards working with them? I like working with Johnny because he is an artist himself. So, as an artist (releasing some dope music by the way), he understands the importance of creative control. There is a lot of freedom to do what you want to do. On some big major label you’d have some suits breathing down your necks trying to control your image, your videos, your sound etc. With Fence, the artist can do as he pleases and Fence is there to help; not to hinder. Having a label run by artists really helps bridge that gap between label and artist. And the DIY, underdog spirit of Fence is something we relate to. The video for More - was it DIY or have you had someone professional involved? What way did you approach it? Keith: Our friend Colin Sonner came up with the idea and directed it. We were happy to follow his lead. I personally like the part where I get to light Jo on fire. I always love lighting stuff on fire.
Living in NYC is not like it used to be. Everything now has changed for the worse. It’s expensive. There are no real bands in NYC anymore. The best you can hope for are good up and coming rappers, which is why I’ve decided to switch to a more rap/R&B style from now on. That is where there is money to be made. For better or for worse, rock ‘n’ roll is dead in NYC. That is why we went to Manchester to record our last rock album. That’s where rock still seems to have some hope left for it. But unless I retire to a vineyard in Southern Italy, I will live in NYC until I die. How did recording the new album go? Recording the album was a great but trying time. It was nice to be away from home. We were in Mosley outside the city so we stayed in a little cottage on a hillside down the street from the studio. It was nice.There were goats in the backyard and roosters and chickens, too. There were no computers to distract us. Julie [McLarnon] and Rob [Cotter] are amazing people, as was Rob Ferrier, the engineer. There were some things that happened that made it impossible for Julie to be there the whole time, but we stayed on and powered through with Rob, who did a great job. We were producing ourselves in the end and figuring out things on the fly. We would like to thank Tom Raysmith, Jo’s friend from Australia for playing drums on the
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record as well as local Mancunians Jon Thorne and Semay Wu. Then back in NYC big ups to Andrew Southern and Ryan Thornton for playing bass and drums on Love Is InThe Air. What plans do you have for 2012? I am focusing on a rap career as well as directing music videos for young up-and-coming rappers in NYC. Interview by Baz Wilkinson
For more information: Fence Records http://www.fencerecords.com/ The Shivers http://www.shiversnyc.com/ http://www.myspace.com/shiversnyc http://www.fencerecords.com/artists/the-shivers/ http://www.facebook.com/shiversnyc http://theshiversnyc.blogspot.com/ @theshiversnyc (for Twitter) Analogue Studios (Manchester) http://www.analoguecat.com/# Excerpts taken from Johnny Lynch’s How I Met The Shivers two-part blog on Fence Records.
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feature
A ‘ Year at Blank Media Collective’ By Sarah Handyside
R
emember, remember, you get to December - and suddenly it’s the tendency of every publication, whatever the theme, to grab the convenient opportunity of looking back on the year, re-examining actions and consequences, talking about ‘highlights’ and ‘challenges’, and ‘hopes for the next twelve months – let’s make them even better!’ Well, far be it from me to spoil the fun. The thing is, it genuinely has been a special year for Blank Media Collective. (After all, I joined). Above and beyond that magical event, 2011 has seen BMC enjoy the full benefits of BLANKSPACE, launch the Title Art Prize and celebrate its fifth birthday – this really has been a year to remember. Back in January, Blank Media Collective had only had the use of BLANKSPACE, our gallery and creative space, for a little over a month. EASA, the European Architecture
Students’ Assembly, had been running the space for a year previously and were preparing to move to their 2011 home in Cádiz. Recalling BMC’s work on Unbuilt, an exhibition featuring the work of unemployed architects, they decided we were a good candidate for the next occupiers of the building. With keys and tenancy handed over, we moved into one of the most unique spaces in Manchester, all nooks and crannies, hidden spaces and bizarre souvenirs (lots of UHT milk, anyone?). On January 27th Blank Media Collective officially launched BLANKSPACE, alongside BlankExpression 2011, the year’s opening exhibition. Featuring works by 27 emerging practitioners from all over the world, BlankExpression epitomised the inclusive and open ethos of the collective, offering a broad range of subjects and styles. The works stayed up for over two weeks, giving the Exhibitions team their first taste of curating an ongoing show in their own space. Freedom from Selection followed, through which five artists explored human biology; from clinical psychiatry
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through to genetics and evolution. April brought Who’s Laughing Now? in collaboration with greenroom, featuring Michael Vincent Manalo and taxidermy-artist Shona Harrison.
Having co-hosted and co-produced emergency Accommodation with greenroom in October, Blank Media Collective has played its part in continuing the legacy of greenroom. There are further signs, such as the refurbishment and re-opening of the Black Lion in Salford - complete with its own cinema - suggesting that the future of emerging contemporary theatre and performance remains hopeful. Collaboration continued with the FutureEverything Festival 2011. In May, the Exhibitions team worked with the themes of ‘Global and Connected’ and ‘FutureEverybody’
Photography - Andrew Brooks
Sadly, this was the last exhibition at greenroom, as funding cuts bit and the venue announced its closure after a huge 28 years. John Leyland, Director at Blank Media Collective and blankpages Editor, speaks for all of us when saying: ‘At the time it felt like, unfortunately, the mighty had fallen, but now it seems like it may only have been the first of many. The funding cuts still haven’t really kicked in, so it begs the question of what next? Who next? It’s awful and sad and terrible and a lot of people were displaced by it, but perhaps public bodies know that in spite of funding cuts, art will still get made. So that’s why they can cut it, however much of a small proportion it is of their budgets. But the artists are still there.The audiences are still there.’
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The funding cuts still haven’t really kicked in, so it begs the question of what next? Who next?
Photography - Gareth Hacking
to create Switch Circuit, conceptualised and devised by a specially formed ‘cell’. A 12-hour experiment built on unpredictability (and each participant’s mobile device), Switch Circuit created a dystopian environment of surveillance and control, and BLANKSPACE was once again transformed. BMC continued to dabble with the relationship between art and technology through User Generated Content, in association with our friends at MadLab, who hosted the exhibition. In July, Blank Meda Collective embraced paint and music, as a collaboration with Barcelona’s Untitled BCN gallery created Cara B = Side B. Visitors on the opening night watched artists and musicians labour (with love) together to create live collaborative works which remained in the space over the following weeks, punctuated with special events and talks. Two months later BLANKSPACE immersed itself in paint again, as No 1: Paint focused visitors’ attention on a single visual medium. The diversity of submissions received was vast, allowing the Exhibitions team to create a show truly focused on paint itself. By not including information next to each work, paint was given
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a voice of its own. Having a physical hub has been hugely influential for BMC. We have an address, a marker on the Manchester landscape, a place to tell people about. With chameleon-esque flexibility, it’s lent itself to an extraordinary variety of exhibitions, kept us warm (ish) during meetings, and provided us with the security from which to launch several 2011 babies – including the final exhibition of the year – the Title Art Prize.
Above - No 1: Paint - Jane Looby
Above - No 1: Paint - Rebecca Wild
Michael Thorp, a member of the Blank Media Collective team who brings blankpages to life every month, came up with the seed of the idea for the prize at an Annual General Meeting for the collective. This year, with Blank Media preparing to celebrate its fifth birthday amidst the solidity of BLANKSPACE, it felt like the right time to make it a reality. Whilst our ethos of providing emerging practitioners with a platform has remained consistent, creating and sponsoring an award lifted that to another level. John Doldon became the hard-chosen but well-deserved winner of something we hope will become a tangible part of Manchester’s cultural landscape (and beyond!). BLANKSPACE has allowed us to put roots into our community in other ways too. The opportunity arose with Full Circle Arts to get involved with their Young Artists Development Programme, helping to develop a peer group of creatives via a series of workshops in BLANKSPACE. February saw the birth of In_Tuition, our own weekly work-
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shops and discussion groups focusing on creative writing, moving image, photography and fine art. ‘It was really important for us from the word go to open the building up. During BlankExpression, ninety percent of the building was accessible and had art in it – inviting curiosity on a physical level, and then engagement on a community level with people and their practice. We wanted to not just be a showing place but also somewhere you could come with your work in progress, talk to your peers about it and take some time out for some critique (and tea, and cake!). We just wanted it to be really low key, really inviting and safe but also a space where you knew that you would get honest critical feedback.’
Photography - Gareth Hacking
Perhaps most excitingly, last month Blank Media Collective celebrated its fifth birthday with a weekend of BLANKSPACE-based events, blending performance from the likes of Rebecca Joy Sharp and Fat Roland into an all-inclusive
“We wanted to make it easy for people to show their work in a respected environment and it’s about nothing other than that. There’s no ego trip. No hidden agenda. It’s about the artists.’
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jam session. It brought us to a symbolic high point of the year, whilst every member of the collective remembers different highlights from twelve months that have been both hugely challenging and rewarding. We’re already planning an exciting 2012, drawing more partners into the BMC world to help us realise a whole new array of exhibitions and events. It’s fitting now to – yes – thank everyone who’s been involved over the past year, who’s contributed their work, their time, their ideas or simply their footfall to Blank Media Collective.
‘We are doing this because there aren’t enough opportunities.And where they are, they’re really hard to get hold of. We wanted to make it easy for people to show their work in a respected environment and it’s about nothing other than that. There’s no ego trip. No hidden agenda. It’s about the artists.’ John Leyland, Blank Media Collective Director & blankpages Editor.
Photography - Gareth Hacking
I can’t help it – here’s to the next twelve months. ‘We are built on collaboration – between people, artists, organisations and even internationally. But collaboration is not the same as conglomeration. From the start, keeping up the interest, being relevant, not reactionary – those things have been a challenge... And in spite of everything that’s going on, we’re continuing. If you’re creative enough you can do a hell of a lot.’
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The Title Art Prize - winners
Runner-up - Christopher Bethell
Runner-up - Kit Mead
Runner-up - Rowena Harris
People’s Choice Award - David Ogle
Winner - Joe Doldon Photography - Gareth Hacking
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blankpicks
“Curriculum Vitae” Oh fuck I was crazy. I was coming to the end of a job where I’d just moved chairs every day. Every day. I never really worked out how to go about a career. I’m twentyeight so it’s not cool or anything: I’m poor all the time and I’m terrified I’m wasting my life. You somehow expect the world to serve itself up to you on a china plate and, by degrees, you find out it doesn’t. But so there I was, back on the jobs market looking for work I knew I’d hate and it all sent me totally cuckoo and I’d just read an interview in a paper with this American artist and the rest of the article isn’t important but there was this one line: You have to be a bit crazy sometimes. I was. And so I started sending my CV out to all these jobs, this CV a kind of tidy little “fuck-you” full of honesty and swearing and venereal disease looking like no CV anyone’d seen before. The blog is about my looking for work with it, seriously applying for hundreds of jobs – about training courses, flummoxed emails, unlikely interviews and unlikelier work trials. Recruitment Consultants ringing me in the middle of the night and a national newspaper running an article about how feckless and kleptomanic I am. It’s about what boredom does to you and what a job does to you. About trying to find a place for your actual wretched self in the exciting world of work as opposed to whoever it is you’re pretending to be when you say you’re an innovative problem solver with a proven track record in accounts and that you work well in a team and individually. About whether or not that is possible. curriculumvitiate.wordpress.com
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Bad Penny by Nija Dalal is a blog I like. Nija’s a fresh set of eyes in Manchester and writes about its history and architecture and etc. in a way that is engaging and conversational and blows light through the squares and alleys of your old dirty city. It’s a little inspiration. Go see. www.atlsyd.blogspot.com
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Forthcoming
Events
The Manchester Print Fair Night and Day Cafe, 26 Oldham Street, Manchester 11 December - 11:00 - 17:00 The Manchester Print Fair is an independent arts event, celebrating the best of design, art and photography in the North West. The fair will offer a variety of artist publications, zines, screen prints, homewares and more. The Great Banana Crisis the art lounge, New Mills, Manchester 24 November - 5 Feburary 2012 The Art Lounge presents ‘The Great Banana Crisis’, an open contemporary art exhibition, opening with a preview evening at 7pm on Thursday 24th November, the exhibition runs until Sunday 5th February 2012.
CUBEOpen Exhibition 2011 CUBE Gallery, Portland Street, Manchester 15 December 2011 - 4 February 2012 CUBEOpen is the UK’s only annual open competition and exhibition of its kind! Launched in 2007, artists, architects and designers are invited to apply with work that reflects current trends and debates surrounding the spaces and places in which we live. Each year the exhibition highlights contemporary insights into the urban environment. We accept applications from artists, architects and designers whose practice reflects these themes. An esteemed panel of judges will select the applications anonymously. www.cube.org.uk
the modernist pop-up shop Manchester Modernist Society, 142 Chapel Street, 3 December - 23 December 2011
Launch event for the WIZARD book. Featuring guest sets from: Anna McCrory, Sarah Miller and Kieren King.
As part of the Sights From the Other City/Chapel Street Open Studios in November/December 2011. The manchester modernist society, publishers of the modernist magazine will launch a modernist ‘pop up’ shop at 142 Chapel Street, Salford, M3 6AF (close to Salford central Station and the Kings Arms) The shop will feature artist/designer made products with a ‘modernist’ flavour and remember - its a fundraiser, so get your chequebooks ready! Here’s just a selection of the goodies available...
www.manchester.gov.uk/directory_record/12357/city_library
www.the-modernist-mag.co.uk
www.facebook.com/ArtLounge
Dominic Berry’s ‘Wizard’ City Library, Manchester 8 December 18:00
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Say Something Lass O’Gowrie, 36 Charles Street, Manchester 8 December 20:00, £2
Everything Under The Sun Presented at Manchester Christmas Markets 12, 13, 14 December 19:00 - Free Event
Zach Roddis presents his mash-up of stand-up comedy, poetry, prose and anything goes in this brand new open mic night.To book a slot e-mail inothernews@live.co.uk. Special guest will be Sophie Hall. www.thelass.co.uk
HMF Community Theatre Company presents Everything Under the Sun, a site specific performance celebrating the long history of Manchester’s markets. Listen to the stories of the things people buy; the patter of the traders and the punters haggling for a bargain.
Breathe Residency - Jen Wu Chinese Arts Centre, Thomas Street, Manchester 7 November - 12 February 2010
Shut the far cupboard Odd Bar, 30-32 Thomas Street, Manchester 18 December 20.00 - Free Event
Jen Wu’s practice is concerned with social and material narratives of transformation. It manifests itself through a multidisciplinary field combining sculpture, events, film and curation. Previous projects have included transforming London’s ICA into an all-night exhibition as nightclub. During her residency Jen will be taking in Manchester and its various histories.
Showcasing folk, spoken word and all sorts of other shenanigans.
www.chinese-arts-centre.org
Pop-up artists shop-cum-gallery-space in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. Get the best, unique, Christmas presents, all lovingly made by Manchester artists.
A festive evening with John Bramwell and Thea Gilmore Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester 18 December 19:30, £17.50 - £19.50 I Am Kloot frontman John Bramwell and Oxford born singer songwriter Thea Gilmore team up for an evening at the Royal Exchange courtesy of of Hey! Manchester. www.royalexchange.org.uk
www.oddbar.co.uk
Grotto Chinese Arts Centre, Thomas Street, Manchester
www.grotto-shop.com
SOMETHING TO SHOUT ABOUT? To include your event or recommend someone else’s in a future issue just email us with your event title, location, date, time and a short description. Editor@ blankmediacollective.org (max 100 words)
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Blank Media Collective Team: Directors: Mark Devereux & John Leyland Financial Administrator: Martin Dale Head of Design & Exhibitions Manager: Michael Thorp BLANKSPACE Venue Manager: Chris Leyland Website Designers: Simon Mills Exhibition Curators: Jamie Hyde, Kate Charlton, Peter Fallon & Rose Barraclough Documentation: Gareth Hacking & Iain Goodyear
blankpages Team: Editor: John Leyland Assistant Editor: Abigail Ledger-Lomas Development Coordinator: Kate O’Hara Feature Editors: Sarah Handyside Fiction Editor: Dan Carpenter Poetry Editor: Christopher Riesco Music Editor: Baz Wilkinson Visual Editor: Simon Meredith