We’re renewing our call-out for submissions for blankpages Almost all the visual artwork that we present in blankpages comes from the Blank Media Collective artists’ portfolios. If you are a visual artist, create your portfolio online and our team will see your work and consider it for inclusion. If you are a writer of poetry or short fiction, send your work to editor@blankmediacollective.org
Guidelines: Any themes will be considered Poetry: should be upto 60 lines per poem Fiction: should be between 1500 – 2500 words We are a not-for-profit organisation and as such cannot offer payment for inclusion in blankpages. For more in-depth details, click here: www.blankmediacollective.org/blankpages/guidelines/
Contents GET IN TOUCH welcomE... COVER ARTist - Andy Broadey Fiction - Patrick Chester spotlight - Hannah Wiles blankverse- Charlie Cocksedge Feature - PYT Records this month’s mp3 BLANKPICKS - Screen 150 Blank Media recommends CREDITS
YOU ARE LISTENING TO... wrong two words by Patterns
4 5 6 10 16 20 24 25 26 28 32 COVER ART By Andy Broadey
Carousel works with archival materials – my family’s extensive collection of photographic slides, documenting our holidays and family gatherings from 1868 to 1982, presented as a rotating photo-montage projected onto a white cube gallery wall. As the slide-carousels click around, the audience sees twenty-seven different tableaux or collages followed by a long period of black, which represents the intervening years when slide technology fell into disuse and my parents turned to paper prints, and, later, to digital file formats in order to record family events. The images visible in Carousel depict events which continue to inform our family relationships - events which become harder to recall with any accuracy as the years pass. The slides themselves have therefore become the repository for our memories. Because the technology and the equipment are old, the longer Carousel runs, the more the images fall out of sequence and the collages are disrupted; this creates new, arbitrary combinations of images, much like those thrown up by our failing memories. Carousel thus demonstrates how a technology considered by many to be obsolete is in fact essential in, firstly, maintaining our family records, and, secondly, examining how our memories are constructed and reconstructed over time. The white cube context of the show gives the audience permission to examine a single family’s photo-archive as artistic imagery and to re-examine the enduring importance of near-obsolete technology in the remembrance of past events.
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Welcome... BLANKSPACE IS OFFICIALLY OPEN! If you came to the launch on 27th of last month then thank you very much, and thanks again to everyone who helped to make it happen. Already ripples are... rippling... and I for one really hope we can keep up this buzz and excitement for the artists we’re supporting in Manchester and beyond. February sees the start of BLANKSPACE In_Tuition, our weekly Tuesday night discussion group. Of particular interest to you, blankpages reader, may be our second Tuesday (this month falling on the 8th) which is centred around creative writing. It will be a participant-led forum and a great opportunity to be in a discursive literary environment. We’re running from 6.30pm until 8.30pm and I hope to see some of you there. For more information on this, and all things BLANKSPACE you can visit the shiny new mini-site – www.blankspaceMCR.org But before you rush off to find out about all those exciting developments within Blank Media Collective, sit back and enjoy the experience we’re offering you within our ‘pages...
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John Leyland blankpages editor
As an artist, I’m fascinated by the gallery context – how a particular combination of architecture and design can condition how an audience behaves and what that audience perceives and accepts as art. Since the 1960s, the ‘white cube’ structure has been the prevalent model for how art is presented and digested – not only do the pristine walls and careful lighting ensure that the audience is hushed, observant and respectful of the contents of the gallery, they also allow the artist to play with the notion of what can be presented as art within that space. In my own practice, I work primarily with photography to re-contextualise industrially-produced objects, archives and architectural spaces, positioning them within a white cube context to examine this notion of transformation or conditioning.
COVER ARTIST
Andy Broadey
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In Day Room (opposite), I took the notion of a care-home day room – a daytime holding area for the elderly, ill or disabled, with limited possibility for entertainment or escape – and compared it with the artist’s studio, in which the artist, ensconced in search of inspiration, might fall into similar periods of inactivity, staring at the walls. Day Room shows how this apparent inactivity can be transformed into a production process. It consists of two photographic reconstructions of my own studio – created over two twenty-four hour periods during the summer and winter solstices in 2009 – which are then displayed in a white cube gallery. It forces the audience to think about how the place of production and the place of display function and interact.
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Display is a series of photographs of Perspex leaflet holders. It emphasises the way photographic displays in gallery contexts allow audiences to see otherwise innocuous and familiar objects as something worthy of artist appreciation – a very contemporary type of still-life. I used the studio flash and the reflective surfaces of the leaflet holders to emphasise the physicality of the holders themselves, which are normally overlooked in favour of the handouts they would contain.
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The Museum of Windows is a set of drawings proposing the redevelopment of certain vacant or dilapidated buildings in Birmingham as art galleries, combining the conventions of white cube gallery design with the existing industrial structures. The Museum of Windows installation presented my architectural plans alongside documents charting the history of the proposed sites and reference points in art history and architecture for the new designs. The galleries would be glass enclosures, allowing the audience to view the surrounding industrial landscape from which the project emerged.
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November 1958. I was a newly qualified doctor posted to a village a few miles outside York. Before I started at the practice I had never been so far north. I was committed to my patients however, and so it was I found myself driving along a pitch dark country road halfway between Hull and Beverley in the rain. Streetlights were reserved for main highways back then, so I was following a path lit only by my headlamps. I had received a late night call from a patient experiencing tight pains in his chest. It sounded like indigestion but I felt compelled to visit him. Far ahead on the road behind the trees, an orange light flickered. The view cleared as the road straightened. A car was side on in the road. A second car was behind it, swamped by the fire. I put my foot down on the accelerator and the wheels slipped in the slick mud. I parked fifty yards away from the blaze and ran to the scene. The driver of the first car was an elderly man, lying face up on the ground next to the vehicle. He struggled to gasp in air as rain hammered
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down. He had struck his head in the crash. Blood was pooled in both eye sockets, disguising a horrendous skull fracture. The skin on the left side of his face was splayed out and hanging limply in bloody ribbons. I loosened the starched collar around his neck. His clothes were soaked by blood and rain. I could do nothing more. I left him and tried to approach the other car, but the entire carriage was aflame. I couldn’t see any passengers in or near the vehicle. I returned to the old man. He spat a few words between clenched yellow teeth. When I moved in close his cold hand reached up towards my neck. It curled around the back of my head and he pulled me close with a strength which surprised me. He whispered something in my ear. I could smell a sweet peach scent on his breath. His jaw tightened and he dug his nails into the back of my neck. The pain made me wince, and as he breathed his last breath his lips curled into a snarl. His grip on my neck loosened and his hand fell to his side. My first death as a
doctor. I would never forget it. My actions then were automatic. I returned to my car and drove carefully to the last village I had passed. When I returned with the village officer the car was smouldering in the rain. We discovered the charred remains of a passenger in the front seat. Another smaller figure, perhaps a child, was curled up in the back. The officer identified both cars. The elderly man was the district judge. A terrifying figure, according to the officer. He had sent 13 men to the gallows in a long, inglorious and brutal occupancy. The other vehicle belonged to a mother and daughter, the young wife and child of a local farmer. “He had been drinking,” I said. “I smelt something on his breath.” The officer spat onto the ground near the body. “Good riddance,” he said. I returned to my practice drained. In the morning I booked a train to King’s Cross station and by late evening I was back in London. I wouldn’t return to York for six years. November 1964. A medical conference was being held at the University of York campus. By then I was an established doctor in Tufnell Park, with a long list of patients. Although I had
witnessed births, deaths and the horrors of illness, that first death never left me. I drove up after closing the practice early on the Tuesday afternoon. The roads were reasonably clear, and yet it was 11pm before I reached York. It began to rain heavily as I checked the map. I was minutes away from the inn, driving along a deserted road. I slowed down to a crawl when the road narrowed. Checking my mirror, I saw a figure in a dark cloak in the middle of the road behind me. The rain was falling in sheets, blurring my view from the back window. Someone was definitely out there. I pulled the car over and jumped out into the rain. I called out. The dark figure stood fifty yards away in the middle of the road. It stumbled and lurched towards me. A flash of lightning revealed his face. Two dark holes where his eyes should have been. I panicked and jumped back into the car. As I pulled away I heard a loud thud on the boot and the car shuddered. The wheels screamed. I was stuck. A hand slapped against the window as the wheels caught and I drove away. That night I slept fitfully. I was in a cold room on the ground floor. The window was set in an old-fashioned wooden frame and the wind
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whistled through it. Above me I could hear the soft hum of the dishwasher in the little restaurant kitchen. The first day of the conference was a welcome distraction. Talking with doctors about medical advancements helped, as did the endless rounds of tea and biscuits. In the evening I sat in the small basement bar, alone with a pint of bitter. Most of the conference delegates were staying in accommodation on the university campus. The owner of the inn was cleaning glasses. I looked over at the spirits on the shelf behind him. One of the brandies was an unusual shape; stubby at the bottom and tapering to a stopper at the top. A pale orange label at its front was peeling. “Another drink?” The landlord was stood in front of me. I was tired, but I knew I wouldn‘t sleep. I nodded. “I’ll have a spirit. What’s that one on the end there?” He took the bottle by the neck and handed it to me. “A delicacy of these parts. Rose’s Peach Liqueur. It’s a very fine brandy.” I pulled out the stopper. The fragrance hit me at the back of my throat. That awful smell. For a second I was back on the roadside in the
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pouring rain. I choked a response. “I‘ll just have another bitter.” “Are you sure?” He pulled at the draught. “You know, it’s what they used to give the men condemned to death before the last rites.” The smell was stuck at the back of my throat. “Mm?” “It was. Very famously. Not allowed tranquilisers or anything back then, but the doctor could prescribe a nip of brandy. And ‘round here, well, it was always Rose’s.” He placed the bitter in front of me and walked away. I left the pint and returned to my room. I was planning on reading one of the journals I had been given, but in truth I was exhausted. The bedroom was cold. I switched the light on and looked around in horror. My journals were soaked through on the desk in front of the open window. Dark, dirty puddles were soaking the carpet like shuffling footprints. I rushed over to the window and closed it. Nothing had been moved or was missing. I must have left the window open when I returned before dinner. The journals were ruined. I lay on the bed for a while, and then paced up and down my room, watching my reflection in the window.
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As my feet squelched in the soggy carpet, the light above me flickered out. There, through the glass in the darkness - was it a figure, stood motionless across the road? I froze. The figure began to shuffle towards me. I couldn’t see its face. The rain threw itself down harder, running streaks down the window. I sensed someone at my door and turned. A soft knock. “Mr Carlton.” It was the voice of the landlord. “We’ve had a power cut. It’s the storm, there’s a line down. My apologies, I hope you can sleep.” I didn’t reply. I heard footsteps recede down the hallway. I turned back to the window. No-one was there. I walked over, checked it was locked and closed the curtains. I sat at the desk and closed my eyes. I may have fallen asleep. From the far corner of the room I heard a soft rustling. I could see the outline of a figure. It walked over to my bed as I held my breath and watched. It laid its hands on my pillow, feeling the warmth where my head had been. I watched it stumble backwards towards the door. A few seconds more and it had melted back into the shadows. I sat back at the desk and, in the early hours of the morning, I fell asleep.
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The day went quickly. I ate in the restaurant in the evening, alone again in my thoughts. When the landlord left the room I walked around the bar and poured myself a glass of peach brandy. It happened automatically, as if I was watching myself pass by the bar and pour out the bottle. The first sip tasted vile. I sat down on a stool and took a longer swig. I imagined the judge pouring out a glass of brandy before the execution. He passed the glass to the condemned and poured another for himself, smiling those sharp yellow teeth. I drank a second glass. The room began to spin. I had to go to my room. I lay on my bed in darkness. I closed my eyes and fell asleep. I woke up in a cold cell. A knock disturbed me and two men entered. I was weighed and measured. A figure stood in the corner of the room, a man with dark holes for eyes and strips of blackened skin down his face. I was back in my bed with that sickly smell in my nostrils. I could see nothing in the darkness, not even my own hand in front of me. I lay still. A soft, squelching sound punctured the silence. He was here again. I couldn’t move; my every muscle was stiff. The figure of the judge stood over me, dripping wet. The skin on the left side
of his face was hanging off. His crushed eye sockets were deep, blackened holes. His purple hands curled around my neck and began to choke me. His face moved close to mine and the smell of peach brandy made me gag. I couldn’t scream. I kicked out at the night stand at the foot of the bed. It swayed but didn’t fall. The room was deathly silent. A dull ache crept into my muscles, draining my strength. I kicked out once more and the table fell to the floor with a clatter. The judge kept his grip as my head throbbed in pain. I began to pull at his hands. I couldn’t catch my breath. A few seconds passed. The room darkened further. I was woozy and it was hard to focus. My eyes were streaming, but through the blur I watched as a pale hand appeared on the judge’s shoulder from behind him. Someone else had entered the room. The other hand tore at the loose skin on the judge’s face. The judge’s hands on my neck loosened as this figure pulled at him. Although my sight was blocked by these two figures, I sensed more people in the room. The judge called out as a number of hands wrestled him away from me. In the darkness of the room I could only hear the scuffle continue. Finally I saw four men, retreating through the open window,
dragging the judge back into the shadows. As I caught my breath someone banged a fist against the door. I screamed. He was returning. The door opened and light burst in. The landlord and his wife rushed to the bed. “Calm down, come now. It’s okay. What happened?” I could only gasp. “The window. There, outside.” The landlord looked out. He closed the window and returned to his wife and me. “Come on, let’s get you some tea. You’ve had an awful fright.” He spoke quietly to his wife as they led me from the room. “Christ, the carpet’s absolutely soaking.” She looked at him and shook her head.
Patrick has written two unpublished novels and a number of short fiction stories . Despite the lack of success so far, he’s determined to keep writing and drawing in life experiences. He works and lives in South Manchester, and cycles everywhere.
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Hannah Wiles For Hannah Wiles places are experienced concretely, not as equations of function to form. In this sense, architecture is ‘not’ place until and unless we subvert it with the contents of our lives. In other words, places are where time takes route, and it is time in its forms of personal and social memory and in its connection to the cycles of nature that we have attempted to design ‘out’ of industrial society. For this reason she finds it difficult to draw any form of inspiration from newly built developments that for her have no character and no history. They lack the vernacular layers of natural and social landscape that keep the world interesting. Through her work she hopes to confront how people respond to neglected sites through the means of transforming them in a way that encourages interaction. She is particularly interested in the textures that surround us and the random markings that go unnoticed. She is also interested in emotional and intuitive responses to specific spaces, considering multi-sensory aspects and the effects of the urban environment on the individual. Ultimately, she wants to challenge how these spaces of indeterminacy are perceived. Her work has been described as a form of site-specific interventionism, as she interacts with an existing space in a way that may challenge the expectations of the intended audience, in the hope of reconstructing the urban narrative.
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Hannah Wiles recently gained a Masters Degree in Fine Art Textiles after having graduated with First Class Honours from the school of Art and Design at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2007. Her practice is rooted in the urban environment and deals with issues surrounding dereliction and abandonment. She is concerned with regeneration, modernisation, and the smoothing over of the past to make way for a uniform space of consumption. She has been involved with such projects as Hazard MMX, Manchester’s micro-festival of sited performance and intervention and the Liverpool Biennial where she created new site-specific work at Wolstenholme Creative Space. Last month she exhibited at CUBE Gallery as part of CUBEOpen; an annual exhibition which receives applications from around the globe, and aims to reflect current trends and debates surrounding the spaces and places in which we live. Currently she is exhibiting new work at Blankspace in Manchester, as part of BlankExpression 2011, an ambitious and exciting showcase of works by twenty-seven emerging practitioners.
Charlie Cocksedge Illustrations by Henry Roberts
id, ego, superego I once wrote you into a poem, thinking, perhaps, that this act of putting something down on paper could bring us back together, that somehow, on paper, I could be the boy you wanted me to be. 2 I am still far from fully clothed, but you, you can stay where you have been left. I will gather, slowly, my thoughts and dress them appropriately from that scarf snapped around your neck and those worn-down shoes so full of holes. 3 Every time I have put you on paper I have put myself there twice, falling beside you like scaffolding used once, rusting now.
Picture Hooks Nails are sticking out of every wall in our new flat, they jut like single fingers waiting for wedding rings.
I have tried to hang my own pictures, posters, photos, anything in a frame, but I haven’t enough. The soldierly nails
The landlady left them there at every angle on every wall; she had pictures to hang and use as if they were brilliant windows.
are left solitary in the field, strewn across the walls at ridiculous intervals and envious of the ones in use.
It seems this high-rise view of towers and dead ends was not enough for her; it needed sprucing up, she thought.
My few pictures remain oblivious between empty hooks and blank windows, embarrassed for the landlady’s visit. Hang them lightly, don’t let anything fall. Charlie Cocksedge was born in Buxton but is now Manchester based. After studying for an MA in Creative Writing he managed to get a job in a bookshop, only to lose it again. He has had work published in Bewilderbliss and writes reviews for PN Review.
Francis Begins Out of a storm drain, the water to the road journeys in cracked gutters, city rivers, canals then clouds again. It hangs about,
like that puddle you pass everyday and avoid. The black drain it grew from, the grey stone it nests in, this is how I was born.
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From Reality My boy, soaring across the south sky, you have wished to raise yourself up, to push off, away from this damp soil in your silver foil fragment of hot air to find yourself a space, home from home, among the droplets of the clouds. I too will tie myself to a balloon and embrace you as I pass.
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Pull Yourself Together Records Hi there. I’m Dan from Pull Yourself Together, a fanzine and clubnight based in Manchester. Over the past two and a half years I have, along with my partner in pop Hannah, used PYT as a means of shouting from the rooftops about bands I’m passionate about. At time it is about ‘big’ names, with the gig we put on with Darren Hayman from our favourite late-90s band Hefner playing in an observatory ranking as a clear highlight. Other times we try to fight the corner of those with sullied reputation; I’m on a personal journey to reclaim The Lightning Seeds as great pop music. Though mostly, we exist to give opportunities to new bands who we love. Be it playing people like Uranium Lake, The Stereo Arcade or Gindrinker when we DJ, writing about people in our zine and on our website, or putting bands on, we’ve always sought ways to get people’s music out there and accessible to people who will want to listen to it. With that, it was an obvious step to start a record label. Pull Yourself Together Records came into being at the end of 2010, and I’d like to introduce you to our two first signings…
This way to....
Christopher Eatough From hip, cool and Radio One friendly, to a man who can’t take to stage without a tumbler of whiskey and sings songs about alcohol, despair and the tender moments of life. Anyone who has seen Christopher Eatough play live will attest to the fact that this man is quite possibly the finest lyricist and voice in Manchester. It always sounds corny and contrived to suggest that an artist is somewhere’s “answer too”, but Christopher really is Manchester’s Ryan Adams. His debut album, A Creak in the Cold, brings together songs he has been writing for his whole life, capturing an image of a man’s heart and soul going into his music. We are proud to be able to work with a man of such talent. ceatough.com // twitter.com/ceatoughmusic
Patterns
(THIS MONTH’S MP3)
We released the New Noise EP by Patterns in Decemeber, and it has garnered a quite overwhelming response. The band perfectly captured their dreamy, part shoegaze, part chill wave sound on these four tracks, channelling bands like Deerhunter, Animal Collective and The Chameleons. Tracks from the EP have been played by PYT’s hero Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music, supporter of all that is great, just and new in the world of music Huw Stephens on BBC Radio One, and by John ‘he got the remedy’ Kennedy on Xfm’s fantastic Xposures show. These are big name supporters, and way more than we ever dreamed of. Yet their praise is not unexpected – we approached Patterns about putting an EP due to the fact we felt their great work in 2010 needed to be recognised. Recognised it has been. musicalpatterns.com // twitter.com/musicalpatterns Patterns New Noise EP is available as a free download and Limited Edition CD here (NB – we have about 7 copies of the CD left, so buy now if you want one!). Shades of Blue is available now as a free download single, ahead of Christopher Eatough’s debut album A Creak in the Cold being released on Monday 14th February. The album is available for pre-order here. pullyourselftogetherzine.co.uk
introduced by Matt Hull Since man first lumbered from the caves and was able to lift a cracked fingernail to scratch his sloping brow in quizzical consternation he has been asking certain important questions - Who are we? Where are we going? What are we going to watch tonight? And while, despite the splitting of the atom and the invention of Weetabix with chocolate chips in them, we are no closer to answering those first two puzzlers thanks to this month’s Blankpicks blog selection, the wonderful Screen 150, we can at last approach the final one. In the baldest terms the site consists of a series of 150-word pieces on a particular movie accompanied by an image. But in the baldest terms Jurassic Park is some dinosaurs going barmy. There’s a magic to Screen 150. These are not the reviews of critics but are rather the flashes of insight, sometimes hilarious and sometimes astonishing, from people who love words and love cinema. So, trailers over, it is time to set your phone to vibrate for our feature presentation – here is David Hartley, the founder and editor and glorious champion of Screen 150, with a spectacular whydunit that critics are calling “Mesmerising…the final word on the subject”. (SPOILER: Darth Vader turns out to be Bruce Willis’ childhood sled)
Screen 150 Blogging can be a lonely endeavour. You spend ages brewing those profound political words, or snapping the most glorious photograph, or structuring the cutting-edge comic witticisms before hitting the ‘publish’ button and watching with pride as it all glitters to life on your own personal website. And then no sod reads it. They’re all off on Youtube watching a swearing parrot or a cat saying hello. Like Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network hammering on the refresh icon, or Jack Nicholson in The Shining; All Work and No Hits Make Jack a Lonely Blogger; you can feel quite, quite alone in the electric labyrinth of the big wide web. Persistence is the key. Keep spinning those wise words, and eventually your little bit of the web will start catching flies. Now bear with me, because I’m going to run with this metaphor: instead of eating those flies and spitting them out, try making them work for you; not as slaves but as willing contributors. Because everyone has something to say, and in this opinionated age they are all keen to say it. My blog Screen150 thrives on these opinions. Last month Ben Judge chose it as his blank pick in this publication and I was honoured by his kind words, but Screen150 would be nothing without its excellent collaborators. The basic challenge is to take a film, old or new, review it using exactly 150
words and accompany it with a picture (preferably hand-drawn or photographed). The entries so far have been nothing short of fantastic. The concept grew out of a belief in the importance and power of film as an artistic medium, but also out of the fact that, contrary to what the Hollywood moguls may think; their cinema-goers do have a voice and are not afraid to use it. I know how it feels to come out of a five star reviewed film, shaking one fist at the offending director and crushing sticky popcorn with the other, spitting venom about the dodgy camerawork or the hammy acting. Screen150 is an outlet for that steam to be vented, or, of course, for passionate uncoverings of overlooked cinematic gems. But I must admit something; it’s all a big cheat. I am the Kaiser Soze of blogging. I nicked it all from elsewhere. Well not the film bit, that bit’s mine, but the structure of collaboration, the wordcount discipline and the accompanying picture – it’s all been done before. Fortunately, the chap that runs the other blog is a top bloke and his site, 330 Words, continues on as strong as it always has. So once you’ve had a go reviewing a film for Screen150 (you know you want to), turn your mind to a greater task; write a story for 330 Words. Once again the concept is easy; take a picture and write a story, based on that picture, using 330
words or fewer. The range and quality of the writing on 330 is staggering; you can spend a whole day reading story after story and those little nuggets stay with you longer than any half-arsed nonsense about ecological blue aliens or cars that turn into robots. I wrote one last year, a daft little piece about cat stalking, and when it appeared on the site my chest swelled and I knew, at last, I had found a blogging friend. 330 Words is already an award-winner, being handed the prize for ‘best new blog’at last year’s Manchester Blog Awards but I wanted to doff my own metaphoric cap to it once again as thanks for enriching my own blogging experience. If your new year’s resolution has resulted in a fresh blog of your own, remember this; there are sites out there that want your words, all you have to do is find them. Screen 150: screen150.wordpress.com/ 330 Words: 330words.wordpress.com/
Forthcoming Events Lee Machell: Drawings & Matches Untitled Gallery, Manchester Runs ‘til February 20 Drawings & Matches is a series of works on paper by Manchester-based artist Lee Machell. Mass-produced, banal objects such as tools and stationery and prefabricated material are used by Machell within a practice that incorporates sculpture, installation, and performative elements. Synthesizing various elements of his practice in a series of works on paper, Drawings & Matches presents Machell’s experiments with matches as a drawing media, as well as pencil studies of his sculptural works. www.untitledgallerymanchester.com
Dancing At Lughnasa Coliseum Theatre, Oldham February 22 -26 Brian Friel’s Olivier award winning play Summer 1936. A cottage in the remote Irish village of Ballybeg, the five Mundy sisters live a simple life in the shadow of the hills of Donegal with their recently returned brother Jack, a missionary priest, seven year old Michael and a wireless set called ‘Machoney’. www.coliseum.org.uk/
Light Passion and darkness Gallery Oldham, Lancashire Runs ‘til March 6 This exciting new exhibition includes work from eight museums and galleries in the North West, featuring paintings, craft, sculpture, photography and film by international artists such as Imran Qureshi and Neeta Madahar, leading British artists including Shezad Dawood and Iftikhar Dadi, and emerging young artists from the region, notably Halima Cassell and Zarah Hussain. www.galleryoldham.org.uk/
Threshold festival CUC, Liverpool February 11-13 Threshold is Liverpool’s newest grassroots festival, an annual event boasting over 200 live acts from the worlds of music, dance, theatre, art and photography - and much MUCH more - under one roof. www.thresholdfestival.co.uk/
POETS & PLAYERS - ANN SANSOM Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester 12 February 2.30pm Poets and Players presents Ann Sansom with Nina Boyd and Clive McWilliam, and singer-songwriter Jo Rose. Admission Free. www.anthonyburgess.org/
BORN AFTER 1924 Catlefield Gallery, Manchester, February 18 - April 10 Castlefield Gallery is proud to present BORN AFTER 1924, a project by German artist Ingo Gerken. Interpreting the contemporary legacy of the Merzbarn and Kurt Schwitters(1) in the UK, Castlefield Gallery has invited Gerken to respond to Schwitters’ Merz Magazine (issue 8/9) of 1924 called Nasci. The theme of the magazine, Nasci(2), meaning ‘being born’ or ‘becoming’, was co-edited with Russian Constructivist artist El Lissitzky(3) forging an alliance of Dadaist and Constructivist ideals and included reproductions and texts by Vladimir Tatlin, George Braque, Man Ray, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich and Mies van der Rohe among others. www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk/
Freedom From Selection BlankSpace, Manchester February 25 - March 6 Public Preview: February 24 Freedom From Selection will form an investigation into the area of human biology from a group of contemporary artists. Practitioners are encouraged to consider the ways in which their own act of ‘making’ can relate to the extensive research and experimentation that lead scientists to uncover new and often radical theories, cures and discoveries. www.blankspacemcr.org/
Anish Kapoor: Flashback Manchester Art Gallery March 5 - June 5 Free entry Internationally renowned, Turner Prizewinning artist Anish Kapoor creates sensual and beguiling sculptures from pigment, stone, polished stainless steel and wax. This brand new exhibition features important early works by the artist from the Arts Council Collection, presented alongside more recent works from major UK collections and from the artist’s studio. This is the first major show of Kapoor's work to be held outside London in over a decade and follows on from the success of the Arts Council’s first Flashback exhibition of work by Bridget Riley. The exhibition opens at Manchester Art Gallery (5 March – 5 June 2011) before touring nationally to Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery (19 November 2011 – 11 March 2012) and Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (16 June – 4 November 2012).
Featured Event BLANKSPACE IN_TUITION BlankSpace, Manchester Every Tuesday 6:30-8:30pm BLANKSPACE In_Tuition is an open forum for creatives based in the North-West. An opportunity for artists to talk about their work and inspire others through creative understanding, musing and action! Join us every Tuesday at BLANKSPACE for tea and cake as we delve into each artist’s creative mindset!
Monthly Schedule:
BLANKSPACE In_Tuition will launch with an open session on Tuesday 1 February (6:308:30pm) to discuss the current exhibition, BlankExpression 2011 with a chance to talk to the participating artists about their practice and work in the new show.
• MOVING IMAGE (3rd Tuesday of every month)
• FINE ART (1st Tuesday of every month) • LITERATURE & CREATIVE WRITING (2nd Tuesday of every month)
• FREE-STYLE (4th Tuesday of every month)
Recommended Donation: £1.50 In_Tuition
Ear to the Ground?
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).
Blank Media Collective Team: Director: Mark Devereux Co-Director: John Leyland Financial Administrator: Martin Dale Development Co-ordinators: Dwight Clarke, Jo Foxall and Chris Leyland Communications Co-ordinators: Stephanie Graham & Dan English Information Manager: Sylvia Coates Website Designer: Simon Mills Moving Image Co-ordinator: Christina Millare BlankMarket Co-ordinator: Michael Valks Exhibition Co-ordinators: Jamie Hyde, Marcelle Holt, Claire Curtin, Rachael Farmer & Taneesha Ahmed Live Music Co-ordinator: Iain Goodyear Official Photographer: Gareth Hacking
blankpages Team: Editor: John Leyland Editorial Assistant: Matt Hull Fiction Editor: Kevin Bradshaw Poetry Editor: Abigail Ledger-Lomas Visual Editors / Designers: Henry Roberts & Michael Thorp
Blank Media is kindly supported by lazy dasies &