Manchester Weekender Tour of Salford. 2nd October 3-6pm

I’ll be leading a walk around the arty parts of Salford as part of Contemporary Cartography’s Urban Wandering tours in association with The Whitworth Art Gallery this Saturday 2nd October. This is from the Whitworth site.

3.00-6.00pm

River Irwell Tour **Starting at The People’s History Museum** Meeting at the People’s History Museum before crossing the river Irwell to explore the spaces of Salford. Led by Manchester artist Louise Woodcock, former member of Kraak gallery, the tour group will be introduced to the different spaces of Manchester Modernist Society – a duo that work to promote the architectural history and landscape of Greater Manchester, Hotbed Press, a print studio that runs a number of courses in screen printing, etching and book binding and Islington Mill Studios and Gallery. Islington Mill is a large studio complex with a gallery and music venue. Having been closed due to a redevelopment project the 1st of October sees the reopening of the building with a lively programme of events. A number of artists are based at the milll including the tour guide Louise, who will give an introduction to the different studios and spaces of the building. Also at the mill is the print collective One69a. One69a will introduce the tour group to their recently opened print studio and the range of projects they are currently undertaking. On leaving the Mill the tour group will seek out some of the live music events occurring as part of unconvention music festival, stopping off at Salford Central Station a regular space for artist’s interventions and events, before finishing the tour in art pub The Kings Arms. With studios upstairs, a music venue and a programme of craft activities the Kings Arms is a unique and friendly venue for any kind of refreshment and the perfect end to a Salford tour.

Call 0161 275 7450 to book a place.

Mute. Performance Saturday 2nd October.

Mute is part of the Free for Arts Festival which is being held in a number of locations around central Manchester.

I’ll be performing in collaboration with Jennifer again with our plaster balls. The event will start at 8pm in Soup Kitchen in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. Also performing are Gary Fisher, Edwyn Butler, Nicholas Donovan and Daniel Watson.

Bury ‘Wakes’ Performance with Jennifer McDonald

The highlight was when this guy started joining in at the end…

The performance clip is around 6 minutes in. A 10 minute video will be uploaded soon.

It was a novel experience performing on a Saturday afternoon in a grand and echoey Victorian art gallery… A bit of a difference to our last performance in a room above a boozy cafe on a Thursday evening.

The layout of the event was like a market with stalls along both sides and artists groups plying their wares. Some were present, some just appearing on small lonely screens on big wooden tables. The cold light of day and the fluidity of people coming in and out and walking around the huge space meant we didn’t feel like we had an audience in the same way as at Fuel. It felt looser. We decided to take our time and play for around half an hour, which we did.

It’s an odd experience performing improvised music/sound as your concept of time changes vastly. It almost feels strained to take your time. You feel you want to throw yourself into it. You do want this to happen, but if it happens too quickly, you don’t explore the sounds enough. You have to have some restraint to get the most out of your playing. I think the Victorian vibe helped keep the wolf from the door. This is sometimes not as enjoyable as just going ‘mental’ but the recordings always prove it pays off. I don’t care too much about the audience as you’ll never please everyone, especially if you try to, but you want to do your best and get the most out of the performance when you do it. That is also for the audiences benefit. I suppose if you please yourself, you can’t not please some. Performance is about playing for me. Art making is about playing. It was great at the end of the performance we got a young chap joining in smashing the bits up and really getting into it. We thought we might have really annoyed the staff at Bury but they were really good about it.

Magnus Quaife made a video that shows a gathering of sorts, although I didn’t really notice much at the time. The video is really well shot and I really want to get it on youtube but I’m a little inept at video technology. I’ll get it done soon.

Performance at Bury Art Gallery Saturday 4th September

I’m performing with Jennifer McDonald again using plaster spheres at Bury Art Gallery for When Artists Take Over:

For the first time in Bury Art Gallery’s history, the largest exhibition space
is being completely handed over to practicing local and international
contemporary artists for short experimental residencies. Installations will
showcase works by Magnus Quaife, Sarah Sanders and Irene Barberis. These
exhibitions and interventions are of short duration and unpredictable, so please
ring the Gallery on 0161 253 5878 to check timings and availability.

The event is on from 12-4pm. We’re performing between 1 and 2.