The 2015 EAF Programme features performances, guided tours, workshops and talks by some of the world’s leading artists and curators throughout 30 July – 30 August. Highlights include a series of artist performances to run alongside the 2015 EAF Commissions Programme, uniting some of the most innovative artists from across the globe to create work under the theme of The Improbable City – a response to the unique fairy-tale architecture and setting of Edinburgh. Performances include The King Must Die by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd; SING SIGN: a close duet by Hanna Tuulikki; and a special one-off live performance combining electronic music and field recordings of dolphins and whales by Mexican artist Ariel Guzik, to accompany his first exhibition in the UK. Each year EAF’s popular Festival Detours brings a series of intimate live performances by leading and emerging stars to the city’s museums and galleries. This year’s programme will see acclaimed comedian Phill Jupitus perform live in Inverleith House; poet Carol Ann Duffy at Talbot Rice Gallery; A Pocket Full of Grimms, a children’s theatre show, at Jupiter Artland; and upcoming music sensation, Man of Moon, at Collective.

The 2015 Events Programme also sees the return of EAF Explorers, a special activity trail for families; Art Late, a popular series of specially programmed late openings and events; and an EAF Film Club to accompany Platform: 2015, an exhibition of early career artists selected by open call; as well as the festival’s Tourist-in-Residence, a series of alternative tours of the city led by artist Catherine Street. Street will lead three performative tours exploring some of the more improbable spaces in the city – including The Book of Money, a look at Edinburgh’s longstanding relationship with the financial industry, and a visit to the city’s newest institution, The Library of Mistakes, a reading room dedicated to the world history of economic successes and failures.

The wider festival programme will include regular opportunities to hear artists talk about their work, including Charles Avery in conversation with Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Director Simon Groom at Ingleby Gallery; a tour led by Tara Donovan at Jupiter Artland where the artist will select several works within the sculpture park’s permanent collection that reflect her exhibition; a panel discussion with curators from the Hanne Darboven Foundation and Talbot Rice Gallery, on Darboven’s legacy as one of the 20th century’s most idiosyncratic conceptual artists; and a part-improvised, group-vocal acoustic performance work by Deb Marshall created within and in response to the vast, neo-classical ‘Adam Dome’ of H.M. General Register House.

Away with the Birds, 2014 by Hanna Tuulikki

PERFORMANCES: 2015 EAF Commissions

Artists present performances as part of their work created for Edinburgh Art Festival’s 2015 Commissions Programme, housed in exciting off-site locations.

30 July, 8, 15 & 29 August | Fountains Close
Hanna Tuulikki
SING SIGN is an intimate performance devised for the closes of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Composed by Hanna Tuulikki, and performed with Daniel Padden, the work combines music and gestures drawn from British Sign Language to reflect on how our experience of the city is inseparable from the the languages that we speak. The performance on 15 August will be followed by a BSL Tour of the Old Town led by Karen Forbes at 3:15pm.

1, 22 & 29 August | Old Royal High School
Marvin Gaye Chetwynd
Known for her deliberately shambolic and lo-fi performances, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd’s new work The King Must Die explores the ancient Greek cult of the Mother Goddess, immersing us in an intense and supremely pagan celebration of feminity and female power.

1 August | Trinity Apse
Ariel Guzik
Mexican artist Ariel Guzik gives a live soundscape and performance of a specially devised set combining electronic music and field recordings of whales and dolphins, with Alejandro Colinas and Emilio Galvez. Field recordings by Nature Expression and Resonance Research Laboratory.

Sea of Cortez, 2007 by Ariel Guzik

Home Made Tasers, Studio 231, New Museum, New York, 26 October 2011 – 1 January 2012 by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd

ARTISTS’ TALKS

Enjoy a late breakfast with this year’s commissioned artists. The artists will discuss their work with specialists from areas related to their practice, over coffee and croissants.

30 July | Ingleby Gallery
Charles Avery in conversation with Simon Groom, Director of Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

1 August | Trinity Apse
Ariel Guzik in conversation with Mark Simmonds OBE and Nicola Triscott, Arts Catalyst

2 August | 9 – 11 Blair Street
Julie Favreau, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd in conversation with author Edward Hollis, and curator Sorcha Carey.

9 August | 9 – 11 Blair Street
Hanna Tuulikki in conversation with writer and curator Ella Chmielewska.

16 August | 9 – 11 Blair Street
Emma Finn in conversation with Sorcha Carey.

23 August | 9 – 11 Blair Street
Marvin Gaye Chetwynd in conversation with Professor Neil Mulholland.

EAF FILM CLUB

4 & 18 August | 9 – 11 Blair Street
Accompanying Platform: 2015, this year’s Film Club offers an opportunity to see artist films from across Scotland. Join us for an evening of screenings curated by artist-led gallery, Embassy in Edinburgh and Luke Collins, Project Manager for artist’s moving image agency LUX Scotland, Glasgow.

ART LATE

Art Late is a series of specially programmed late openings and events, taking in live music, performances, artist talks and tours. This year offers even more opportunities to enjoy the evening programme.

13 August | 6 – 10:30pm
Including Ingleby Gallery, Old Royal High School, Collective, Stills, Edinburgh Printmakers, Inverleith House and GARAGE

20 August | 6 – 10:30pm
Including Talbot Rice Gallery, Stills, Number Shop, National Portrait Gallery and Dovecot Studios, with a special Curator’s tour of the exhibitions at Dovecot Studios, a 10% discount on selected textile products, a weave demonstration by Apprentice Weaver Ben Hymers and a gun-tufting demonstration by Trainee Tufter Vana Coleman. Featuring band Miaoux Miaoux to close the evening, with additional support from Blue Moon.

TOURS

Each year the festival works with locally based artists, offering unique perspectives of the city through one-off tours. This year, artist and writer Catherine Street will be leading three new tours of venues across Edinburgh taking inspiration from the theme of this year’s commissions programme: The Improbable City. Each afternoon during the festival, there are guided tours of venues, leaving from the festival Kiosk on EAF Kiosk on 9-11 Blair St, EH1 1QR. With different routes to choose from, these are a great way to find your way through the city and explore the festival. Additionally, every Friday at 1pm, you can end the week with a Walking Lunch Tour. Armed with a brown-bag lunch, this tour is designed to give you a snapshot of the festival during your lunch break.

EAF takes place from 30 July – 30 August. For the full festival programme and booking details visit www.edinburghartfestival.com or go to the Edinburgh Art Festival Kiosk on 9-11 Blair Street, EH1 1QR.

See Festival Director Sorcha Carey’s initial response to the festival programme and exhibition recommendations on Central Station here.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Find more events in our weekly bulletin here.

What:
Away with the Birds is a project exploring the mimesis of birds in Gaelic song by Glasgow based sound and visual artist, Hanna Tuulikki.

BBC Alba filmed Tuulikki’s vocal group rehearsing Guth an Eòin | Voice of the Bird and chatted to Hanna Tuulikki ahead of the performance at Tectonics.

Why we like it:
The site is regularly updated with performance reviews, photos, videos, soundworks and more. Reading just some of the reviews on Tuulikki’s performances will make you wish you had been there. As a close alternative, you can sit back and enjoy Tuulikki’s ethereal compositions on Soundcloud here.

Don’t miss:
25 May – 2 July 2013  - Hanna’s visual score for ‘Guth an Eòin | Voice of the Bird’ will be shown at the RSA exhibition ‘Between the Late and Early’. More information here.

More: Website | Vimeo | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

1. Conductor’s of the Inland Sea by Alan Campbell

2. Part of a series entitled Selected Visual Works 2011 by Graham Lister

3. Airs of the Sea Extract 2006 by Hanna Tuulikki

4. Kirkudbright by Antonia Katerina

5. tombeach by Rory Stewart

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See more Top 5′s selected from the network here.

Typographic Illustration Books by annabodaliker

Ways of arranging books by amelia_bywater

Book Skirt by Kylaa

Bird Book Covers by Hanna_Tuulikki

Uni photos 004 by Curtain

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See more of our Top 5 selections here.

RUBEDO T-shirt desgin for The Wire Music Magazine, Autumn 2010 by Hanna Tuulikki available here.

1. Jo Mango – collectors’ edition 10″ double single, The Moth & The Moon / The Black Sun

Album artwork and packaging for Scottish musician Jo Mango by Rydo! and Hanna Tuulikki. The three didn’t know each other before the project and Jo found and commissioned them through Central Station. See Rydo’s showcase for more images of the work.

2. Filmmakers Group Edinburgh

This informal group was set up via Central Station. Lina has recently blogged to say that they currently have 21 filmmakers and are hoping to announce joint projects and collaborations in the near future. Watch this space.

3. Strawberry Fields

In January this year Genevieve did a call out to curators, designers and sound artists for her project Strawberry Fields – an exhibition based on work inspired by the Beatles song of the same name. She was also on the look out for a venue. Within 24 hours she’d found a whole team to work with and a space and the exhibition took place the following month. Success.

4. Radius

Image: Entry/exit site view by grahamlister

In the lead up to Glasgow International Festival there were several Central Station members who had planned an exhibition but whose submissions hadn’t been accepted. After discussions on the site, spearheaded by Stephanie Spindler, Radius developed as a series of fringe events happening around the city during the festival.

5. Uzzz

uzzz.JPG
The ultimate collaboration and a project that introduced the world to Central Station. We asked for our members to submit an image that tells the audience something significant or revealing about them. Alec Farmer then created a video entitled Uzzz from the submissions and Jack McConchie from the band Isosceles did the soundtrack.

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See more of our Top 5 selections here.

selected CD, LP, 7”, 10” front cover designs 2003 – 2010

More work by Hanna Tuulikki here: www.hannatuulikki.com

“My objects are to be seen as stimulants for the transformation of the idea of sculpture, or of art in general. They should provoke thoughts about what sculpture can be and how the concept of sculpting can be extended to the invisible materials used by everyone:

Thinking Forms – the way in which we mould our thoughts

Spoken Forms – how we shape our thoughts into words or

Social Sculpture – how we mould and shape the world in which we live.” [i]

I read this book during my summer holidays, before the start of my final year at art school in Glasgow. It had a profound effect on me. At the time, I was listening to more and more ‘experimental’ music, excited by the way in which improvised music could be seen as model for a way of being in the world. I was consumed with idealistic theories of how art could change the world, and Beuys’ ideas of Social Sculpture rang true with my feelings at the time. I was also listening to a lot of folk music both from close to home and from around the world, realising how many different ways of singing there are on our planet, and how these songs are somehow portraits of the individuals as well as of the particular culture from which they come. That same year I had started to perform with my then new band ‘Nalle’, exploring the freedom that improvisation permits within the structure of more traditional song forms. What struck me whilst reading, listening, and playing was the relationship between Beuys’ ideas of sculpture moulded from invisible materials and the possibility of understanding singing as a sculptural process.

To sing is very physical process. Sound, though transient and immaterial, is a physical medium. It has a measurable volume, width, length and tempo. It exists as a physical energy, as sound waves moving through space and responding to space in particular ways. When I sing loudly I can feel the vibrations of the sound I am creating from my body. I can mould them by changing the amount of air I use and the shape of my mouth.

“… there is absolutely no possibility for a human being…. to express himself to someone else except through a material process. Even when I speak I use my larynx, bones, sound waves, for instance, and I need the substance of air…. There’s no possibility of conveying one’s meaning except through imprinting it in a particular material. And for some things less solid materials are needed than for others. But basically it’s the same thing whether I speak or combine pieces of iron and thus create an object.”[ii]

If indeed, sculptural forms can be shaped from our thoughts into words using the spoken voice, can we therefore, also understand song to be a sculptural form moulded from the singing voice? This process begins with listening and finds expression using the tongue, the larynx, air, sound waves and the ear of the listener as materials. In this way, the composition of song can be understood as a sculptural process that finds expression using the materials of the body. It therefore follows, that sound making and song naturally function as portraits of the self. Song Sculpture can thus be defined as the way in which we shape our feelings and thoughts into song.

Using my voice as well as the voices of others, I have worked with these ideas in a number of projects. Pollokshaws Song Portrait(Glasgow 2006), Kensington Cradle Songs (Liverpool 2007) and Abbeyview Note Catcher (Dunfermline 2008), bring together voices from diverse groups of people where recordings of songs and/or vocal sounds function as sculptural materials to create portraits. Airs of the Sea (Cromarty 2006), is a composition replicating the sounds of the sea, sculpted from the recordings of 100 different people’s breath. Salutation to the Sun (2006) also imitates a soundscape from the natural world; in this instance an entire dawn chorus is sculpted from a single voice. The projects experiment with dissolving language and structure, inviting the participant and/or listener to become absorbed in the merging of different layers of sound.

I use my voice as a material to compose and improvise, both alone and with other musicians. With the band Nalle I seek to explore the constituent elements of the voice within more traditional musical forms. I regard my own songs and performances as self-portraits of my personal experiences.

Find out more about Hanna here.
Visit Hanna on MySpace.

nest is a sound and light installation, paper cut out by Hanna Tuulikki. View her website here: www.hannatuulikki.com