The UWS Creative Media Academy and New Media Scotland’s Alt-w Fund have joined forces to offer a new £25,000 digital art commission for Paisley with investment from Renfrewshire Council. The project invites artists to explore, reinvent, and re-imagine Paisley’s rich cultural heritage in support of the town’s ambition to become City of Culture in 2021. They are looking for expressions of interest from artists in Europe to make a new piece of work for the town.

Artists are encouraged to take inspiration from Paisley’s vast historical and cultural heritage. During the Industrial Revolution, Paisley was an important textiles manufacturer and the colourful Paisley pattern became known worldwide. Paisley museums boasts a collection of over 350,000 objects and the town has over 100 listed buildings.

The commission will be run as a pilot scheme for a potential series of Creative Media Academy projects exploring art, technology and research. The final work is to be completed and presented by 30 June 2016.

For more information, please visit New Media Scotland.

Deadline: 12 June

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EAF Film Club has seen a varied programme of screenings curated by organisations from across the country this year. There have been serious, thought-provoking films, there have been refreshingly lighthearted ones, but what has particularly stood out so far is the use of performance and interaction to heighten the experience, encouraging spectators to become participants.

This is in keeping with this year’s Film Club theme, “Interval As Integration”, focusing on encouraging interaction between the artwork itself and the audience as well as between artist spaces, artists, curators and the viewer.

The first week saw a takeover by The Royal Standard from Liverpool who showcased a selection of films under the title ‘I like the way you move’. Candice Jacobs’ I get Things Done felt somewhat like an endurance test, looking into power structures and work place monotony. This was counteracted later in the evening with the playful, interactive nature of Lucy Pawlak’s Arriving Without Leaving.  Complete with goody bags, Pawlak’s film instructed the viewers through a series of tasks; rubbing peaches on their hands was just one of these. Both bizarre and wonderful it united the audience in the experience, breaking the structure of passive viewing and reminding us of the potential madness of the everyday.

Generator Projects from Dundee showed work by many different artists. The name says it all with Dorian Brauns’ Give Away Wooden Propellers. The audience were invited up on their feet; playful chaos followed.  Ben Skeas’ Trace was striking, filmed in two locations over the course of the year, focusing on nature but full of imagery that was not recognizably so, cleverly manipulated and calming to watch.

Last week The Telfer Gallery presented Bruce Asbestos’ Social Media Takeaway, a flamboyant expression of multi-media art, focusing on the role of social networking in society. Though hilarious and lighthearted, it also reflected on how social networking has taken over, explained in a whirlwind of performance and film.

The Film Club takes place in New Media Scotland, complete with cushions and a handy bar for the intervals. Our concluding Film Club is today (28 August) at 7.30pm and is curated by Circa Projects from Newcastle. Expect to see works by Steina and Woody Vasulka, Zoe Williams and many more – and all for free! To book your place please follow this link: http://eaffilmclubcircaprojects.eventbrite.co.uk/

New Media Scotland
1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
www.mediascot.org

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After the success of the 2012 Film Club, the 2013 edition of Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) will again run a project presenting emerging artists’ film, video and performance every Wednesday evening during the Festival. This year’s Film Club is aiming to step outside the city of Edinburgh and collaborate with emerging artists and spaces from the rest of Scotland and the UK. Each event will be curated by a different emerging artist/space who will share films, videos and performances with audiences from Edinburgh and beyond and will be shown at Edinburgh’s New Media Scotland.

Galleries that we have invited include The Royal Standard, Liverpool; Generator Projects, Dundee; The Telfer Gallery, Glasgow and CIRCA Projects, Newcastle.

This year’s Film Club with its theme – Interval As Integration – will focus on merging the boundaries and encouraging interaction between artist spaces, artists, curators and viewers, as well as between the screen – the artwork itself – and the audience.

Invited spaces have developed programmes of film, video and performances which will challenge the receding position of the viewer as a passive consumer of sensations and encourage their active participation. The interval will be treated just as in linguistics, as an element necessary for comprehending the meaning of the text. It will enable both the artists and the audiences to engage in a critical dialogue. The interval will not only expand the limits of the screen or the stage, but will also call for merging the boundaries between individuals. Having invited artists and spaces from outside Edinburgh and outside Scotland to take part in the project, this year’s Film Club will support and encourage the common, yet often dismissed within the art world, activity of networking and see it as an activity that is both extremely helpful and necessary, especially for emerging artists and spaces.

The Transmitters by Serena Korda, HD video still, courtesy of the artist.

The first Film Club event, on 7 August, is curated by The Royal Standard, Liverpool. Their film night looks at notions of melodrama, dance, hysteria and glamour. Special entertainment and services will be available during intermissions.
Selected artists include Catherine Payton, Andrew Gannon, Serena Korda, Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry, Romany Dear, NOW NOW Collective and Ursula Mayer.

For the 14 August Dundee’s Generator Projects have prepared a selection of artists’ moving images from Reluca Iancu, Jack Paton and Dorian Braun, Angel Zorn, Jack and Dorian, Sarah Lundy, Pawel Grzyb, Sam Spreckley, Bryan M. Ferguson, Maeve Brennan, Christopher McGinnis, Ben Skea, Adam Knight and Aaron McCarthy.

SMT, Bruce Asbestos, video still, courtesy of the artist.

The Telfer Gallery from Glasgow is the third space invited to participate in this year’s Film Club and for the evening of the 21 August, they have invited a Nottingham based artist, Bruce Asbestos, to show another episode of his Social Media Takeaway, Special Episode: Networked. The Social Media Takeaway is Bruce Asbestos’ series of short, whirling and buoyant videos made for YouTube. It is reflective of his approach to art that is intrinsically multi-media and collaborative, positioning artwork firmly in the public domain. His YouTube Channel uses the quick fix, low-brow, throw-away nature of YouTube as site for narrative, pop, performative and discursive work.

Bruce will be producing a Special Episode for the film club on and for the 21 August.

Our last Film Club will take place on 28 August and it will present a programme of screenings selected by curators from CIRCA, Newcastle. Olivia Dunbar, Zoe Williams, Craig Mulholland, Adham Faramawy, Richard Whitby, Jon Rafman, Steina and Woody Vasulka are some of the artists whose work will be presented. This screening will then be shown at Filmwerkstatt, Düsseldorf.

EAF’s Film Club 2013 will be hosted in New Media Scotland between 7.30-9.30 on the following evenings: 7 August, 14 August, 21 August, 28 August. Tickets are available at www.edinburghartfestival.com.

New Media Scotland
1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
www.mediascot.org

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If you’ve never been there, find an opportunity to do so. It’s a wonderful space run by New Media Scotland in partnership with the School of informatics; located on the corner of what was once Crichton Square car park, opposite the Mosque, it’s a techy nerd’s surreal minimalist wet dream. This year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival almost completely bypassed me. Since it escaped the August festivals hurly burly it’s harder for me to get enthusiastic about it and if it hadn’t been for the number of excellent events I’ve seen at Inspace of late I probably would have seen nothing. The Atmosphere programme goes almost unnoticed during the EIFF; although listed in the programme it just talks about the films and not the remarkable things that go on around them.

The goal of the series is to “re-imagine the concept of Atmospheric movie theaters from the 1920s and 30s,” and it does this very well. Last year a screening of Moon had the staff all in NASA-style jumpsuits and a real life astronaut there for a Q&A about what it’s really like to go to the moon. Since I had already been spending a lot of time there and had some free time I dived into the 2011 programme…

It started with The Man in the White Suit, a film I had never seen. Excellent! Entertaining as well as educational. The audience were welcomed with white cocktails in test tubes which were tasty but amusingly difficult to drink.

The chemistry theme continued with a glorious glass construction near the cocktais.

And of course there was the film to watch as well.

Next up was The Incredibles, which got me very excited and everyone else too apparently as it was a full house. This ‘season’ at Inspace has been in association with the Scottish Academy of Fashion, so for this event we saw a selection of dresses that could almost have been designed by the film’s star, Edna Mode.

There was also a tiny voice activated talking Edna who had been wired into the building’s computer and sound system. It’s remarkable how many people coo-ed and squeed over her.

The Pufferfish had also been roped in, taking the form of the Omnidroid and lurking distressingly in the corner.

The drinks today were mimosas because, of course, Mr Incredible sips on one during the film. I think most of the audience only cottoned on to this while watching.

I had to miss Funny Face. Apparently I should be very sad because it was a massive bunch of fun. [sigh] I am sad.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was another full house.

The audience came in to a tranquil picnic scene where they were served drinks with the promise of picnicky delights later.

There was more fashion…

… and throughout the film Erika Duffy created a Jean Brodie ‘signature scent’ using bubbles, squirters and vast beakers scattered around the space.

For Eyes of Laura Mars the extras were very scientific. Working with the DIEM project, a bunch of volunteers came in to the Informatics department a few weeks previously and watched a clip from the film while having their eye movement tracked. This was then pulled together in a number of styles and the results projected around the space on the night.

You can see the output here:

The Eyes of Laura Mars photoshoot peekthrough from TheDIEMProject on Vimeo.

And so to the grand finale, Fellini’s 8 ½. I knew some of what was planned for this so even though I had to run away from another engagement early to get there, get there I did. Confronted on arrival by a ringmaster’s outfit – complete with whip – and a strangely monochrome setting with gauzy partitions, it set the tone perfectly for the film.

As well as being projected on the main wall…

… the film was also projected onto the rear wall through some of the drapes…

… onto a bed…

… and onto a dinner table…

… where people were invited to sit and have some wine and cheese.

And as if this wasn’t enough, ten minutes before the end of the film it was stopped; people were asked to join hands and were led onto the roof of the building where the remainder of the film was shown on the pufferfish while ‘Fellini bellinis’ were served.

It was a truly magical and spectacular way to show a film that broke the barriers of filmmaking. I saw nothing else of the 2011 EIFF but thanks to this series I have nothing but good things to say about it. I thoroughly recommend you keep an eye on what’s happening next season and where possible, go along!