Stuart Childs

Photo by Jim Moran flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/moran/

As part of the Jam Jar Collective I am now an artist in residence at the incredible Temple Works site in Leeds.

We first worked on site in 2009 and created a large scale light and sound installation ‘Bloom’ in the large main warehouse space as part of Leeds’ Light Night. There is a video of the series of installations here.

We are now working in some of the space on site as a new workshop and test bed for upcoming projects. Check out http://www.templeworksleeds.com/tw/ for more information about what’s going on at Temple Works and how you can get involved.

Art in Unusual Spaces is a recent scheme lead by Leeds City Council and partnering organisations to get more art showcased within the city centre, particularly taking advantage of disused/empty shop units that would otherwise be left dark and unnoticed.

Taking place in a number of locations across the city centre the first round of exhibitions included some ace photography and ‘curiosity’ shops pop up in the Merrion centre, photography from young people of Leeds in Lands Lane, The Woolgather Travelling Gallery in Leeds Shopping Plaza and the short shorts video projections in the 42 gallery on New Briggate.

I was lucky enough to have my video tree-window-window accepted as part of the short shorts exhibition that will run from dusk till dawn until the 27th of February 2010. If you would like to head down then take a look here for the location [google maps].

Following the success of the first wave of art in unusual space there is now an opportunity to submit proposals for work that can be shown in March 2010. Go here to find out more information [submissions must be in by 29th Jan 2010].

The group from York

On the 4th of September I went along to Budapest for the first annual meeting of the Platform 11+ theatre project, working as a partner to Pilot Theatre – a York theatre company that is based in York’s Theatre Royal.

Budapest was my first time working closely with Pilot Theatre and it was a massive privilege to have been asked to get involved in the project as part of The Jam Jar Collective. My role as visual artist for Pilot will involve working closely with the playwright Richard Hurford and director Katie Posner; designing sets and interactive scenery – weaving technology into the production.

Marcus Romer, Artistic Director of Pilot is a great inspiration – always keen to discuss new ideas, technology, and theories as well as being incredible fun to work with. He is excited by advances in social and web technologies and as proved at the recent Shift Happens 2.0 conference has great visions of possible developments in theatre performance and production.

The group at Play Fair in Budapest

Platform 11+ is a EU funded project with 13 countries involved:

Divadlo Alfa Pilsen – Czech Republic
VAT Teater Tallinn – Estonia
Oulun Kaupungin Teatteri Oulu – Finland
Theater Junge Generation Dresden – Germany
Kolibri Theater for Children and Youth Budapest – Hungary
Elsinor Teatro Stabile di Innovazione Milan, Florence, Forli – Italy
Theater de Citadel Groningen – The Netherlands
Brageteatret Drammen – Norway
Teatro O Bando Palmela – Portugal
Theatre Institute Bratislava – Slovakia
Junges Schauspielhaus / Jetzt & Co Zurich – Switzerland
Pilot Theatre Company York – United Kingdom
Emergency Exit Arts London – United Kingdom
University of Agder Kristiansand – Norway

As well as one company from South America:

ATINA Buenos Aires – Argentina

This first meeting was an introduction of all members to each other and the project’s wider intentions as a whole. The project is due to run for 4 years, with new plays being written in new collaborations between different countries.

Extracts or summaries of each play will be read or performed to audiences in all 11 countries across Europe, with summaries being provided for each in English. There are a number of phases to the project  including the chance to create an art installation linked to the theatre performances. This is planned for June 2010 and looks set to be an incredible opportunity to create an art installation.

Marko - Finnish performer

One of the events that occurred in Budapest was Schoolyard Crossing – a multidisciplinary art and performance event that took place in a primary school’s yard. It was incredible to see 300+ young children interacting with so many different performers at the same time – what may have seemed like anarchy on the outside was in fact organised play-learning and an amazing experience for all of the children involved. As a result of this schoolyard crossing, the children will now create artworks and plays in response to what they experienced. See here for more pictures of the event.

Lachlan McCall was 'Video Jack'

This is the core element of the project – trying to inspire children to get involved in the art of theatre, drama and learning through their playing experiences. I certainly value the power of theatre and what profound effect is has had on my life since the first time I got on stage at school at the age of 11. The process of learning lines, developing a character, getting into that character and understanding a performance is all hugely valuable stuff to be doing as a young person; let alone the adrenaline rush of performing to an audience!

The Platform 11+ Ning project site

There is an official website for the project here – that gives a little more official information about the project. Marcus Romer has also set up a ning site for the participants to upload content and discuss the project as it unfolds over the next four years – keep an eye out to see the creative process in action.

Budapest was a beautiful city to host the first annual meeting with the Minister for Education and Culture in Hungary greeting us for a reception on the first night.  A great thank you goes to the hosts, Kolibri Theatre as well as all of the Platform 11+ team for putting together a great schedule for the coming years.

Yesterday I went to Oldroyd’s Rhubarb farm in Carlton, West Yorkshire with Chris and Jay to record the noise of it growing. That’s right – rhubarb makes a noise when force grown in warm, dark sheds due to the speed at which it is ‘forced’ to grow. I first heard about this here on the BBC news website a while ago, and we had been in contact with Oldroyd’s since the start of last year about going to record the rhubarb in their nursery sheds.  This forced rhubarb is apparently a lot sweeter than outdoor rhubarb, and Oldroyd’s were keen to show us around their farm [although we forgot to ask if we could sample any of their crop].

We took along some condenser mics to capture the ambience of the sheds, as well as contact mics to record the creaking and the popping of the rhubarb stems. We got a lot of decent sounds that now need editing in preparation for some rhubarb inspired composition. I also need to clean the mud off my laptop and microphone stands!

Thanks to Janet and Neil for their understanding and letting us into their sheds with our microphones.

Following development over the christmas / new year’s / festive break, I am pleased to say that we now have a title for the install – ‘FriiSpray’.

This is because we want the project to be open source, or ‘frii’, and tell others how we went about it so that they may recreate / build on what we have done. there’s a new site dedicated to the FriiSpray project:

http://friispray.co.uk

that will be filled with info in the coming few days.

We also have confirmed booking for the install at Raise the Roof event in Leeds, on Friday March 6th at the West Indian Centre. Exciting stuff! Now to build more IR spray cans…

the first prototype can

Just finished putting together the first prototype IR spraycan for our tracking project using Johnny Chung Lee’s Wiimote Whiteboard software and a custom flash program. Virtual grafitti install to allow artists to create digital pieces – more info to come soon..

Next up are the pens!