Notes I ,II & III (solo show)
Spike Island, Bristol, UK
October 9th - 28th November 2010
Notes Part I, II & III is a three-screen installation of recent video works by British artist Charlie Tweed. This exhibition is Tweed's first major UK solo show in a public gallery and is also the first occasion when all three instalments of the 'Notes' series will be shown together in one space. The videos will be projected in a looping sequence projected across the cavernous interior of Gallery Two. Whilst masquerading as a fiction - a future dystopia sent to us in episodes by a post-human lifeforce - Notes Part I, II & III explores contemporary systems of control and the belief systems they represent.
Notes Part I (2008) - 08:00. 'We are the above'; 'Where we are now'; 'We must undo'.
Notes Part II (2009) - 08:10. Navstevnici’; ‘Singularity’; ‘Ionosphere’.
Notes Part III (2010) - 03:50. ‘Zappisale’
Across 2008-10, Charlie Tweed created a series of seven haunting and compelling short videos which form the basis of Notes Part I, II & III. These videos appear to be transmissions from shadowy collectives who are orchestrating change on mass scale. Their plans include a world wide flood ('We are the above'), and, more mysteriously still, a movement intent on capturing "all of the birds" in order to, "store them securely in places where they can operate freely" ('Where we are now'). The imperative for this apparently urgent yet nonsensical collective action is conveyed by computerised voiceovers. These voices do not bark out orders but instead outline their plans calmly and with authority, accompanied by melancholic music. The voices always addressing 'us', the viewer, through the collective term 'we' - "we must undo"; "we are building a new space"; "we will leave no stone unturned" . The continual use of the plural is delberate, impling that 'we' the audience have the same desires as the anonymous collectives who speak to and for us. Even when the voice-over starts to break down, repeating, glitching and stumbling over words, the seriousness of intent of the speaker continues to override the irrationality of these narratives.
Tweed's tightly scripted, orchestrated voiceovers are accompanied by fast changing images which depict the world at the edge of an imminent unnamable crisis, one in which both the natural environment and civil society are at risk. In order to create these montages, the artist carefully collages together material from freely circulating digital sources - extracts from broadcast documentaries, Youtube clips, instructional videos and amateur news footage. They are then further distorted by adding effects, such as pixilation or analogue noise, which makes them hard to place in terms of a specific time or geographical location. Freed from their original context, these images are generically recognisable as the world around us, a mix of organic and manmade - mountains and the sea, powerstations and mobile homes. And yet, when accompanied by Tweed's narrative, formerly banal or even humorous images are suddenly cast in a sinister or apocalyptic light. Documentation of climbers practicing on indoor walls can now reinterpreted as members of an unknown cult 'the above' who are climibing hight in order to instigating a mass flood, whilst a man jumping against a tree in a 'You've Been Framed' style pratfall, suddenly appears intent on a desperate form of escape from an unknown threat.
As well as purely fictional propositions invented by Tweed, the scripts draw on existing plans to alter the environment, such as the phenomenon of 'rewilding' ('We must undo'), as well as outlandish historic aspirations to tunnel under the Adriatic sea ('Navstevnici'). The works also conjure up predicted scenarios in which we arrive at the moment of ultimate technological advancement ('Singularity'). The final transmission, ('Zappisale'), is partly guided from the instructions of a contemporary anarchist handbook 'The Coming Insurrection' by the Invisible Committee. It ends with broken down, overexposed abstract images, as if the video follows the logic of a narrative bent on destruption by destroying itself frame by frame.
The Notes series does not only set out to test the relative absurdity or plausibility of the such plans, however. By imitating their methods, the artist also seeks to question the degree to which we are willing to surrender control to the various authorities, legitimate or otherwise, who seek to speak on our behalf.
This exhibition is presented in association with Animate Projects and Artsway. With thanks also to Curator and Writer Pavel Vancat and Galerie Klatovy Klenova, Czech Republic for commissioning Notes II.
Notes I ,II & III (solo show)
Animate Projects, UK
October 2010
Exhibiting all 3 parts of the Notes series (2008 - 2010) on Animate Projects for 12 months from Autumn 2010
Who Wants to Act Now, or Even See Acting
DEPO / Tutun Deposu Luleci Hendek Caddesi No.12 Tophane Istanbul
16 - 22 June, 2010
Curated by Nazli Gurlek
With video-works by Emanuel Almborg, Ziad Antar, Kalle Brolin, Witte van Hulzen, Mark Leckey, Anna Molska, Raymond Taudin Chabot, Soren Thilo Funder, Charlie Tweed
Special artist's project in the publication by Ozlem Altin
Written contributions in the publication by Sebastian Cichocki, Isobel Harbison, Suhail Malik, Alexandra Navratil, Onder Ozengi, November Paynter, Sinziana Ravini, Fatos Ustek, Ellen Mara de Wachter, Francesco Ventrella.
DEPO Istanbul presents Who Wants to Act Now, or Even See Acting, a project curated by Nazli Gurlek comprising a screening program of video-works, and an accompanying publication specially edited on this occasion. The screening program will be repeated four times a day between 16-22 June, following a first screening at 19.00 at the opening evening on Tuesday 15 June. The free publication will be available at the Space for the duration of the program.
Taking its title from a renowned phrase by avantegarde cabaret producer Hugo Ball, Who Wants to Act Now, or Even See Acting reflects upon the ways in which the performative is incorporated in a group of international artists' practices. Nine filmic works, and one print-based project, are brought together in this project for their distinct artistic approach, one that references the performative within the social context, and its incorporation in art as an alternative form of production and critical elaboration. Focusing on emotions underlying human relationships, intrinsic social mechanisms and organizational forms, as 'live' acts of things said and done, they look into the ritual, the rehearsed and the immediate gesture, and question the agency of 'live' act within cultures from differing perspectives: normal and abnormal behaviour, manipulation and self-organization, as well as the relation between subject and image.
In the publication are featured written contributions by an international group of curators, critics and artists in response to the art works on show, the curator's introductory text, and a new work by artist Ozlem Altin. Altin's visual collage exemplifies her highly performative mode of artistic production using found material. Untitled (2010) reveals an associative visual experience on the notion of object-like body.
Multichannel: Variable economies
Artsway, Sway, UK
April 2nd - 11th, 2010
George Barber (UK), Nicky Coutts (UK), Katie Davies (UK), Tajinder Dhami & Zonar Mahir (UK), Rob Heppell & Ben Jones (UK), Kypros Kyprianou (UK), Yaron Lapis (UK), Agnieszka Pokrywka (PL), Alistair Ruff (UK), Barry Sykes (UK), Nick Tobier (US), Charlie Tweed (UK), Dan Walwin (UK), Neil Wissink (UK)
MAB Film Exercise
Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
THURSDAY 18th FEBRUARY
Marie-Anne McQuay presents...INVOLUNTARY RECEPTION - Kristin Lucas, Charlie Tweed and Branda Miller (and other work to be confirmed)
MODIFICATIONS 2010
Aarhus Centre for Contemporary Art, Aarhus, Denmark
March 10th, 2010
Incounter Berlin
HBC Berlin
March 5th, 2010
A night of live sound performance interspersed with a series of videos about transmission and transcoding. Steven Ball, Constant Dullaart, Tessa Garland, Dave Griffiths, Kate Jessop, Martin Kohout, Bill Leslie, Lillevän, Michaela Nettell, Michael Robinson, Erica Scourti, Tobias Sternberg, Charlie Tweed
Detox
Concrete Allotment Projects, 16 Hoxton Square, London, N1 6NT
January 15th - 6th February
Jennifer Allen, Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth, Oriana Fox, Rainer Ganahl, Stewart Gough, Darren Jones, Cathy Lomax, Kristen Lovelock, Martin Maloney, Agathe Snow, Charlie Tweed, Jo Wilmot, Mark Wright
Proof Magazine Feature
November 2009
Interview and article online and in the magazine with an interview by curator Liz Bruchet.
Time is a sausage
Domobaal, London, UK
September 17th - December 12th
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Anisa Sarah Hawes, Anon, Ansel Krut, Charlie Tweed, Christopher Hanlon, Claudia Sarnthein, Denis Glaser, Eglé de Richemont, Felicity Powell, Gerard Wilson, Gordon Cheung, Haris Epaminonda, James Brooks, Jeffrey T Y Lee, John Strutton, Lara Viana, Lee Edwards, Lucy Pawlak, Marcel Dinahet, Marino Marini, Matthew Wilkinson, Mhairi Vari, Miho Sato, Neil Hedger, Phyllida Barlow, Prunella Clough, Ron Haselden, Sharon Kivland, Siân Pile, Steve Johnson, Susan MacWilliam, Tom Dale, Walter Swennen, Xanthe Mosley and others
So much more
MeetFactory, Prague, Czech Republic
August 7th - September 13th
curator: Edith Jerabkova (Czech Republic) EXHIBITING ARTISTS: JUBAL BROWN (CANADA), FILIP CENEK (CZ), RICHARD HEALY (UK), CHARLIE TWEED (UK), GEORGE YOUNG (UK), TIMOTHY ROBERTS (UK), CONRAD VENTUR (UK), ERIK TODE (NL), MATĚJ SMETANA (CZ)