Art Review Review of Notes Part One
"Charlie Tweed diagnoses (or forecasts) the political mood in art and in the world – vaguely and terribly threatening yet somehow primed with possibility – in his three stunning and disturbing short manifesto videos, which feel like terrorist training guides – pixellated, fanatical, illicit, anonymous, you could be watching them on YouTube pre-their removal, or on some dodgy backwoods website, and the feds could be about to bust down your door. The videos, made primarily with found footage, are paranoiac calls to arms from bizarre political cults, made in blank, earnest computerized voices, for an apparently imminent revolution or action, like the release of a flood when a secret signal is given. In Where We Are Now a voice pushes on us its massive suspicion of mere birds and says 'we need to do more' to round them up and 'store them securely in places where they can operate freely'." James Westcott, Art Review
Review of Studio Voltaire Member's Exhibition 2008
"Charlie Tweed's sci-fi videos of dystopias that are even worse than the cultural wastelands Bracewell decries in his pop-criticism."
Selectors New Contemporaries 2007
“Charlie Tweed gives new meaning to civil disobedience, full disclosure – and underground. His Man from Below TV is more like a message from the boy–child you hope will never grow up. He's too smart for his own good, but you know you'd never let him get away with his astutely, acutely damning enactments if you took him for an adult. Check out his graphic for the video Man from Below TV: a literal kid's rendition of his instructions for its display: '7 inch screen with live aerial extending as if live broadcast.”
"Is funny. He lives on nothing much but the idea of rebellion, off grid, down below. The expanse at the edge of London. Near City Airport perhaps is the basecamp for his pioneering media and eco activism. The props are limited, the hole not big, but the encouragement is surely convincing. Everyone should do it now, go there, dig, rebel, and then pass it on.”
BBC Collective on New Contemporaries 2007
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A25691600
Conflicting Interests and Interesting Conflicts’ paper that discusses the Manzillworld project at the Coniston Water Festival 2005 by Fiona Woods
www.shiftingground.net/research_papers_conflictinginterest.htm
"Manzill World is the creation of Sirus Manzill, an alter-ego of the artist Charlie Tweed. The idea behind Manzill World is to work towards a new, safer future by removing all the animals and plants from the world and replacing them with artificial or hand-made versions. The slogan of Manzill World is ‘Let’s start again’.
Sirus travels from place to place by rubber dinghy, and when he arrives he sets up a tent and begins digging an underground world in which this safe new future can take place. For Coniston Water Festival he proposed “digging a new future for us all below Coniston Water lake - the plan above gives you an idea of the ideal that I am workin towards - which will lead us to a new safer future. I will also be making new animals for release around the lake and planting some safe plants.” He also proposed to boil all the water of Coniston Lake and remove all the plants and animals from it.
During the festival he broadcast a daily radio show live from the edge of the water and distributed information leaflets encouraging people to remove plants and creatures from their gardens and start again. He ran classes and demonstrations to show people how to make their own animals out of bits of household waste i.e. tins, cardboard, tea bags etc. and to release them around the lake."
Review of Alma Enterprises – Project 2 – by Anthony Alexander
interface.a-n.co.uk/reviews/single/365688
On Neue Freunde, Stadtgalerie, Schwaz, Austira 2005
www.kunstaspekte.de/index.php?tid=15510&action=termin
On the Let’s Start Again video – Hi/Lo Film Festival
“If the Unabomber had a British sense of humor and was about 16, he might look like this”
Manzillworld – Edinburgh 2005
“A very strange show by a very strange little man”
Kate Copstick, The Scotsman
“File under mad man or genius”
Bruce Dessau, Festbuzz