Kitchen Sink Experiment No. 1

Music video I made for Live Hazard Collective; music is from Guy Harries and iPad drawings are mine. The drawings are the result of immediate experimental improvisations reacting to Guy singing and playing. It was great fun to do!

Live Hazard Collective Illustrated Concert 2

I am posting here the rest of the photos from the illustrated concert that followed the private view of the Sanctuaries exhibition at Rich Mix London on the 6th of February 2014.

The illustrated concert was well received with a good crowd attending the event. There was a nice chilled athmosphere on the night, with many friends and colleagues dropping by to show their support!.

We had organised a set list for the event to go smoothly. Each pairing of visual artists with musicians were to go on the stage for a maximum of 20 mns each.

Ben Baal-Bowdler started with Gary Embury drawing live. Gary had prrepared some textures, images and collages in advance to then play with and draw on during the set. See Gary's Reportager blog entry about the event here. That contrast of Ben's athmospheric electronic music with Gary's textured visual language was, I thought, a good mix to start the event with as Guy and I aimed with our curation to bring a good contrast of visual and oral sounds. 

Members of First Hand collective (above Phoebe Halstead and Sophia O'Connor)  drew live and built a wall that was set up as part of the exhibition upstairs.

At the same time, members of Reportager's Topolski residents did some live drawings, the results of which are on the Live Hazard website here and here.

What I liked about the artists we invited to draw live is that they all brought very diffrent drawing styles to the event. Artist Rachel Gannon drew live on several transparancy layers, creating a rich visual piece. 

While the event went on, we still had a private view updtairs of the Sanctuaries exhibition. It was pretty busy and dynamic!

While Rachel was busy drawing, Jo Thomas was doing the lectronic set she has become so reknown for.

Then Mikey Georgeson's action man showed up! That was fun!

Mikey was paired with Yumi Hara Cawkwell and Guy Harries's Sonic Rituals set. There again a nice contrast and balance.

All the while people were drinking, chatting and watching the illustrated concert, and reportage artists were busy drawing upstairs, downstairs...

It was all pretty energetic and mysterious on that set! With a nice cheeky sense of  humour.

Below we have Mr Guy Harries deep in thought. And so he should be! we now had Times artist Tim Vyner in the house! And wow, what Tim did with the Ipad was amazing!

Tim uses Brushes app to make digital images normally. And used his deep knowledge of Ipad drawings to do something which was part illustration, part animation.

 Tim took us on a visual journey that fit perfectly with Illi Adato and Yoni Silver's classical sound.

 
Among the art savvy audience, we had Derek Brazell of the Association of Illustrators come and pay us a visit.

Sonic Rituals 2 Images

These are the live drawing images I created while performing this Monday for the second instalment of Sonic Rituals.

Sonic Rituals is a live improvisation night between different musicians. A creation of Yumi Hara Cawkwell and Guy Harries, it has so far included a very diverse range of players from electronic musicians to more traditional instrumentalists. On Monday, we had Mark Hewins, Geoff Leigh and former member of Soft Machine Daevid Allen (now in Cong) come and join us.

My involvement is a visual one in that I react to the improvisation sounds by creating images that go with the moment and the music.

I am using now an IPad for these experimental nights as I feel such a device is more anchored for immediate and most effective broadcasting. I also like the IPad because it forces me to draw quite differently and not be so precious about doing nice pretty drawings- the idea of being freed in my expression of movement through the gesture of immediate mark making on a digital device is revolutionary for me. Last night I brought a clunky projector which in fact had great picture quality and everything went smoothly.

I had a good chat with the concert promoter and Jazz Servant Quarters owner (pictured above) who kindly agreed to pause for me for a portrait. All in all, it was a magical night; the music was excellent and the audience really enjoyed themselves. Feedback in my projections was really positive. There is much I want to do in terms of developing these experiments into a polished act and we will take out time and many more gigs to end up doing it.