electric angel /design for life

get visiting

heritage open days started yesterday, events happening all round the country – many are a rare chance to get a look inside buildings that usually don’t offer public access. events in scarborough include a tour of the futurist theatre – last chance to see…? find events near you at: www.heritageopendays.org

a pinnacle of C20th design… or being a train geek

scarborough has played host to steam excursions for the last few years, beginning with the ‘flying scotsman’ in 2005, the ‘green arrow’ last year and this year a range of locos including an A4 pacific ‘union of south africa’. ok, so it may not be particularly cool to get excited about steam trains but c’mon – don’t you just find them irrepressibly romantic? not just that whole brief encounter thing, but the triumph of 20th century engineering, man and machine in harmony, the brute power, noise and smell, the luxury and whole hand-crafted feel of the carriages compared with today’s buses on rails.

and then there’s the speed battles indulged in by the big four train companies of the 1930s of which the A4 pacific is a result. the most famous A4 is the mallard (now housed in the national railway museum in york) which still holds the world record for the fastest steam train. it’s that big blue thing that looks nothing like a steam engine. the streamlined casing still appears, to my eyes at least, fantastically modern. perhaps because we supposedly now live in a postmodern culture where technology constantly breaks our expectations, the mallard will always look modern, it was one of the last points in our history where we thought we knew what the future looked like. it even sounds like the future.

we have these trains and their engineers – notably sir nigel gresley – to thank for the invention of the inter-city rail network as they slashed travel times up the east coast mainline. so please excuse my geekish enthusiasm and absence in the studio later this afternoon as i take my son to see the future steam out of scarborough station.

feeling geeky yourself? – more about the A4

hightide interview with andrew clay

the east coast’s own online culture mag is called hightide and the august issue is out now featuring an interview with andrew clay, recently appointed director of the creative industries centre. check it out here – you can download it as a pdf but even better than that it will email you with local listings of cultural events. essential!

stir crazy in bradford

it was only the other day when chatting with some friends that i realised we’ve now been based on the east coast longer than in the city, which i guess makes us a bonafide north yorkshire coast business. without getting too self-analytical i think electric angel is a mix of city thinking and coast attitude so for me though there’s a sense that our spiritual home is still west yorkshire. so whenever there’s something happening in leeds or bradford that i can’t get to i start to miss the city.

at the moment i’m missing ‘stir’ – a mix of music, art and film happening in bradford city centre. the centenary square area strikes me as a rather successful piece of town planning, great for relaxing with a coffee or pint and contrary to bradford’s sometimes ropey reputation events in the city centre have a great vibe. this weekend you can check out some fab sounding stuff include ‘fresh milk’ – billed as ibiza on a milk float, and ‘this is not cannes’ – a premiere of specially comissioned film shorts screened on the large screen in centenary square. full details at: bradfordsummerevents.com/stir/

electric promenade

light showers didn’t seem to be dampening spirits at a reinvigorated filey festival today. filey is a few miles down the coast from us and beyond yorkshire it’s a bit a well-kept secret for those who want a taste of the unspoilt british seaside – there are few more quietly enjoyable experiences that munching chips on the coble landing watching the fishing cobles being pulled off the sands. and what sands – nearly six miles of golden beach.

an altogether more contemporary side of filey is on show thursday, friday and saturday this week as part of the festival – ‘electric promenade’ promises digital projections on the beach, the result of local artist rachel massey working with local youth. fingers crossed the weather brightens before then.

[coble landing photo by tony bartholomew, taken for 'the business coast' brochure]

totally tactile

i visited the new exhibition at scarborough art gallery today, led around by dylan (art critic, aged 3) who was on his second visit of the week. i’ll be going back soon again too – it’s superb. the three visiting exhibiting rooms have each become home to an interactive sculpture (aka podules) by jan niedojadlo. if you, like me, always long to reach out and touch sculptures you’ll love this. not only are you positively encouraged to touch, but also to climb inside and spend some time there.

each piece is a large pod, made out of junk materials but surprisingly substantial. they seat about half a dozen people on various alcoves and shelves inside and have piped ambient music. one is based on a shell, one a crystal and one on a sub aqua theme (it reminded me of a cross between the alien movies and the beatles’ yellow submarine). there’s a video showing alongside the three sculptures in which the artist talks about his work but i didn’t get chance to watch that today so you’ll have to make do with my interpretations. [you can click on the images above to view larger versions of the pics taken on my camerafone]

perhaps it’s the use of materials that gave me the feeling of them having arrived from a post-apocalyptic future. they’re rather womb-like and once inside you forget you’re in a gallery. because the shell and the crystal both have a central ‘fireplace’ inside, you can imagine being joined by wandering post-nuclear nomads to share a meal sheltering from a bitter desert night. or maybe that’s just me. (scarborough’s summer is rapidly resembling bitter desert nights). however, dylan assured me they were spaceships. alt.worshippers paying this blog a visit from jonny baker’s will immediately recognise these sculptures potential as miniature alt.worship spaces.

this exhibition (which runs until 2nd september) couldn’t be more of a contrast to the previous show of drawings by lord leighton. it will certainly upset some folks (and there are plenty locally) who believe that unless it’s pictorial and on a canvas it isn’t ‘art’. so credit to lara goodband, the gallery curator for this bold programming of contrasting shows – far more intelligent than some galleries who try and please everyone all at once and as a result satisfy nobody. i also think i’ve noticed that the permanent exhibition varies according to what’s visiting – there seemed to be more 20th century work on display alongside the last victorian visiting exhibition – unless i just noticed those pieces more after looking at leighton’s work? so there’s still some classic painting on display too if that’s your thing – the atkinson grimshaw‘s are on permanent display.

anyways, if you’re in, near or planning on visiting scarborough over summer be sure to make time to come in out of the sun and chill out inside some art.

what we’re listening to [5]

pandora – the music genome project. you tell this website what music you like and it plays some of that and some stuff it thinks you might like. with each track you can give it a thumbs up or thumbs down which influences what else it chooses for you. it’ll stream all day long and you can set up different ‘radio stations’ based on your likes and flick between them. genius.

today we’re listening to stuff that sounds a bit like ben folds, the super furry animals and tortoise. although not all at once of course.

installation II

some pics taken on cameraphone of rachel’s installation – click on the small images to view a larger pic. it’s set out in two disused cattle stalls and explores themes of memory and tears – hence the salt in the sack and the bags of water (which look like huge icecubes) suspended in nets. the second stall has sillhouettes made from a translucent material sewn into a thin felt(?) – very effective. it had a similar look to when clear oil is spilt onto paper.

the images behind the suspended sack are a mix of video and stills with overlayed type. rachel said that the type was the part she was least happy with and that the piece is a work in progress, but i think the type is quite sensitively done. the layering of multiple images and simple sans serif type reminded me of the kind of visuals i helped create when i was part of host which at times was a cross between installation and non-linear act of worship.

installation

at electric angel hq installation often means cd-roms, computers and reboots. but this weekend at least some of the electric angel team will be taking opportunity to experience something a bit more arty at rachel howfield’s installation at dale farm, hunmanby.

it’s part of the north yorkshire ‘open studios’ event – you can download a brochure here. rachel’s is the only installation in the event which makes it a must for starters, but she’s also a pal so we’d want to go anyway. if you’re in or near north yorks this or next weekend, do yourself a favour and go visit a studio.

what we’re listening to [3]

helen from creative york was in the studio with us yesterday as part of the ‘creative surgery’ drop-ins creative coast is offering. we took the opportunity to play her some home-grown scarborough music, namely ‘finding our way back home’, the debut lp from adverse effect. adverse effect is one of kista’s projects – check out his myspace page and listen to the very fine ‘talk with god’ featuring tableek (Maspyke, New York). it’s received some deservedly good reviews.