The great folks over at BlankMedia have kindly featured Look Up Manchester in this month's issue of BlankPages. Head on over to their site to have a look at both the online magazine and also the brilliant work that the collective do.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Dr Dee @ MIF
Image Copyright To Manchester International Festival 2011
2 years ago Manchester saw itself invaded by the international arts community, providing it's landscape as a blank canvas for outsiders to come and transform, however this time it's changed, this time Manchester has transformed itself for the world to see. With great Mancunians returning to help cement Manchester as a cultural haven, it is also a chance for those helped by Manchester to give someone back.
This year sees the return of Damon Albarn to the festival. In 2007 Albarn's Journey To The West began it's stage life at MIF, headlining the festival. This time around his project steps away from the comfort of an existing outfit, and in to an entirely new field, a contemporary English opera about the great Elizabethan alchemist, titled Dr Dee.
Upon entering the theatre one is greeted with an elongated room, cut out to leave a cross section. A plethora of instruments are scattered across the room, from all types of guitars and percussion instruments to unusual sculpted objects, unknown to the western world of music. Unbeknownst to the audience, the orchestra sits quietly below the stage, isolated to an acoustic-only presence, all that remains is a slither of high gloss stage, fulfilling what appears to be the hierarchy of the play, but then the music begins and all changes. The room begins to rise during a procession of key English historical figures, accumulating in a crisp empty stage, sandwiched between the 2 elements of music.
Image Copyright To Manchester International Festival 2011
Albarn and Norriss' have developed a fantastic contemporary English opera. They manage to achieve a new breed of opera, one accessible to a much wider audience, one that keeps to the traditions, but adds a new layer, Albarn and his band.
As the band hovers above the stage you begin to see and hear the magic that has been created. The juxtaposition between Albarns melancholy sound mixed with the perfect tones of the opera singers works to each's advantage. They compliment each other as the performance between them unravels. The billowing spectrum of the opera singers sits perfectly with the sombre tones of Albarn's voice. And it's with the help of the contemporary songs marriage to the English operatic performances that make it so accessible.
The cast perform to an astounding class, most notably the lead performance from Bertie Carvel, and the eerie countertenor Christopher Robson depiction of Dee's mystic Kelley, and help to make the show a triumph. As much as the hype for the show has been about it's writers, praise must go out to Frantic Assembly for their help with the opera's movement. For it was the emphatic characterisation employed through the movement mixed with the inclusion of projection that helped to progress the classical art in to a modern age.
Image Copyright To Manchester International Festival 2011
Dr Dee has emerged as a forward thinking approach to opera, contextualising our wealth of history in a contemporary outfit, without the loss of appeal to the traditional audience, making it suitable for all. Its position and warm reception has added a great contribution to the discussion of the art of opera's evolution. Should it, as well as most forms of art, evolve as one style/type after another or can one thing evolve alongside it's context, disregard for reinventions of an old style, more a progression a single entity. Can a classical art form such as opera survive forever, or should it evolve and contextualise itself more with the now?
MIF Discussion - Should we treat the arts as a progressive evolution or as a disposal form, chucked out and replaced whenever we see fit?
The Day We Sang
The Day We Sang - Copyright MIF 2011
That Day We Sang - by Victoria Wood
Review by Amy McIntyre and Dick Downing
It’s not that unusual to have a community choir, often with young people in it, singing on the professional stage. It’s more unusual for it to be made up entirely of primary school pupils.
Victoria Wood’s play with songs is about the Manchester School Children’s Choir, and its hugely successful recording of ‘Nymphs and Shepherds’ in 1929.
No. Really it’s about how a subsequent loss of sense of joy affected two imagined members of that choir as their lives unfolded, and how they overcame that loss.
Lots of us got to sing as primary aged children. How many of us went on to sing in secondary schools and beyond? And how many more settled into a largely joyless adulthood, with little chance of creative expression and fulfilment?
The Day We Sang - Copyright MIF 2011
VW constructs a beautiful device through which one particular character rediscovers excitement and joy in his life. A boy from an unpromising background loves to sing, to the point that he is put in detention and nearly misses out on an audition for the choir. We have already met the boy as an adult (little Jimmy turned into middle-aged Tubby, a beautiful performance by Vincent Franklin) and see both boy and man anxiously awaiting the audition decision of the choir mistress. The two then share the journey towards the famous Columbia Records recording. At the same time, a shy girl becomes a shy woman, expressing her frustration at being saddled with the name Enid in a classic Wood song along the lines of ‘Let’s do it’ (remember - ‘beat me on the bottom with the Woman’s Weekly’?), brilliantly delivered by Jenna Russell.
The adult boy and the adult girl get it together and rediscover joyfulness. But how many don’t? For how many will secondary school and a humdrum career forever eradicate their playfulness? Mr Gove should come and see this play and realise that secondary education needs to include the creative and expressive opportunities that could help sustain a sense of engagement, teamwork, playfulness - and joy - for more kids. His batty baccalaureate pretty much precludes secondary schools from giving those sorts of experiences across the board, leaving it to the resourceful (and resourced) parents of privileged kids while overlooking ‘a scruffy lot of elementary school brats’.
The Day We Sang - Copyright MIF 2011
It won’t be ‘Nymphs and Shepherds’ that does it for today’s kids (probably!). It might be rap, or pop or heavy metal or whatever. ‘That Day We Sang’ reminds us all that we need joyfulness in our lives. Singing is a pretty good start, and education as a whole can do with a damn site more of it – joyfulness, that is. This show, dripping with nostalgia (for Berni Inns and Wimpy Bars even!) really is about now.
Come on Govey, give all the kids a chance for joy; you know you want to!
Friday, 8 July 2011
Festival Square
The square is free for all to enter, and check the programme for the music in the evening for a great night.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Alphabet City
Tonight Manchester Modernist Society launched Alphabet City, a beautifully crafted booklet that takes you through Manchester's Modernist History, from A to Z.
With a return to the traditional draftsman, each drawing has been hand drawn to intricate detail. From the Barton Aerodrome Tower to the soon to be demolished Elizabeth House in St Peter's Square the collection of drawings displays the vibrant modernist heritage of our great city.
The booklet has been launched along side Manchester Modernist Society's Open house at their HQ in Salford this weekend and on Sunday a 2 hour tour around the A to Z of modern Manchester will start at 1pm from the Mark Addy. The publication has been produced in conjunction with Manchester Municipal Design Corporation and Forever Manchester, with links to Not Part of Festival.
The exhibition is open till the end of the weekend, at the MMS HQ in Salford, and the booklet will be available there, as well as a view of the drawings in the true form.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
The Return
Today, the 30th of June 2011, sees the return of The Manchester International Festival (MIF). A biannual festival that transforms the vibrant city of Manchester in to a thriving cultural landscape, draped in music, drama, design, and art.
Having started in 2007, the festival looks to highlight the importance of the arts in the city, both in it's past and future. The city stands in awe as familiar spaces metamorphise into rich cultural epicentres for events held over the 18 days. Previous events have included the likes of a J. Bach concert hall by the starchitect that is Zaha Hadid (reported previously here - http://lookupmanchester.blogspot.com/2009/08/zaha-hadids-j-s-bach-chamber-music-hall.html) and in 2007 The Gorillaz staged their first production, Monkey: Journey To The West, all in a resulting in a fantastic collection of art in the city.
Bjork (images copyright to MIF)
This year sees the line up expand even future than previous years. Not only does Damon Albarn return with a new production, the opera Dr Dee, directed by Rufus Norris. The magical Icelandic singer Bjork returns to the UK for the first time in over 3 years with a collection of 6 shows held across the 3 weeks of the festival. Among the high profiled events sits the heart of everything on show, the Festival Square.
Dr Dee (images copyright to MIF)
Situated in Albert Square, sits Roger Stephenson Architect's (formerly Stephenson Bell Architects) Festival Pavilion, the centre of the festival. Open throughout each of the 18 days, it will be the pumping heart. From it one can enjoy daily entertainment, or simply enjoy the music from DJs whilst sitting with a nice cold drink. Everything you need to know about the festival will be found here. Constructed over the past few weeks the temporary structure looks to reflect the town hall's clock tower, subtly toying with it's height.
True Faith (images copyright to MIF)
MIF is a fantastic accumulation of our diverse culture here in Manchester, and Look Up Manchester is going to be right in the centre of it all. Reviews and discussions of the festival events will be posted throughout the duration and daily updates will keep you all up to date with what there is to see. The first event to be attended and discussed will be Damon Albarn's Dr Dee at the Palace Theatre on the 5th of July. Following that will be True Faith, a retrospective look at both established and emerging creatives based in Manchester. A mixture of live music and interviews will help to explore the importance that Manchester has as a city of culture.
Many other events will be covered right here in the blog throughout the festival, keep your eye on twitter (by following the MSSA @themssa and our writers @jackpb and @butcherluke) and enjoy the festival!
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Endless Design
I was told something disheartening this week. Whilst attending the Job Centre for his fortnightly check in, a friend of mine was asked a question. Would you consider moving to London? On a number of levels this seems rather inappropriate, for starters how could one consider moving to the capital on a chance? Secondly it seems some what unsustainable for a Manchester based service to give up and send every unsuccessful jobseeker to another city, the result can only be a fully mobile population, spending their lives permanently moving city to city, perhaps this week one will be in decorating in Birmingham, and the next answering phones in Glasgow. A city of Manchester’s scale is self-sufficient enough, but it can’t sit back and begin to offload it’s inhabitants, it will only crumble and diminish.
My friend however is in the world of design. Economic times have reprimanded the need for quality, and money is no longer invested as greatly in to this field. 30 years ago London was the only place to go if one was to make it big. This isn’t necessarily true, more of an urban myth that perhaps still stands today. After several months without a job I began to think that London was the only place where I was to be successful. So much so I moved down with a suitcase and began an internship. I had several interviews during my time there, but nothing came from them. Ironically moving to London is what helped me to get a job in Manchester, discovering that a job in design can be anywhere, London is bigger, but so is the population, statistically you are just as likely to get a job there as you are in anywhere else.
It leads me to wonder what the future will behold for the design industry. Our lives’ have so easily adapted to the modern technology. Taking the past 10 years we have moved from mediocre black and white mobile phones to 3D tvs and phones more capable than high end pcs a decade earlier. The creative industries have merged with technology available, harnessing their capabilities to benefit production, creating a truly 21st century profession.
If we work so well with technology, and have become so in tuned, will we begin to evolve along it’s path? Cloud based storage is about to erupt in technology. The concept of storing all of your data currently sat in your device in the ether. You would be able to access it from anywhere in the world on any device. This immediately reduces device’s sizes and flexibility to take a wider range of forms. By removing the need for storage, and all future devices emulating what is stored somewhere else, we begin to live in a truly mobile world. Interaction can become so immediate and simple that physical presence is no longer required, a life where senses are replaced with technology.
As design and technology evolve together we begin to remove the need for the local. The question then of one’s location in reference to a design job will become negligible. The world will become one local entity. Work can be completed from your flat in Manchester, on a project in Honk Kong, without ever visiting or physically meeting your client. Offices are no longer needed as you begin to realise the trip into work is inefficient and unnecessary. Why spend money visiting consultants when you can all sit round a virtual table. As the synergy between technology and design accelerates the shape of the city will be transformed. The hierarchy will be lost, centers no longer required, uniformed blocks will sprawl out and the eventually physical interaction lost.
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Get Over It! Gets Closer
There is now less than one week to go before the Get Over It! Symposium hosted by students from the MA Architecture and Urbanism course at the Manchester School of Architecture. The event is being held at Sandbar, Manchester, a well known watering hole for academics and architects in particular. Sand Bar is characterised by a series of small, intimate spaces where it is hoped informal discussions and debates will take place, supporting the main space that well be set up in a more traditional 'lecture' format. In keeping with the main theme of "Recession. Creative Opportunity?" the event will tackle a range of issues including architecture, technology and economics, with two main debates focusing on the present situation and the future. Lunch will be provided for all those who pre-register for the event with a theme of 'soup-kitchen' (to register please email kathryn.timmins@stu.mmu.ac.uk).
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| Students will be dressed in home made Get Over It! attire. |
The event is being chaired by Owen Hatherley, journalist and author of 'A New Guide to the Ruins of Great Britain' (reviewed here). Other speakers attending the event are: Elizabeth Varley of TechHub London; Mark Lemanski of MUF Architects; Geoff Denton of White Arkitekter; Rose Marley of the Sharp Project; and Dr Mark Jayne of the University of Manchester. Professor Tom Jefferies, Head of the Manchester School of Architecture will also be talking about the new RIBA Hub that will be opening that evening to coincide with the MSA Design Awards 2011.
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| Student Jack O'Reilly shows off the T-Shirt stencil. |
Saturday, 2 April 2011
The Importance of Being Warehouse
Design is suffering, our capitalist society is sitting back, dormant and scared of the very standards it lives by. The mass media panic has forced us to retract spending money, defying the economy’s natural sustainability, and tipping the balance between form and function. Consumers have taken to the bare essentials, disregarding quality for the immediate cheap option, disillusioned by price rather than belief in investment.
It’s in the darkest moments that we realise the remarkable. Collaborations help to sustain professions that cannot always depend on themselves. The idea of sharing resources to help strengthen one’s work to produce something not achievable independently is incredibly evident in the creative cultures. The art of multi media has itself become a single entity, and it’s success proves the progressive nature of joint ventures.
Images Copyright of Jack Penford Baker
Manchester has always been a haven for music. Venues litter the city streets, people pour in and out of shows, flirting with the prospect of an eternal stream of live music. From the start of Joy Division, through to the Mercury Prize winning Elbow, Manchester has become a center for music in Britain. With the music came other cultures. A silent collaboration between all underground elements of design has helped to cement a thriving industry in the North of England. Perhaps the pinnacle is seen with the Hacienda. A prolific night club born out of music in the late 1980’s. It’s impact on music is astonishing, and it’s survival highlighted a remarkable prolonged life.
At the heart of the Hacienda was a brilliant relationship. Factory Records saw music and design bleed into each other. Tony Wilson, Martin Hannett and Alan Erasmus, all from a musical background, set Factory Records up with the help of Peter Saville. Saville’s background stemmed not from music, but graphic design. It was this relationship that saw a fantastic multi media collaboration grow. The artwork was elevated to a new level of importance, treated on par with the music. This infusing of medias began a new age of culture in Manchester.
Images Copyright of Jack Penford Baker
But times have changed. The introduction of the internet helped to snowball cross-media work. Everything began to be celebrated; music began to only be seen as a multimedia presentation. Music videos became an entirely new media, and their importance rose and rose, overtaking the music itself. In the modern generation of music culture the balance has been tipped, multimedia has metamorphisised itself and is now mistaken for music. There no longer is a relationship because it stands as a singular object. This isn’t to say music is no longer music, but rather like all things, it has evolved.
The balance between medias is a difficult thing to achieve. The days of the Hacienda saw a humane understanding between the different cultures, and it appears to be at this scale that multi media works best.
Images Copyright of Jack Penford Baker
The Warehouse Project is a modern example of cross media collaboration, where limits of expansion has helped it to stay at it’s peak. The current recession appears to have been benefit rather than a hindrance. Proving that quality is preferred by the consumer. It’s high cost location has helped to stall planned construction nearby, preventing the inevitable demise for the autumn long event.
Upon one entering the desolate car park housed in the caverns of Piccadilly train station a surprising revelation occurs. The existence of such a large scale event feels hyper real and out of place in such a heavy urban environment. Exiting train passengers are unbeknownst to the frivolous frolics happening meters below their feet. Passerbys catch glimpses of spellbound attenders floating in and out of the ambiguous entrance, but inside a new world of visuals and sound takes one into a euphoric state.
Images Copyright of Jack Penford Baker
Underneath the Victorian arches unnerved by the bellowing bass of music sits music and video, working together as a collaboration, as multimedia. The two work together to lure your senses into the abyss of light and sound. Like with Factory Records, the music takes the more prominent position, but the visuals add so much more to the experience, the two together make the Warehouse Project.
Images Copyright of Jack Penford Baker
The success of the WHP is down to many things, some is pure look, others critical acclaim, but what makes it stand out as a truly individual experience is it’s understanding of a truly great collaboration of multi media. It’s the collaboration that is essential for the survival and importance of the creative industries.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Get Over It! Symposium
On May 12th 2011 the students from the MA Architecture + Urbanism course at the Manchester School of Architecture will be hosting the second in a series of annual symposia. Building on last year's highly successful 'Hive Minds' event, this year the event, entitled 'Get Over It!', will tackle a range of pertinent issues currently afflicting the world of architecture and urbanism.
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| Recession. Creative Opportunity? A symposium organised by the MA Architecture + Urbanism at the Manchester School of Architecture MAY 12 2011 |
"In a time of economic austerity, political uncertainty and social crisis, how can the city move forward? GET OVER IT! will bring together a range of speakers from diverse disciplines to investigate methods for extracting potential from the current recession. Architecture, technology, sociology, politics, economics, culture and education all have a role to play in the reconfiguration of the city. Instigated by the MA Architecture and Urbanism students at the Manchester School of Architecture, the aim of the symposium is to address new creative opportunities for redundant city spaces and the broader built environment."
Further details will be confirmed in the next few weeks. For the latest information keep an eye on the blog or twitter feed.
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