31 Oct 2009

Standpoint Gallery presents Shamanimal: Ritual and the non-human

Shamanimal – Ritual and the Non-Human
A live art and video event across three venues
Thursday 5 November 2009 6pm - Midnight
Exhibition continues 6 November – 5 December 2009

Standpoint presents Shamanimal - a ritualistic, immersive and participatory performance, music and video event across three venues - Standpoint Gallery, Hoxton Square and the Bedroom Bar.

Shamanimal looks in awe, horror and humour at the relationship between humans and the animal-other, and offers an opportunity for all too human quasi-religious experiences to occur. It is both a celebration and a be-witching alternative to the traditional rituals of Bonfire Night.

Programme of events:

- Acclaimed UK performance and video artists Edwina Ashton, Jordan McKenzie and Aaron Williamson will collaborate to make a new performance, dressed as moths, following the great success of their first ever collaboration 'Gallery Termites' earlier this year. Ashton is known for her insightful and funny portrayals of anthropomorphised insects, Williamson for his raw and experimental work addressing image and the body, and Jordan McKenzie for his innovative and performative approach to drawing practice. (at Standpoint from 6.30)

- Rebirth performance/re-enactment by Plastique Fantastique -David Burrows and Simon O'Sullivan– this will be a homage and re-enactment of Leigh Bowery's infamous 'rebirth' performance in Hoxton Square, at the 'Fete worse than Death' in 1994. PF will birth a mythical creature. The antics of the ambiguous creature will lead us around the area and on towards the final venue. (in Hoxton Square 8.30)

- I confess – a one-to-one performance developed by award winning directors Nathan Curry and Rachel Parish, housed in an original catholic confessional delivered to the site. The artists repent two stories of sins (one of which is their own, and the other is from a previous participant) to an individual listener, hoping for forgiveness. They then in turn invite a confession from the audience member. The confessional will be installed at the Bedroom Bar. Participants can also upload their real or invented confessions to an interactive website archive. (Bedroom Bar)

- The finale will be the iconic Icelandic video and performance artist Sigurdur Gudjonnson collaborating with members of his death-metal band Cranium to make a new ritual-video-performance. Filmic and musical elements are of equal importance in Sigurdur Gudjonsson's atmospheric works, in his search for the perceptible abyss that Freud called the uncanny. This performance will form part of Gudjonsson's ongoing loop of performance and display, and will be recorded to become part of a new video installation. (Bedroom Bar 10pm)

- Turnhurst - a collaborative artist duo who are Charlotte Turner and Rosa Tyhurst will be guiding the public and making impromptu performances. Like private dancers, they will be available by request on a one to one basis. Turnhurst have just graduated (1st class) from Kingston University. (7–10pm all venues)

In the continuing gallery show 6 November – 5 December:

Sigurdur Gudjonnson presents two acclaimed video installations. Mysterious and macabre, his videos expose a darker side of existence in a style that can be surprisingly delicate. It can also be more overtly disconcerting, for example in Breed (2007) with disquieting footage of pigs anxiously awaiting their fate in the slaughterhouse. In either case, the contrast between the artist's sometimes gruesome imagery and his sophisticated style of production (filmed in HDV) combine in videos that are oneiric and haunting as they are compelling.

Steph Goodger's obsessive practice stems from comprehensive researches into often fantastical literary sources. She is motivated by the creation of the impossible, be that the almost unimaginable architectural fantasy of Dante's inferno, or the closed system of an object, a single entity, a monster. Sea monsters, mythical beasts, leviathans are a central passion. For Standpoint she has made a new 4-metre multi-panel painting inspired by Moby Dick and the first measurable skeleton of a whale that was washed up on Tunstall Beach in Yorkshire in 1825. She also presents Pandemonium, her own vision of the 9th level of Dante's Hell. (and the capital city of Hell in Milton's Paradise Lost).

Ashton. McKenzie, Williamson – Visible for the duration of the exhibition will be the remnants/creation/nest of Lava Pa Lava the performance on the 5th by our moth-artists. Also a DVD of excerpts from the performance.