Whitworth Art Gallery on Saturday 26th February

A fantastic day at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester was had with stunning results made from a dedicated crowd. Chris, Mark and Jo ran this and were pleased to see some familiar faces and friends turn up including Barney Doodlebug, Naomi Kashiwagi Christina from Video is the only constant, Howard Walmsley from Biting Tongues and Claire Thomas who is interning at the North West Film Archive whilst studying at Manchester Met's Media Lab.

A great bunch of people stepped through the doors of our space in the Lecture Theatre whilst attending the first full week of the Mary Kelly retrospective - one of the Whitworth Gallery's biggest ever solo shows.

The theatre  allowed us to utilise the space and create full screen projections which some young participants immersed themselves in through creating live projections throughout the day. The results were highly impressive and some of the detailed animations looked beautiful, especially at such a scale. A total pleasure - thanks to everyone who turned up and to Naomi Kashiwagi and Ed Watts for arranging our date there. For more info on the whitworth's adult programme check out their blog here...http://whitworthadultprogramme.wordpress.com/.

Swiss Cottage Library, Camden - 23rd, 24th and 25th Febraury

Some photos from our three day stay at Swiss Cottage Library in Camden.

Text to follow soon...

Doodlebug presents...Interview with All fm

Chris spoke to Barney Doodlebug for Manchester's community radio www.allfm.org/ The radio station is currently under threat from closure due to government cut backs so if you enjoy this please sign their petition here.
nugget♯8 by doodlebug presents...

Help save 16mm film printing in the UK!

Hi everyone. We have one last date at Swiss Cottage Library downstairs tomorrow from 12 til 5 and it would be great to see you if in London.
If you are listening to the radio tomorrow at 8.30 am there is an interview about Unravel with Chris on Manchester's http://www.allfm.org/.
Our date at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester starts at 11am in the Lecture Theatre - we have been promised popcorn for the screeninbg at 4pm so see you there!

Finally, if you have attended one of our workshops you might be able to find the time to help protest about the immediate stop in 16mm film printing at Soho Film Lab one of the last places in the UK to commercially offer colour prints. Although there are services offered by http://www.no-w-here.org.uk/ for black and white prints and a similar service offered by the wonderful Tony Scott at http://www.film-photo.co.uk/ the closure of Soho Film Lab's 16mm film printing services effective immediately has rightfully created quite a stir. If you were enthused by an Unravel event to ever work with 16mm film or see the value of viewing film in this format then please sign the petition by following the link below...

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43288.html

Need more info?:
Tacita Dean's article on the subject can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/feb/22/tacita-dean-16mm-film

Swiss Cottage Library and Whitworth Art Gallery this week!

We have three consecutive days this week at Swiss Cottage Library in London followed by a big date for us at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. There are facebook events for both dates here and here so why not come down and say hello. We love to see returning participants as much as new ones.

Listeners may also want to tune into Manchester's All fm at 8.30am friday morning to hear Chris talking about the project with Barney Doodlebug which was alot of fun in the making. See you all soon!

Saturday 19th February at Wolds Village

We were lucky enough to be asked to visit Wolds Village. A fantastic restaurant, guesthouse and art gallery located in the Yorkshire Wolds near Driffield in East Yorkshire. This whole enterprise is a family run affair that has, over sixteen years, converted a barn and coaching house into a succesful local attraction. Sally and Chris Brearly have obviously worked hard and have an obvious  pride for the place with many touching monuments left in dedication to Sally's late father, Bob Holmes, who is credited throughout the complex as one of the driving forces behind the project.

 It is clearly a labour of love and we were very priveliged to be able to spend the night in one of several themed rooms - the tudor room even having a four poster bed!
 Easily one of the nicest places we have stayed on the tour the restarant was great too. For the workshop, we had a steady flow of people join us throughout the day and made a very colourful film with many local families coming to add their hand to the longest hand painted film in Britain. The fifteen minute film was shown to a pleased crowd in time for the gallery to be swept for Sally's Mum's 70th birthday party later that evening. It was a total pleasure to be there and thanks again to all at Wolds Village who came and made the film. Amazing place well worth a stop over! Thanks everyone.

Wednesday 16th February at King Edward VI College, Nuneaton

We were asked to visit King Edward VI College in Nuneaton back in January when we met the leader of their Art Foundation Course, Sarah Moss, at the start of our day at the IKON Gallery. The college is home to over 1100 students mainly for studying A-Levels and the new art block opened recently is a fantastic space that could give the Royal College of Art a run for its money in individual student work spaces. Chris and Maria worked with staff and students from many different academic disciplines and were impressed by the innovative techniques the students came up with. We had participants sewing into the film, stamping prints into it and most excitedly for us, using a typewriter and bleach to hit degraded typefaces into the film.

 The results of this were fantastic and there was over fifteen minutes of film made throughout the day - much more than our average workshop. It was great to talk to many of the participants and we interviewed students, staff, the principal of the college and the photographer from the local paper about their perspectives on their time spent living in Nuneaton.
 

Thanks to everyone who took part during the day, it was great to work with you all (oh and one more thank you to Sarah Moss who also baked us amazing buns and cakes!!!). Cheers Nuneaton!

UPDATE!
We have just been sent this video made by Billy the media technician at the college and it's great! :

Workshops this week

Tomorrow we journey to Nuneaton to works with students at King Edward VI College and on saturday we will be running a public workshop at Wolds Village near Driffield which looks to be a beautiful place!
Following on from these we will be holding a three day residency with Swiss Cottage Library in Camden followed by a date at the prestigious Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester (where we have even been promised popcorn!).
Looking forward to seeing new and returning faces at each of these dates.

We'll leave you with a great big congratulations to our friend Mikey Please who studied Animation and graduated at the same time as Chris and Maria from the RCA and just won a BAFTA for his short animation 'The Eagleman Stag'. We're also incredibly proud of his fellow animation graduates Matthias Hoegg and David Prowser for being nominated - unbelievable achievements all round!

                          

All hail Joanna Byrne, Master of Philosphy!

We're really proud to be able to announce our member and mentor, Jo Byrne of OKO and Unravel passed her MPhil in Experimental Film yesterday. Thanks to everyone who came down to the temporary space on thursday night for the screening event and making it such a success.

It was a wonderful night with some great work. Jo's performance of Screen Kiss was a particular stand-out hightlight. More photos soon but a massive shout out to Jo for passing yesterday (with no recommendations to amend her thesis in any way we may add! ). We are so proud of you!!

The full programme and more photos taken at the night can be found on OKO's blog here.

Cinéma Corporel in Leeds this thursday!

We're really looking forward to this Thursday's event in Leeds - it's FREE so no excuses to miss some work by great filmmakers in a unique space...

Cinéma Corporel is a very special screening event organised by our friend and collaborator Jo Byrne of OKO/Unravel. This screening marks the end of Jo's MPhil in Experimental Film at Leeds Metropolitan University and the screening consists of films by many of Unravel's members and participants including a workshop/screening created at the event....

Cinéma Corporel

Arch Z, Granary Wharf, Dark Neville St, LS1 4BR

10 February 19:30 - 22:30.· 

Cinema of the Body/The Body of film.
An evening of experimental film, expanded cinema and live performance...

Cinéma Corporel will bring together filmmakers, artists, and musicians in a unique location in the heart of Leeds to showcase explorative, experimental and playful approaches to performing with film and the moving image.

/ super 8 / video / 16mm film / projector performance / (de)generative film / installation / found footage / multiple projection / live reading / cut ups / tape loops / interactive celluloid / slides / performance / intervention / noise /

Featuring work by: Maria Anastassiou / Kerry Baldry / Violaine Bergoin / Joanna Byrne / Chris Paul Daniels / Chris Hall / Ian Harker / Robin Kiteley / Samuel Stocks / Mark Pickles / Andrew Staveley / Harry Wheeler / Unravel / plus more TBC

“The haunting of the image and its fragile traces: not memory, record or preservation, but the living object, aging skin and decaying body…
…ephemeral cinema is the flicker of the breathing moment.” [Bradley Eros]

www.oko-lab.blogspot.com

www.artinunusualspaces.co.uk

New Mix by Kelvin on-line

A gift to you for a windy monday. Kelvin isn't just our sound artist he's an internationally acclaimed DJ - here's his most recent mix for Oi Polloi.
The Monday Mixtape #10 'Internal Empires' by Kelvin Brown by oipolloi