Saturday 3rd November - Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre, Dumfries

It was a total pleasure to be present for the 25th anniversary of the excellent Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre in Dumfries this weekend. This 75 seat cinema has been run for a quarter of a century by a dedicated crew of passionate cinephiles offering widely diverse films for the local community who obviously love and cherish the film theatre as it deserves.

 The celebratory weekend's programming including Black Narcissus, A Useful Life, Planes Trains and Automobiles and a fancy dress Skyfall! 

We were thrilled to use the cinema's own Fumeo 16mm projector and be facilitated by the RBCFT's dedicated and founding Projectionist, Alex Morris, who was taught how to project 35mm films just three weeks before the opening in November 1987.

It was an honour to be part of this very special cinema that obviously offers it's community a rich and engaging alternative from the multiplex and in return has a passionate and dedicated regular audience. Hats off to the RBCFT's anniversary and here's to another twenty five years!

Oh and I don't think we've ever had so much cake at a workshop before - thanks again Jennifer! x

Moston Festival of Film with A Small Cinema - 29th and 31st October

We were really proud to be partake in the Moston Festival of Film which is a completely new, built from scratch, cinema that has slowly transformed over the past six months from a burnt-out and disused section of the the Moston Miners Welfare Club  into a multi functional arts space by our friend Sam Meech and a trusty crew of committed volunteers (including a couple of small efforts by Chris) from the very welcoming community surrounding the venue.

The project has an inherant legacy and sustainability and we greatly enjoyed our dates on Monday 29th and special Halloween session on Wednesday 31st which was followed by screenings of 'Monster House' and 'The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue'.
We are looking forward to many future visits to come. Congratulations again to Sam and the team for building this so successfully, a truly remarkable achievement - we salute you!

Check this link to re:dock's photos from the Monday workshop here and the results of the monday session on vimeo:.
Unravel Film at the Miners Cinema from Small Cinema on Vimeo.

Saturday 18th August at Tate Britain

Excited to be returning to Tate Britain tomorrow to run two rooms between 11am and 2pm with a screening at the end of the day on site-specific temporary sculpture made within the same time frame.
We'll be posting pictures after the event so watch this space...

Derby Quad with Q-Club this week

Chris is joining in with the Derby QUAD Q-Club activities this week on Monday and Wednesday to produce work towards the Season of Light project to be shown in October and is looking forward to teaming up again with Sophie Powell and the QUAD Participate Programme.

Also, if in Leeds, be sure to check out Jo's residency at Leeds City Art Gallery. There are free film workshops running every Monday and Thursday until the 23rd August. More details on OKO's blog here.

RIP Chris Marker

Sadly, Chris Marker, another one of our filmic heroes passed away this week. He remains an inspiration to all of the individual members of Unravel. RIP.
http://www.ubu.com/film/marker_junkopia.html

Sunday 29th July at Nozstock in Herefordshire

As mentioned in the previous post, Chris was joined by fellow South Yorkshire bred artist and recent RCA graduate, Lucy Vann to run a workshop for the Wrong Directions Cinema Tent at Nozstock Festival in Herefordshire. It was a great weekend and the festival itself had a great family friendly and community spirit to its revelry.
We spent most of the weekend transfixed by the programming of the cinema tent which was curated by, brothers, Dan and Nick Brown (Mash Cinema and Big Telly Disco respectively) who had compiled over 56 hours of experimental films, animations, and innovative visual performances throughout the entire festival which climaxed with a visuals set that utilised parts of the filmic results of our workshop. Smashing to see some of the Kids for Kids UK animations in there too!

We salute the brothers Brown for their commitment and extreme lack of proper sleep whilst providing an inspiring programme filled with quality work. It was also a privelige to meet The Light Surgeons who were showing fantastic work that intersected between documentary and visual performance work and were genuinely lovely folks. Thanks again to Dan and Nick (and Lucy!) - Herefordshire was superb.

Nozstock this weekend

Chris and, special guest, recent RCA graduate Lucy Vann are running an Unravel workshop in the Wrong Directions Cinema Tent at Nozstock festival this Sunday from 4pm - 7pm which has been organised by Dan Brown as Mash Cinema. Acts include The Futureheads, Manchester's Dub Phisix, and errr... The Proclaimers (check out the link for arguably the most surreal Beckettian pop video featuring identical Scottish twins ever). Should be fun so if you are at the festival this weekend come down and say hi.
 
A Stand from Lucy Vann on Vimeo.

Upcoming

We've some great workshops coming up at the Mash Cinema tent at Nozstock music festival in Herefordshire in July, another prestigious date at Tate Britain in August and the sure-to-be-excellent Moston Festival of Film by North West film hero Sam Meech.

Check out Sam's amazing animation of the Muybridge horse soon to be knitted by Moston based Knit and Natter group

Looking forward to seeing some of you at all or any!

RIP Jeff Keen

We just wanted to pay our respects today to one of our collective film making heroes Jeff Keen who sadly passed away yesterday after a lengthy battle with cancer.
All of the individual  members of Unravel have been influenced by his frenetic style of film making that incorporated comics, pop-culture, humour and performance with highly sophisticated experiments in film and animation. Thankfully his work is now much easier to see thanks to the BFI's Box set released in 2009 and his own website  leaves a lasting legacy. RIP Dr Gaz.


Read William Fowler's obituary for Jeff Keen in The Guardian here.

Saturday 26th May at Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester

Last Saturday Chris led a workshop at the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester and despite the blazing and irregularly hot weather for the notoriously rainy city there were some dedicated participants.

 Our youngest and most productive customer was Adnan, aged six who is pictured here. Thanks to Lou Hargreaves, Elizabeth Wewiora and Gass Pendergast for having us.

In other news, the Music Video mentioned in the last post - directed by Chris is now public as viewable in the link below.

Kelvin will also be creating another site specific installation at Late at Tate Britain this Friday with Simon Little in co-ordination with the rest of the work based on the theme of Migration. Exciting times!
Here's a video of their previous event at Tate Modern back in May...

Lastly, Maria shot and edited this video for the Art Auction event entitled NOW & FUTURE: JAPAN organised in aid of ASHINAGA, a Tokyo-based charity providing long-term financial, educational and emotional support to disaster-affected orphans. Take a look:

Saturday 26th May at Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester

Unravel returns to Manchester on Saturday 26th May at the Chinese Arts Centre in the Northern Quarter area of the city to compliment their current exhibition 'Sixty Minute Cinema' which is a six week changing video programme. As ever, we will create, manipulate and screen a 16mm film made entirely by participants during the three hour workshop which runs on a drop-in/drop-out basis between 2 and 5pm. Chris will be leading the workshop.

Other events to look out for this week in Manchester include FutureEverything , our friends Optic Film Screenings and Swing Ting clubnight to whom Chris has just directed a music video and who's trailer is available here. 
You can also finish off the the saturday night by watching the Eurovision Song Contest, we'll be cheering for Greta Salóme, the Icelandic entry this year - Chris worked with her in his residency in Skálholt in 2010 and she took part in the pre-Unravel workshop session written about here (our first entry on this blog, no less)...Good luck Greta! 


Last tip of the week, if you are lucky enough to find a screening of Ben Rivers' Two Years at Sea (all shot and self-processed on Kodak Plus-X Black and White 16 mm Film stock) still playing at a cinema near you and need the extra push to go see... here's the push.

Artists' Cine Club at FACT in Liverpool

On Tuesday 8th April, Chris will be presenting work and talking about Unravel at the event  Artist Cine Club: Cellu-loko! organised by Kate Murphy alongside presentations by Dave Griffiths and our very own Joanna Byrne who will be performing her excellent expanded cinema performance 'Cleanse, Tone, Moisturise, (Conceal)'. The event is free although booking is recommended. Be great if you can make it...


UPDATE: 
This was a great event and massive thanks to Kate Murphy and Omar Kholeif for making this happen. Excellent work on show from Dave Griffiths too. Liverpool was great for us once again and many thanks to everyone who attended. 
Whilst we are namedropping - make sure to attend Omar's excellent curation at the Cornerhouse for his long awaited Subversion show - it's an aptly titled and very relevant exhibition that genuinely has something to say - not to be missed.  

The journey so far...

Just thought we'd show off this interactive map of all our workshops to date.
Happy Easter to all our supporters, participants and hosts past, present and future!


View Unravel workshops to date feb 2012 in a larger map

Updates from March

We've all had a busy couple of weeks and so this blog has gone a bit quiet of late but there's been plenty of activity on each of our own practices.

First of all have a look at Jo's new website showcasing her own experimental film work and expanded cinema performances, we are all massive fans of Screen Kiss - check it out!

Jo and Chris had a great time at the Henry Moore Institute at the Peripherique talk with a really engaging audience for the Q+A. There will be an article to follow later in the year as a further discussion around the points addressed during the lecture. In attendence was our friend Leah Capaldi who has been making some stunning performance work since graduating at the same time as Chris and Maria at the RCA and it was great to catch up with her.

Kelvin and Chase Lane Audio Projects ran a very successful sound workshop at Tate Modern on Saturday 24th March  in response to the work of Yayoi Kusama. The workshop was apparently attended by nearly 2000 people which is an incredible amount!

Lastly, Chris has a new HD video commision, Family Tree, in the year long show Sublime Transactions at the Armitt Museum and Library in Ambleside which also features work by Hannah Alton, Sir Peter Blake, John Ellis, Paul Farley, Karoline Hjorth, Derek Horton, Riitta Ikonen, Russell Mills, Kate Morrell, Eileen Ramsay, Carole Romaya, David Toop, Ian Walton and Jon Wozencroft.

 His piece was made in collaboration with local residents reflecting on their specific histories in the area and utilised an Unravel workshop in collaboration with our friend Kate Morell in order to generate some of the interview-led soundtrack. Coincidentally it appears that the Ambleside and Windermere region is almost equidistant to Land's End and Jon O'Groats making this our official half way point in geographical terms. That's all for now but we've some exciting new dates to announce very soon..... 

Wednesday 22nd February - Talk at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds

This Wednesday, Chris and Jo will give a presentation on the Unravel project so far, as part of the Henry Moore Institute's Peripherique artist-led event series: 

As well as screening some of the raw 16mm hand-painted footage and a section of the digitised 16 hour film (with edited soundtrack), Chris and Jo will be talking about the project in relation to their own filmmaking practice and ideas relevant to the project, including collaboration, participation and a discussion around using film in a contemporary context.
The talk will run from 6-8pm on Wednesday 22nd February in the HMI Seminar Room. 
Free, no booking necessary.  Hope to see you there!

Saturday 18th February at Colchester's Firstsite

We had a great day at Firstsite last saturday in Colchester with a very busy workshop and well attended screening of the edited unravel films in the Auditorium. A full write up coming very soon but in the mean time here's some pictures from the day...

A quick round up of events coming up in February...

Following our successful screening and workshop event at the IKON Gallery we will be running a similar event at Firstsite in Colchester on Saturday 18th February. This brand new building as a centre for contemporary visual art opened in September last year so we are thrilled to be bringing Unravel to Essex for the first time.  Chris and Maria are running the workshop from 11am - 1pm and 2pm-4pm with a screening at 4pm, our edited highlights will also be playing in a seperate gallery space throughout the day.

Chris will also be running an Unravel event on Wednesday 15th February in Ambleside at the Kelsick Centre from 2.30pm - 5.30pm.  This is a special workshop made in conjunction with work Chris is developing for an exciting group show in late March at the Armitt Gallery, Museum and Library  in Ambleside co-curated by Russell Mills of which more details will be released soon.

Chris and Jo will be in discussion on Unravel in the evening of Wednesday 22nd of February at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds as part of the Peripherique series of artists' talks. We will be showcasing the various formats and processes of the project alongside our own perspectives on using analogue film in the digital age. The event is free and runs from 6pm - 8pm. Don't forget to check out OKO's own blog for Mark and Jo's latest activities.

Finally(!) our friend Sam Meech is running a direct film workshop on Saturday 11th February at St Helen's Library in Liverpool from 11- 3 as well as an iMovie workshop in the iHub. Chris might be joining in if he can make it over but it should be a great event regardless. 

Wrap up warm everyone!

Workshop and Installation at IKON Gallery 7th and 8th of January 2012

On saturday 7th and sunday 8th of January we returned, exactly one year to the day since our last visit, to the IKON Gallery in Birmingham to present edited highlights of the completed Unravel films so far in a temporary installation located on the first floor.

 The saturday also saw us deliver another workshop within the gallery space and utilising the entire second floor (quite literally in one of the rooms) that attracted a large crowd of new participants as well as a few returning  faces.  It was fantastic to be run the workshops within the exhibition spaces, which currently are showing works by Stuart Whipps, Dean Kelland and John Myers. We really had a fantastic weekend and were incredibly well looked after by all of the IKON's excellent staff, especially Learning Co-ordinator, Emma Bowen who has now attended and hosted numerous Unravel events. It was also a pleasure to meet so many amazing people over the course of the weekend and couldn't have asked to start 2012 in a better way. Cheers