Kneel, Mulholland: Drive!

An Unco Site!

Edinburgh Art Festival 2010  

An Unco Site!

As part of the 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival Expo Commission, the Confraternity of Neoflagellants are staging a ‘zombie walk’ and reception on Saturday the 7th of August. This involves a mash-up of Robert Burns’ Tam O’Shanter, The Party (starring Peter Sellers) (1968), Night of the Living Dead (1985) and The Fall’s Live at the Witch Trials (1979). A secret party is being held in the honour of Edinburgh's 'ghosts’, the living dead who wear historical costume for their work. At 11:00pm this Confraternity of Neoflagellants will assemble at the Scott Monument and walk through the City of Edinburgh, arriving at an undisclosed location before the midnight hour. Once there, they will cross the Styx to a wake. The after party will feature music and DJ sets as well as projections by artists currently exhibiting in ‘Avalon’ at The Embassy gallery in the Roxy Art House, Edinburgh. An Unco Site! is a psychogeographical work's night out, a busman's holiday that will create a confluence of professional historical actors, re-enactors and tour guides working in the City of Edinburgh - to allow them to meet and mingle and to share indulgences, resources and friendships.

Warlocks and witches in a dance:

Nae cotillon, brent new frae France,

But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,

Put life and mettle in their heels.

If you would like to participate or attend please contact the event producers:

leadingmotif[at]googlemail.com   

An Unco Site! has three components:   

1. 'The Zombie Walk’ 11pm, Scott Monument, Saturday 7^th August 2010.

2.  ‘The Reception’  early hours of Sunday 8^th August 2010.

3. ‘Investigating Premodern Futures’™ – Symposium, Monday 9th August in Inspace, University of Edinburgh, featuring a range of speakers on the subject of neomedievalism.

An Unco Site! will be streamed live to Bambuser. http://bambuser.com/channel/Confraternity+of+Neoflagellants

Photographs and footage will be edited for future podcasting on Central Station http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Confraternity-of-Neoflagellant/group/113456/126249.html  

Supported by:

The event has been made possible by support from the Scottish Government's Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund for the Edinburgh Art Festival 2010, Central Station, New Media Scotland and Inspace.

The Edinburgh Art Festival showcases the very best in Scottish, British and international visual art in Edinburgh during the August festivals.

The Confraternity of Neoflagellants

The Confraternity of Neoflagellants are lay peoples dedicated to the ascetic application, dissemination and treatment of neomedievalism in contemporary culture. They are attuned to the scent of medieval analogies relating to the creative commons, the folkmote, the plateau of middle, post-post-industrialism and to geopolitical debates in the current era of zombie capitalism and the new irrationalism.

Something Might Happen

The Forgotten Bar, Boppstrasse 5

Berlin

(U8- Schonleinstr, direction Hermannstr)

20:00, Monday 21st June 2010

‘Avalon’

The Embassy, Roxy Art House,  2 Roxburgh Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9SU

19.06.10 – 11.07.10

The relentless association, from the Renaissance onwards, of the Middle Ages with the ‘hypereconomy’ of the gift, with whatever exceeds calculation or rationality, for good or for ill, has made the Middle Ages a marker of fantasy and excess (...), a figure of the unnecessary and the extraordinary. Louise Fradenburg, 1997

Atilliator Plastique Fantastique – Burgage in London and Birmingham. www.plastiquefantastique.org

Doctor Mirabilis Torsten Lauschmann – Bad Soden, Germany, 1970. Wapentake Glasgow. www.lauschmann.com

Angry Penguin David Osbaldeston – Middlesbrough, 1968. Riding in Manchester. www.mattsgallery.org/artists/osbaldeston/home.php

Head Fatrasist Alex Pollard – Brighton, 1977. Hide in Glasgow. www.sorchadallas.com/artists/6

Almoner Andro Semeiko – Ozurgeti, Georgia, 1975. Knight’s fee London. www.androsemeiko.com

Falconer General Ewan Sinclair – Burgh Edinburgh. www.ewansinclair.co.uk

Neoflagellant without portfolio Eddo Stern – Tel Aviv, 1972. Rape of San Francisco. www.eddostern.com

Witch with HP-50 Emma Tolmie - Lathe Edinburgh. www.emmatolmie.co.uk

‘Avalon’ is the first curatorial investigation into premodern futurity by The Confraternity of Neoflagellants - lay peoples dedicated to the ascetic application, dissemination and treatment of neomedievalism in contemporary culture. Borne of the new irrationalism of zombie capitalism, they are attuned to the scent of medieval in the creative commons, in the folkmote, the plateau of middle, in the unbundled territoriality of post-post-industrialism.

Neomedievalism embraces the spectral traces or ‘uncertain knowledges’ of its historical past as part of an ever-morphing, force-feedback simulation, (or permanent rehearsal) of coming events. The longing for a future assembled from a bricolage of pre-modern components embeds itself deeper with every advance in the technologies of representation. The fantasy must become ever closer to reality.

This investigation specifically augments The Embassy’s residency within the bell tower and crypt of the Baronial Revival Roxburgh Church. The Confraternity have drawn upon the scholastic symbolism of Dante Alighieri’s Commedia - the principle map of dualistic medieval cosmology and a mythology important to the hacker intelligentsia of early Internet development communities - to codify the ecclesiastical space according to neomedieval gaming principles of grinding and leveling-up common in the ‘beige age of swords and circuitry’, the nerdosphere of MUD’s and MMORPG.

The neomedieval dislocates from other historical medievalisms (and the very practice of linear historicism) via its engagement with the present and its hypostasisation of the Middle Ages either as deep-rooted, disembodied fantasy of excess, or as a disembodied textual resource that may be freely engaged. But, if neomedievalism allows us to speak to the medieval within us and imagine our futures through a medieval lens, it also functions as an actual return to the social, political and cultural conditions of Medieval Europe.

This sense of insecurity reflects the fact that the provision of security itself as a public good – the very raison d’être of the state’s system – can no longer be guaranteed by that system. - Phillip Cerny

And so we begin our Gnostic cycle of the Ouroboros...

In conjunction with The Embassy, Edinburgh Annuale, Edinburgh College of Art and Central Station, a collaborative codex of rhizomic illumination – Umberto Eco’s ‘fantastic neomedievalism’ in the ‘sword and sorcery’ model of story-telling, popularised by pulp author Robert E. Howard in the 1930s - has been made available in the free manuscript ‘Avalon, Book II’.

Additionally, at 3pm on the 28th June, the Confraternity will mount the Roxburgh Kirk pulpit to expound further irrationalisms.

Cartography of The Tower:

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate - Dante

1^st Circle, Limbo:

Ewan Sinclair and Emma Tolmie Modified Knights: Crusaders of the Cosmic Forge (2010). Looped DVD and Mixed Media.

2^nd Circle, The Lustful:

Ewan Sinclair and Emma Tolmie Modified Knights: Crusaders of the Cosmic Forge (2010). Looped DVD and Mixed Media.

3^rd Circle, The Gluttonous:

Ewan Sinclair and Emma Tolmie Modified Knights: Crusaders of the Cosmic Forge (2010). Looped DVD.

4^th Circle, Avarice and Prodigality:

Eddo Stern Best...flame war ..Ever: Leegattenby King of Bards v. Squire Rex, (2007), QuickTime Movie, 14:37mins.

5^th Circle, The Wrathful and Sullen:

Andro Semeiko Secret (2010) Acrylic and Oil on Board, 120x50cm.

6^th Circle, Heretics:

Portal to Jerusalem, Edinburgh Annuale 2010 Information Point

7^th Circle, Violence:

Plastique Fantastique Plastique Fantastique Inversion Cone (2010). Assemblage.

8^th Circle, Malebolge:

Plastique Fantastique Plastique Fantastique Diagram of the Plague Bacterium: Welcome Cunverse – Negative (2010). Glitter, variable dimensions.

9^th Circle, Giant’s Well:

Plastique Fantastique Plastique Fantastique Cunverse: Welcome Run – T – Mo – Bile – Still - Ner (2010). Looped DVD.

The Empyrean:

In modernism, i.e., in evolutionary thought, man stands at the top of a stair whose foot is lost in obscurity; in medieval though he stands at the bottom of a stair whose top is invisible with light. - C.S. Lewis

David Osbaldeston Another Shadow Fight (2008). Digital prints in Vorticist mannerism originated from woodcuts based on Sidney Noland’s Ned Kelly series (1946-7). Newspaper kiosk design by Herbert Bayer, 1924 (unrealised). Variable dimensions. 3^rd installation.

Andro Semeiko Unveiling Model of Rocket MT2010 (2010) Acrylic and Oil on Board, 195x125cm.

Alex Pollard Chrome Poulaine (2010) Bespoke training shoe, made in Italy.

Alex Pollard Dandy Outlaws Gesturing by a Falling Tree (Night Vision) (2009) Oil on Canvas, 145cm x 155cm.

Torsten Lauschmann Parlez-Vous Hollywood? (2010), DVD, 5mins

Andro Semeiko Tea Break (2010), Acrylic and Oil on Board, 30x55cm.

The Confraternity would like to give thanks to the artists, The Embassy Directors, Edinburgh College of Art, Central Station, Edinburgh University Settlement, Roxy Art House, Sorcha Dallas, Laing Art Gallery, Berwick Gymnasium Art Gallery, Laura Edbrook, Rocca Gutteridge, Little Moves, James Clegg, JJ Charlesworth, Thea Stevens and Emlyn Frith.

The Confraternity of Neoflagellants was founded in 2009 by Serjeant-At-Law Norman Hogg and joined by Keeper of the Wardrobe Neil Mulholland. It is a secular and equal opportunities confraternity bound by chirograph.

For further information and to join the Confraternity of Neoflagellants:

http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Confraternity-of-Neoflagellant/group/113456/126249.html

The North

Visual and Material Practices and the Cultural ‘North’

This experimental workshop will consider how ideas about ‘northernness’ are embodied in contemporary art and design practices, as well as exploring the recent proliferation of specially themed research networks , scholarly and public events that examine representations of the ‘cultural north’ in historic and contemporary visual and material culture. Building on the success of these events, participants in this workshop will consider how questions and issues arising from recent projects that practitioners and scholars at ECA and the University of Northumbria have conducted (as well as future projects they are planning) may contribute toward the development of new projects/networks/collaborations that are concerned with ‘northerness’ in creative practice as they relate particularly to Northeast England, Scotland and Scandinavia.

The practices and projects discussed in the introductory part of the workshop will span the disciplines of contemporary art, film, and material culture studies, and the audience will be asked to actively contribute to discussions.

Format:

There will be 4-5 short presentations from practitioners and scholars about recent/planned projects that explore ‘northernness’ in a number of different ways. Following this, we will have a roundtable discussion about these and future projects bearing the following questions in mind:

-What is ‘northernness’?
-How has recent creative practice and scholarship addressed this?
-How can new networks/projects/collaborations at ECA and other institutions be developed around this theme?

The final part of the afternoon will include a summation of ideas and a preliminary sketching out of ideas for research projects, networks and potential external funding applications.

The workshop will take place from 1-5 pm on 26 May, 2.15 EvoHouse, Edinburgh College of Art.

The Model, Sligo - Ireland

I’ll be speaking at this event in Sligo on the 2nd of May:

Dorm
The Model – Sligo, Ireland
Opening: Saturday 1 May 2010 18:00-21:00
Symposium: Sunday 2 May 2010 16:00-18:00
Exhibition: Sunday 2 May – Sunday 4 July 2010
http://themodel.ie/exhibitions/dorm

The Model re-opens May Day with the vibrant exhibition Dorm.

Writing PAD - Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 2.3

I've been editing the forthcoming Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 2.3. It's out now. Click on the image to the left to see the contents and contributors.

You can get a free copy of JWCP issue 1.2 here.