Cape Town Under: Site Recce: Parade

-Cape Town, 5 October 2013-The latest curatorial site recce for guerilla gallery's project Cape Town Under revealed a beautiful surprise: a bifurcated tunnel running under the Grand Parade. It looks like this: 

The artist will sing into this tunnel from an open manhole entry point, playing with the acoustics to create echoes and refrains. Their view to the world above will look something like this: 

And this is the ground floor where passersby will be able to stumble across this singing intervention as it happens, performed live in the tunnels: 

Or, if you happen to be walking along the pavement near the City Hall on the day in question, you might hear a beautiful lullaby echo coming out of this manhole here: 

For more information on Cape Town Under: The Third Voice check out the dedicated project website where we will shortly post the November performance schedule: www.capetownunder.withtank.com

Photos: Kim Gurney

Cape Town Under: The Third Voice

-Cape Town, 3 October 2013-Cape Town's historical tunnels will briefly turn into a musical instrument in November (dates TBC) as an artist sings from an open manhole connecting to these underground spaces in guerilla gallery's second project. 

Pauline Theart, a Fine Artist from Johannesburg who uses her voice and song as medium, will perform an extended lullaby at selected tunnel interfaces. Cape Town Under: The Third Voice forms part of a larger exploration of land by Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA).

Closed manhole on the Castle Lawn

Open manhole on Castle Lawn

Kim Gurney conceived Cape Town Under for guerilla gallery and curates the intervention with participant artists. She says: "We hope this feminine, lyrical song emanating from a stark built environment will intrigue and move people in the midst of their everyday interactions. It is a simple, affective gesture that cues past and present while speaking to restorative futures."

Cape Town's tunnels were first built as canals by the Dutch and more recently enclosed by the Victorians. Today, they act as stormwater pathways where fresh water flows invisibly under the city from the mountain out to sea. The performance sites include a manhole on the Castle lawn, a trapdoor facing Strand Street and a manhole on the Grand Parade.

The unique acoustics let the sound travel upwards to surprise people above ground through the emotional interiors of song. It also loops in the tunnels themselves to create echoes and refrains, in what Theart speaks of as a 'third voice' or 'the unforeseen voice'.

The manhole on the Grand parade where the performance will take place

The manhole adjacent the Grand parade where the lullaby will echo

The one-hour tunnel performances will take place daily at rotating sites - exact dates and schedule to be announced shortly. 

Ask the artist about this one..... 

LAND is an interdisciplinary project run by GIPCA at University of Cape Town to explore ideas around land and territory through a symposium, exhibitions, interventions and more. This guerilla gallery project is made possible with support from GIPCA.

For further details visit www.capetownunder.withtank.com and updates will be posted on this blog as we go. 

The trapdoor

The view inside the trapdoor where the artist will sing

going underground....

There is supposedly a (not so) new kind of cultural pop-up fad, in case you have been wondering where we've been. It's the slow pop-up -- like a restaurant that takes a very long time to emerge, has a limited life span, and then disappears again without trace. 

Being under the blog radar is nothing quite as sophisticated or measured. It's more like a combination of inaugural project aftermath combined with the realities that put pro bono cultural forays on hold until momentum gathers anew and a workable resurgence aligns.

This shapeshifting and entirely ad hoc nature is of course part of guerilla gallery's ethos. It by definition morphs as it goes into new and considered inflections: a flexible curatorial platform that has no physical structure of its own and fits instead literally into other spaces and conceptually with other projects. It does so when the necessary vectors line up. 

In this, it takes inspiration from Rosi Braidotti's 'Transpositions' (2006), a book title partly inspired by music and partly by genetics and hence material embodiment. She writes about this 'intertextual, cross-boundary or transversal transfer' as a leap from one code, field or axis to another in terms of complex multiplicities: 'As a term in music, transposition indicates variations and shifts of scale in a discontinuous but harmonious pattern. It is thus created as an in-between space of zigzagging and of crossing: non-linear, but not chaotic; nomadic, yet accountable and committed; creative but also cognitively valid; discursive and also materially embedded -- it is coherent without falling into instrumental rationality' (2006, 5).  

The good news is guerilla gallery's second zigzag is on the horizon -- this time hopefully in Cape Town, where its management has relocated. Stay tuned. We are going underground....

Finissage: APPEAL 2012

Thank you to everyone who helped round off this three-week project, APPEAL 2012, which came to a close last night in Doornfontein. 

This inaugural project for guerilla gallery is a long-running research exploration by Elgin Rust around the notion of judicial versus aesthetic redress and takes the form of a ficitional trial. Rust opened this process up to a jury of participants artists for its Johannesburg iteration: Catherine Dickerson, Amber-Jade Geldenhuys, Ansie Greyling, Kadromatt, Ikram Lakhdhar, Kai Lossgott, Leroye Malaton, Agnes Marton, Naadira Patel, Sandile Radebe, Pauline Theart, Mma Tseleng and Marguerite Visser.

The exhibition continually shapeshifted over its run, as the artists responded to a core installation of 'evidence' by Rust as well as the industrial exhibition space, and these were fully evident at the finissage event on Monday 24 September.

Some of the works were performative and ephemeral. These included a performance piece by Kai Lossgott, including a typewriter, legal statute book and magnetic tape. This relates to another work of his on exhibition entitled truth addicts anonymous where Lossgott has effectively destroyed the page of a legal statute book by overtyping variations on the oath to sworn testimony and presented it on the surface of an LED lightbox. The finissage also included a performance by Pauline Theart, currently completing her MA in Interactive Media at University of the Witwatersrand, who sang a lullaby into the exhibition space in response to perceived trauma in the work as part of a broader artistic exploration of voice and song in sound art. She repeated this performance at the artists' walkabout and the vernissage.

The opening night also featured two performance works: Agnes Marton's unnanounced poetry readings around the exhibition space; and a unique kwaito set by Kadromatt and Mma Tseleng that referenced a legal dispute regarding royalties and copyright issues rendered together with courtroom audio evidence provided by Rust.

Other works were site-specific, such as Sandile Radebe's cardboard column that responded to notions of architectural redress, and Ansie Greyling's 'Gogga' installation that climbed two adjacent walls as well as Amber-Jade Geldenhuys' installation of obsolete surveillance cameras from an existing perforation in the ceiling. Some were collaborative, such as Leroye Malaton's reconfiguration of Elgin Rust's 'The Ship of Fools' into a kind of pscyhogeography of how it feels to be inside a courtroom scenario. Catherine Dickerson's inflatable sculptures also took a cue from the venue, more in form than content, with their materials reflecting a new method of working in stitched refuse bags powered by eletric fans in the first installation and hairdryers in the second. All were set to automated timers that inflated and deflated the sculptures at intervals. Naadira Patel installed a video and sound work projected onto the back wall of a vault-like room and Ikram Lakhdhar participated long-distance from the US with a visual response to the artworks in progress.

Herewith some photos from the closing event:

Kai Lossgott and Pauline Theart 

Guests with one of Sandile Radebe's sculptural installations on the right

Elgin Rust's tower installation of tapes 

The main exhibition space

Elgin Rust's roaming advocate

Acknowledgements started the evening off

Amber-Jade Geldenhuys' installation 'Static Mobile' gets close attention

Kai Lossgott's LED lightbox work 'truth addicts anonymous'

Artists' Walkabout: APPEAL 2012

Interested parties joined artists from 'APPEAL 2012' on 15 September to hear more about the exhibition and research project currently showing in Doornfontein:

Elgin Rust introduces her project in front of her tower installation

Sandile Radebe explains his work in progress

Leroye Malaton speaks about his reconfiguration of Elgin Rust's 'Ship of Fools'

Kim Gurney introduces Kai Lossgott's lightbox work in the 'judges' room'

Leroye Malaton takes a closer look at Ansie Greyling's 'Gogga' installation in the corner of the 'jury room'

Elgin Rust shows what 'The Ship of Fools' looked like before Leroye's intervention

Pauline Theart performs a lullaby into the exhibition space in response to perceived trauma evident in the work. Her piece is part of a broader exploration of voice and song in sound art.

Project website: http://appeal-2012.withtank.com

Installation of 'Appeal 2012' underway

Collaborating artists for the forthcoming exhibition 'Appeal 2012' are busy installing their work in a warehouse space in Doornfontein:

Elgin Rust
 

Amber-Jade Geldenhuys

The 'jury' table (detail)

Sandile Radebe and Agnes Marton 

'Evidence'

Judges' room

Photos: Kim Gurney

The show opens on Tuesday 11 September at 18h00 at 3 Buxton Street, cnr 29 Siemert. Visit www.facebook.com/guerillagallery.jhb for updates and http://appeal-2012.withtank.com for more project information.

Kwaito set from Mma Tseleng and Kadromatt opens 'Appeal 2012'

Mma Tseleng & Kadromatt return to explore early Kwaito's use of language in Case # 001/05/1994-2004: Sghubu vs The People. Building from Hillbrow: The Map, a mixtape and cassette sleeve publication that looked at royalty and ownership cases in early Kwaito, the duo will perform at the vernissage of the exhibition 'Appeal' a set that investigates music's disregard for morals, the media, academia, hypocrisy and society's double standards.

Join Mma Tseleng & Kadromatt to celebrate the opening of Elgin Rust's exhibition and research project that together with a dozen participating artists explores the intersection of art, law and the media and related notions of redress.

The exhibition is the inaugural project of guerilla gallery, which eschews its own bricks and mortar to host projects in makeshift city spaces.

Date: Tuesday 11 September
Time: 18h00
Venue: 3 Buxton Street, cnr 29 Siemert, Doornfontein, Johannesburg - courtesy The Living Artists' Emporium

w: http://www.appeal-2012.withtank.com
f: www.facebook.com/guerillagallery.jhb

Hillbrow: The Map (detail) (2012)
Installation towards a cassette sleeve and mixtape publication, part of the Independent Publishing Project, April 2012
Mma Tseleng and Kadromatt
Image credit: Francis Burger

Full jury for 'APPEAL 2012'

The forthcoming exhibition 'APPEAL 2012', opening on Tuesday 11 September in Doornfontein, has a full participating 'jury' of a dozen artists. They range from a poet to an artist inspired by graffiti and rap, to another whose signature is inflatable sculptures. 

The participating artists are: Catherine Dickerson, Amber-Jade Geldenhuys, Ansie Greyling, Ikram Lakhdhar, Kai Lossgott, Nelson Makamo, Leroye Malaton, Agnes Marton, Naadira Patel, Sandile Radebe, Pauline Theart and Marguerite Visser. 

They will respond in their chosen medium broadly to the notion of judicial redress, more specifically triggered by a core installation from Cape Town-based artist Elgin Rust. At the heart of 'APPEAL 2012' is a centrepiece of 'evidence' in diverse media including found courtroom furniture reconfigured into installations. There is also photographic evidence, audio recordings, documentation and an online archive of case material.  

The project has a roll call of fictional characters headed by Advocate Alice who leads the evidence. The collaborating artists are in turn imagined as a jury and their aesthetic responses will be assembled into the group exhibition at different points over its two-week run. The finissage on 24 September could be understood as a composite statement about emotional transformation. 

Planned works range from narrative text and poetry to video, found objects such as surveillance cameras, resampled sound and more. One participant is interacting with the project long-distance from the US in an experimental profiling exchange. 

The exhibition is preceded by a workshop where participants are invited to refine their responses and collaborate. 

A dedicated exhibition website has more information: http://appeal-2012.withtank.com

Exhibit C  (2010)

Elgin Rust

Sixth in the Series, Edition ⅓

Photomontage, collaged, archival ink on photolustre paper

84 x 147cm

Vernissage: Tuesday 11 September @ 18h00
Venue: 2nd floor, Warehouse Building East, 3 Buxton Street, Doornfontein
Viewing hours: 10h00-14h00
Finissage: Monday 24 September & 18h00