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Catching up…

365/17. Daily notes from the City of Culture.

Yes, it’s over 10 weeks since I blogged anything about the City of Culture.

That’s not because there’s been nothing going on.

That’s not because it’s been shit.

That’s not because there’s some underhand, devious plot to silence me.

It’s not because I’m frightened of falling off the guest lists that have made attending so many events this year plausible.

It’s simply because I haven’t blogged anything.

And looking at the list of the things I have seen and experienced over those 10 weeks, the temptation is not to bother to document it on here (it’ll be on twitter if you’re familiar with that rather more succinct way to witter on about stuff).

What kind of stupid mindset was I in when I reckoned I’d blog every day of the year (like I did for, um, 8+ years)? Why didn’t I take notes? Why would I take notes – it’s not like I get paid for this drivel.

So, I reckon a list is easier. I’ve been out a lot and another weekend awaits (Where Are We Now? – “a gathering of time-served trouble-makers, spoken word rebels, artistic mavericks and left-field music pioneers”. Y’know, those people that you swerve in the pub).

Yes, a list. It’ll save you the bother of having to read a stupidly lengthy post, me the bother of having to write it, and avoid the fallout from makers and shakers should I mention that any of it’s been underwhelming, or from the ‘countercultural’ bullshitters should I overstate that I like something.

So, a list it is. Which is a shame, because I do have extensive thoughts on what the list contains, and bubbling away somewhere is some kind of overarching sense of how the year’s shaping up, now we’re five months in, and the team delivering it. But fuck it, this is a free service. Commission me if you want the full story.

This list is not necessarily definitive. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some stuff. And there’s been some work that falls outside the official programme that I’ve been to that’s not included here.

Height of the Reeds: a sound journey for the Humber Bridge. Music by Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset and Jan Bang, the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North; field recordings by Jez Riley French; voices of Maureen Lipman, Barrie Rutter, and Katie Smith. Musical arrangement by Aleksander Waaktar.

Fountain 17. Armitage Shanks, Hull School of Art & Design and a load of artists celebrate the dual anniversaries of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (100 years) and Armitage Shanks (200 years). Toilets, etc.

John Grant’s North Atlantic Flux: Songs from Smoky Bay. Four days of Scandinavian and Icelandic musicians, including GusGus, Susanne Sundfør, Lindstrøm, Sóley, Sykur, Prins Póló, Nordic Affect, Ragga Gisla, Fufanu, Ghostigital, descending on Hull at various venues. With the added bonus of Cobby & Litten.

Slung Low’s Flood: Abundance (Part 2). The second quarter of “an extraordinary year-long epic”. Outdoor theatre in the Victoria Dock basin. With headsets.

ReRooted – Hull Time Based Arts. A two-day takeover of Hull’s new Humber Street Gallery. All free.

SKIN: Freud, Mueck and Tunick. What the half of Hull that got their kit off has been waiting for. With added delights including Ron Mueck’s mind-bending sculptures of the human form.

Depart. An atmospheric Circa Production in General Cemetery (one of Larkin’s favourite haunts).

Richard III. Northern Broadsides and Hull Truck co-pro. Marking 25 years of Broadsides, with added drumming from Hull Samba.

Jason Singh workshop. We learned how to beatbox and make the sounds of waves lapping, saws buzzing and foghorns blasting.

Lego Daffodils. Daffodils. Made of Lego.

BBC Radio 1 Academy – Piano Sessions hosted by Huw Stephens and Greg James that saw Two Door Cinema Club’s Alex Trimble, Oh Wonder, Ghetts & Shakka and Blanaevon stripping back their work and making it a bit more plinky plonky.

BBC Radio 1 Academy – You Me At Six

BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend. We went on the Saturday.

Poppies: Weeping Window. Several thousand handmade ceramic poppies, from the somewhat more impressive installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London, oozed out of the Maritime Museum.

Grow. Hull Truck’s artist development programme for artists of all ages and at all stages of their careers. Now in its fourth year. Launch event and First Time Out, which included brand new work by Junior Adults, End of the Line and The Roaring Girls.

Raft of the Medusa/Somewhere Becoming Sea. Lucy and Jorge Orta’s multi-sensory installation on the ground floor of Humber Street Gallery, while upstairs international artists, including Simon Faithfull, Lavinia Greenlaw, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen and Isabella Martin, reflect on how expanses of water that divide countries are also channels that connect them.

Jeremy Corbyn Rally: Zebedee’s Yard. This was a 2017 event, right? With the added bonus of Cobby & Litten and that poem by Shane Rhodes.

What I didn’t get round to blogging about previously:

Coum Transmissions exhibition. The first exhibition of materials drawn from the personal archives of Cosey Fanni Tutti and Genesis P-Orridge.

Coum Transmissions: Cosey Club. Richard Clouston and Perc in the Tunnel Bar.

What I wish I’d been at:

I wasn’t fussed at the time but Periplum’s Seven Alleys in East Park sounds like it was fun.

 

Coffee dregs…

365/17. Daily notes from the City of Culture.

Lines of Thought at the University of Hull

Finally went to see Lines of Thought, the British Museum’s touring exhibition currently in the Brynmor Jones Library exhibition space at the University of Hull. “The greatest gathering of artistic talent ever seen in Hull, in one exhibition,” revealing some of the creative process of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Dürer, Degas and a load of other big names.

Having stared up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a couple of weeks ago, I’m still going through a period of reacclimatising when it comes to looking at anything not on an epic scale, but it was very interesting to see these drawings, etchings, sketches and doodles. I had to stop short of telling everyone in the room, as a I looked at Michelangelo’s Studies for the Last Judgement, that I’d seen the finished product, and it was a lot more mind-blowing than the black chalk on paper I was looking at.

I was most enamoured by the work of a writer. Victor Hugo produced nearly 3,000 drawings in his lifetime, which provided the impetus to let his imagination run riot when it came to putting pen to paper and his words in the right order. I love his choice of materials – soot, the occasional bit of ink and, most impressively, the dregs of his coffee.

I said to a woman staring at Hugo’s Landscape With A Castle (1857) that I now knew what I could do with all that leftover coffee that lurks at the bottom of mugs I have next to my laptop. “Ah yes,” she said, “but could you do something that good with them?” She’s clearly not seen the self portrait I did for #challengehull otherwise she’d have known the answer.

Heads Up Festival tickets…

365/17. Daily notes from the City of Culture.

We’ve got another Heads Up Festival on the way. This will be number eight and the festival’s now in its fourth year. Yeah, we were doing culture in Hull before it was fashionable. Tickets are on sale. Theatre Ad Infinitum, Tom Penn, Shannon Yee and Will Dickie are all coming to Hull because of us (and Battersea Arts Centre, and the desire of those artists to rock up here). And we’ve also got Theatre Hullabaloo, Blazons and Indigo Moon too. Not too shabby at all. www.headsuphull.co.uk

Theatre sorts…

365/17. Daily notes from the City of Culture.

Hull's theatre sorts

I still have no idea why but I was summoned to a photocall, along with just about everyone else that makes theatre in the city of Hull. It was a veritable who’s who of relatively recent University of Hull graduates, and us. And it was far too early in the morning for anyone to make sense of why we were there, or even talk coherently. One free cup of Thieving Harry’s coffee was not quite enough.

We were told to not “wear any massive Pepsi/Nike etc logos or anything like that.”  Everyone complied with this request, probably as it was too late to go out and purchase brands that we’d never go anywhere near. And we got to fuck about on the rooftop garden of the new Humber Street Gallery and lean on walls and doors down Humber Street while we pouted theatrically in the direction of a camera lens, looking mean and angry and subversive and revolutionary. Which is, of course, all fake.

There was no real drama of which to speak, just a lot of what the excessively large in number gig-theatre evangelists Middle Child (Hull theatre’s most successful five-a-side football squad. A lot of strength-in-depth on that bench) would refer to as ‘bantz’, which no doubt bodes well for the future.

Blade in Hull…

365/17. Daily notes from the City of Culture.

 

Blade installed at Queen Victoria Square, Hull.

Blade installed at Queen Victoria Square, Hull.

 

A massive turbine blade, manufactured by Hull employees at the new Siemens factory in Hull, was transported overnight to Hull’s city centre. As Made in Hull was packed down, the blade was en route to kick-off the next phase of Hull 2017 – Look Up. But it wasn’t just any old blade. It was Blade. A temporary, readymade artwork, we’re told.

Conceived by artist Nayan Kulkarni, Blade has been created as the first of a programme of temporary artworks that will be thrust into and around the city’s public spaces and places.

Blade uses one of the first B75 rotor blades made in Hull and changes its status to that of a readymade artwork. At 75 metres it is the world’s largest, handmade fibreglass component – cast as a single element. According to the Hull Daily Mail, Blade weighs the equivalent of four bull elephants squeezed together on the same scales. Not sure why you’d go squeezing bull elephants on to the same scales, but it makes a change from comparing large things to football pitches and Olympic-size swimming pools.

Is it art? You decide. I think that’s the point. As I tweeted, I’m impressed by the bull elephant scale of this hefty public intervention. It is an enviable and undeniable feat of engineering and an interesting talking point. If it gets us questioning the relationship between corporate sponsorship of arts and cultural events (which will increase, as public funding declines), that’s also a worthwhile by-product.

Hull before culture…

365/17. Daily notes from the City of Culture.

So Day Five of Hull’s journey in 2017 included me appearing, albeit briefly, on Radio 4 as a contributor to part-one of a two part documentary called Hull Before Culture, produced by Mary Ward-Lowery.

John Godber, the third most performed playwright in the UK, bundled me into a car at the end of November and a microphone between the pair of us captured a chat as John drove us over to Hull KR’s KC Lightstream stadium. I was a bit unwell at the time and had absolutely no idea if what was coming out of my mouth made any sense. I had to ask John halfway through if I was talking gibberish, as I kept losing my train of thought. Miraculously, Mary managed to find some stuff that didn’t make me sound too much of an idiot. I also sound like I’m from Hull, which is a relief. Good to hear Nick Lane on there too, my old mucker Phil Codd and Kardomah94 owner Malcolm Scott, who once gave me the keys to his office block without realising that I’d sleep there on the odd occasion. In fact, I once slept on top of a giant carrot suit. Happy days. Don’t work in the arts, kids.

Anyway, you’ll be able to listen to Hull Before Culture Pt 1 again here.