Whitstable Biennale Radio

Nicole Bachmann is an artist working across video, text, sound and performance. Her work explores how the voice and movement can be activated by the individual to make oneself heard and used as an agent for social and political change. This conversation, between Nicole and Whitstable Biennale performance curator and artist Keira Greene, took place on 19 November 2019 shortly after Nicole's performance Or what is (variations) at Mimosa House. The recording includes audio extracted from Or what is (variations) and features Jia-Yu Corti, Patricia Langa and Legion Seven. A written transcription of the interview is available for hard of hearing people via our online journal: https://whitstablebiennale.com/journal/nicole-bachmann-in-conversation-with-keira-greene/

Anna Barham's artwork uses video, text, print, installation and live events to set up relationships between human and non-human others.  Exposing language to different bodies, forms and technologies, she creates complex feedback loops in which we witness - and contribute to - the production, erosion and modification of meaning.Listen to Anna's reading of 'Undone in the face'  -  a new work produced for Whitstable Biennale Journal from material she generated during a residency at St John's College Oxford in Spring 2019 . The recording is followed by a conversation with Whitstable Biennale performance curator Keira Greene, in which Anna describes her work with reading groups and voice recognition software, as well as the ideas and texts informing her work.

Created by Siobhan Davies and filmmaker David Hinton in 2012, All This Can Happen is a film constructed entirely from archive photographs and footage from the earliest days of cinema. Based on Robert Walser’s novella ‘The Walk’ (1917), the film follows the footsteps of the protagonist as series of small adventures and chance encounters take the walker from idiosyncratic observations of ordinary events towards a deeper pondering on the comedy, heartbreak and ceaseless variety of life. A flickering dance of intriguing imagery brings to light the possibilities of ordinary movements from the everyday which appear, evolve and freeze before your eyes. Juxtapositions, different speeds and split frame techniques convey the walker’s state of mind as he encounters a world of hilarity and despair. Whitstable Biennale screened All This Can Happen in 2016. This was followed by this conversation between Davies and Whitstable Biennale 2016 Cinema curator Gareth Evans .

On the afternoon of 4 August 2018, Dave Kane (double bass, Leeds), Alex Neilson (drums, Glasgow), Chris Sharkey (electric guitar, Leeds) and Alex Ward (clarinet/electric guitar, London) performed as an improvisational quartet for the first time. Their 45-minute set took place in a marquee on Ramsgate beach in front of a captivated audience of around 250 people. Recorded by Adam Ellis and Dynamic Production Solutions. Post Production for this recording was by Adam Coney for Contra Pop and Whitstable Biennale. Coney also interviewed the musicians - read the transcript here: www.whitstablebiennale.com/journal The performance took place at Contra Pop Festival as part of a partnership with Whitstable Biennale. With thanks to Kyle McCallum

This is a conversation between Keira Greene and the Creaking Breeze Trio. The recording took place at Café OTO project space, London, 27th February, 2019. The Creaking Breeze Trio is Ute Kanngeisser, Paul Abbott and Seymour Wright. The trio is a part of the larger Creaking Breeze Ensemble project (which in addition to the trio includes Evie Ward and Billy Steiger). As a part of Whitstable Biennale 2018, on 10 June, between 4:17pm and 5:17pm The Creaking Breeze Trio performed their new composition 'Slack Fulcrum Twelfths (Green Vitriol)'. Ute plays Cello, Paul plays a snare drum, Seymour plays Alto Saxophone. The composition has been guided by fragments from a series of letters about an imaginary band described in Nathaniel Mackey’s ongoing experimental fiction project 'From A Broken Bottle Traces Of Perfume Still Emanate'. The trio performed their composition, animated by the sea and the wind, at the end of The Street, a shingle spit stretching out half a mile into the sea at low tide.The performance lasted for 60 minutes: during the 30 minutes of ‘slack water’ time either side of the low tide mark at 4.47pm.In addition to the performance, the Trio facilitated a workshop on ‘Fictional Music, Experimental Composition and Performance’. This recording includes the following elements:A recording of the live performance in Whitstable - made by Keira Greene. The conversation that took place in London. Some music influential in the process of working on the composition. A ‘guide’ track listened to by Paul on one headphone, during the live performance. https://www.whitstablebiennale.com/project/slack-fulcrum-twelfths-green-vitriol/

Commissioned for Whitstable Biennale 2018, Prose Brut is a performance work by artist Jude Crilly made for Whitstable Harbour. It was composed of interwoven choreographies, a seagull swarm, and a site-specific sculpture in collaboration with artist Morgan Courtois. The performance is made up of both human and bird choreographies, each happening on its own time register but creating a unified image. The performance used the multiple perspectives inherent to the Harbour’s quays, with its industrial buildings, boats and the horizon line of the sea itself. Here, Jude is joined in conversation by artist and Whitstable Biennale 2018 performance curator Keira Greene to discuss scores choreography, and the joining of performers and audiences in public space. The interview is woven with extracts from the quadrophonic soundtrack made for the piece.

Acclaimed painter Rose Wylie takes a keen interest in cinema, and references from film spill into her work. On 5 June 2016, in a discussion hosted by Art Writer Skye Sherwin, Wylie talked to artist filmmaker Ben Rivers, about painting, film, and being the subject of Rivers’ film portrait, What Means Something, which was screened after the discussion. https://www.whitstablebiennale.com/project/rose-wylie-ben-rivers-and-skye-sherwin-in-conversation/

Andrew Kötting has been running ‘salons’ for over 15 years, initially developed with the artist and filmmaker Clio Barnard, at KIAD (now the University for the Creative Arts). Early on, students were shown diverse moving image works to pique curiosity and provoke debate. The salons grew in an organic way to include readings, sound pieces, and the occasional performance. Invariably the sessions were quite loose and Andrew would respond to something that Clio presented, almost as a call and response device. In the first of the two salons presented for Whitstable Biennale 2016, Andrew explores the notion of ‘atmosphere’, and how it might be experienced in a sonic, visual or textual way. He worked with a selection of prepared materials, but the structure remained loose and improvised. Salon references: Music Andy Stott – 'Passed Me By' Moving Image Clio Barnard - 'Hermaphrodite Bikini' Andrew Kötting – 'KLIPPERTY KLOPP' Franceso Patierno – 'Quel Giornio' Martin Arnold – 'Alone: Life Wastes Andy Hardy' Run Wrake – 'Rabbit' Jonathan Hodgson – 'Forest Murmurs' Books David Shields – 'Reality Hunger' Zygmunt Bauman – 'Liquid Modernity' Ragnar Kjartansson: 'A lot of sorrow'