A Taster of the Show - as Represented in Our Publicity Material
The doors open at 8.00 p.m. A printer already is emitting reams of paper laden with text. This text corresponds to the continuous narrative declared through the speakers, detailing in the artist's voice her quixotic efforts to determinedly pursue the making of inconspicuous works of art such as bread sculptures in the home or objects exhibited in the fridge of her local supermarket. Page after page continues to accumulate throughout the night.
At the opposite pole to the private and hesitantly personal, lies that vast barrage of promotional and public information material confidently and impersonally asserting itself on an everyday basis. A lengthy soundwork weaves a lively hilarious fugue out of repetitive irritants such as "Terms and conditions apply". Another artist employs hard sell marketing techniques exhorting one to partake of "Brainwash" while yet another participant seeks to recruit for a "Culture Strike".
On the screen one finds oneself observing an eye, seductively shot, gazing back at one, only occasionally blinking. One continues to gaze, led on by the delicate rhythms of the accompanying soundtrack. By way of contrast, another work records the swift assault of a bird against a windowpane. It is portrayed in real time and lasts little more than twenty seconds.
Spectators are objects of spectacle also. This is perhaps particularly the case as regards spectators of art work. A subtly edited film highlights the poses struck, attitudes projected and flamboyant movements and gestures executed by visitors to London's Tate Modern. Whereas in an exterior public space, a performance artist lies prone with a concrete cube weighing down on his head while passersby studiously avoid his presence.
Another work solemnly depicts a naked horizontal figure evocative of the iconic symbol of Messianic martyrdom slowly descending within a compositional frame to the moving accompaniment of Johnny Cash's final valedictory song. And in another video, one observes the otherwise static headshot of a figure become disturbingly riven by punctures in the neck, lending newly forceful associations to the familiar image of the ventriloquist's dummy.
Two youthful females, in a video performance, repeatedly clap hands together to a backdrop and soundtrack replete with nostalgia for blissful timeless seaside carnivals. In another work a long shot follows the flowing movement of a phantom-like figure alongside the sea to the accompaniment of a wordless lament.
A sophisticated animation work meanwhile invents its own peculiarly pastoral Inferno. A powerful performance work seeks to empathically resurrect the temporally specific self-image of a World War One patriot.
An extended film-work meticulously synchronises a subtitled running band of narrative with specific images and camera angles to explore in a dream-like manner a perpetual unconscious hankering after lost or elusive opportunities. Another text-based video work refashions emotive political iconography and slogans into a more universal ineffable testament.
Other more abstract yet eloquently lyrical works draw on the suggestive shapes and formations of life rhythms, the flight and the spacings of birds, the costumings and theatrics of dance. Minimalist videos, concentrating on road and sea environments, overlabour the frame of routine expectations to unpack the primal, desirous, too readily obliterated vision. Another video work draws foreboding yet poetic correspondences between journeys through a numinous landscape and the history-haunted future of memory. A more virtual journey is ventured in another video piece where a promise of freer spaces beyond recognition emerges through a series of progressive architectural permutations.
Electronically driven audio-visual work will invite interaction from the audience towards amalgamating private and public spaces of the imagination through an intriguing creative employment of mobile phone resources, original programming and transformational systems. An improvisational physical performance will explore the nuances attendant on community radio, towards activating a personally requisite psychic reconciliation.
An eclectic DJ set will evolve through the latter part of the night, joining the dots between electric soul, jazzfunk, space disco, real house music and everything in between. Live bands run the gamut of shitkicking country folk, old school electro-reggae, art folk, groove with an African soul and contemporary ambient music.
Review for local paper, Dave Mac (journalist), Wheres Me Culture?
Comprising a collective of creative heads from a variety of different backgrounds and disciplines - from art graduates to playwrights to performance artists, musicians and musos - CCrevolver arose from the ashes of the legendary Electric Rain posse. A series of admirably ambitious, genuinely groundbreaking and widely celebratedart/music collaborative happenings in a variety of venues across Cork City over the last couple of years, the famed Electric Rain events brought two previously separate worlds of art and music crashing together in fresh, new and exciting ways - just for the hell of it like!
Having since passed into local lore, Electric Rain saw inquisitive clubbers, arty-types, indie kids and bohemians of all kinds rubbing shoulders in the one place at the one time to sample and savour a range o art installations, performance art and audio-visual works alongside the more traditional musical high-jinks of bands and djs.
Fast-forward to right about now, CCrevolver have taken that proven successful concept and run with it as far and as fast as it was possible to go. Having solicited anyone mad enough and brave enough to step up to the plate through an online open submission process, CCrevolver have come to the end of four months hard graft and labour, supported by Where's Me Culture?, are finally ready to unleash the monster multimedia/music event. It touches down at Cork's Mardyke Entertainment Complex on Friday 15th July 2005.
