occasionals / 
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   Occasionals was a peripatetic project between 2007-2013 for artists, writers and curators to make their work public, usually over a single day or an evening. These took the form of exhibitions, screenings, readings, performances, discussions, and publications, presented in a non-commercial space. Organised by Philomene Pirecki.

 

 

previous /
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   Saturday 31st August 2013 - Screensaver/Desktop Images

   Wysing Arts Centre Festival - Space Time: Convention T


Aaron Angell
Hannah Black
Juliette Bonneviot
Alistair Frost
Kati Karki
Lawrence Leaman
Katja Novitskova
Yuri Pattison
Philomene Pirecki
Camilla Wills

Occasionals and Supplement have collaborated to invite a group of artists to contribute a screensaver/desktop image that will occupy the digital in-between spaces of the festival - between or in the background to where the main action will happen. These will be used as the screensaver/desktop images on Wysing computers, including at the reception desk and those being used for the events. They will also be available to download for the duration of the festival from the Wysing, Supplement and Occasionals websites.

The screensaver/desktop images on the Wysing computers will be set to select at random, with any transition effects determined by the computer's user, so the images will appear in random order for random amounts of time. The resulting unpredictable forms of display could include the reception desk computer, or projected during the change-over of acts on stage, maybe in the bar area, they could appear if something goes wrong technically, or might even be seen around the site on festival-goers phones.

The images were available to download on 31st August 2013, the day of the festival.


Occasionals
Supplement
Wysing Art Centre

More information about Wysing Art Centre's festival - Space Time: Convention T

Wysing Arts Centre
Fox Road
Bourn
Cambridge CB23 2TX

 

 

   5th February - 8th March 2013 - Provisional Information

opening on Tuesday 5th February 5:30 - 8:00pm
Camberwell Space, London


Anna Barham
Tom Benson
Bettina Buck
Will Holder & Robert Ashley
Ian Law
Sara MacKillop
Francesco Pedraglio
David Raymond Conroy
Dexter Sinister
Cally Spooner


A publication was produced for the exhibition, with texts by Gareth Bell-Jones, Gil Leung, and Laura McLean-Ferris.

Download the Provisional Information booklet (4.6MB pdf)


Camberwell Space
Camberwell College of Arts
45 - 65 Peckham Road
London SE5 8UF

provisional info flyer


Provisional Information is an exhibition that considers ideas around material change, incompleteness, reworking, contradiction, and restlessness, and what such notions might mean for an artist, their work, and a viewer. During the time of the show and over a longer duration the works will alter in different ways - materially, conceptually, and interpretively. The exhibition will include both new and existing video, painting, sculpture, writing, performance, work on paper, and a musical score.

There will be performances on the following dates:

Tuesday 5th February during the opening
Francesco Pedraglio

Friday 22nd February at 6:30
Anna Barham - Volume II

Tuesday 5th March from 6:00
Robert Ashley - Trios (White on White) I and II
David Raymond Conroy
possibly a rehearsal by Cally Spooner


www.provisionalinformation.com

www.camberwell.arts.ac.uk/camberwellspace

 

 

   Thursday 3rd November 2011 - Provisional Information

   6:30 - 8:30 pm

Anna Barham
Tom Benson
John Cage
Sara MacKillop
Dexter Sinister

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   LOCATION:
   MK GALLERY project space
   900 Midsummer Blvd
   Milton Keynes MK9 3QA
   T +44 (0)1908 676 900
   www.mkgallery.org

   NOT at the Occasionals space in London   

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Occasionals will present a one evening exhibition of work that is in various ways subject to change and in flux. Faded Paper by Sara MacKillop, is one of a series of works made from backing-paper reclaimed from a disused notice board. Posters, notes and tape that previously covered the paper have been removed leaving visible traces and bleached impressions, which continue to change and gradually fade over time according to their exposure to light. Anna Barham's digital projection Proteus shows a succession of letters on five lines rapidly changing and coalescing into words. They alter as quickly as they form, so that recognising them almost occurs after the words have vanished or the letters have reformed into other words. Tom Benson's painting has construction and deconstruction inherent within it. Its painted and printed moveable parts are attached with small nails through a metal support. Each time the artist installs the work the same constituent parts can be reconfigured into another grouping. There will also be a performance of John Cage's aleatoric composition Radio Music (1956; 6 minutes). Between one to eight performers each follow a score that involves retuning a radio to a series of frequencies, resulting in a combination of sound static and occasional fragments of radio channels. Each time the score is performed, the piece produces a completely different result. Black Whisky by Dexter Sinister, is a printed contract between the artists and the purchaser of the work, a work which in its present state is a promise of an exchange to be fulfilled at a date in the future.

Anna Barham
www.annabarham.net

Tom Benson
www.tombenson.net

John Cage's Radio Music
http://johncage.org
www.johncage.info/workscage/radiomusic.html
http://ubumexico.centro.org.mx/sound/fluxus_anthology/Fluxus-Anthology_10_John-Cage.mp3

Sara MacKillop
www.saramackillop.co.uk
www.spikeisland.org.uk/exhibitions/mackillop

Dexter Sinister
www.dextersinister.org
www.2ndcannons.com/f_gallery-dextersinister.html

MK Gallery
www.mkgallery.org/events/2011_11_03/exhibition_performance/
www.mkgallery.org

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   6:30 - 8:30 pm

   MK GALLERY project space
   900 Midsummer Blvd
   Milton Keynes MK9 3QA
   T +44 (0)1908 676 900

   NOT at the Occasionals space in London   

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   Thursday 21st July 2011 - Dust Bowl

   5:30 - 8:30 p.m

an exhibition for one evening, with

Jesse Ash
Jack Friswell
Nevine Mahmoud
Will Whittle

Using the natural phenomenon of the dust storm as a figure to think through processes of concealment, the project incorporates strategies of interference, contradiction, repetition and recital to acknowledge how the material and formal properties of 'something concealed' can say more about the truth of the 'thing' than its 'naked' self.
Jesse, Jack, Nevine and Will

images of the exhibition >

 

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   Friday 27th May 2011 - Born in Flames - (x2)


Born in Flames
1983, 1hr 30mins
film screening and (remote) interview with the director Lizzie Borden

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   You can read a transcript of the interview here > (96kb pdf)

   Images from the event >
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+ PLUS +
launch of the book Born in Flames edited and designed by Kaisa Lassinaro

THE FILM
"Born in Flames poses the question of whether oppression against women will be eliminated under any kind of social system. [...] It is a fantasy presenting a group of women who, confronted with the very 'ordinary' oppression women have been experiencing for decades, refuse to take it any longer and become armed fighters against the government. Their position is that oppression against women is not eliminated automatically with 'socialism' - not only do political values have to change, cultural values must change and become embedded in practice."
- Lizzie Borden in Heresies #16, 1983

THE BOOK
edited and designed by Kaisa Lassinaro and published by Occasional Papers*, is an illustrated transcript of Lizzie Borden's film. It borrows from multiple genres: film script, comic book, 'photo-roman'. The book also includes an interview with Lizzie Borden, conducted by Kaisa Lassinaro in early 2011, and the lyrics of Undercover Nation by The Bloods and Born in Flames by Red Crayola, supplied by Adele Bertei and Mayo Thompson. Size A4, 32 pages, soft cover, full-colour throughout.
*Occasional Papers are not part of Occasionals.



Kaisa Lassinaro is an independent graphic designer living in London
www.kaisalassinaro.com


Occasional Papers was founded in 2008 by Sara De Bondt and Antony Hudek. It is a non-profit publisher of affordable books devoted to the histories of architecture, art, design, film and literature
http://occasionalpapers.org


   6:00 p.m SPACE OPENS

   6:30 - 7:15 p.m
   launch of the book Born in Flames and (remote) interview between the director
   Lizzie Borden and graphic designer Kaisa Lassinaro

   -- short break --

   7:30 - 9:00 p.m
   Born in Flames film screening

   9:00 p.m
   view/buy the book, meet designer Kaisa Lassinaro, have a beer

 

For more information about the film, see also http://www.cinenova.org.uk/filmdetail.php?&filmId=152

 

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   Saturday 1st May 2010 - Two Dialogues


Cally Spooner
A Solo Event For Thinking (version 3)
with Dulcie Joslyn and (possibly) Matt McQuillan

and

Beatrice Gibson
Prologue, A Conversation
with Will Holder


Cally Spooner will present A Solo Event For Thinking (version 3), a performed text, re-written from developments in A Solo Event For Thinking versions 1 and 2. It will be interrupted with transcribed and improvised conversation and a stage hand who never quite emerged in version 2. A Solo Event For Thinking uses theatrical and academic conventions to demonstrate the necessary structural conditions for live activity to take place; thinking, speaking and events.

Beatrice Gibson and Will Holder will perform Prologue, A Conversation. Prologue is an attempt, in the form of a conversation, to set out and generate ideas around form and content for an as yet unwritten book about speech, fiction and landscape. Exploring the score as a paradigm for the production of speech, the conversation will also include fragments of related sound, image and text.


   Doors will open at 6:00 p.m

   6:30 - 7:00 p.m
   A Solo Event For Thinking (version 3)
   Cally Spooner, Dulcie Joslyn and (possibly) Matt McQuillan

   -- 10 min break --

   7:10 - 7:40 p.m
   Prologue, A Conversation
   Beatrice Gibson and Will Holder

   -- 10 min break --
   followed by questions to the artists from the audience

Times are approximate.


Cally Spooner is based in London and Berlin. Her performance/production work uses broadcasting, dramatisation, live events and writing to explore how subjects and material can be restaged, translated and kept in flux, in the present. She has recently produced work for CHELSEA Space; Resonance fm; Neue Alte Bruuke gallery, Frankfurt; and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. This summer she will start an on-going, serial dramatisation of Merleau Ponty's writings on history, speech and the museum, beginning at une 'Exposition (du) Sensible', at the synagogue de Delme.

Beatrice Gibson is an artist based in London. Manifest largely as film, performance and text, her practice explores ideas around sound, sociality, models of collective production and the problems of representation. Her latest film, The Future's Getting Old Like The Rest Of Us, whose script was a collaboration with curator and critic George Clark, will premiere at the Serpentine Gallery in July. www.dliub.org

 

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   Friday 11th December 2009 - Single, Plural, Multiple

a screening of five short films, selected by five different people, accompanied by twenty-five short texts about the films.

The contributors and their chosen films are


   Richard Birkett - 'Disgrace' by Kate Davis
   Vanessa Desclaux - 'The Hand is Quicker Than The Eye' by Yael Davids
   Mike Sperlinger - 'Necrology' by Standish Lawder
   Cally Spooner - 'Not I' by Samuel Beckett
   Marina Vishmidt - 'Sonnet' by Lili Dujourie


Each person was invited to select a film up to 15 minutes long and to write a few reflections on all five films; a booklet containing all the texts was produced and provided to the audience alongside the screening.

The short texts, twenty-five in total (five from each participant) are not intended to be comprehensive accounts, rather indicators of ways of looking at and thinking about the same films, reflecting the writers' shared or differing interpretations and points of reference.

Download the Single, Plural, Multiple booklet (452kb pdf)


   Doors opened at 6:00 p.m.
   The screening began at 7:00 p.m.


Total running time was approximately 1 hour with a short interval half-way through. After the screening there was an opportunity to talk with the participants.


image from the cover of the booklet Single, Plural, Multiple

Download the Single, Plural, Multiple booklet (452kb pdf)

 

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   Friday 24th July 2009 - Will Holder

Will Holder presented "Middle of Nowhere", a book he has been writing and publishing since 2005. It is an adaptation of William Morris' "News from Nowhere (or An Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters From a Utopian Romance)" of 1890.

Morris' original novel, a utopian description of a 2004 society, rooted in Victorian Socialist ideologies. Holder's "Middle of Nowhere", also set approximately 115 years in the future, follows the chapter structure of the original, whilst taking significant phenomena into account of which Morris could have no knowledge. Central to the original, the chapter "Questions and Answers", is a discussion between the visiting protagonist and a historian, who recounts the history of the previous 130 years. In the case of "Middle of Nowhere", the historian will account for the history of the 21st century.

"Middle of Nowhere" has been described as "a guide for design education and practise set in 2135" and is written in a serialised form, published in dotdotdot magazine and various publications. It is an account of the formation of an adaptive, self-conscious and collective voice that could represent a history whose closest description to date is "Some time then there will be very kind of a history of every one who ever can or is or was or will be living. Some time then there will be a history of every one from their beginning to their ending. Sometime then there will be a history of all of them, of every kind of them, of every one, of every bit of living they ever have in them, of them when there is never more than a beginning to them, of every kind of them, of every one when there is very little beginning and then there is an ending, there will then sometime be a history of every one there will be a history of everything that ever was or is or will be them, of everything that was or is or will be all of any one or all of all of them." (Gertrude Stein, "The Making of Americans, a History of a Family's Progress").


   Doors opened at 6:00 p.m.
   The presentation began at 6:30 p.m.


Readings from "Middle of Nowhere" were interspersed with discussions between Will Holder, Philomene Pirecki and everyone who wanted to participate.


image from William Morris' 'News from Nowhere'

more images >

http://commonknowledge.at

 

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   Friday 16th January 2009 - Lois Rowe

occasionals presented 'Argument from Design' 2006, and 'Mannerism to Mind' 2007, two videos by Lois Rowe.

   Both works were shown twice (4'48" and 10'32"), from
   6:30 - 7:30 p.m with short intervals between each screening.

At 7:30 there was an informal discussion between Lois Rowe, Philomene Pirecki and everyone who wanted to participate.


video still from Argument from Design

video still of 'Argument from Design'.

more images >

 

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   Saturday 14th June 2008 - Double Object

a group exhibition curated by Leigh Robb

Six artists have been invited to respond to the construct of the double within their practice. Using the exhibition as a site of research, the artists will present works which investigate the potential of the double in some of its guises to see how, or if such a simple construct can open a more complex field of possibility both formally and conceptually. From a pair, copy or diptych to studies in repetition, synchronicity and comparison, the double is a structure that forces questions of singularity and difference. This exhibition is an opportunity to think about why it recurs as a pivotal strategy for Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roni Horn, for example, to artists working today.

Participating artists

Bradford Bailey
Vanessa Billy
Jason Dungan
Elizabeth McAlpine
Sam Porritt
Maria Zahle

Earlier works by Dieter Roth, Barry Flanagan, Glenn Ligon and Michel Francois were also included.


The exhibition was open for one day only
Saturday 14th June, 2:00 p.m - 8:00 p.m

At 7:00 p.m.
there was an informal discussion between Leigh Robb, the exhibition artists and Philomene Pirecki, along with anyone else who wanted to join in.

 

installation image from Double Object

installation view of Double Object. Artists from left to right - Jason Dungan, Glenn Ligon, Barry Flanagan, Maria Zahle.


installation image from Double Object

installation view of Double Object. Artists from left to right - Elizabeth McAlpine, Vanessa Billy (floor), Dieter Roth, Bradford Bailey, Sam Porritt, Michel François.

More images from Double Object >

 

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   Saturday 15th March 2008 - Juan Cruz

occasionals presented 'In The Shape of What We Know', a video work by Juan Cruz.

Two videos are projected onto a wall where they partly overlap; one uses images and sound of the artist and his immediate environment, the other uses text recounting intimate memories and thoughts. The videos differ in length, which changes their synchronisation as they loop and continue to play. This presents us with a literally overlapping, contextually shifting structure that inflects upon the relationships between what is read, seen and heard.

In part it is a reflection upon reconciling daily life and art practice, upon unexpected recollections triggered by seemingly unrelated events, and the contradictions and compromises that many of us are often faced with.


The work was shown from 6:00 p.m until 8:00 p.m (duration approximately 8 minutes).
At 7:30 there was an informal discussion between Juan Cruz, Philomene Pirecki and everyone who wanted to join in.


image of Juan Cruz video projection

the video and the crowd during the projection of In The Shape of What We Know

more images from Juan Cruz's event >

www.mattsgallery.org/artists/cruz/home.php

 

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   Saturday 26th January 2008 - Ian Whittlesea

occasionals presented 3 projections by Ian Whittlesea. Each projection shows a series of names and is an attempt to list chronologically everyone an individual met in their lifetime. The names are projected as white text on a white wall in an illuminated space. Each name slowly appears and fades away to be replaced by the next. This is an ongoing work, altered and added to as the artist acquires new biographical information about the subjects.

The work could be viewed from beginning to end, or at any time between 2:59 – 8:00pm.

   2:59 – 4:53pm > Everyone - Peggy Guggenheim
   4:53 – 6:26pm > Everyone - Frank O’Hara
   6:26 – 8:00pm > Everyone - Gertrude Stein


There were drinks and a short, informal discussion during the final projection from 6:26 - 8:00pm.


image from ian whittlesea's work

image from Everyone - Frank O’Hara

more images from Ian Whittlesea's event >

www.ianwhittlesea.net

 

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The first in a series of occasional events happened on

   Friday 5th October 2007 - Andrew Chesher

Andrew Chesher showed his video 'Changing the System', a documentary about musicians rehearsing.

In 1973, taking his title from a remark by Tom Hayden, a key figure of the Student Movement of 1968, the American avant-garde composer and erstwhile student of John Cage, Christian Wolff, wrote a score called ‘Changing the System’ - a kind of ‘participatory democracy’ for a large scale musical ensemble. Following the preparations for a performance of the piece to celebrate Wolff’s 70th birthday in 2004, Andrew's film observes the musicians and their discussions during rehearsals, elucidating the score, its significance and the experience of rehearsing it through comments by the musicians themselves.
c. 53 mins long.


After the screening, Andrew Chesher talked about the video, his working process and ideas relating to it.


image from Andrew Chesher's video projection

video still from Changing the System

more images from Andrew Chesher's event >


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contact & directions >


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organised by Philomene Pirecki