FENIA KOTSOPOULOU
X-CHURCH RESIDENCY 2016
Exploring what residence means in the context of the X-CHURCH
Marcus Hammond, Verity Barrett, Michael Bowdidge, Kate Buckley, Joana Cifre Cerdà , Daz Disley, Frank Kent, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Alec Shepley, Freya Ward-Lowery
ABOUT X-CHURCH
X-Church is an old ex church on Ashcroft Road, Gainsborough (UK), formerly St. John the Divine Parish Church. The building, which dates from 1882, has been transformed - the last years - to a place where "things can happen". Young people, volunteers, resident artists and cafe visitors are the lifeblood of the building.
As Marcus Hammond, director of x-church and curator, explains:
"x-church is a building defined as much by what it isn't as what it is and it feels right to encourage but not privilege art. We put art in people's way. Artists who work here have to engage with a persistent nagging question that has something to do with how people encounter art."
FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT:
http://www.slumgothic.co.uk/
Slumgothic Artist Resident Curator group 2016
PROJECTS
about residency in x-church, ownership, intervention, engagement, unknown, unexpected, community, a-social, anti-social, collective, collaboration, territories, fluid identities, (non) making "Art", re-appropriation, recycling, collage, monsters, claiming space, inclusion, experimentation, failure, waiting, and much more...
#1 collaborative project: Slumgothic Antisocial Dance project
Michael Bowdidge, Kate Buckley, Joana Cifre Cerda', Daz Disley, Marcus Hammond, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Verity Barrett
STEP 1: START POINT-QUESTIONING
"Today my youngest had 'social dancing' lessons at school in preparation for the school ceilidh. That got me wondering about what 'anti - social dancing' might look like. Any takers?" Michael Bowdidge
Michael's simple question became the seed for further discussion and exchange of thoughts within the SARC group. Consequently, new questions were generated and formulated such as:
What is antisocial dancing ?
Which is the difference between antisocial and asocial?
How young people define and embody the antisocial aspect of dance?Does exist?
Which are the parameters that define a dance as "antisocial"?
Which role plays the context?
What happened in terms of space,time, dynamics, relationships, body language, duration, during an antisocial dancing?
Which are the borders of the antisocial dancing?
Which are the ethics of the antisocial dancing?
What is the shape that antisocial dancing takes through repetition?
When, how and for how long the kids and teens of the x-church engage with the antisocial dance proposals we offer?
What stops people from dancing?What motivates people to dance?
After the first skype meeting we reached a sort of kinda almost plan and way to dip our toes into the bath, proposing simple experiments-interventions in x-church.
STEP 2: EXPERIMENTS/INTERVENTIONS
a# EXP/INT: 28/01/2016
Date: Thursday 28 January 2016 || 19:00-21:00
Context: X-Church during a Slumgothic Teenage Art, regular Thursday night featuring skaters, musicians and casual bystanders all negotiating the space.
SAD-dancers: Kate Buckley, Joana Cifre Cerdà , Daz Disley, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Verity Barrett
Facilitator: Marcus Hammond
Documentation: Daz Disley
SCORE:
A sort-of score to probe Anti Social Dancing.
Each SAD-dancer has a 50x50cm floor tile and self-contained headphones for music. The task is to dance within the confines of your tile to your music whilst primarily ignoring the rest of the world, with a secondary intention to interact with the world should the desire arise.
As and when Slumgoths in the space mirror, mimic or otherwise start to employ deliberate movement, they too are given a tile on which they can dance, and are rewarded for their dancing by being given more territory in the form of additional tiles.
Improvise on this theme for the duration of the evening, documenting the usage of the space via video-camera positioned such as to capture an overview.
b# EXP/INT: 04/02/2016
Date: Thursday 4 February 2016 || 19:00-22:00
Context: Wear the Wrong Socks Party
DJs: Gabe Sewell and Lewis Gray
SAD-dancers: Joana Cifre Cerdà , Fenia Kotsopoulou
Facilitator: Marcus Hammond
Documentation: Daz Disley, Verity Barrett
SCORE:
In a change from the "normal" activities of the Slumgoths on a Thursday evening, DJ's were invited into the space to play EDM (the bands usually tend towards various guitar-based forms of Metal and Grunge).
One dancer performed as a 'regular', 'proper-dancer' responding in the space to the offers and gestures of others as they experimented interacting through movement; a second performer continued the anti-social theme of ignoring the world, and exploring the space through improvised movement.
Tiles were available, but went un-used. Documentation repeat as previous.
c# EXP/INT: 11/02/2016
Date: Thursday 11 February 2016 || 19:00-22:00
Context: X-Church during a Slumgothic Teenage Art, regular Thursday night featuring skaters, musicians and casual bystanders all negotiating the space.
In the meantime Joana Cifre Cedra was performing in one of the corners of the x-church: "Waiting for...Godot?" (performance/work in progress using text from Samuel Beckett's: Waiting for Godot).
Music Jam: Jay, Luke. James. Matt, Kyler, Jayson, Kevin.
Documentation: Daz Disley, Fenia Kotsopoulou
SCORE:
Our intervention during the evening consisted of two elements:
a) Joana's performance: She was sitting in a chair, in a dark corner of x-church while she was holding a notebook and a small light with the aim to write faithfully what she was remembering from Samuel's Beckett's text "Waiting for Godot". A solitary action of durational writing while the space was inhabited by young people skating, playing and jamming.
b) Fenia decided to join the music jam, taking place inside the x-church dome every Thursday. Observing the body language and communication of the "jammers", the relationship of body-instrument (electric quitar/drums/microphone), their movement in space anc more. For the last part of the jam, she started a spontaneous drawing-notation of the played music. This notation became a potential score for an antisocial dancing. An idea to be explored further.
STEP 3: (META) DOCUMENTATION
a# EXP/INT: 28/01/2016
VIDEO BY DAZ DISLEY
SAD(1) - Slumgothic Antisocial Dance
VIDEO BY DAZ DISLEY
SAD(1) - Slumgothic Antisocial Dance - SLIT SCAN
SLUMGOTHIC "TEMPORAL SLICE" IMAGES BY DAZ DISLEY
1 ) Take video at 25 frames per seconds for ~80 minutes (120000 frames)
2 ) extract every 30th frame to individual files (4000 frames)
3 ) copy every nth horizontal row from each extracted frame in sequence to the output image. output images are 1920 x 4000 pixels
b# EXP/INT: 11/02/2016
A) WAITING FOR...GODOT? - Joana Cifra Cedra
photo by Daz Disley
A) CREAT|TING SAD SCORE BASED ON SLUMGOTHIC MUSIC JAM
- Fenia Kotsopoulou
#2 collaborative project: Slumgothic Intervention: The Maze
Michael Bowdidge, Kate Buckley, Joana Cifre Cerda', Daz Disley, Marcus Hammond, Fenia Kotsopoulou
Few words about it...
Marcus, Daz, Fenia, Kate, and Michael spent Friday (15th of April) and Saturday (16th of April) at x-church, making things. The rough idea was literally putting art in people's way. So they built some sort of den/fort/blockage/maze right across the nave directly in front of the stone area leading up to the dome.
The maze contains :
- a Kate projection linked to a small monitor on the outside (CCTV cameras trade images inside and outside the space);
- 2 pianos, one in one out;
- 2 fridges both in;
- a 6" high 8' diameter circular platform;
- chairs; pink space hopper; a screen; twinkly white lights strung above;
- a chalk drawing 'WHAT DID YOU EXPECT' of Fenia?;
Daz did a sculpture with stacked out of date mayonnaise;
Fenia set out paths of tractor feed paper in the rest of the nave. She painted these with dancing feet;
Madonna, Donna and Marcus collected up the paper. Fenia will make a film with it. The film might be a backdrop for a music performance;
Marcus did 33 ink drawings on the same tractor feed paper and then twenty reprocessed drawings on Sunday (17th of April) and started a painting using an old hand made x-24 sign.
Michael did a Live Collage 77 "Use your Head";
Joana reset the TV and projector and performed behind the space hopper (28th of April);
Many people in x-church engaged and keep on engaging in different ways. Everything in the space becomes a potential element for engagement and transformation. I make something, you take it and you change it, you transform it, you make your response, your interventions, you leave your trace, you get lost in the maze and then you find your own exit. And maybe you encounter someone else in the meantime...This is an on going creative process in which everyone that inhabit the space of X-Church contributes (un)consciously in the space's transformation.
video documentation by Fenia Kotsopoulou
1st video response by Fenia Kotsopoulou
DESTINATIONS #1 with music by Sol Rezza
#3 collaborative project: Slumgothic Curation: 24 H Cinema
Daz Disley & Fenia Kotsopoulou
Few words about it...
Within the context of the 4rth edition of the Festival x-24 2016, 16-17 July at the x-church, Daz and Fenia, with the support of Slumgothic, produced and curated the first edition of the 24 HT CINEMA, around the theme of "separation / boundaries / barriers", as an immediate response to the current results of the BREXIT referendum.
This event became possible THANKS to the kind contribution, support and participation of :
​
-
artvideoKOELN, with the film collection "Refugee!", curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
-
Athens Digital Arts Festival, with selection of video-art works from 3 past editions, curated by Eirini Olympiou
-
Indipendent visual artists, from around the globe, who responded positively to our call/proposal.
​
Markus and Slumgothic team, built a screen for the cinema, inside the dome space of the church, where usually the music rehearsals of Slumgoths take plance. Daz installed a surround sound system of 15 channels, enhancing the acoustic experience. The screening programme included more than 100 video works, from 100 artists, from 30 countries. The 8 hours programme was repeated 3 times.
​
We really considered important to expose the community to something other than small narrow circles, so that they could expand into more creative pathways, be inspired, be entertained, ask questions, maybe see a new face, or a new place, or a new idea around the topic of separation, boundaries, barriers.
​
PROGRAMME:
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
#4 performance installation Reversed Territories: x-24 2017
Few words about it...
​
July 15, 2017
Duration: 15Hours (with occasional breaks).
Date: 15/16 July 2017
Venue: During the x-24 festival || x-church, Gainsborough
​
Action: Tracing with chalk the outline of the European map of the 28 EU members in a black board. Within 15 hours during the x-24 festival in Gainsborough, I used 2.500 golden drawing pins, placed on the board with the spiky part facing outwards, highlighting the border of each country. Some countries (Germany, UK, Greece, Italy, Portugal) were filled in with the same pins, also glued outwards.
In this action some curious kids and teenagers joined voluntarily and whilst gluing pins we were speaking about experience of traveling.
​​​
