SPACES sees film/music collective Video Jam and experimental record label Slip Discs join forces in commissioning a series of audiovisual pieces from an emerging generation of distinctive British artists.

Over a series of three UK-wide events, three collaborative works from three pairings of emerging filmmakers and musicians will be presented site specifically in three contrasting venues. With the sound for each 30 minute audio/visual performed live, all three programmes will be presented as site specific events featuring accompanying material curated specifically to explore each individual context. The aim of these new commissions is to encourage experimentation and artistic development between these two mediums through nurturing the practice of selected artists with relevant and focussed creative interests.

The project encompasses both Video Jam’s objective to explore and reconsider the relationship between moving image and live sound, and Slip Discs’ continued commitment to carefully curating records and events that support the next generation of idiosyncratic music makers. As curators, both organisations act as the go-between, inviting these three unique pairings to each create a new, third entity to be witnessed as a live experience. The series compiles a variety of distinctive methods of working and approaches to sound and image from each pairing which illuminate one another, allowing the two organisations to make their most comprehensive and far-reaching statement to date.

Mary Starkʼs practice as an artist, filmmaker and photographer is led by a hands-on exploration of analogue film as a sculptural material. Her interests lie in the physical photographic nature of film as a measurement of time and space, and an ephemeral projection of light and sound. Maryʼs obsessive yet exuberant practice using 8mm film is paired with the hallucinatory work of Chaines, who constructs strangely compelling layers of synthesizer, freakish vocals and home-made instrumentals. Especially important in her work is a sense of narrative drive, brought about by overarching linear structures that take the listener through a range of emotions and sensations.

Having debuted their collaborative relationship as part of the closing event for Turner Prize winner Jeremy Dellerʼs exhibition, All that is Solid Melts into Air in January 2014, both artists are focussed on new ways of engaging with the performance of their chosen mediums through physical, instrumental and sculptural interface.

Joe Snapeʼs work makes use of household objects and highly defined electronic sound to dazzling effect. Having toured extensively in the US, Europe and the UK with a lightbulb show entitled Lärmlicht, he joins forces under his new Spaak moniker with 4 members of WULF, a Manchester/London-based network of 8 like-minded and distinctive artistic voices, who have developed an award-winning collective comprised of producers, writers, directors, animators, editors and photographers united by a desire to innovate and pioneer the future of film through a strong commitment to collaboration. The artists representing WULF, each working on individual films to be viewed as a single body of work, are screenwriter and filmmaker Scout Stuart, animator Tom O’Meara, photography and cinematographer Paul Daly and film director Sing J. Lee.

With such a large number of contributors the collaboration constitutes a mini-series in itself. The pair both hold strongly distinctive creative and curatorial values with a wealth of experience spanning performance art, instrument building, and experimental collaborative work at their cores

James Snazell is a senior lecturer at Edge Hill University in Liverpool and a video artist and animator who produces work for single screen and installation. With a particular interest in abstraction and the built environment, he creates motion graphic short films using photographs to explore urban rhythms through visual and audio montage. James is paired with MFAAH (Max Hampshire), a recent philosophy graduate from the University of York. MFAAHʼs interests in audiovisual work derives from the relationship between material synthesis and re-appropriation.

James and MFAAH are united by their ability to derive complex and affecting work from the rawest of sources. Both artists start from the essentials of their medium, with Snazell allowing the physical properties of film to inform his hypnotic and abstract work and MFAAH atomising electronic sound within compositions increasingly incorporating bursts of analogue warmth.

Special Guests SPACES 1: Leeds

Negra Branca / Rian Treanor