Culture Diary w/c 17-11-2014

What’s hot this week? Our pick of the listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK…

Monday –Invasion of the Body Snatchers Re-issue (1956/2014) 6pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £10/8

Regularly labelled as a morality tale against the ‘group-think’ of McCarthyism, this Cold War era, identity-stealing horror is equally terrifying in its own right. Part of the BFI’s Sci Fi Days of Wonder Season (2001: A Space Odyssey (04/12) and Blade Runner (14/12) follow), this classic thriller depicts emotionless aliens using large seed pods to ‘grow’ human bodies, murdering the original person and replacing them with their duplicate. It’s left to doctor Miles Bennell (played by Kevin McCarthy – no relation) to save the town. But can he?

Tuesday – Private View: BOB COBBING: BILL JUBOBE 6-8:30pm @ Chelsea Space, London — FREE

If you missed the Exhibition Research Centre’s (Liverpool) excellent ABC In Sound exhibition last year (see our review), here’s another chance to explore concrete poet, publisher and printmaker Bob Cobbing. Cobbing died in 2002, and it seems that we are only scratching the surface of his extensive body of work – including sound art, performance, publications, prints, and visual scores – ‘that blur the distinction between decipherable text and abstract imagery.’

Wednesday – Tim Hecker 7.30-11pm @ Camp and Furnace, Liverpool — £10 ADV

Atmospheric, haunting, otherworldly, moving, powerful, intelligent – these are the words that spring to mind when describing Hecker’s expansive soundscapes. As Pitchfork rightly claims: ‘This is music that benefits from being heard loud’. We’d venture one step further and say: this is music that benefits from being heard live. Listen to our Playlist: 10 Best Winter Gigs In Liverpool…

Thursday – Talk: Chaos Computer Club 6.30pm @ Birmingham Open Media — FREE (booking required)

Former Open Eye Gallery curator Karen Newman’s brand new gallery, co-working and creative space – Birmingham Open Media, or BOM – built to encourage art, technology and science to overlap. To celebrate their debut exhibition with Chaos Computer Club, biometrics hacker Starbug and team discuss their research into how biometrics technologies, and more widely surveillance, is developing.

Alexandra Bircken In Conversation 7-8pm @ The Hepworth, Wakefield — £5/4

Part of the gallery’s Conflict and Collisions: New Contemporary Sculpture exhibition, catch artist Alexandra Bircken discussing her new site-specific installation with German art historian and journalist Catrin Lorch. Creating specially commissioned, textured sculpture with ‘leather skins’, Bircken’s work alludes to the gallery’s namesake Barbara Hepworth and her iconic stringed sculptures. As this event falls on a monthly late night opening (everything staying open until 9pm), be sure to check out the Hepworth collection, cafe and learning studios too.

Björk: Biophilia Live 9pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £10/8

What do you get when you cross veteran TV presenter David Attenborough with Berberian Sound Studio director Peter Strickland, Submarine editor Nick Fenton, a 24-piece all-female song and dance troupe and Björk? This enormous, outlandish stage show. Expect film shot in London during the artist’s 2013 world tour, tracks from her 2011 hit album, Biophilia, and a narrative of nature, art and technology.

Circa Waves 7pm @ the Kazimier, Liverpool — £8 ADV

Liverpool can continue to be proud of its talent development, courtesy of Circa Waves. Fresh from supporting The Libertines on tour (not bad for a band that only formed last year, right?), their fast paced, rabble-rousing indie anthems have garnered a lot of support from their recent festival travels. We’re sure they’re set to get the same warm welcome on their home turf at the Kazimier. Listen to our Playlist: 10 Best Winter Gigs In Liverpool…

Friday – DaDaFest International 2014 @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool — FREE plus ticketed events

This year’s disability arts festival is now in full swing around the city of Liverpool, with a particular concentration of events at the Bluecoat this weekend. Today, you can catch core exhibition Art of the Lived Experiment (curated by artist Aaron Williamson), or Rachel Gadsden’s animated digital films,, or the Disability, Art and Wellbeing Seminar (2.30-5pm), or tomorrow’s Celebrating Unsung Heroes (6-7pm).

PICK OF THE WEEK: Saturday – John Grant (main image) 7.30pm @ Liverpool Philharmonic Hall — £21/24/30

Ex-Czars frontman John Grant returns to Liverpool a year after the release of his critically-acclaimed album, Pale Green Ghosts, to make his Philharmonic Hall debut. He’s bringing with him the musical might of the Royal Northern Sinfonia; expect to bear witness to a night of re-worked and reimagined classics from Grant’s extensive back catalogue. Listen to our Playlist: 10 Best Winter Gigs In Liverpool…

Sunday – Last Day: Past, Present, Somewhere: Films and Projects by Karen Guthrie & Nina Pope @ Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge — FREE

Your last chance to see Northern Art Prize winners (2008) and artist duo Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope presention of their acclaimed documentary films. 
Unveiling marginalised or unknown communities, the selection here features their debut film about an English coach trip to the Bata shoe empire in Bata-ville: We Are Not Afraid of the Future (93 mins, 1pm), seaside fugitives in Jaywick Escapes (48 mins, Cert. 15, 12pm),
 and Cambridge’s Kentwell Hall in Living with the Tudors (83 mins, 3pm).

Silent Film Night 7pm @ The Mezzanine at The Kazimier Gardens, Liverpool — donation entry

Silent Liverpool is a little gem of an event that’s been consistently putting on short silent work with interesting musical scores from orchestral and acoustic musicians. Their latest double-bill shows the range that silent film can cover: expect surreal slapstick from the underrated and tragic figure of Larry Semon, plus the startling, ethereal imagery of Maya Deren (an influence on American avant-garde cinema, including Kenneth Anger and David Lynch).