Ahead of her live taxidermy demonstration tonight at the Victoria Gallery, artist Polly Morgan talks to curator Laura Robertson…

How does it feel to be working in the VGM, sharing gallery space with the John James Audubon artworks and the rest of the 19^th and 20^th century collections?

It’s my first time being here; when I started reading the briefs from the various museums that were interested in having me up for Light Night, the VGM appealed to me straight away. The lecture theatre was mentioned in the brief and I thought wow, that would be the perfect setting. I had visions of people doing autopsies in the past and that kind of thing. Just seemed like an appropriate setting. I was keen to see the Audubon stuff.

I’m interested in the relationship that Audubon had with nature. The exhibition I am curating, Spectacle of the Lost, looks somewhat at how Audubon shot and stuffed wild animals in order to study them as an artist, eventually contributing to the extinction of the passenger pigeon in the US. Liverpool is also host to a Galapagos exhibition at the moment – artists including Jeremy Deller and Marcus Coates recorded their residencies on the islands, including debating the preservation on the islands and damage tourists are doing to the habitat there. What responsibility do you think that artists have when working with animals or the natural environment?

I think it changes a lot with the passing of time really. I can see why someone like Audubon would kill things … one hundred-odd years ago we didn’t have the reference material we have now. We didn’t have zoos, or planes taking us abroad, and so to have that access to nature that we have now… Living in a different time I would have probably done exactly the same thing. I just made the decision very early on that it was completely unnecessary to kill anything. I don’t like the idea of killing anything because I love animals. On top of that it’s not necessary, I can access dead animals easily. My work is not about the study of nature, about bringing nature to people who haven’t seen it before, its not an educational thing. We are naturally curious people, always trying to further our understanding of life, and that was the way [the Victorians] went about it sadly. To repeatedly kill the same thing and contribute to its extinction maybe went a little bit far! Darwin was a taxidermist and brought things back that no one had ever seen before. Even though I’m a meat eater and don’t have a very strong stance on  the killing of animals for meat – even though most modern farm practices could do with a lot of improvement -  I think that  to kill something in order to make it look alive again is just perverse and lazy really.

There’s a really great example of that in this room – a painting of a Red Shouldered Hawk amongst Virginia Partridge (pictured). I’ve never seen a more unnatural-looking hawk.

The amount that we learnt from doing that all those years ago, I don’t think we would take that back if we had the chance. Remove all that knowledge and understanding. Now I can just switch a David Attenborough film on and watch that, I don’t have to take out a shotgun and kill a load of things to get up close and have a proper look at them.

Can you explain a little more your relationship with animals. I’m interested to know more about this contrast between love for animals and the sale of animal-based artwork, can you tell me more how you feel about animals, and this difference between dead animals that you perhaps weren’t familiar with and your pets?

Sure. If I cared about every animal that came into my house I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. So I have to get my head around that and find a way to work with the animals without sentimentalising them. I think that is a bit of a danger, humans tend to over sentimentalise animals – animals kill each other all the time and eat their dead. They don’t sit at a graveside and mourn their dead the way that we do.

You mean the way some people tend to anthropomorphise animals?

Yeah. When I get criticised it’s always by people saying that I’m disrespecting the dead, and I just don’t think that the kind of respect we give our own bodies applies when you’re talking about animals. The type of respect we give our dead is on behalf of their families, not really for the person that once inhabited that body. I certainly don’t care what happens to my body when I die, but obviously my mum or my sister would care. Its kind of foisting human sentimentality onto animals, and I’m of the opinion that there are far worse things to worry about. I didn’t ‘know’ the animals that I work with when they were alive, and there’s nothing I can do to change the fact that they died. As long as I know I haven’t killed them or ordered its execution, then I’m more than happy to work on it. I suppose I’ve become quite immune to dwelling on life and death when I’m working; I look at my dogs and I can see something different because they’re alive, quite simply. When they died I would have all those memories that would interfere with my working process so I wouldn’t be able to do anything with them.

Your exhibition The Age of the Marvellous in a way celebrates the Victorian sense of adventure and invention, this is what appeals to me about Audubon; his sense of discovery. What was it for you about the Victorian era that inspired your work?

I suppose there was just a kind of fearlessness back then that we don’t have now. We are obsessed with cleanliness and health and safety and many modern fears that have  prevented us from being as adventurous and brave as people were. That’s something that irritates me about the modern world. It’s something that I’m always drawn to. I like the aesthetics of the Victorian age too; but at the same time I’m not interested in nostalgia, or in recreating something that exists. There’s absolutely no point in doing that as far as I’m concerned. But I take elements that they found interesting and try to modernise them and bring them up to date, and combine then with much more contemporary things. Otherwise, I wouldn’t really consider myself to be an artist, I’d just be restoring old stuff.

Lastly, I’m interested in what’s next for you. What new things are you working on?

I’m working on a solo show called All Visual Arts in Kings Cross in London, with four new sculptures, two of which are the largest things I’ve ever done. I’ve made a series of drawings too, with cremated bird ash – crushing the ash up a little finer than it comes back from the funeral parlour (it’s actually quite gritty), and drawing with PVA and water with brush and quill pen, then scatter the ash onto it, and pour the ash off, then etched onto that. Beyond that, no big plans, probably something in Venice next year. Oh and a group show in Warsaw in 2013.

Will taxidermy still play a starring role in your work?

I don’t know whether it will play the starring role forever. I have more and more ideas that don’t involve taxidermy, or much anyway. To start with my instinct was to crowbar some taxidermy in there, because I’m used to doing it, but I’ve realised that more and more that it doesn’t have to be the primary thing. I can conceive that one day I will have a drawing or sculptural show with little or no taxidermy. I’m not in a rush; I’m just going with whatever inspires me, and I guess that I am finding working with taxidermy exclusively a little restricting. There’s only so many ideas I can have that involve it.

Laura Robertson

Polly gives a live taxidermy demonstration at the VGM 7-8.30pm tonight as part of Light Night

pollymorgan.co.uk

‘Famous new media artist’ Jeremy Bailey, in-between Liverpool and Toronto on a residency at FACT, invites us in to see where he works…

Please describe your space. Probably just because I’m not always here, my work space is wherever I can sit down with a laptop. In bed – I actually love working in bed. Wherever I am, because I travel quite a bit for my art and I perform, my studio is really just my laptop. I dont think of it as physical space, more in terms of desktop space/my virtual space. Surrounding that virtual space is usually a pile of wires or junk or flurescent tape and turtlenecks and short-shorts and things that surround my performance practice. So yeah, my space is everywhere – my least favourite is a desk, my most favourite is bed! That’s my priviledge for having a primarily digital practice. The space isn’t as important to me as the people who are here – they’re very engaged with art and technology and technology culture.

What work do you do here? I’m here on a three month residency. I embody a character called Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey – he’s this naive new media artist who puts a  lot of faith in technology to solve the world’s problems. I ask institutions what problems they’re having and try to solve it in character. The problem that FACT had was this push into using augmented reality (a live view of a real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS) as a didactic – in institutions, there’s all these text panels on the wall and public interface in the gallery. I don’t discourage experimentation, but quite often I feel like with new technology there’s always a reflection of the last wave of technology before it. Like early film is the history of theatre. Whenever a new technology or new medium emerges we don’t have a creative use for it, so we try to replicate what already exists. I kind of feel that’s what augmented reality is right now – people don’t know what to do with it so they’re still doing what we’ve always done. My Augmented Reality Dance Party tonight will be the second artwork I’ve done with the public. I’ve created a DJ interface that you control physically – you run in a circle like a record and it plays the song. If you stop, the record will stop. If you go backward it will scratch backward. So you control the record yourself. It’s at the front of FACT main doors, outside the Mexican restaurant. Working outdoors is important; we do something similar to Light Night in Toronto (where I’m from) and the most successful things tend to be outdoors that people feel they can get involved with. I love computers and technology and quite often make myself look ridiculous. I consider my performance style to be stand up comedy; I’m interested in power relationships and conflict. This project might seem innocent, a dance party, but essentially it is an interface that is a form of control, that requires you to look and act in a very particular way that someone else has designed, which is the way I suppose a lot of things are controlled. You have to run in a circle – I like the idea of a party where you don’t have a choice; the idea of people being slaves to the music.

What helps you work? Being in new situations or being in new contexts. Being in Liverpool and meeting with people, talking to different people about their views on the city. I’m living in Toxteth which is really interesting; I’m in this boarded up community (Welsh Streets) and living with the activists that want  to save these streets from demolition. I think that was shocking to me at first because these are homes that would be very expensive in North America, then I heard how much it costs to displace people is almost nothing … it’s a really unfair situation. Being there is very inspiring.

Describe your three favourite possessions in your studio space. I have these fluorescent rolls of tape I use that for all kinds of things – I’ll write my name with it but also use it for motion tracking. I’ve incorporated this fluorescent tape into a lot of what I do! I sometimes have it on my pants. Another thing is my laptop. Probably also my white turtleneck that I perform in. When I put it on I sort of become my character – my turtlenecks are very precious to me! I would also say my sketchbooks if I could have a fourth thing; that’s where my ideas are on paper. I really treasure having these books on my shelves with all of my work in them.

If your studio space could speak, what would it say? The space is always getting in my way. I joke that I’d be much happier as a floating head; my mom always said I’d be happier like that. My space would probably say: ‘I’m sorry I’m not big enough for you, I hold you down.’ Im not very agile, space has always been this awkward thing that I have a hard time navigating. So hopefully it would just apologise.

If you had any advice for other artists, what would that be? I hate being in a position where I tell other artists how to behave, because there’s no right or wrong way to be an artist – the best art is art that’s not recognised as art yet. But I’d say whatever you’re doing, do ten times more of that! Nothing’s too precious. I had this teacher that always said ‘what’s the point of going beyond the sketch?’ Now I think there’s plenty of points to go beyond the sketch, but I think the sketch often has a lot of potential. Just accumulate tons of sketches and ideas – get them out there, share more.

See Jeremy perform tonight outside FACT for Light Night

Jeremy is working towards a performance to climax his residency that will span both Liverpool and Manchester for the AND Festival. See his work here: jeremybailey.net

www.fact.co.uk

The modern-day festival is about a lot more than the bands. Does Sound City measure up?

Speak to anyone ‘in the know’ and running a music festival is the hardest game in the world, such is their ubiquity, if not longevity. Throw in a double dip recession and doing it in these most chastened of times can hardly make it any easier; you wonder why and how people do it. It is in this context that we sat down to think about this weekend’s Sound City, now entering its fourth year of operation. A festival can no longer be a ‘tell them and they will come’ affair; it has reached the point where if a festival is just putting bands on, it’s no longer filling the remit of music festival properly. Strange but true.

Most people (us included) still check the line up first, but then it’s onto the fringe events, sidelines and supplementary stuff that adds up to the modern-day all-encompassing festival experience. And if you fall short here, the punters are going to notice. The folks at Sound City look to have acknowledged this, but we’ll get to that a bit later. First and foremost, who’s playing, who are the biggies and who are our under the radar tips?

It all kicks off tonight, and for our money, the weekend won’t get much better music-wise. With the unassuming Willy Mason, boy/girl vocals of Slow Club and – the unlucky not to win the GIT Award – Stealing Sheep making up a chilled-out vibe of a start to the weekend. But glancing at the line-up it’s difficult to look beyond the psychedelic rock-tronica of the mighty Death in Vegas who first came to our attention with 1999’s Contino Sessions; an album whose immediacy was such, it was impossible not to be engulfed. Singles Dirge and Aisha (featuring a menacing vocal from Iggy Pop), set the tone for a real tour de force, and live, they offer a pretty transcendent experience. If that doesn’t get you going, you may already be dead.

If you’re not dead though and your thoughts turn to Friday and Saturday, there are a few real gems if you’re prepared to look. Our pick tomorrow would be Domino Record’s Eugene McGuinness who may have recorded the best Bond theme that never was. If you like your beats mellow, Manchester’s D/R/U/G/S* are on hand on Saturday, surrounded by a cluster of indie old and new on closing night: survivors The Wedding Present, and Sweet Billy Pilgrim most likely to be leant our ears.

As promised, we said we’d get to what the rest of the festival offers, beyond the bands. Sound City, the ‘on it’ bunch that they are, seem to have worked hard at holding up this end of the festival bargain, offering a broad range of extras. The thing is, a lot of times these extras can seem tacked on, a lazy acknowledgement of what a festival should be, making it all the worse when falling way short of the target. If you’ve bought your ticket or still plan to, you’ll be pleased to hear that this isn’t the case.

First off, there’s Gary McGarvey’s many armed beast that is Screenadelica, an exhaustive exhibition of screenprinted gig posters featuring the work of more than 20 international artists. Alongside the exhibition McGarvey has curated a top-notch pick of bands and acts that on almost any other weekend would constitute the festival proper. Tim Hecker, Forest Swords, Sun Drums, Mugstar and Vasco Da Gama all feature over the three nights.

Another string to the bow is that Kicking + Screening, ‘the world’s premier football film festival’, has chosen this year’s Sound City to make its UK debut (outside of London). A combination of film (screenings include Argentina Futbol, capturing one of the game’s most infamous rivalries: Boca Juniors and River Plate) panel discussions, football themed writing and photography all make for a fair old stab at revealing football’s cultural significance.

There are also numerous round-tables, networking events and advice sessions being run today and tomorrow. Usually (and understandably) the last thing on a festival-goers mind, the conferences are potentially more useful, albeit in entirely different ways. Our pick of today is this evening’s Social Media Surgery, while of particular interest to those with a great idea and wondering where to look next is Friday morning’s Start-Up panel.

You’d hope (if not exactly expect) that even the naysayers would find something to their liking amongst that lot, catering as it does to much of our very high expectations. Even if some of the headliners aren’t to our tastes, we’re predicting a weekend of spreading ourselves extremely thin in order to get around and experience as much as we can of Sound City 2012.

See Sound City 2012 website for full line-up and more info

This Friday over 50 galleries, museums and venues open until late for the annual evening spectacle that is Light Night. We’ve chosen our top ten…

Favela! @ The Royal Standard Gallery & Studios, 14.00 – 20.00, free

If you haven’t been before, take the chance this Light Night to visit The Royal Standard, an internationally respected artist-led gallery and studios based on Vauxhall Road. Studios will be transformed Friday and Saturday into mini-exhibition spaces. Chat to 27 artists including the Biennial’s Australian resident James Newitt, as well as Liverpool Art prize nominees Mike Carney, Jon Barraclough and Emily Speed. Saturday offers Pecha Kucha – fast-paced, 5 minute artist talks led by the images that inspire their work – and Tell Them and They Will Come: a workshop by The Double Negative, no less, on how to use social media effectively to tell others about your work and events (laptops essential, free wifi provided). No booking required, just turn up. See site for times.

The Royal Standard, Unit 3, Vauxhall Business Ctr, 131 Vauxhall Rd, L3 6BN

Augmented Reality Dance Party @ Art House Square (FACT), 19.00 – 21.00, free

FACT’s next resident ‘Famous New Media Artist’ Jeremy Bailey takes charge of ‘an outdoor augmented reality dance party for the public to revel in and explore their latent creativity’. Expect some very strange outfits and some genuinely experimental technology, in an attempt to control the way that we move. Dance-friendly shoes recommended.

FACT, 88 Wood Street, Liverpool, L14DQ

Polaroid Pop-up Studio @ Open Eye Gallery, 17.30 – 21.00, free

The new Open Eye Gallery on the Albert Dock has proved a big hit with audiences, and a perfect place to take some vintage-style photographs. Collaborating with Impossible Project expert Tom Wright, a pop-up studio outside the gallery will be provided, taking polaroid snapshots of you and best friend/Boyfriend/Aunty to take away with you on the night.

Open Eye Gallery, 19 Mann Island, Liverpool Waterfront, L3 1BP

Impropriety’s Journey To The Yet Unknown @ St Georges Hall, 18.00 – 21.00, free

Impropriety, an improvisation theatre company usually seen at The Kazimier, will lead a walk through the cells and corridors of the glorious St Georges Hall. In its past housing a court, prison, ballroom and concert theatre, the venue has a rich history which the group intend to explore through story and song. Expect to encounter ghosts of the glamorous and less desirable variety, but mostly a brilliant chance to explore behind the scenes of one of our most beloved landmarks.

St Georges Hall (Heritage Centre), St George’s Place, L1 1JJ

Printmaking @ the Bluecoat, 18.00 – 21.00, free

We recently wrote about the musicians that use the printing facilities at the Bluecoat Print Studios. Now is your chance to use the screenprinting and intaglio studios with a one-hundred year old press, with experts on hand to demonstrate the processes involved that can produce such wonderful art work. Expect to fall in love with the craft.

The Bluecoat, School Lane, L1 3BX

What Lies Beneath @ The Head of Steam Pub, 19.00 – 21.00 & 21.30 – 23.30, £15, book online

When we read this we imagined a Creep scenario, getting locked into Lime St after hours in the dark. Urgh. Apparently this historic location has only just become open to the public, and was the old basement of the North Western Hotel, built in 1867. Night Vision Investigations promise “doors slamming shut on command, unaccountable voices being whispered and people being touched by invisible hands”. I reality expect over-18’s, dark spaces, Derek Ackora style-spirit discussions, and hopefully an insight into Victorian Liverpool.

The Head of Steam Pub, 7 Lime St, L1 1RJ 

Liverpool ONE Discovery with RIBA, 19.30 – 21.30, free, booking required

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) lead a discovery tour in and around the city’s transformational Capital of Culture led development, Liverpool ONE. Known for research and discussion around how architecture effects communities and neighbourhoods and the importance of great design, this tour by RIBA should prove an interesting foray into L1’s conversion of public to private space.

Please e-mail anna.johnson@riba.org or call 0151 703 0107 to book your free place.

Meeting Point: The Bluecoat Courtyard, School Lane, L1 3BX

Red Wire Open Studio Art Fair, 19.30 – 23.30, free, art work available to buy

After a sabbatical of nearly three years, Red Wire Art Organisation has again returned to opening as a gallery space, in addition to the studios it provides. This is something to celebrate; a much needed addition to the city’s artist-led spaces, Red Wire’s ambitious exhibition CV has included work by Daniel Johnson and Jad Fair. This Friday their artists convert studios into mini-art stalls selling artworks, zines, prints, t-shirts, CDs and more.

Red Wire Art Studio, Carlisle Building, 69 Victoria St, L1 6DE

Polly Morgan – Live and Stuffing! @ Victoria Gallery & Museum, 19.00 – 20.30, free

Controversial taxidermy artist Polly Morgan gives a live taxidermy demonstration at (we think) the city’s most beautiful neo-gothic building, the Victoria Gallery & Museum. The University of Liverpool’s centre-piece, this building has been open and free to the public since 2008, and houses fossils and dinosaur skeletions as well as work by Turner and Freud. Their Audubon room is inspiration for Polly’s visit and the VGM’s next exhibition, Specacle of the Lost (opening 31 May), cuated by our very own editor Laura Robertson. Well recommended.

VGM, University of Liverpool, Ashton St, Off Brownlow Hill, L69 3DR

Rainbow Lights Homotopia IDAHO 50 Merseyside @ Active Learning Lab, 20.45 – 05.00

PLUS

inside:OUT @ Metropolitan Cathedral, 21.30 – 23.00, both free

Yes, yes we cheated, this is two events, but both worth catching. There couldn’t be more of an architectural-opposite than the two buildings nestled next to the Victoria Gallery, both offering light shows on the night. Rainbow Lights at UoL’s Active Learning Lab is a collaboration with 50 organisations in support of Homotopia to mark International Day Against Homophobia. Just over the road, kaleidoscopic images created from photographic fragments of the Metropolitan Cathedral’s beautiful stained glass is projected onto the outdoor altar of the cathedral by new media artist Andy McKeown.

Active Learning Laboratory, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Hill, L69 3BX

Metropolitan Cathedral, Mount Pleasant, L3 5TQ

Light & Sound LightNight Afterparty @ Liverpool Academy of Arts, 00.30 – 04.00, free

If you fancy marking the end of Light Night with some drinks, art and music, then you’re in luck. Liverpool Sound City - slap bang in the middle of their city wide music festival – take over the Liverpool Academy of Arts into the early hours of Saturday morning. TVLUX and Mak-UH provide a visual lightshow, and CLINIC DJs and the Kazimier Krunk Band are on hand for the tunes.

Liverpool Academy of Arts, 32 Seel St, L1 4BE (ENTRANCE – ACCESS TO REAR OF BUILDING VIA WOLSTENHOLME SQ – near The Kazimier)

… And Our Recommended Routes for the night

Light Night Option #1

14.00 – 20.00 Favela! @ The Royal Standard

17.30 – 21.00 Polaroid Pop-up Studio @ Open Eye Gallery

19.30 – 21.30 Liverpool ONE Discovery with RIBA

Light Night Option #2

18.00 – 21.00 Impropriety’s Journey To The Yet Unknown @ St Georges Hall

19.00 – 21.00 & 21.30 – 23.30 What Lies Beneath @ The Head of Steam Pub

Light Night Option #3

16.00 – 23.30 Augmented Reality Dance Party @ Art House Sq (FACT)

19.00 – 20.30 Polly Morgan – Live and Stuffing! @ Victoria Gallery & Museum

20.45 – 05.00 Rainbow Lights Homotopia IDAHO 50 Merseyside @ Active Learning Lab

21.30 – 23.00 inside:OUT @ Metropolitan Cathedral

More recommended routes can be found on the official Light Night 2012 website

Lesley Taker offers an insider’s guide to the new (best friend of) Rock and Roll…

Over the last couple of years, screen-printing has become the skill in the DIY music scene elevating screenprinted posters beyond ‘mere’ advertising to desirable items in which fine art and marketing collide. Everybody knows somebody who can screenprint, and turns to them when it comes to producing professional but personal merchandise in bulk. Quite often this is done in attics, or on top of washing machines, with cardboard and window squeegees because of the cost of either hiring, or attempting to set up, a highly functioning studio. But more and more the DIY-ers are flocking to studio spaces, such as those at the Bluecoat, not only to learn new skills on courses and in workshops, but also just to rent the space, and with it, the technical equipment whose effects cannot be replicated in a kitchen.

The Bluecoat has always had in the city’s collective consciousness a reputation not only for its ground-breaking exhibitions but also for cutting-edge cultural performance, the off-beat and the avant-garde: from Yoko Ono to Stravinksy, Captain Beefheart to Sun Ra. The building houses artists, writers, crafts-people, photographers and performers and offers a range of spaces for them to work, rehearse and socialize; both in public spaces and behind closed doors. Behind one of those doors is a place where the buildng’s rich artistic history and the musical obsession of its’ inhabitants collide. I might be biased because I work in the building, but I am constantly impressed with the Printing Studios, their output, the people who use them and the level to which screen-printing, in particular, is taking over the city. I don’t seem to be alone in this.

The safe, non-toxic printing studios (which comprises both Screen Print and Etching), built and managed by the highly skilled artist and printmaker Emma Gregory, have welcomed all manner of local, national and international artists. Since opening in 2010, they have created quite a buzz amongst not only Liverpool’s illustrators and artists but also the local music scene, and those who produce their marketing materials and merchandise. Mike Snowdon, who has designed and printed work for FACT, The Coral and the Cultural Olympiad, spoke about why he always returns to the Bluecoat: “They have great facilities, which are well looked after by the print community. Emma Gregory’s help and advice have proven invaluable; she’ll always go the extra mile for you.” It is this mixture of professionalism and support, offered by the brilliant printmakers who run the studios, which make it a thriving, exciting space in which to work.

Paul Rafferty, from the band Hot Club de Paris, has been using the studios for around a year, with his In The Room Print Co - a screen printing business specialising in both garment and paper stock printing, generally within the music, DIY and skateboarding world. The company produces music based merchandise not only all of their own material, but also for local bands, national artists and record companies (including Moshi-Moshi & Wichita Recordings). Amongst their clients are local boys Mugstar, Married to the Sea, Salem Rages and out of towners Slow Club and Frankie & the Heartstrings. In the Room are also responsible for the production of all of The Double Negative’s t-shirts (boasting designs submitted, and chosen by, the public) and tote bags.

I asked Rafferty why he uses the Bluecoat, knowing he has a workshop in South Liverpool, which he has described as being “like a party, but hardworking”. Their space is the epitome of DIY: “Two dogs are usually there. Puppies. It’s a bit like a future Diet Coke ad.” He tells me that he mostly uses the Bluecoat for the high quality UV exposure unit, to expose his designs onto screens so that they can be transferred onto whatever printable material he is making up in his studio. “We don’t own an awesome exposure unit; the Bluecoat does, and they offer use of it at a price that makes sense financially. It allows us to produce professional quality screens so that we can make the best prints for our customers.”

It is this mixture of professionalism and DIY which has seen the rise of screen printing as the most viable option for those wanting to create individual, high quality merchandise, which in turn has increased the demand for spaces like the studios at the Bluecoat. Jake Florek, from local brass and beat boys Stig Noise Sound System who used to produce band-related merch from a secret attic space, has recently taken to using the studio to print t-shirts for his band’s European tours as well as impressively psychedelic posters for local gigs. He uses the studios because he loves the people, the atmosphere and what is, compared to the stripped-down, punk operation he is used to, the “totally luxury studio gaff”. Mike Bennett, based at Breeze Studio Liverpool has also been using the studios for some time, and his business as an illustrator is dependent on the existence of the studio space, and the cost-effective equipment he has access to there. Ryan Fallon filmed a session of Mike printing up a new design in the Bluecoat studios, which shows how simple the practice is, using the right materials and with the right introduction to the process.

Mike Snowdon, is also one of the founders of Draw the Line, an event which is held the first Thursday of every month at Django’s Riff, on Wood Street. He has used Bluecoat studios for some time, and in a nice cycle of fate, used them to print posters for an event involving The Magic Band, famed for playing with Captain Beefheart; whose first solo exhibition was at the Bluecoat in 1972, in which he created fifteen black and white paintings in situ. Mike tells me a bit about he sort of materials he prints in the studios and who for: “Most recently, I used the studios to produce a poster for the Sea Odyssey event which was just here, but I’ve also done quite a lot of band-related stuff at the Bluecoat. I produced a poster for The Coral’s latest album based on drummer Ian Skelly’s illustrations. When this came out … The Wicked Whispers asked me to design their Butterfly’s Ball and Grasshopper’s Feast gig poster – a cheeky bonus was getting The Magic Band to sign some copies after the show.”

This month, the Bluecoat’s screen studios’ relationship with the printers of the local music scene is celebrated by well-respected illustrator Gary McGarvey (professionally known as Horse), and the rest of the Screenadelica crew; later this week, as part of Liverpool Sound City, they are running two limited-place workshops at the Bluecoat, teaching people the basic skills needed to create unique, professional-looking gig posters.

Talking about what may lie behind the rise of screenprinted gig posters in he UK, Gary says: “Screenprints at gigs are more than just a souvenir; they are part of the audience’s experience of the music. So many people just download albums, so that they have nothing physical to show for it. A poster creates both a memory of the show but also something physical to represent the music.”

These workshops tie in with the Screenadelica exhibition, which originated in Liverpool two years ago, and has now travelled to Barcelona for Primavera Sound festival, SITE Gallery in Sheffield, Bestival on the Isle of Wight and Orlando Calling in Florida, and the exhibition, which this year ties in with both Light Night and Sound City, is the largest of its kind in the UK. Based at the Academy of Arts on Seel Street between the 17th-19th May, the exhibition will host work by over 20 different, international gig-poster artists, alongside an impressive line-up of live music, most of which comes from local bands, including Bow & Arrow, Forest Swords, Mind Mountain and Ex-Easter Island Head.

Also as part of Light Night, on May 18th, the Bluecoat will host free open studio sessions for both the Intaglio and Screen Printing studios, so that you can go experience printing for yourself, see the impressive and varied results of printing in the 20:20 exhibition, and take a look around the spaces and equipment used. Emma Gregory, along with several Print Technicians, will be on hand to teach the rudimentary techniques and some tricks which can be used to create the perfect gig poster, t-shirt or vinyl sleeve. These sessions will begin at 6pm and run throughout the evening, until 9pm.

To book a free Health & Safety induction and session in the Screen Print studio (£10 for a three and a half hour session) or to enquire about courses and workshops, contact the Bluecoat’s Tickets & Information line on 0151 702 5324, or Emma Gregory directly on print@thebluecoat.org.uk.  You can also keep updated with the printmakers at their very active blog

To book a place on Screenadelica’s Screen Printing workshop Get Inky! contact Gary McGarvey on gary@screenadelica.com  (£50 for the full day inc all materials, Tues 15 or Weds 16 May)

Monday – Deviation: a surreal life drawing event @ Red Wire 6pm til late, £3

Beginning this evening and running throughout Liverpool Art Month, Red Wire will play host to a series of alternative life drawing classes spearheaded by artist Rob Flynn. Going by the name Deviation, the classes will give people the chance to experience life drawing in a different context, with models, environments, situations, props and installations all on the menu. Classes continue Monday 21 and 28 May.

Flash Gordon @ FACT, 9pm

Based loosely on the first few years of the original 1930s comic strip, the movie tells the story of Flash Gordon, football star turned hero as he takes on the might of Ming the Merciless. Famous for a score from Queen and bombastic performance from Brian Blessed, Flash was neither a commercial or critical success on release but is undeniably a camp classic. See website for ticket prices.

Tuesday – Get Inky! Learn The Art Of Screenprinting @ the Bluecoat 10.30-4. 30, £50 inc all materials

Ostensibly a gig poster exhibition (see Thursday), Gary McGarvey’s Screenadelica has grown into a full-on curated festival in its own right, bringing together international artists and bands. It has also illustrated perfectly the import of creating lovingly designed visuals to help promote a gig. Get Inky! is a rare opportunity to learn to screenprint over a full day, making prints, posters or invites with Graham Pilling, an experienced graphic designer and print-maker.

Thursday (to Saturday) – Liverpool Sound City, wristbands from £25

Now in its fourth year, Sound City has established itself as one of the UK’s leading metropolitan festivals, regularly attracting some of the top national and international acts to Liverpool. Featuring heavyweights Death in Vegas, Michael Kiwanuka and Mystery Jets, there’s also a healthy smattering of local talents such as Stealing Sheep and Forest Swords.

Screenadelica at Liverpool Sound City @ the Academy of Arts, free

Celebrating the art of the screen-printed gig poster, Screenadelica originated at Sound City in 2010. This year alone, McGarvey (aka designer Horse) has taken exhibitions to Barcelona’s Primavera Sound, Bestival and Orlando Calling, before returning to Liverpool in time for a very big weekend. With an impressive and long list of international artists exhibiting alongside handpicked bands including Mugstar, Sun Drums and Vasco Da Gama, there is much to recommend it.

Friday – LightNight, various venues across the city, free

With more than 50 participating venues including FACT, Tate Liverpool, The Royal Standard and the Anglican Cathedral, LightNight is the perfect opportunity to get out and see the city in a fresh context. With exhibition launches, open studios, historic tours and impromptu happenings, amongst other things, the night looks set to have something for everyone.

On the eve of The Double Negative launch party, we thought it best we gave you a heads up on what to expect…

Everyone likes new stuff, right? For our money, you can’t beat the aroma of a freshly opened bag of coffee, or the crispness of the pages in the latest copy of your favourite magazine. Ad men of yesteryear knew they could shift the latest model by talking about its new car smell. Tomorrow sees three newbies for the price of one, a triumvirate of bright young things coming together.

Yes, The Double Negative official launch party is almost upon us. What was all that jazz about new stuff, you ask? Well, there’s us of course, new kids on the block of Liverpool’s burgeoning cultural commentary landscape. Venue for the night is the just opened Camp and Furnace; an extremely well thought out, beautifully designed, multi-purpose space boasting its own Brown Bear ale. Lots of which is likely to be consumed by us. Not least however, the night also represents the first to be put together by our friends at Deep Hedonia, a music lead events, design, and production group. And don’t you worry, you’ll be hearing more about those guys in these pages soon enough.

As we all know, that box-fresh sheen gets you so far. You only stay shiny for so long before you need to back it up with some kick ass-stuff to show for it. Fortunately, we thought this through. The night will be a reflection of the site itself, featuring a liberal smattering of Arts, Design, Film and Music. A one-off exhibition of work, from print and drawing demons including Frances Disley, Emily Lansley, Alan Williams and Hannah Bitowski, has art and graphic design covered; while a compilation of classic and experimental shorts put together by our very own Rachael Jones will be projected during the night.

Fulfilling the music end of the bargain, we have special sets from Faded Gold (aka Stefanie Chew), whose music is correctly described by Getintothis head-honcho Peter Guy as “shimmering blankets of downbeat yet joyous electronica”, and Trouble with Books, the melancholic folk-drone trio of Angie Walker, Paul Hirons and Sean Wars. Capable of seriously beautiful moments, TwB splice acoustic guitar and double bass with electro-noodling to great effect.

Following those live acts, the evening will be rounded off in style with a Bantam Lions (aka multi-talented artist, graphic designer and musician Mike Carney) DJ set which should keep things moving along very nicely. Finally, the Deep Hedonia boys will hit the decks with an eclectic mash-up of top tunes and beats (complete with a few suggestions from us) to keep the party going into the wee small hours.

It promises to be a top night; part opportunity for us to enjoy some of our favourite artists, writers, musicians and designers in the city – some of whom have directly helped make the site what it is – and part big thank you from us to you for all the support in these early days of The Double Negative that we couldn’t have done without. Most of all, it’s the perfect excuse for the big-ass P-A-R-T-Y we wanted to throw from the very beginning.

See you at Camp and Furnace, main entrance, tomorrow night from 8pm! 

An award winning theatre company provide an engrossing insight into the making of a monster…

Dept, illegitimacy, suicide and moral panic; in Mary Shelley, theatre company Shared Experience have brought us kitchen sink drama, 19^thcentury style. At first glance, opting to eschew the looming F-word with which she is associated in favour of a focus on her home and personal life seems folly. This fear is swiftly proved misplaced as the very real drama of Mary’s life unfolds before our eyes.

The play began, says writer Helen Edmundson, with a question: “How did Mary Shelley, aged only 18, come to write a novel of such weight and power as Frankenstein?” With such a starting point, this could easily have become a technical exercise, a dramatic version of joining the dots. Instead what writer Edmundson and director Polly Teale deliver is a play full of human anxiety and emotion, and in Mary, played captivatingly by Kristin Atherton, a prodigious young woman striving for self discovery.

Returning from an enforced break in Scotland, Mary’s is a broken home, which can lay claim to offspring by three different fathers and two mothers. The Godwin household, ostensibly headed up by father and radical thinker William (William Chubb), is unconventional to say the least.

Mary’s sisters, the air-headed Jane (Shannon Tarbet), and Fanny (Flora Nicholson) – the play’s moral centre – are already in thrall to Percy Bysshe Shelley, a poet and acolyte of her father’s. Upon the pair’s inevitable fateful meeting, Shelley (played by Ben Lamb) and Mary fall instantly, head over heels in love (or is it lust?) with each other.

This sets in motion a series of events which eventually lead to the pair’s elopement in France, taking Jane with them for good measure, much to the chagrin of Stepmother Mrs Godwin (Sadie Shimmin). What follows is heart-rending stuff; Mary falls pregnant and loses a child, while Jane continues in a dangerous game of flirtation with the well-meaning but selfish and irresponsible Shelley.

Following a tryst with Lord Byron, Jane too becomes pregnant and the trio return to England, yet greater shame cast against the family as the episode is reported in the press. Ties now seemingly irreparably divided, the factions resort to using Fanny as go-between and messenger. Eventually, the strain of the situation and her being torn between moral responsibility and a longing to escape her life of drudgery and spinsterhood, Fanny decides she must instead end it.

In committing suicide Fanny, albeit unknowingly, performs what appears to be a final selfless act, paving the way for what eventually leads the family toward reconciliation. Her death puts their squabbles into perspective, and when Shelley and Mary plan to marry, the Godwins accept their invitation to the wedding.

At this point, a thought occurs to us: all this and no mention of Frankenstein. Not one. But with the play hurtling toward its denouement, there is a face-off between Mary and her father where the novel is finally alluded to, if not mentioned in name. A powerful scene, Mary casts her father William as the Doctor Frankenstein to her monster. Explaining the themes of the book, Mary says it’s “about a man who … creates a creature … But when he has created it … he cannot countenance its needs”.

At this point, the audience is on tenterhooks, fearing for the relationship central to Mary’s life. Thankfully, and at the last moment, there is a mutual climb-down, William light-heartedly proffering that although he cannot promise to be kind, he “should like to read it”.

Mary Shelley is a fine piece of theatre with strong performances throughout. If we’ve tended to focus on the drama of the play, it’s simply because of its compelling nature. But have no fear, thanks to Edmundson, the production is laced with both gallows and silly humour alike, much of it provided by the superb Shannon Tarbet. It may have been the extra-large glass of red we had in the intermission, but if The Double Negative awarded stars, we’d be hard-pushed not to give this the maximum five out of five.

Mary Shelley continues at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday the 12th May

Alfred Hitchcock is remembered as one of the great directors of his generation, an auteur without equal in this country. But was there more to him and his films than meets the eye?

The BFI have called him “the most iconic and influential British director of all time”, and there can be little doubt about Alfred Hitchcock’s reputation as a master of his craft; an auteur, to our mind, we haven’t seen the like of before or since in this country. Demonstrating a sophistication and deft lightness of touch that practically laughed in the face of his peers, his films continue to be mentioned amongst the best ever made.

The Birds, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, The 39 Steps, Rope and North By North West – we could go on – are all examples of a director at the top of his game. Later this year the BFI are staging a complete retrospective, which also features the newly restored silent films, including The Lodger and The Ring. While prolific output is not always synonymous with quality, in a career spanning more than fifty years there were few duds. He is rightly venerated and remembered in this context.

But of course, we all have the odd skeleton in our cupboard, or in Norman Bates case, the mummified remains of your murdered mother in the loft. Indeed, there have long been concerns about the portrayal and treatment of his female characters. Writing in The Guardian in 2010, Bidisha noted that when it came to the women in his films, they can be neatly categorised thus: “There’s the vamp, the tramp, the snitch, the witch, the slink, the double-crosser and, best of all, the demon mommy. Don’t worry, they all get punished in the end.”

A withering assessment by any margin, but hardly a new one. In her 1975 essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema, Laura Mulvey argued that in films of the Hollywood Studio System, there exists a troubling dichotomy. In engaging with the film, the viewer develops a relationship with what they are watching, ‘a pleasure in looking’ which would be split between the active male character and the passive female, on screen purely to serve the purpose as subject of the gaze. For Mulvey, in the Hollywood Studio tradition, the gaze is from a hetero-sexual male perspective, women demoted to little more than objects of desire.

It’s rather difficult to argue with Mulvey’s thesis when applied to many of Hitchcock’s most revered films; the anxieties of his protagonist (and therefore the audience), are played out by the flawed female characters. Hand in hand with the casual fetishism, the women on screen are often subject to a sadistic relationship with their male counterparts, and are regularly and ruthlessly punished as a result.

In Marnie, we have a kleptomaniac, frigid Tippi Hedron, dominated and tamed by the moneyed and powerful Mark, played chillingly by Sean Connery. James Stewart’s LB Jeffries desires and lambasts his wall-flower wannabe wife in Rear Window, belatedly taking an interest in her only when viewed through the lens of his telescope. Hitchcock, understandably, can be viewed as the archetypal misogynist, inviting the audience to indulge in (his) sadistic fantasies.

The flip side to this of course is that all along, Hitch understood the asymmetry of sex and gender-relations, and he used his films to acknowledge and represent this imbalance. When one considers his obsession with star of The Birds, Tippi Hedren, this argument appears flimsy at best. The actress, who was forced to shoot the ‘attack’ scenes of the movie with real birds tied to and thrown at her, when asked about their relationship, said: “He was extremely complicated. I think he was a misogynist … He really wanted to control my life … It was very wearing and frightening.”

Quite an indictment of the man behind the movie camera. Fortunately, audiences are (and probably always have been) savvy enough to take what they want from a film, rather than be subject to any hypodermic needle effect. Many of Hitchcock’s most infamous identifiers are on show in North By Northwest. The cunning and treacherous, but weak Eve (Eve Marie Saint), playing Cary Grant’s wronged but resourceful lead for a fool, are classic archetypes of the Hitchcock canon. And yet, if we allow it to be, the film is first and foremost a sophisticated, darkly humorous classic of the genre, making for one of cinema’s all time great chase-thrillers.

North By Northwest Sunday the 13^th May 5.30pm @ FACT