Past Shows

For information on Season 1 or Season 2, see the different archive pages.

Saturday 5 July 2008
Rational Rec invites you to a picnic in the park
Butterfield Green, Wordsworth Road, N16
A day of family fun, activities and interdisciplinary arts.

For our final event of our successful third season, and our last event in London for the forseeable future, Rational Rec invites you to join us for a picnic in the park. Pray for good weather, bring a picnic and join us for an afternoon bidding farewell to Rational Rec for in London for a while...

Get involved with a vision of the Olympic Dream as you've never seen it before with Grunts for the Arts and witness music, performance and fun from David Helbich, The Calculators, Marcia Farquhar (tbc) and marketing consultant Felicity Mukherjee. Oyvind Torvund also performed his Butterfield Green Audio Guide.

Join us for a final fling, relax in the sunshine and make new friends.

The afternoon kicks off at 12 noon and lasts as long as the sun shines.

 

 

Saturday 7 June 2008
A Night At the Music Hall
A co-promotion with Spitalfields Festival
Venue: Wilton’s Music Hall

Part of the 2008 Spitalfield's Festival

Rational Rec presented A Night at the Music Hall, part of Spitalfields Festival, on Saturday 7 June 2007. This special, one-off event took place at Wilton’s Music Hall .  See a map of Wilton’s Music Hall’s location.

Encounter the spaces and histories of Wilton’s Music Hall as you’ve never seen them before with Rational Rec’s inimitable take on the Edwardian variety show, including a programme of artists film curated by LUX.

Come along and be artistically, intellectually and alcoholically stimulated with:

Musical enlightenment from Plus Minus ensemble, Michael Finnissy, Andrew Toovey and Adam de la Cour

Perfomances of:

Rational Rec’s Night at the Music Hall
Wiltons Music Hall, Graces Alley (Off Ensign Street), London, E1 8JB
(7 mins from Aldgate East/Tower Hill tube)
Map to Wilton's Music Hall
Doors open 7.30pm; £5 entry on the door
Part of Spitalfields Festival
Recorded by BBC Radio 3

See below for our intro to Wilton's Music Hall and meet some of the performers.

Wilton's Music Hall is the world's oldest and last surviving grand music hall. Here, in the 1850s and 60s, classical overtures, opera and operetta, choral, contemporary and folk songs were enormously popular, long before "old time music hall" evolved. John Wilton built this theatre behind his public house, The Prince of Denmark in 1858, in Graces Alley, E1. The pub was locally famous as the first to use mahogany fittings. Wilton's was described as the Wilton's Music Hall "Handsomest Room in Town".

 

Tuesday 6 May 2008
Unnatural Histories

Ken Hollings and Oort perform A Prayer to Gojira:
Ken will read a specially prepared text to appease the god lizard, backed by deep space resonance from Oort (guitars, synths, theremin and electronics from Otto Amon, Richard Guest, Zali Krishna, Bruce Woolley).

Esoteric cartographer Gary Lachman discusses the homonculus and the golem as mediaeval precursors to artificial life.

Audiovisual archaeology from Ghost Box recordings.

Film screenings:
- Hibernator by London Fieldworks
- The Sound of Microclimates by Semiconductor
- An Insidious Intrusion by Tessa Farmer and Sean Daniels

Panel discussion on the evening's themes with all our contributors.

Stalls from Strange Attractor Press, Ghost Box, The English Heretic, Dreamflesh and more.

Mark Pilkington is a musician and co-founder of the journal Strange Attractor.

Ken Hollings is a writer, broadcaster and lecturer with special interests in technology, science fiction and experimental music.

 

Tuesday 1 April 2008
Bullfighting

Iain Sinclair and Susan Stenger
Iain Sinclair has lived in (and written about) Hackney, East London, since 1969. His novels include Downriver (Winner of the James Tait Black Prize & the Encore Prize for the Year’s Best Second Novel), Radon Daughters, Landor’s Tower and, most recently, Dining on Stones (which was shortlisted for the Ondaatje prize).

Non-fiction books, exploring the myth and matter of London, include Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital and Edge of the Orison. In the ‘90s, Iain wrote and presented a number of films for BBC2’s Late Show and has, subsequently, co-directed with Chris Petit four documentaries for Channel 4; one of which, Asylum, won the short film prize at the Montreal Festival.

His most recent book, London, City of Disappearances, is published in October 2006.

Iain Sinclair will be collaborating on a presentation with sonic artist Susan Stenger. Stenger's work has bridged the rock and art music worlds throughout her career. After early classical flute studies, she moved to New York City to specialise in new music performance (Phill Niblock, John Cage, Christian Wolff). She went on to play electric guitar with Rhys Chatham's ensemble and was a founding member of seminal guitar band Band of Susans. After moving to London in 1996, Stenger formed experimental group The Brood and all-bass-band Big Bottom, made up of both visual artists and musicians. She has collaborated frequently with dancer/choreographer Michael Clark, toured as a bassist with Siouxie Sioux, John Cale and Nick Cave and recently composed a 96-day sound installation as part of Soundtrack For An Exhibition, presented at MOCA Lyon. She is currently working on a number of projects with writer Iain Sinclair, focusing on environmental sounds.

 

The Five Roles of Frank Morgan
Joanna Bailie and Christophe Ragg
A performance with video

What does it mean to work on someone else’s material?  “The Five Roles of Frank Morgan” takes as its starting point the 1939 MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz”, a film as rich in structural beauty as it is in popular and half-remembered iconography.  At its basis the project is a more-or-less real-time “reconstruction” of the film.  The speech marks indicate the inherently problematic nature of this idea.  How much can or should one take?  How might it be possible to recreate, in the context of the theatre, the tornado, the ensemble song and dance numbers (with only two people) or even the switch between sepia and Technicolor? Adopting an approach that treads a fine line between deference to the original and humour as to their own potential failings, a Greenawayesque abstraction of aesthetics and an indulgence in the pure kitsch of the film, Ragg and Bailie will attempt to carefully filter and shape their chosen raw material into a work which is at the same time a remake, a deconstruction and a projection.

Joanna Bailie was born in London in 1973 and has been living in Brussels since 2001.  Her work as a composer has been performed at festivals such as the Venice Bienale and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival by ensembles such as Musikfabrik, The Nieuw Ensemble, Orkest de Volharding and the London Sinfonietta. Her music is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Since 2003 she has been the co-artistic director of Plus-Minus, an Anglo-Belgian contemporary music group who will be be playing at the October edition of the Transit festival in Leuven. Over the past few years she has become increasingly involved in collaborative work and in May 2006 she provided the electronic soundtrack for choreographer Brice Leroux's Quantum Quintet at the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts, a production that is still touring.

Christoph Ragg, born 1970 in Rheinhausen (Germany), has been resident in Brussels since 2003. After a period as assistant at the opera house in Düsseldorf he has worked as a freelance scenographer for various choreographers and directors such as Ivo van Hove, A.T. de Keersmaeker, Kirsten Debrock en Claudio Bernardo at theatres in Amsterdam, Brussels and Nice. For three years he was the resident scenographer at "Nadine", a performing arts centre in Brussels. In 2002 he formed the collective "C&H" along with Heike Langsdorf and Christophe Meierhans. Chiefly concerned with conceptual performance, C&H's recent performances include the opening ceremony of the TNT festival in Bordeaux and at the Point d'Impact-Festival in Geneva.

 

Catalogue
TAPE THAT (Christophe Meierhans and Koen Nutters)

TAPE THAT’s work is based on sound in a broad sense, not devoted to one specific format but instead developing different ones.  Working between installations, concerts, CD production and interventions, according to the conditions and concerns of each project, their main concern is sound, but as a departure point; as a perspective from which to look at things.  TAPE THAT works with sound and the rest, or rather, with sound in the rest; seeking connections and interferences between sound manipulation and its contingencies, between sound and everything that is not the sound itself but comes inevitably in contact with it, constrains it, extends it.

 

Spitalfields Festival Launch
Tuesday 18 March 2008
Venue: Old Spitalfields Festival

In a special, one-off, free event, Rational Rec decamped to Old Spitalfields Market to help Spitalfields Festival launch their 2008 programme.

With special appearances by Benny the Clown (such a hit in our Southbank Centre season 3 launch event), and performances from Mark Knoop, Matthew Shlomowitz and Full Fathom Five it promises to be a stimulating and diverse evening.

Our in-house evaluation and research programme rumbles ever onwards, with the delightfully stern Felicity Mukherjee continuing her sterling work on our behalf.

 

Tuesday 4 March 2008
Inter Inter Inter

A true interdisciplinary evening with music, dance, film and book making.  Rational Rec is proud to have presented work from most artistic mediums in its first two seasons, although the absence of dance is a notable exception.  This evening rectified this omission with two new works created by German dancer Sheila Ankari in collaboration with composers David Helbich and Matthew Shlomowitz.  The audience participated in the documentation of the event with the real-time creation of a silkscreen printed book.

  • New music/dance works by Craenen, Shlomowitz and Helbich
  • Hennigham Family Press documents the event in the form of a book.

Shila Anaraki has worked as a dancer with choreographers in Belgium,
Germany and Holland with companies such as Wanda GolonkaSchauspielfrankfurt,
Vivienne Newport Company and Les Ballets C de la B. In recent years, an
important part of her work has been dedicated to working with composers
(such as George Aperghis and Alvin Curran) as a collaborator,
dancer and assistant.

Matthew Shlomowitz is an Australian composer, based in London.  His work has been performed by asamisimasa, Champ d’Action, Niuew Ensemble and IXION.

David Helbich studied composition with Mathias Spahlinger. Based in Brussels, his work has been performed at festivals such as Something raw (Amsterdam), Welcome back mister Paik! (Antwerp), Wien Modern and Argos Festival (Brussels).

The Hennigham Family Press, run by David and Ping Hennigham, publishes short experimental books. Using silk printing screens prepared beforehand, the audience will be invited to contribute to activities that relate to the works being performed during the event.

Tomma Wessel is a German recorder player living in Belgium. She performs with Ex Tempore, Musica Antiqua Köln, Champ d’Action, Collegium Instrumentale Brugensis, Il Novecento, Het Spectra Ensemble, Het Vlaams Symfonieorkest en Das Urensemble and is a member of the recorder group Aspara.

Paul Craenen (1972) is active as a composer and researcher of intermedial art forms. Due to the experimental character of his work, he prefers intensive cooperation with small ensembles or individual performers. His lasting interest in the status of bodies in contemporary music performance led to a post-graduate research at the Orpheus Institute from 2001 to 2004.

More information is at inter-inter-inter.blogspot.com

 

 

Tuesday 5 February 2008
New Rational Music

New Rational Music is Rational Rec’s annual commissions showcase for the best in emerging and established composers.  Each piece was a world premiere by established artists, performed for a variety of instruments.  New Rational Music offers new audiences a unique opportunity to experience contemporary music in a welcoming setting, contrasting with the usual concert venues traditionally associated with notated music.

New commissions by composers:

The pieces were performed by Mark Knoop, Alan Thomas, Vicky Wright, Marcus Barcham-Stevens and Guido Henneböhl.

This event was financially supported by the Hinrichsen and Holst Foundations.

Images and video from this event will be posted online soon.

 

Tuesday 8 January 2008
The Rational Review of 2007

This year, the Rational Review teams up with Alli Beddoes, curator of the Autonomous Series at Campbell Works earlier in 2007, to bring you Rational Review of 2007: YouTube.

Alli Beddoes and Cecilia Wee co-chair a panel:

chose their favourite, most compelling YouTube clips of 2007 and we invite you to do the same.

To take part in the debate, email your favourite You Tube clip from 2007 to cecilia@rationalrec.org.uk by Monday 7th January 2008. Even if you’re unable to make it along on Tuesday 8th January, we’d still love to receive your nominations!

Felicity Mukherjee, independent PR consultant, creates a unique audience evaluation exercise “Quantifying Rational Recreation”. Felicity has presented in various art contexts including [space] gallery, Artsadmin and Bonkersfest!

To complete the evening, John White, treasured UK experimental composer and performer, plays some new and recent works for piano and lo-fi electronics.

 

Tuesday 4 December 2007
Three Winter Potatoes

John Snijders performs UK piano music:

John Snijders (The Netherlands) is one of the leading pianists internationally specializing in contemporary classical music.  He is the artistic director of the Amsterdam based Ives Ensemble. Somehow, we've managed to persuade him to provide the piano accompaniment to our Fucked Up Karaoke.

The Ivalo River Delta (Patrick Beveridge, 2007, 17min, 16mm) - selected by LUX
Shot within the Arctic Circle in northern Lapland, the film documents the landscape and lively night sky of an icy wilderness. The Aurora Borealis and other extraordinary phenomena are captured through long exposures and stunning time-lapse photography. Includes live music by Hanna Tuulikki

Patrick Beveridge was born in Madrid in 1967 and studied sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art. His research on the light artist James Turrell was published in the journal Leonardo and he showed with this artist in Northern Lights, a group exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery.

Hanna Tuulikki is an artist and musician based in Glasgow. Using various forms of performance, sound, video, drawing and publication she explores music not as an end in itself but as part of the wider environmental soundscape. Recent public art works include ‘Nest’ as part of ‘See Eye’ in Abbeyview, Dunfermline and ‘Airs of the Sea’ exhibition at the Stables Gallery, Cromarty. Her sound and video works were included in ‘Dark Space II’ at the Royal Scottish Academy and at ‘Expo’ Sonic Arts Festival in Plymouth. She performs regularly around the UK and Europe with her band ‘Nalle’, who have their second album out on Chicago’s Locust records early next year.

Bingo and Fucked Up Karaoke 3 with super prizes

 

Rational Rec Goes South
Saturday 10 November 2007

Click here to see images of Rational Rec at the Southbank Centre.

For one night only, Rational Rec dropped into the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre for a special night of film, performance, music and sonic art.  In another first, the first Rational Rec of season three took place on a Saturday – 10 November 2007.  Still £5, still available on the door.

Marcia FarquharIn the Front Room, we presented a new work by live artist Marcia Farquhar, Up My Street.

Not everyone was "swinging" between the coronation and the jubilee. Marcia Farquhar illustrated this point with her portable record player, her box of singles, her anecdotes of pop music history and her memories of not "being there". It's a child's '60s in the King's Road.

Specially commissioned by Rational Rec, Farquhar’s ‘Up My Street’ was devised with musical histories and the Queen Elizabeth Hall in mind. Taking place in museums, galleries and site specific locations, Marcia Farquhar's performances are often concerned with the telling and retelling of stories from both private and public areas of experience.

Also in the Front Room Plus Minus ensemble performed Louis Andriessen’s iconic ‘Workers Union’.

In the Soft Space a programme of experimental film and video curated by Mike Sperlinger. Peak Project, Sebastian BuerknerEach of the six short videos in The Fundament goes back to basics, or touches bottom. It starts with a narrative of primordial creation, takes in a primal scene of familial confrontation and some entities rehearsing their existence backstage, a stand-up comic hitting his nadir and a short scatological odyssey, before concluding with a musically-modulated primal scream.

Including work by Steve Claydon, David Blandy, Sebastian Buerkner, Ann Course & Paul Clark, Katie Davies and  Wojciech Bruszewski.

Full film programme available here (Word document, 32k)

Roaming around the whole space, artist Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre performed a newly commissioned work: COMPANY. Thinking about the solitary nature of addictions and how the pursuit of our addictions can make us lonely, and continuing the focus of much of her work in creating a personal relationship with individuals, Lopez de la Torre offered herself to the members of the audience to accompany them in any solitary pursuit they might have needed to undertake during the evening.

Proposed accompaniments include company for going outside for a cigarette, adjusting make up in the ladies or having a drink if you’ve turned up alone.  Audience members were also welcome to come up with their own ideas for accompaniment and negotiate them with Lopez de la Torre.

One lucky winner of a draw had Lopez de la Torre walk them home.

Stationed alone in the Soft Space, Lopez de la Torre welcomed people to her table one at a time for these intimate performative acts, probing the sociability so central to Rational Rec.

In two dedicated sub-auditoria spaces, boundaries between stage and audience were challenged with the psychedelic spectralism of Fausto Romitelli’s ‘Trash TV Trance'.

Benny the Clown is Adam de la Cour
Adam de la Cour is an experimental composer and performer living just outside London. He studied composition with Rodney Newton, Kit Turnbull and Michael Finnissy who supervised his Doctorate at Southampton University. Adam's work embraces a huge diversity of influences with his scores combining elements of video, photography, installation, literary cut-up techniques, absurdity, pataphysics and comic book form.

You can still relive Rational Rec on the South Bank with your iPod or MP3 player and experience the commissioned audio guide to London’s South Bank by London-based architect Celine Condorelli. See also www.supportstructure.org.

The walk starts from inside the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

DOWNLOAD BY RIGHT MOUSE CLICK (PC) / CTRL CLICK (MAC)
Celine Condorelli, 2007
in support of culture, audio walk, mp3 16:28 (22.6MB)

<>An interpretation of Luca Frei's book, 'the so-called utopia of the centre beaubourg', itself an interpretation of 'la soi-disant utopie du centre beaubourg' by Gustave Affeulpin, a pseudonym for Luca Meister's later Italian translation 'sotto il beaubourg'. With music by Zafka, A.L.S., "music for shopping malls", a support structure project, 2007.

"40 years have passed since this part of the centre was inaugurated, and still i get asked to give my account of the experience which, at best, was considered a utopia, but more often an attempt to sabotage our culture, a threat to the fundamental values of our society...

Re-reading the newspapers of that time, the sarcasm of those on the right and the annoyed scepticism of the ones on the left, remembering the interventions of the parliamentarians, demanding for the orgies and the sacrilege to be stopped, remembering the offended academics and the outraged parents, remembering the outcry of the bishops and the bitterness of the censors...

But don't worry, I do not intend to come back on these subjects and all that has been said and written since; once utopia began to appear less foolish, thinkers started to engage with it anew, analysing it, dissecting it, conceptualising it, lacanising it, demonstrating in short that it was not in fact a true utopia, but just nonsense and emptiness.

It is useless to attract attention to such rubbish, to the elaborations against it and for it: it would suffice to go to any library to find everything that has been printed on the subject. Above all, for us what counts is what is done and lived rather than what is said: things count, not their appearance. So what i would like to tell you here, is about a story of what was done, of hurdles that had to be overcome and moments of extraordinary optimism, for isn't that what we expect from an account?"