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1st March 2010 Stoke-on-Trent Pecha Kucha Night - Volume 2 Thursday March 11th 7-10pm FatCat Cafe&Bar Hanley Yes, it's that time again, when originality flowers. We have a great set of presenters burning the midnight oil on their ideas. We look forward to seeing you at one of the coolest events in our fair city. It's free with a dedicated bar and great venue. 14th Nov 2009 Thanks everyone for coming and making it a really lively and different space last night at the Pecha Kucha event - bubbling away until closing time. It was great to have the input of bITjAM and the documentation of Inpsired Films and Iconic Images. Also the brave presenters on this first night with a fascinating range of approaches from Anglo-Saxon windows to Hang music. The SpeedMeet was chaotically hilarious, all in 6mins 40 secs, so a collective pecha kucha! Can't forget Fat Cat and Steve for their support in providing a great venue and bar. Lots to build on so look out for the next event; we have the agreement to hold 4 events a year so all you out there with ideas or stories, start thinking - it's a unique format that has the trick of surprising yourself with what you can do with it. Photos and film to follow..... 6th Nov 2009 First Stoke-on-Trent Pecha Kucha coming up! Come and join us on Fri 13th Nov for some great presentations, funky sound and zany short films. Starts at 7 - 9pm and onwards with own bar and free entry at Fat Cat Cafe & Bar, Trinity Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. What is Pecha Kucha? Pecha Kucha (pronounced “pa-chok-cha” http://www.pecha-kucha.org )is an entertaining way to exchange ideas and experience. The aim is to get people from different walks of life and experience talking to each other in a way that is original, funny, unusual, serious or just different. Using 20 images in total and a time of 20 seconds per image your presentation is then 6 mins 40 secs. The format was devised and copyrighted by Royal College of Art architecture graduates Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, working from their multi-disciplined arts business base in Tokyo, originally as a way of getting art and design professionals talking to each other in a focused and inventive way. The idea has spread virally to many different walks of life and many city events have been held around the world. Stoke-on-Tent becomes the first city in the West Midlands to win permission to hold a programme of Pecha Kucha Nights. This initiative came out of an alliance of two locally based projects, Headtalk, http://www.headtalk.org.uk/ , a project out of AirSpace, http://airspacegallery.org/ †, and Blurb, http://blurbonline.ning.com/. Both these projects are focused on exchange and networking amongst arts people and equally the promotion of dialogue between the arts and other social groupings or communities in Stoke-on-Trent and regionally. We believe the introduction of the Pecha Kucha format to the city is an exciting and effective way to pursue these aims. Contact: stokepechakucha@yahoo.co.uk14th September 2009 Apart from the Pecha Kucha city wide event, another interesting project coming up is a collaboration with artist Brian Holdcroft. We applied and were accepted for Inter?ogation at Walsall New Art Gallery. The aim is a set of short intensive interventions exploring the role of the artist in a post-industrial setting, together with a post event symposium. There is a comic framework as the role of agents with uniform and mustaches form part of the brief. Our enactment takes place on the 23rd Sept 2009. More about this at http://www.longhouse.uk.com/longhouse/interogation-walsall/ 6th Aug 2009 Well, just reporting that we survived the dummy run of Pecha Kucha as a HeadTalk Fringe event in collab with Blurb on Tuesday at Fat Cats. Artificial sweat, blood and tears on the lead up being worth it for a really great evening and a nicely noisy turnout for these early days of the project. Thanks go to all who ventured into this new territory as spectator or participant. The format provides a different kind of space for presenting and is interesting and challenging for any kind of art mode. The sacrificial guinea pigs who fronted on the night were in order, Brian Holdcroft who did a great parody of the aspiring artist; Tony Jones with an unusual take on 'gloomy' photography; Glen Stoker and some choice graffiti from his exploration of Eastern Europe; Anna Francis and a really lively rehearsal of 'Things which inspire me and make me feel happy'; Mark Brereton with a stomach turning analysis of the stuff we buy in tins; Paul Bishop with a different and revealing take on graffiti focusing on its wider symbolism and lastly myself with a spoken prose poem,'the instability of instability'. Special mention in dispatches for Chris of Culturing Stuff whose pres got snagged by software conflict just as he was going over the top. My piece was accompanied by the first items of what I hope will be a growing collection of sophisticated sound instruments (see pic via menu - Pecha Kucha page). In case you're wondering, a prose poem is for anyone who can't write poetry, at least that's how I look at it. Its a liberating form and for me a first time as a performance piece linking to other stuff I do. The whole event was a dummy run, so look out for the 'real' thing which is going to happen in November (Fri the 13th). The Pecha Kucha team will be putting out a call for presentation proposals via Headtalk, Blurb and Facebook sites in plenty of time so get the ideas stirring! Check out Anna Francis' blog for more pics and description of Tuesday's event. Links for Pecha Kucha: Facebook - Pecha Kucha Night Stoke-on-Trent Blurb - www.blurbonline.ning.com HeadTalk - www.headtalk.org.uk and on Facebook: HeadTalk Anna's blog: www.annafrancis.blogspot.com And if you'd like a look at my website: www.bernardcharnley.co.uk 28th July 2009 Coming up: Dummy run Pecha Kucha at Fat Cats, Hanley, S-o-T, Tue 4th August 7pm in downstairs room. Check out directions at http://www.fatcatcafebars.co.uk/stoke/index.html Been a busy second half of the month starting with some artists from AirSpace engaging with performance art at the Whitworth Gallery Manchester presented by the international performance artist Marina Abramovic. Found the experience very different and provoking a whole set of new questions about the making of art Then the HeadTalk and Blurb people got down to plans for a Pecha Kucha city wide event after winning the right to stage a programme in this region. Decided to organise a dummy run and this is taking place on Tues 4th August 7pm at Fat Cats, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent (see start of post) So if you are about, drop in to see the fun and give feedback. If you would like to present at the real thing get in touch at stokepechakucha@yahoo.co.uk 9th July 2009 We had some fun at the AntiFreeze event in Manchester on Saturday, organised by Contents May Vary, which was held as a comic parody of the commercial Frieze show in London. All our objects from AirSpace artists (Dave Bethell, Katie Shipley, Brian Holdcroft, Anna Francis, Bernard Charnley plus Kate Lynch and Celine Siani Djiakoua with Glen Stoker giving practical support) were found from the Hanley Sunday Boot Market and then transformed. I did a collaboration with artist Anna Francis whose idea was to ask for the cheapest item from a selection of stalls. I wanted to do a sound piece capturing the fabric of voice and so it made sense to use her question "What is the cheapest item on your stall" as the pivot for the recording together with the question "Where did this come from?" to expand the exchange. And so the disc 'Cheap Talk' was born. The items bought were then used in our separate pieces. You can see a photo using the menu item AntiFreeze above. We managed to get around and see the other offerings which were all entertaining and the day ended with a collective scramble to get packed before the wind and rain (there was sun for most of the day) got there act together. It was a really affirming example of the energy around art today to be part of this funny, inventive play on the idea of a boot sale of art that celebrated the ingenuity of exchanges between people over the cold pricing of the market. The analogy for these kinds of event is a sort of chatter where ideas are exchanged lightly, but from committed engagements and open to being taken into deeper stuff. Talking of light and deep, don't forget the next Fringe this Tuesday 7pm at Fat Cats, Hanley (free parking). The Fringe is the chill version of cool Forum. Everyone welcome for chatter, showing stuff, exchanging news. The upcoming HeadTalk Forum/Blurb Pecha Kucha event is up for discussion as well as the recent AntiFreeze and anything else people bring along. Projection facilities available. 9th June 2009 Currently entering a joint proposal by AirSpace studio artists for the Manchester Festival ''AntiFreeze'', a show held in car boot format, a seriously playful counterpoint to the exclusive Frieze show, the high end commerical outlet. See http://www.citylife.co.uk/home/news/13628_antifreeze__the_alternative_art_car_boot_sale Since the last post the AirSpace studio artists were invited to hold a show at the Leek Institute during the festival in the town. We put on a show titled Aftermath, a reference to Sylvia Plath's poem and with the idea of exhibiting a snapshot of studio practice. I exhibited two paintings in progress that play with embedded objects, action men and colonial figurines. See a report on the show at http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/383995 The second HeadTalk Fringe took place last week. Nicely chilled and showing two art Pecha Kucha YouTube videos, photo work by Darren Washington and welcoming Culturing Stuff as well plenty of other exchanges. Working out to be an effective and fun face-to-face way of networking that complements Blurb, the local online network for Stoke-on-Trent artists run by Mark Brereton 22nd April 2009 Announcing the first meeting of HeadTalk Fringe, the chill complement to Forum cool - see headtalk.org.uk for details 5th April 2009 The new HeadTalk site is up at www.headtalk.org.uk with a Facebook page as well... 16th March 2009 HeadTalk blog is being re-sited and will be in action soon with new developments to the forum announced.. 15th March 2009 -Present exhibition is at Harrington Mill Studios, Nottingham 30th March - 27th April Get directions from: harringtonmillstudio.co.uk