The Sound of the Big Bang

roggernaut | Everything about music | June 9, 2009

In our culture blog this month our regular music head shows you how to reproduce the sound of the big bang with a four track recorder and a guitar in 7 easy steps

So here’s the thing, I’ve been trying for the last six months to write something whacky and entertaining and what comes out is all this stuff about Income Tax and VAT and deductable expenses, blah, blah, blah.
And though I assumed I was boring everyone senseless apparently not! Some of you are actually reading my little lectures on small business finance and gleaning little nuggets of wisdom. Whether by skill or aptitude, on anyone’s part, is of course entirely contestable, but I have been complimented on the utility of my advice, and so will no longer feel inhibited in sharing.

HOWEVER, there is also of course the fact that this is, as stated, the practical musicians workshop, obviously implying a degree of musician related material. And I did previously mention “how to reproduce the sound of the Big Bang with a four track recorder and a guitar.” Now clearly this is a matter of technical interest to the practical musician… but there is also the fact that our language contains many potential alternative definitions and readings of a given statement. Thus If one were practically a musician, one might still only aspire to being one. That means anybody could be reading this! Plumbers with tinnitus who couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket! Australians! Well sometimes you’ve just got to go with the flow. And sometimes you’ve just got to take what you’re given. So today we are looking at

How to Reproduce The Sound of the Big Bang with a Four Track Recorder and a Guitar in 7 Easy Steps.

1. Get a guitar and a 4 track recorder. This one should be obvious

2. Tune the guitar. Not so immediately obvious, as many would argue that the beginning of the universe ought to be rather Cacophonous. However, the extremely fine tuning of universal constants that have allowed for the steady and delicately balanced evolution of our universe for the last 14 billion years since its postulated inception rather indicates a high degree of uniformity and harmony at its initial condition

3. Choose an initial frequency. Being a guitarist one might be inclined to choose ‘E’ as your lowest fundamental frequency, but I would suggest trying the dominant ‘B’ if you use standard tuning as it will produce more interesting sub-dominant effects… or maybe a B flat for something more oriental

4. Starting at 0 seconds record and bounce every conceivable harmonic of that note that you can squeeze onto the 4 track recorder whilst channelling Brian May, Pete Townshend, The Jimis Page & Hendrix, Jesus and Mark Bolan. Pay particular attention to the ‘every conceivable harmonic’ part

5. Hire The Biggest PA System In The World

6. Bypass any fuses, trip switches or safety features of any kind. Switch on the PA and put all the volumes levels up to full

7. Just before you’re ready, simultaneously press ‘play’ and plug the 4 track into a live channel

Assuming you have nice reverb on the desk, and assuming your heart can take the shock and ears the volume and that you’ve actually survived, you may now be experiencing a very faint, but entertaining, echo of the earliest moments of our little bubble that we call ‘The Universe’. Good luck recovering.

In our next exciting instalment we shall return to the more mundane issues of running a musical business, with a simple step-by-step guide to setting up a business to save you money.

Prof Laserboy

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Secret Diary of an Arts Administrator

Colm McAuliffe | Life in a cultural petri dish | June 2, 2009

Some of my more eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there was no arts administration blog last month to get you through the dreariness of early summer. I would love to report that I was busy partying on the beaches of Barcelona or powering my way through a series of intense meetings with operatic programmers but alas, I was no longer in work.

Now I know that many people are being laid off at the minute so I hasten to add that I was not one of those; instead our city centre arts facility needed to save some money so I did the decent thing and offered to vacate my post, all for the greater good of the arts scene. Interestingly, I just heard that my position has now gone to one of my former interns which alarms me as these country folk could easily run the place into the ground with their loose talk and unruly hair.

So I was advised to keep my tax credits in order and sign on the dole! Such a ridiculous notion would have appalled me some time ago but nowadays everyone seems to be at it so I decided I may as well pop down to see what the story was. On arriving, I encountered a heaving queue but most of these people seemed, well, a little slow, retarded and rather malnourished. So I approached the woman at the desk who insisted that I had to join this queue of reprobates! I imagined that showing her my superior credentials would ensure that my case was considered immediately but this was not the case. What sort of a democracy do we live in, I asked myself, aloud.

Naturally I stormed off, although my way was obstructed briefly by some pale and pock-marked teenager, who was in the midst of a temper tantrum while struggling to control her own, equally ugly, children who were running riot around the social welfare office.

Once I returned to the relative safety of the streets of Dublin, I really felt like I had been in some insane subworld, populated with uneducated, filthy and inarticulate Neanderthals, like something from Victorian times. What was I to do? There was no way I could align myself with these people, some of them even reminded me of those types we met on an arts trip to the north side of the city when we attempted to invest a love of gay Bulgarian theatre in the residents of Finglas.

Luckily, I soon managed to dust myself off and return to reality. A phone call out of the blue alerted me to a position vacant in a similar arts facility. This all sounded perfect until it was brought to my attention that the job was not in Dublin but in another town somewhere outside of the capital, that well known bastion of madness – Cork. I baulked initially at the idea of a move but then thought of something…with my experience and background, I really could do these backward, inbred morons a favour. A raft of ideas ran through my head – masterclasses in how to behave in public situations, how to pronounce words correctly, how to appreciate the arts – the possibilities are endless!

So I have only just arrived now in Cork and am about to start work this weekend. By next month’s instalment, I predict that I will be well on my way to single-handedly bringing about the education of the masses and conquering the town of Cork itself. Toodle-pip!

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Dole Queue

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | June 2, 2009

The last time I saw my friend Vicky before she died, we were both in our respective dole queues, throwing each other embarrassed looks and smiles. We hadn’t spoken in a while and I know she was, as I was, embarrassed to be meeting each other in such a circumstance. But as we left that burdened building with our tails between our legs, admitting to each other that no, not everything was going to plan, we had a few moments of absolute honesty with each other that you can only get when at your most vulnerable, and I felt more connected to her then than I ever had before.

I believe there are many positive consequences of the current recession – more people are engaging in voluntary work, libraries are busier than ever, some people are embracing the chance to learn new skills and well…most of us are in the same boat now – or should I say, most of us are in the same dole queue.

And the dole queue, like rain, is a great leveller. It strips away our facades and reduces us all to soggy looking specimens with greasy looking hair and slumped shoulders. Like repentant school-children we wait anxiously in line, terrified that the secret social welfare police will burst out of that dreaded inspection room at any second and pin us to that cold floor with their bold accusations, having found out about all that extra cash we’ve been concealing…as if.

I had a disposable income for about four years in my twenties and I spent most of that on booze, books and Buffy the Vampire Slayer videos. Since then I’ve been etching a living out of the odd article commission and more recently, out of some screenwriting work. But I certainly don’t have a disposable income.

Over the years I have adapted to this lifestyle and now live quite comfortably in many respects. As long as I buy my clothes in Penney’s, my milk and bread in Tesco, my books in Enable Ireland and my beer in Aldi, I might even have a little left over to place a small bet with my recently attained Ladbrokes Loyalty card on a Saturday night. Good times.

However, I have to admit that I definitely feel like I’ve moved up the Darwinian scale when I see one of the newer members of the 9-5-liberated-front ashen-faced in front of the own-brand section in the supermarket, or buying a cappuccino for €3.50 in some supposedly slick coffee shop before placing the change in their pockets with a horrified look of realisation that they could have purchased milk, bread, sugar, eggs and cheap bickies for the same amount. All own-brand of course.

As someone who is used to raping my own coat pockets for change and living off of a constant succession of loans, I feel like I’ve gained status in the current monetary slump through my years of thrift-store living. I have mastered the art of living on the cheap, and therefore feel guru-like when I explain the ins-and-outs of coupon collecting to those who look at me like I’m the harbinger of doom.

So now, while family members and friends mourn openly about their loss of holidays in Lanzarote, expensive cocktail-laden nights out on the town, and newer bigger plasma television screens, I have nothing to mourn because you can’t miss what you’ve never had, right?

I recently had the privilege of attending a musical called The Farmer’s Daughter at the Firkin Crane Theatre, a musical that was entirely devised and created from scratch by a voluntary drop-in lesbian choir. This group of women had different skills and talents, but had never done anything like this before…and it blew me away.
Not only was it a fantastically witty and heart-melting musical, but to see this group of wonderful women coming together on a voluntary basis to create and to share with each other, reminded me of how wonderful human beings could actually be. When money is taken out of the equation, I believe people are kinder, more thoughtful, more giving and more creative.

I feel a sense of opportunity in the air at the moment. With less full-time jobs to go around and more time on people’s hands, there is a palpable air of change and growth in the city, and it’s very exciting. My uncle, a builder by trade, has taken up taxi driving and long distance running. My brother, a plumber, is thinking about going to college to study something completely different, and he’s started climbing mountains on a regular basis. Friends of mine are embracing their new found freedom by exploring everything from capoeira to spiritual retreats. Ventures like Mutant Space are creating opportunities for everyone to engage in creative and artistic projects on a not-for-profit basis. And how liberating is that?

I read the book The Celestine Prophecy a few years back and it had a profound effect on my life. There was a passage in the book that said in the future a time would come when the emphasis would shift from full-time work and careers to part-time work and the search for spiritual fulfilment. I believe that this time has come….and for many people, this search begins while standing in line at the social welfare office.

Members of bands UB40 (named after the unemployment benefit claim form) and Portishead met in dole queues. Artists of every craft have signed on for years while they honed their crafts, later providing the world with life-enhancing music, literature and art. As my friend Katie recently put it, the dole queue can be the best place to find yourself. In many ways, she is absolutely right.

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The invention of nostalgia

roggernaut | Life in a cultural petri dish | June 2, 2009

One of our skills exchange writers looks fondly back to the 1980s…

The 80’s are making a re-emergence. The recent return of shoulder pads and red lipstick to the spring catwalks is good news to me. The ethereally beautiful Daisy Lowe made a pair of stone washed denim mini shorts look shockingly good in pictures taken of her at the Coachella festival in California. Lowe herself looks something like an ‘80’s icon with her thick blunt fringe and kohled eyes. Not unlike a young Susannah Hoff.

There is also the re-hash of 80’s pop bands. Jonathan Ross recently welcomed Spandau Ballet on stage and I think the world is a better place now that Simon Le Bon is touring again. In fact the only reason I won’t be in the 02 Arena two weeks from Friday screaming ‘Pour some sugar on me’ is that I can’t convince anyone to go to a Def Leopard concert.

My husband thinks this love of the (generally agreed) worst cultural decade is down to sheer nostalgia. Nostalgia is a longing for the past. By its literal definition it means ‘the pain a sick person feels because he wishes to return home again and fears never to see it again’. Music from my beloved decade sparks the strongest form of nostalgia in me. ‘We Built this City’ by Starship has me standing by the bumper cars in Perks in Ardmore on our summer holidays. The sound of Steve Winwood singing ‘Valerie’ reminds me of slurping a milkshake with my mum on the Rathmines Road after Brownies on a Friday night. The memory that the song evokes is so strong it does almost literally feel like pain.

In the 1700’s nostalgia was considered a mental illness. Soldiers were discharged and sent home from homesickness. In the 1900’s the view changed to that of romanticism. One way or the other to be thought of as nostalgic is to be seen as a bit ridiculous. Why else would the expression ‘Nostalgic old fool’ have been coined? I picture the Mundy girls’ brother, Jack, in Brian Friel’s play ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ as the ultimate nostalgic old fool. He is homesick for the village in Uganda where he lived for 25 years as a missionary and his sisters are mortified by his wistful behaviour for a place that is not his birth home. This is the problem with the definition of nostalgia. It’s not just ‘home’ that we can be nostalgic for, it can be a time, a place, a person, or the person you were.

Either way it looks like, for me, it’s an entire decade.

I’ve decided that it’s okay that I can’t make the O2 next week. I have all the Michael J. Fox movies I want on dvd, all the 80’s music I want to download and a new matt shade of red lipstick. Besides I’ve now carved out an argument for my alleged bad taste. It’s called nostalgia.

……Or maybe some would think that wilfully listening to Journey is a mental illness.

(Anyone interested in reading about the ‘invention’ of nostalgia may find the following article interesting: ‘The invention of Nostalgia’ by Lawrence Rabb. If you’re searching for the perfect shade of ‘80’s red lipstick then I would recommend Elizabeth Arden’s Ceremide Plump Perfect Lipstick. It is brick red, creamy and gorgeous.)

Emer O’Connor

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The Rhythm Box

roggernaut | Short fiction and poetry | June 2, 2009

We’re starting a poetry section this month so If you’re interested in submitting work just email me at admin@mutantspace.com.

This month we have work from Nicola Depuis

I wish I could top up your love

I wish I could top up your love
like credit on my mobile phone;
it might leave me constantly broke
but that’s better than being all alone.

I wish I could top up your love
I’d always put in a twenty
and I’d carry my top-up card close to my heart
secure that you love me a-plenty.

I wish I could top up your love,
you’d call me and never hang up.

Exes and Oh’s

What we once had pertains to fiction,
now that we are friends and not lovers,
and a fickle fiction at that.
For it’s hard to imagine ever looking at you
with lustful hunger,
falling asleep with my bottom lip between your teeth.
Harder still to imagine holding you all those years,
our love an ugly constipated baby.
And now, amid single cinema tickets and tea for one,
between mantras designed to make me sympathise with the human race,
I sometimes sleep on your side of the bed,
and share that same fate.

Another Thing I Wish I Didn’t Do With My Mouth

I woke up this morning a mess,
a beer still in my hand,
still fully dressed,
but I can’t put the bottle down in moments of doubt
It’s just one other thing I wish I didn’t do with my mouth.

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Novella Hermosa

roggernaut | Everything about music | June 2, 2009

This month in the music section of our culture blog we take a closer look at Irish Band Novella Hermosa

Novella Hermosa have only being playing together for five months and so are pretty much brand new and still getting to know each other musically. The five of them love what they do. Really want to leave a mark.

As Luke Cosgrave says “We want to give listeners the feeling that they have just been power hosed with a brand new sound even though it’s still good old fashioned rock with a fiddle on top!!”
He goes on to add, “When people hear me say fiddle they expect something with a traditional Irish feel but we’re far from it!”

There’s a great selection of styles and influences in the band. Roy loves listening to good blues and playing it even more. However, he still insists he’s happiest when he’s playing bass. Cian and Robbie love their bit of Metal and this gives the music a really good bite while Shane kennedy is one of those guys who pretty much loves anything so long as it’s good and he enjoys playing it. As for Luke he’s in the same boat. He loves to play fiddle in as many different styles as possible and likes nothing more than improvising along a riff. “Its great working off Robbie and having the odd Fiddle and guitar battle!!”

The first ever album Luke bought was ‘Christy Moore Live at the Point’. As he says himself “It was a cassette and I was only 15 or 16. I listened to it for about two years solid. I Started playing guitar shortly afterwards but It wasn’t until I came to Cork for college that I broadened my musical horizons”.

Although he had been classical trained from the age of six years old he decided, on his 21st birthday, to buy himself a big stereo system along with Michael Jacksons History album. Jackson turned out to be a big influence on his song writing with singles like Smooth Criminal, Thriller and Dirty Diana and Luke remains a massive fan of his. U2, Queen, Oasis, AC DC and Guns n’ Roses are also high on the list. “I’ve great respect for anyone who uses their position of power or fame to speak out for what’s right”.

Novella Hermosa will be finished recording their first EP this summer and intend on playing to as many audiences as possible.
“It’s great ear candy and there’s a little something for everyone on it!! Rock on Novella Hermosa!!”

Novella Hermosa are:
Lead vocals, Violin, guitar: Luke Cosgrave
Lead guitar: Robbie Dunne
Rhythm guitar: Shane Kennedy
Bass guitar: Roy O’ Driscoll
Drums: Cian O’ Sullivan

Dates for your diary: 18th June ’09, The Roundy, Cork City
05th Sep. ’09, The Pine Lodge, Myrtleville, Co. Cork

Links:

www.youtube/lukecosgrave.com

Radio Mutation

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Cooking with nettles

Giles Clark | Recipes from a mutant kitchen | June 2, 2009

Poorly timed perhaps, as the best of spring’s nettles will be behind us now. They’ll not be going anywhere though, just toughening up a little. Late summer will see new growth, so in the meantime it’d be best to keep to the tender top leaves.

Their primary significance is the fact that they’re free, growing wild and abundant across the country. However, there is particular value in their herbal, melancholy flavour. Their stinging armour – cause for many a whine on long country walks as a nipper – will not recede until they are cooked, so gloves of some form are a must.

Grilled nettle bread

It’s similar to a flat bread this, and you can use a basic flatbread recipe for the dough. I prefer it not quite flat though. A good half inch thickness, will give a crisp outside and a doughy inside. It can be grilled above a fire, dry fried on a griddle pan, or baked in the oven. The success will lie in mastery of the heat source. Not smoking hot, but not far behind.

I used a mug full of flour with what would have been a little over half that of water and half a teaspoon of yeast.
Leave the yeast, to dissolve and begin to activate, with warm water (in the region of half the amount of flour) for ten minutes or so.
Sift the flour into a bowl. Pour in the yeasty water slowly, mixing as you do so.Add also a generous pinch of salt and swig of olive oil. Knead the mixture on a well floured surface for five minutes or so, by which time it should no longer be tacky but soft and elastic. If it’s a bit too tight though add a few drops of water and if a bit too loose add a little flour. Leave the dough in the bowl, covered in a tea towel, to rise for two hours in a warm cupboard.
Boil your nettles for just under a minute and shock them in ice water. Squeeze out as much water as possible and chop them roughly.
When the dough has risen, mix through the nettles. Separate into balls and roll (again on a well floured surface) into half-inch-thick ovals. Let them rest for five minutes or so and then cook. Above the embers of a fire would be my preference. But they can be cooked on a not quite smoking griddle pan or on a baking tray in an oven of 220 C degrees. Eat them straight away, ripping and dipped into hot butter.

Oats, nettles and bacon

A simple dish this one, but a few things going on at once. Perhaps prepare the oats and nettles before frying the bacon and poaching the eggs.

Bake some oats in a medium oven until browning. Then make porridge with them with milk and/or water.
Having washed your nettles, pop them, still dripping, in a hot pan. Season and stir, To get them fully tender you’ll maybe need to add a drop more water. When ready, chop them up and then pop them back in the pan and stir through some butter.
Fry your bacon (preferably smoked and streaky) and serve alongside the porridge and nettles and a poached egg.

Yoghurt jelly with nettles, almonds and honey

Quite a long winded preparation for this pudding, but a justifiable one, the result is a happy, perhaps surprising, harmony.
For the jelly you’ll need cream, milk and yoghurt. Its best for each, not to be tempted by any low fat varieties, a fine jelly will need double cream, whole milk, and fully fatty yoghurt. You’ll also need gelatine, you can use sheets or the powder but the former seems to be the more trustworthy. Use maybe just under half the amount suggested to make a regular jelly. I used one sheet for a quarter litre of jelly and it was about right: a quivering mass that will melt in the warmth of the mouth.

Best to start with the nettles. Pick the perkiest of them for frying. Heat a pan, half full of neutral oil, slowly and test it by dipping a nettle in it. The oil will be ready when the nettle fizzes. Pop in all your nettles and stir gently. Once the hissing and fizzing has subsided they’ll be ready. Slotted spoon them onto a paper towel and shake over icing sugar through a sieve. Blanch the rest of your nettles in sugary, boiling water until tender. Then shock in ice water, drain and pound, pulse or finely chop them.

Meanwhile have your almonds, skins on, baking in a not-too-hot oven. They’ll be ready when opening the oven door meets you with a smack of their oily, nutty aromas – fifteen minutes or so.

Heat up an equal quantity of cream and milk and mix in some gelatine. Strain it through a seive and leave to set in the fridge or freezer. When it’s thickening up give it a whisk until smooth and then stir in your yogurt – twice as much as the cream/milk mixture – and the blanched nettles. Leave it to set, covered, in the fridge for at least a couple of hours. If you are going to leave it for a long while then it’d be best to hold the frying of the nettles until closer to eating time.
You can let it set as one and serve in spoonfuls or in individual cups which will need a dip in hot water before flopping out.
Serve with the backed almonds, fried nettles and a drizzle of honey.

Giles Clarke

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Hallucinating on Rhododendrons

roggernaut | Culture and politics | June 2, 2009

I have heard of Dunboy through bits and pieces. I knew at first that it was the last dwelling place of Donal Cam O’Sullivan Bere, the last Chieftain of Beara, who had fled north to Leitrim as his castle burned. He was not even present when the English armies patiently positioned their artillery on the height above the castle and gathered wood from the forests to build their gabions. The defenders padded the eight feet thick walls with earth and timber logs but to no end: survivors were found cowering in the basement knowing they would receive short thrift. Fifty of them were hanged from the same tree timbers in the town square. Carew, president of Munster, ordered the castle be made level with the ground but the soldiers never took it apart brick by brick (like others after them) so Cromwell’s men had some shelter them when came to quell the insurrections fifty years later. Dunboy was one of three castles that peppered the south coast of Beara. Castletown takes its name from the first, whose last stone foundation was destroyed by a digger when the present property was being built in the 1960s. Donal’s brother owned the Dursey sound in the west but that castle fell before Dunboy and no trace remains. The end of that peninsula seems like the end of the world and Dunboy castle the passage point.

The first time I walked down to the ruins was a grey lacklustre day in November. I assumed that the heavy, crumbling entrance boarded up with plywood was somehow connected to the Irish castle but they turned out to be from much later. Henry and John Puxley bought the land in 1730. They were sons of a land agent in Galway. The house they built on the grounds of the O’Sullivan Bere domain began small but in 1812 copper ore was discovered in the north, in Allihies. A road was built from the mines all the way across the breadth of the peninsula to the exact place where the English ordinances had fired their cannon. The boats took away the copper and left coal, to fire more mining. ‘Copper John’, the great grandson of the original Puxley, paid off debts, built stone bridges, widened rivers and built a storied leap for the salmon. By the time his brother, another Henry, had taken over the house and begun his vast Gothic extensions, a gift to his wife, hundreds of miners had left for Bute, Montana where today suburbs have the names Castletown and Hungry Hill. The copper dried up in 1881, around the time the rhododendron was first planted, and soon after Henry’s wife died, days before the last timber lengths were due to be laid in the ballroom. Henry never returned to the house and the ballroom was never finished. In 1921 young rebels marched and trained in the grounds of the estate hidden by the evergreen oaks and monkey puzzle trees. The butler and housekeeper kept watch for the punt bringing soldiers back and forth to the barracks on Bere Island. Orders from Collins himself to burn the house that winter were reluctantly carried out and another ruin was added to the grounds. That grey day could hardly have found a more sombre scene.

At the height of the Irish boom Puxley mansion was sold by a local man to American developers who had visions of another exclusive, six- star hotel. ‘Welcome to someplace truly unique. Historic. Original. Rare. Welcome to Capella Dunboy Castle’, their website tells you. A party for the Beara community was held for the New Year two years ago. Watching from the water, the windows all a- glow, sounds of glasses chinking, it might have seemed as if the house had new inhabitants. Videos of the conservation consultant giving a speech on the wide bottom step of the main, marble staircase that evening record him laughing as he re-tells the story of the unfinished ballroom floor and the unrealised potential of the house. Now, alongside the rack of a ruined trawler sitting like a whale carcass in the shallow, sky blue water, are the redundant fences of the McMahon construction company rattling in the wind, rusting. Capella went bankrupt nine months ago and the summer opening was suspended. Walking around the site one can see wheelbarrows and neat stacks of slates still ready for use. Stakes are tied with red ribbon marking the place for young saplings to grow in the newly laid gardens. The interiors are finished, the floors laid, but there is no lights in the windows, only the fluorescent security lights to warn people off at night.

Apart from the ranks of felled sitke spruce in the Coilte managed forests the ruins are not so present at this time of year. Gorse, with coconut strangeness, is in places still glowing. Fields along the drive are covered in buttercups and the blossom of the whitethorn. Several horses and a clumsy white foal give a kind of Scandinavian purity. The Italian gardens laid out by the last Puxley are obscured by banks of spurge laurel that hang low over the water by the wrecked boat. Behind the laurel a path is so wet it takes your legs up to the knee. You can see the brick facing of the old copper house but there is no evidence of any garden design, only rhododendron ponticum. In winter, on the winding paths around the original castle, this plant grows all around and overhead in perverse root arches. But in summer, opposite the Puxley mansion, the failed hotel, they bloom into the most magnificent shows of pink and I am reminded of the ancient account of Greek soldiers who having consumed honey in a village surrounded by rhododendrons began to hallucinate.

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Episode 4; Star trekking through a lonely planet

Ronan Goggin | Life in a cultural petri dish | June 2, 2009

Across the border Macondo was the first word that sprang to mind. Gabriel Garcia Marquez conjured a fictional place of magic in One Hundred Years of Solitude, of a time and place nobody could figure. But snaking through the vivid colours of southern Colombia, I could have sworn this was it.

Marquez´s place of birth is a village close to Cartagena on the Caribbean coast, also thought to have inspired Macondo. In his mind if this wasn´t exactly what he meant, in my mind it was so close as to be intoxicating, but both a revelation and let down, because it now seemed Macondo didn`t leap out, after all, straight from his imagination. The dramatic mountain shapes and pungent greens and browns were all real.

You wouldn`t have thought somewhere so close to equator could accommodate some of the most green and fertile landscape in south America. In places, at the road edge for example, the cut of the grass was as it is in rural Ireland. Cattle grazing in adjacent fields had an almost Irish manner about them, though the smooth brown hue of their outline was uniquely Colombian. There was no mistaking the cattle of Macondo.

You wonder crossing the one vast land mass how much really changes from country to country. But arriving in Colombia gives a lie to the idea of overlaping cultures. The contours immediately take a form particular to here and nowhere else. The blood turns first black and then Spanish. The people emit a warmth and charisma that often eludes you in Ecuador, Peru or Bolivia.

The lingering perception of Colombia as violent and dangerous is a little ridiculous because in general, it at least feels safer than most other places in south America. The free market western style economics it embraces, combined with its deep European heritage, means that as a westerner here you command a certain respect. They engage you and give you their trust. There is little of the reserved circumspection that you are treated to in indigenous Bolivia and Peru. Of course there are valid historical and cultural reasons for this. But it is more pleasant to be adorned than to be ignored.

Colombia finds itself flanked by left-wing regimes to the north, east and south which are all ambivalent towards its political and corporate affinity with the USA. But that is politics, and fundamentally Colombians are passionate, charismatic and generous of spirit. The perpetual civil war that helped forge its reputation is now confined to more remote rural areas thanks to a military purge that has claimed the lives of the innocent as well as FARC guerrillas. But it has meant most Colombians can now travel through most places without fear of kidnap. The price paid for adherence to Amrican economics, of course, is a wildly unbalanced class structure, with far too few in possession of far too much, and far too many in possession of nothing. But that is politics, which the people play a far too insufficient role in shaping. Anyway, in judging a people by their country´s politics you usually end up missing the point.

The buses here fly. They are a proper health hazard, and at least that much never changes from country to country. Nevertheless I rolled into Bogota in one piece, resolving to stay put for a bit.

That was three and a half weeks ago. For a start, I´ve always been partial to cities with overhanging hills, and on Bogota´s eastern edge you´ll find beautiful wooded mountains in themselves, from the top of which you can scan the city and its eight million residents. It is amazing stuff. The place has energy and colour, bold modern buildings knitted together with traditional colonial houses and cottages at the foot of Monserrate, where the city took root in the 1500s. It has a nightlife few places in south America can match, and the people, of course, almost always hold out a hand of friendship.

Bogota is contrast of cityscape, of culture and unfortunately, of social class and fortunes. But one thing which it does afford is opportunity. So as my trip winds down to a close, just as I prepare to leave I have been beckoned to stay. I´ll return to this magical place in three weeks and see where the opportunities take me. The expat contingent here is still minimal but quickly the outside world is realising: the perils in Colombia aint so great. But a great place it absolutely is. How long I´ll stay who knows, but right now it just seems to make sense.

Naturally, getting closer to a place doesn´t necessarily mean you get to understand it. That is the trick of travel. But at least you´ve earned the right to be ignorant.

Ronan Goggin

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Mutant shorts in our space

roggernaut | All about mutantspace | June 2, 2009

A busy bank holiday weekend leaves me with little time to write any sort of original article for this culture blog, but just enough time to use my skills exchange space to promote this summer’s filmmaking event: Mutant Shorts!

Aside from the annual Cork Film Festival, Cork has been left with little else to encourage short filmmaking, be it amateur or experienced, since the Kommando 24 Hour Filmmaking Competition came to an end some years ago. Kommando was a bright idea and drew a lot of interest, reportedly receiving up to 60 entries in its final year. Mutant Shorts now hopes to gain as enthusiastic a following this June when filmmakers set to work to create a short film over the period of one week.

Numerous applicants had already applied when the original registration deadline of May 29th came round, but late entries are also being considered. Filmmakers then await notification of a film theme which is to be announced on June 15th, giving them until June 22nd to make their short. The bonus is that ALL shorts will receive a public screening with one short then being named as the overall winner of the event. Plans to take the Mutant Projects on tour around the country would also result in the shorts being screened outside of Cork but, in line with the MutantSpace way of thinking, filmmakers will have a chance to change (or mutate) their short before it is screened again. This sort of exposure is of great benefit to first-time or amateur filmmakers, who may find it difficult to gain screenings in film festivals, particularly as there is not always much room for shorts.

It is true that the likes of the Fastnet Short Film Festival have amended this somewhat, and that fact, coupled with an event such as Mutant Shorts, will hopefully have film enthusiasts picking up their cameras. Applicants for Mutant Shorts must provide their own equipment, but as MS has few boundaries, even the most basic of cams should provide, especially if coupled with some imagination and a willingness to embrace this wonderful filmmaking event. For those who don’t fancy filmmaking but are curious to see what these first Mutaters of movies have come up with, the screenings will take place in the Roundy Bar on June 24th. Exact times have yet to be announced, so keep your eye on MutantSpace for more details.

Gemma McCarthy

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casting nets across the pond

roggernaut | Everything about music | June 2, 2009

This is an Americana edition of CC CD, full of old time pedal steel, corn-cob crooners, and rockabilly wranglers. Saddle up for 60 minutes of…

Yeah, that’s probably what the introduction would sound like if this were an American Routes show. But it’s not, though I guess the songs I’ve picked for CC CD #2 sound like they belong on that fine show. I don’t really like commercial country music, but I was raised on folk (and 70′s rock, sure) and the slide guitar country tunes my grandfather loved. He’d listen to songs like these on his one-speaker portable radio that seemed ancient even back then. A lot of these songs took me right back to those years on my grandfather’s back porch, puttering around, as he would say. Maybe all these songs aren’t American roots music, but they’re surely MY roots music.

When I created the first collection of CreativeCommons-licensed songs in December last year, I knew of only a few sites that featured CC music, and picked only from ccmixter.org. While ccmixter attains the highest level of collaboration between its members, I’ve since learned there are many sites that now focus on, or at least include, CC-licensed work–sites like Magnatune, the Free Music Archive, and Jamendo.

Many of the songs in this edition of the CC CD are courtesy of Bloodshot Records and their amazing (promotional) contribution to the Free Music Archive. I predict we’ll see more promotional activity like this from record labels as technology continues to change the way we all create and consume music–and drags the business of music along behind.

Without further ado, I present the songlist for CC CD #2:

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The culture of spectacle

roggernaut | Culture and politics | June 1, 2009

Art is about being in a moment – where everything dissolves, anything can happen if you allow yourself to be enveloped by it. Form and context immaterial and then, gone. Fleeting.
Too often we’re told what these moments are, where they are, why they are and how much they cost. Moments become objects, commodities to consume, an activity, a passive exercise to undertake on the weekend, after work, on holiday, part of a list that needs ticking off. This cultural chimera, has created itself an ‘economy’ to live in. An economy based on images of reality and not reality itself. An economy based on authentic fakes. A Cultural Economy. We are all cultural tourists in our own lives

I am loathe to launch into a diatribe about this fire breathing monster. This monster made up of disparate parts. For all its advertisements, self aggrandising and new mythology it has only flattened, scorched and devalued the unique and wide and varied culture landscape we live in. Its omniscient presence over our lives is truly overwhelming. It’s most frightening aspect, the fact that we never see it, hear it or are disrupted by it. We don’t recognise its insidiousness, its vulgarity or destructive nature.

In the 1960s, Guy Debord termed this commodification of culture, this stage of social evolution in which we live, as the society of the spectacle. A period in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: “All that was once directly lived has become mere representation, the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing.” We no longer directly engage with life, rather we aspire for a life of images, the reality has been supplanted by the image of what life is. Every aspect of our existence is carefully branded and resold to us. Generation a – z.

It is this society that Debord railed against in his most famous book ‘Society of the Spectacle’ written in 1967. His writings are even more prescient today.
For nearly two decades of living and working in the arts I have been witness to a cultural testament written in greed, mediocritish and banalian, the language of Art as brand. As spectacle. Value a cost determined by the market. Objectified and commodified. Its meaning sucked out by vampires and fossilised like the bogmen of Croghan Hill and Clonycavan. And it’s only getting worse. Sometimes I feel that we’ll be consumed before we even start to make, create and play. Maybe we already are. As makers, creators, inventors and players we’ve become spectators to our own lives, our quality of life diminished, interaction and participation with ourselves and others hindered, our capacity for critical thought negated. The image dictates. Marketing executives are the emperors of our new hyper reality. The advance guard – avant garde – made redundant in an age of; gallery, brand, collector,object, funding, award. Take your pick and mix. Conquered by the speculators, administrators, bureaucrats, salesmen, auctioneers, CEOs, brokers, tourist boards,advisors, managers. What an endless stream of mindless tedium.

It is time to take on the mantle of the situationists and “wake up the spectator who has been drugged by spectacular images,” “through radical action in the form of the construction of situations,” “situations that bring a revolutionary reordering of life, politics, and art”.

In other words it is time we actively created moments and disrupt the flow of the spectacle. Find the space inbetween – find our own mutantspace

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seemen.org

roggernaut | Art and design | June 1, 2009

Our Culture Blog website pick of the month is www.seemen.org a collaborative effort of Kal Spelletich and some forty odd art drop outs and extreme technology inventors who enjoy building extreme machines and robots that they allow their audience to operate.

There is NO OTHER ART LIKE THIS IN THE WORLD!

This is an art that is a mix of robots, machines, sculpture, computers, science, inventions, audience interaction and storytelling. We are only interested in giving audiences a real life experience, not a passive virtual one. The actions of their robots poetically symbolize mans struggles and triumphs.

Since their formation in 1988 in Austin, Texas, SEEMEN have presented more than 1000 performances and experiments throughout the United States, Canada and Europe at numerous art institutions and other venues, including night clubs, warehouses, and freeway underpasses. In 1990 they moved to San Francisco. From 1995-2002 SEEMEN were the featured performers at the renowned Burning Man festivals held annually in Black Rock, Nevada, Their works have been exhibited at the Jack Hanley Gallery, Jeffery Deitch Gallery NYC and a zillion other places. They are included in the collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Getty Museum. SEEMEN have received numerous grant awards from The Jerome Foundation, Art Matters, Art Without Walls, and many others.

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How valuable is it?

hilary williams | Life in a cultural petri dish | June 1, 2009

A personal report from an Irish performance artist on living in the moment, making live art, giving of the experience, feeling the heat.
I feel myself being lifted up and forward as I am wheeled into the circle of an Audience. This bit was not rehearsed. I had to be ready to activate my art piece. A once off. Maybe it would work maybe not, what should I include what to leave out. Like any art one needs to mentally visualise and work out in ones head the possible outcomes of various actions, be it a wide sweep of colour across a canvas or an image sorted in photoshop.

I feel the box I am contained in come to a stop. I hear nothing. I wait about ten seconds. Very quiet talking, reading my package, Live Artist. This Way Up. Fragile. And several well known gallery addresses which this valuable box seems to have been forwarded to for various reasons; not known at this address, storage difficulties and try here. I tap gently on the box and have a conversation with the other with me in the box, Mona Lisa and Mags. We converse about our sad neglect, where have we been dumped and who really values us. Her as the most valuable art piece ever and mags a live artist today.

We discuss the restoration of our faces over the years - both of us facing the wrinkles of age with humour.
We decide to break out and manage to get our hands out with marigolds gloves visable.
We find a hole where we peep out at THEM the audience, art world.

The two personas converse with the audience and each other by rotating from two masks front and back with a wonderful purple wig adorning us. We then almost assault the audience with images of the top twenty most valuable art works in the world. Throwing them with abandonment to whoever wanted one in the audience, discussing the commercialism of valued choice dictated by another world other than the artist themselves

Hilary Williams

Hilary Williams is a performance artist

388 total views, 1 today

Books of the month

roggernaut | Book reviews and writers | June 1, 2009

All the books reviewed can be bought directly from our bookshop at mutantspace.com

The Politics of Alternative Theatre in Britain, 1968-1990: The Case of 7:84 by Maria DiCenzo

This book examines one of the most influential modern theatre companies, 7:84 (Scotland), under the directorship of John McGrath. 7:84 (Scotland) has been a vital contributor to the place and importance of alternative theatre on the modern British stage. DiCenzo explores the development of this company, the growth of popular theatre in general within the last twenty years and offers a methodology for analysing records and materials found in theatre company archives and illustrates the many issues inherent in running a theatre company, including venues, practitioners and the politics of funding. The book includes valuable primary source material and informative production photographs and company posters.

“…a clearly written and very valuable introduction to a style of radical theatre which still has a lot to teach. …Maria DiCenzo’s welcome study may then be seen as an especially timely reminder of the power of theatre ti inject subversive vitality into the heart of the body politic.”
Baz Kershaw

Reinventing Cinema: Movies in the Age of Media Convergence by Chuck Tryon

For over a century, movies have played an important role in our lives, entertaining us, often provoking conversation and debate. Now, with the rise of digital cinema, audiences often encounter movies outside the theatre and even outside the home. Traditional distribution models are challenged by new media entrepreneurs and independent film makers, user-generated video, film blogs, mashups, downloads, and other expanding networks.

“Reinventing Cinema” examines film culture at the turn of this century, at the precise moment when digital media are altering our historical relationship with the movies. Spanning multiple disciplines, Chuck Tryon addresses the interaction between production, distribution, and reception of films, television, and other new and emerging media. Through close readings of trade publications, DVD extras, public lectures by new media leaders, movie blogs, and YouTube videos, Tryon navigates the shift to digital cinema and examines how it is altering film and popular culture. Computers. The Internet. Digital media. New media. Is this the end of cinema as we know it?

CHUCK TRYON is an assistant professor in the English department at Fayetteville State University.

Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins

This edition has been thoroughly updated and features substantial new material that addresses, among other things, the promise and perils of Web 2.0 and the rise of YouTube.”Convergence Culture” maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways.Henry Jenkins, one of America’s most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new-media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge.

He takes us into the secret world of Survivor Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show’s secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young Harry Potter fans who are writing their own Hogwarts tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise.

He shows us how “The Matrix” has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels.Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers.

Sometimes these two forces are at war.Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.

“Jenkins’ impressive ability to break down complex concepts into readable prose makes this study vital and engaging.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY “Jenkins is an astute observer of media culture and his insights are spot-on.” LOS ANGELES TIMES “For any Sony PS3 execs out there wondering why their technological masterpiece is being ridiculed by customers before it’s even released…. Convergence Culture is a must read.”
SLASHDOT

HENRY JENKINS is the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities and the Founder/Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. The author or editor of eleven books including Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture and The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture (both NYU Press), Jenkins also writes a regular column for Technology Review.

Time Machine by Gilles Deleuze (Post-Contemporary Interventions / Latin America in Translation)

Although Gilles Deleuze is one of France’s most celebrated twentieth-century philosophers, his theories of cinema have largely been ignored by American scholars. Film theorist D. N. Rodowick fills this gap by presenting the first comprehensive study, in any language, of Deleuze’s work on film and image. Placing Deleuze’s two books on cinema – “The Movement-Image and The Time-Image” – in the context of French cultural theory of the 1960s and 1970s, Rodowick examines the logic of Deleuze’s theories and their relationship to his influential philosophy of difference.

Rodowick illuminates the connections between Deleuze’s writings on visual and scientific texts and describes the formal logic of his theory of images and signs.Revealing how Deleuzian views on film speak to the broader network of philosophical problems addressed in Deleuze’s other books – including his influential work with Felix Guattari – Rodowick shows not only how Deleuze modifies the dominant traditions of film theory, but also how the study of cinema is central to the project of modern philosophy. An important bridge between contemporary French and American philosophy, this work has value not only for Deleuze scholars but for students of cinema/film and others interested in contemporary philosophy and cultural and critical theory.

This book will become a standard work for anyone who wants to learn about Deleuze on cinema and about Deleuze more generally.

“Anglo-American critics have not yet begun to plumb the riches of Deleuze’s investigation into cinema, and David Rodowick, well versed in philosophy and cinema studies, is the perfect person to bring these important works into focus for the American critical establishment. This book will become a standard work for anyone who wants to learn about Deleuze on cinema and about Deleuze more generally.” – Dana Polan, University of Pittsburgh “Deleuze is now coming to be seen in the anglophone world for what the French have long known him to be – someone who is perhaps the most productive and important philosophical thinker of this century. And Rodowick has a flair for making genuinely illuminating connections between Deleuze’s cinema books and his other works.”
Kenneth Surin, Duke University

“… an extremely cogent and helpful book, treating Deleuze’s movie volumes “as a logical development through cinema of Deleuze’s more general concerns”
Michael Wood, London Review of Books

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Trash Gigs 17 – 19 May

Friday 17th May
Mutant Cabaret @ 9pm The Roundy, Cork
Hans Dens @ 8pm Gulp'd, Cork

Saturday 18th May
The Urchin Collective @ 8pm Gulp'd, Cork

Sunday 19th May
Cormac O’Caoimh and Stuart Wilde @ 7.30pm Gateway Bar, Cork

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