Film Work – The CSPA

Events: ‘Anthem’ – Beth Derbyshire at Eden Project – 14 No

Anthem

Beth Derbyshire
with Ulrike Haage
opening performance: 14 November
exhibition continues to 9 December
Mediterranean Biome at the Eden Project, Cornwall

The Eden Project and Cape Farewell present the premiere of Beth Derbyshire’s live performance and film work,Â Anthem, with music by composer Ulrike Haage.Â Anthem is a trilogy of films with a choral component, exploring notions of land, place and nation.

Anthem assembles ideas around nationality, identity and language using the symbols of landscape and song to explore our cultural relationship to landscape. Song and landscape have long been associated with expressions on nation. Derbyshire borrows from sources such as national anthems, ancient land names and etymology to capture cultural and natural settings, to explore the connections between people and landscape through balancing components of voice, music, word and image.

The opening events will feature the early music ensemble Stile Antico. Beth Derbyshire will be in conversation with Ulrike Haage and Dr. James Ryan, Associate Professor of Historical and Cultural Geography, Exeter University.

Anthem was filmed in Newfoundland, the UK and in the Arctic during the Cape Farewell research expedition of 2007.

www.bethderbyshire.com
www.youtube.com
www.edenproject.come/visiting-eden/whats-on
www.capefarewell.com/art/exhibitions

Strange beasts in Shrewsbury

Theo Jansen is unveiling one ofÂ his new wind-driven creatures at Shrewsburyâ€™s Shift-Time: A Festival of Ideas this July. This gives us an excuse to show this piece of much-loved video of his â€œstrandbeestsâ€:

STRANDBEESTEN_TRAILER from Alexander Schlichter on Vimeo.

Shift-time is taking its inspiration from the Darwin celebrations this year. It also features a new sound/video work Follow The Voice by the great Marcus Coates:

In a playful echo of Darwinâ€™s The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, Marcus Coatesâ€™ new film work, Follow the Voice establishes striking parallels between a range of familiar man-made sounds and an equally evocative chorus of animal cries and calls. Chasing pockets of sound around the urban landscape of Shrewsbury, (the â€˜beepâ€™ of the supermarket checkout; the siren of a reversing delivery lorry) and by slowing down or speeding up his recordings, Coates reveals an extraordinary likenesses with the natural calls of animal species. Follow the Voice captures the heightened feeling of interconnectedness at the heart of Darwinâ€™s view of the world, and reminds us of the spirit of curiosity and discovery that infuses his ideas.

Follow The Voice premieres on July 11 and is installed in the Unitarian Church where Darwin worshipped as a child.