Thrilled that a video of my 2012 performance Medium was selected for the Karachi Biennale in Pakistan this year. Curated by Amin Gulgee, this is the first ever Biennale to take place in Karachi and had the theme of ‘Witness’. My work was installed in a building that formerly housed a branch of the Theosophical Society.
The Biennale launch:
Thanks to Sandra Louison for all her assistance in installing and promoting this work for me. Here are some of her photos of my work and where it was situated:
Here is a snippet from the first dress rehearsal of Medium in the cells of a former workshouse underneath Shoreditch Town. Curated by Jane Webb for Illumini.
Medium, a living picture in which I take the role of a techno-medium, channel digital doubles and emanate electronic ectoplasm, will be performed again at two different events in December 2012:
Saturday 1st December, Exploding Cinema @ Besides the Screen, St James Hatcham, Goldsmiths College, St. James’s, New Cross, SE14 6AD. This event is on from 6.30-11pm. I will be performing live from 7-9pm. Tickets are £5.
December 6th 7th & 8th, GHost IV: Presence and Absence – Haunted Landscapes and Manifesting Ghosts, St. John on Bethnal Green, 200 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 9PA (next to Bethnal Green tube). Times – December 6th 6.00pm – 9.00pm (I will perform live 6-8pm),
December 7th 6.00pm – 10.00pm (I will perform live 6-8pm),
December 8th 2.30pm – 7.30pm (I will perform live 6-7pm).
This event is free.
Each of these GHost events I appear in are curated by Sarah Sparkes and also feature a host of other artists who do interesting things with moving image and installation. Click on the links for more information.
Here is a one minute excerpt from the first version of Medium, created for the Dickensian Hauntings exhibition curated by Illumini at Shoreditch Town Hall, London, September 2012. I’ll be doing a presentation on this work entitled, ‘The Medium is the Messenger’, at the next Colloquium of Performance Research, 17-18th January 2013, Central School of Speech and Drama, London.
Postscript: Curator, Sarah Sparkes, documented the GHost IV exhibition on her blog and also on Flickr.
“The cinema is the art of ghosts, a battle of phantoms… it’s the art of allowing ghosts to come back.” Jacques Derrida
Inspired by Victorian spirit photographs, this tableau vivant explores the act of mediation that is involved in the digital image making process. Taking the role of a techno-medium, I channel messages from film and radio through my multiple digital doubles and live projections of automatic writing, electronic ectoplasmic drawing and animation in an examination of the connections between a medium, such as film or digital code, through which a message is encoded, stored and transmitted and the psychic medium, a person who transmits messages from the spirit world.
Photos typical of the materialising mediums who inspired this work:
Medium by Birgitta Hosea,
Shown as part of the Dickensian Hauntings Illumini Event,
27th September – 4th October 2012.
Open daily from 11-7pm (free). Opening Night on Thursday 27th September from 6pm – 10pm
Late Night Openings: Sat 29th Sept & Thurs 4th Oct till 10pm
At Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London EC1V 9LT
Medium will be performed live at the following times (a video installation will play at all other times.):
Thursday 27th: 6-6.45, 7-7.45, 8-8.45
Saturday 29th: 6-6.45, 8-8.45
Saturday 29th: 7.30-7.45 Artist’s talk in which I will show examples of the original Victorian spirit photographs that inspired the project.
Thursday 4th: 6-6.45, 7-7.45
Preview presentation at Hostings 9: Presence – ghost-makers 2 Wednesday September 26thth at 6.30pm – 9.00pm
The Hostings are a night of presentations and performances exploring the desire to materialise what is absent by manifesting ghosts.
At this event, I will present the research into Victorian spirit photography and materialising mediums that inspired the work.
Venue: The Senate Room, First Floor, South Block, University of London, WC1E 7HU (An apparition known as ‘The Blue Lady’ has been reported to haunt the Senate room)
Hostings 9 Programme
Birgitta Hosea: Medium
Rosie Ward: Artful Hauntings: How Artistic Intuition can Create New memories within Landscape
Guy Edmonds: Seancé du Cinema – A synthesis of domestic resurrection media
GHost is a visual arts and creative research project which brings together artists, writers, academics, scientists, curators, researchers and others for workshops, so-called Hostings and exhibitions and screenings of moving image art. The Hostings have been taking place in the “haunted” rooms at Senate House, University of London and the exhibition have been hosted annually by St Johns on Bethnal Green and also by The London Art Fair and Folkestone Triennial.
Expanded Animation 