Imagine a...

spectacle

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:53:03 +0000

Imagine a spectacle designed with passion. A space created to inspire, discover and share.

Imagine a Spectacle is born from the urge of the will as well as the arising challenges, demands and opportunities of the 21st century. The project recognises art as a critical element of our society and harness it as a tool through which we seek to explore and communicate the key contemporary issues and openings. It is a journey towards a new imagination, one that will make a moment of reconciliation possible and present.

im•ag•i•na•tion

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand - Albert Einstein

Everything you can imagine is real – Pablo Picasso

Reality is that part of the imagination we all agree on – Unknown author

spec•ta•cle

Spectacle is not something added to the real world – not a decorative element, so to speak. On the contrary, it is the very heart of society’s real unreality - Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

To know that words are merely words and spectacles merely spectacles, can help us arrive at a better understanding of how words and images, stories and performances, can change something of the world we live in – Jacques Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator

What is an imagination? What is a spectacle?

process

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:51:43 +0000

Imagine a process, a constant performance with countless number of stages and forums.

The project started in September 2009 and evolved into a platform that connects today a wide range of realms and individuals. The continuum of the concept manifests its presence with an annual Imagine a Spectacle event during which different spaces like theaters, rehearsal rooms, galleries, university areas and classrooms are explored and engaged in the build up of the central circumstance. Nonetheless the discussions and very diverse encounters take place continuously and magnetically bring together a widening group of spect-actors. It is a scheme that invites new imaginations to join the process and get on stage anytime and from anywhere.

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IDENTITY MIRROR

Concept: Rafau Sieraczek, Anthony Heywood (Head of Sculpture, UCA) Choreography: Christina Brøndsholm Andersen Music: Bo Riemer Dancers: Anna Bergström, Lucy Ridley, Lauren Bridle Actors: Sir Roger Manwood School students UCA Video

VARIATIONS WITH PIANO

Concept: Rafau Sieraczek Artists: Sergio Lopez Figueroa, Sylvia Yee, Lucy Ridley, Lauren Bridle, Aristos Christoforou (Fine Art, UCA) UCA Video

LIGHT LIBERATION

Concept: Rafau Sieraczek Artists: Tine Bech and Simon Pruciak (Photorgaphy, UCA) UCA Video

medium

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:49:01 +0000

Imagine a medium that brings us together to co-create a space for an emancipated and innovative dialogue.

We aim to create a space where confrontation of different ideas, approaches and techniques together with emerging in that moment dynamics can be preserved in a form of a new vocabulary and trigger perhaps even revolutionary realisations. Imagine a Spectacle is a laboratory of ideas that enhances experiments in a search for new, all-encompassing ways of communication. It is both an instrument and its investigation. A critical tool that builds up a stage for courageous and innovative thinking. A platform which allows, promotes and demands action and engagement. The number of people being connected through our medium is constantly growing and we would like to invite you to join the development of this dynamic and opening many windows network.

Imagine a spectacle, is an opportunity to express your thoughts and inject and experiment with changes to the conventional methods of creating work. There is not a sense of correct way, which allows your thoughts to become realised, where you may not get to discover working with established projects; where older, more rooted and ridged views of how to work are present. It is like a creative playground, with a million routes of outcome, and it is the collaboration between a variety of artists which tie these different thoughts together, and after inspiring each other, something definite is seen, although it doesn’t have to be. Whatever comes, you leave thinking about a revolution with your ideas and everyone else’s. How you can do things the way you want, if it works better for you, and learning from others and their creative beliefs too. Together you arrive at something new.

Lauren Bridle, Professional Dancer, Filmmaker and Animator www.thepeoplepile.co.uk

We all imagine we can do things differently. Looking around the world it is all too evident how desperately we need ‘change’. Despite the extraordinary creativity that fuels our digital age we are still mired in wars, disputes and conflicts; there remains unimaginable poverty, and many are enslaved in a world of injustice. Through Imagine a spectacle we can begin to see that there is an alternative. Not just because human beings have the capacity to come up with revolutionary ideas. But because people are willing to share them in artful collaboration, learning from encounters with difference, and co-creating a better future. Imagine a spectacle challenges each and every one of us to go beyond ourselves. Sometimes this might involve no more than puzzling over a modest insight from an unfamiliar discipline. At other times, it requires us to leap up out of our comfort zone. The first vital step is being open to what might become. Above all else, this is what Imagine a spectacle cultivates.

Dr Nick Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Cultural & Creative Industries, King’s College London.

Imagine a Spectacle reaches across creative disciplines and encourages a variety of practitioners whose paths would otherwise never have crossed to engage in a discussion and, crucially, in a process of making that is open-ended and exploratory. Settings as diverse as theatre stages and workshop spaces all serve as platforms for investigating broad questions pertinent to the state of art and its role. Participants do not work towards a defined outcome, but instead engage in an ongoing exchange of experiences and approaches aimed at developing new perspectives and innovative strategies. This creative process is inclusive rather than exclusive, undermining clear-cut boundaries between artists and artworks, artists and audiences, etc. In times when art practitioners are often highly specialized and there is little dialogue between disciplines, Imagine a Spectacle comes as a highly original and much needed undertaking.

Agnieszka Kozlowska, Artist Photographer www.kozlowska.eu

The core aspiration of the Institute is to bring various ideas into the pool of diverse knowledge to fuse extraordinary and fruitful initiatives. It is exciting to have an interdependent collaboration between unusual spheres working towards a synergy. What makes the Imagine a spectacle parallel to our work is the principal idea behind it – to pioneer innovative concepts. The process includes developing existing platforms into a completely new creation and experience. Ultimately those developed initiatives contribute to the greater expansion of a given subject area. This includes combining ideas in a unique manner, taken from the world of Arts and Science to bring together our society in a new way.

Prof. Richard Luxton, IBST Director at the University of the West of England www.biosensingtech.co.uk

Imagine a Spectacle is a collaboration between artists, universities, theaters, students, researchers, scientists, activists and cultural centers. The project brings together a very wide range of environments and individuals. During the last three years of operation we have worked with students and academics of such institutions like:

University for the Creative Arts

King’s College London

Royal Academy of Music

LABAN Conservatoire of Music and Dance

University of the West of England, Bristol

Kingston University London .

We would like to specially thank our sponsors and partners for their support with the project:

change

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:12:21 +0000

Imagine a change, a moment when engagement, courage and belief will lead to make a difference.

Imagine a Spectacle not only calls to act but studies the tools and investigates how to do so. The problematic status quo of both the arts and our society today makes it a moral duty to awake and take action! The project is both a vision and an exploration of untraveled paths that can eventually meet in a new, universal context. This change is here already, it is now the responsibility of all of us to realise it and help others in realising, the present.

We look forward to connect with you and your imaginations!

call +44 (0)7801 965 882

email info@imagineaspectacle.net