There are No Layby's in the Sky Kate Mackeson & Ruby Pester 27 February – 18 March 2012

 

During their residency Kate Mackeson and Ruby Pester developed an installation based on the 1990's entertainment show Gladiators. The UK TV programme, which aired in the 1990's, had members of the public battle against the show's own semi-professional athletes.  There’s No Laybys In The Sky examined ideas of the spectacle, excess and audience consumption within the world of sporting events. The artists investigated the significance of the winning and losing that underpins this absurd, fantastical environment, probing its mimicry within our day to day lives and experiences, and the impending plasticity of reality. The artists pose questions at the simple manifestations of duality that we consume on a daily basis and how we continually categorise and appraise success and failure.

Kate Mackeson works with mixed -media, print-making, installation and video. She is interested in thresholds, transitional and in-between states and often uses recurring processes, everyday materials and symbolism to develop a heightened sense of expectation. Mackeson uses these ideas to question personal boundaries, communication and the materiality of our exterior environments. In 2010 she co-founded Una Tittel - a network of multi-disciplinary artists and curators.

Ruby Pester creates interactive performance based projects that focus on challenging conventional perceptions. She uses  sculpture, installation, video, sound, costume and drawing and often responds to specific locations and communities exploring social exchange and the relationship between media, artist and society. She works with initiatives and individuals including Artconnect Berlin, Glasgow based artist, Nadia Rossi and is part of the Glasgow based artist group Now Now who create and host socially engaged art events acrossScotland.

The residency was built around two events: Love is a TrophyWorkshop (8th March) where the artists invited guests to compete to sculpt winning faces onto trophies; and the Finissage (10th March). 

Jonny Mugwump: Nothing But A Big Old Collage Sonic Lecture (NTS recording)

Jonny Mugwump's Sonic Lecture was broadcast on NTS Radio on Monday (20th Feb) - here is the playback recording together with the NTS Radio page hosting all the Sonic Lectures.

Centrum Sonic Lecture 5: German Thrash – Extreme Metal For A Divided Nation Philip Freeman

19.00 (18.45 doors) Sonntag Februar 2012

German Thrash – Extreme Metal For A Divided Nation - Philip Freeman will discuss the three most important bands of the early 1980s thrash metal scene in Germany – Destruction, Sodom and Kreator. All these bands emerged in West Germany in the early 1980s, performing songs with themes of violence, nuclear war, and other typical metal concerns, with Kreator probably the most politically engaged of the three. The lecture will refer to songs from early albums like Destruction’s Infernal Overkill and Eternal Devastation, Sodom’s Obsessed By Cruelty and Persecution Mania, and Kreator’s Endless Pain and Pleasure To Kill. Kreator was the first metal band to perform in East Germany following the Berlin Wall coming down. This starts at 7.00 so be there before.

Please rsvp at david@centrumberlin.com or by accepting invite at the fb event.

Sonic Lecture 4 - A Boom Bap Continuum (Laurent Fintoni) - Sunday 22nd January 2012

Laurent Fintoni's's Sonic Lecture is entitled A Boom Bap Continuum and looks at the evolution and mutation of hip hop's 'boom bap' sound aesthetic from 1999 to 2009 and beyond. Exploring the sound's early mutations in the 2000s via the work of people like Dabrye, Machinedrum, Prefuse 73 and El-P through to the work of people like Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, Ras G and Mike Slott. Using a chronological backbone, music selection and newly sourced input from some of the early pioneers, the lecture will show how terms like trip hop, glitch hop, IDM and later wonky were ultimately often attempts at pigeon-holing boom bap's mutations into more comfortable boxes and how its sonic evolution was influenced from the soul and funk of the 70s to electronic music, rave and video games which led to its revival and continued popularity. As Laurent says: "A Boom Bap Continuum seeks to trace what I see as the fascinating evolution of hip hop's most enduring sonic aesthetic and how it was influenced by technological evolution, cultural and geographical mutations as well as hip hop's original ethos of 'do what you want with what you have." (Laurent's website)

Please RSVP to david@centrumberlin.com. Lecture starts at 7pm, please arrive by 6.45pm.

Callum Cooper: The Constant and the Flux January 4 - 7 2012 - live video performance Finissage and Screening: Saturday 7 January 19.00

Callum Cooper: The Constant and the Flux January 4 - 7 2012 - live video performance
Finissage and Screening: Saturday 7 January 19.00

Between Wednesday 4 and Saturday 7 January Callum Cooper will develop a video performance at different sites in Berlin culminating in a screening at Centrum on the 7th January.
Places and times of the performance will be available on the website and blog.

Callum Cooper is an artist filmmaker who is interested in the production of film, he has used camcorder's and iPhone's as filmmaking tools. For this project he has created a particular structure with attached cameras and invites members of the public to take part, making spontaneous films with the process firmly at the centre of the outcome.

Curated by Carmen Billows in collaboration with Centrum

Times and meeting places for performance / Zeiten und Treffpunkte für die Performances:

Wednesday/Mittwoch
11 Uhr Tempelhof Flughafen (close by to / nahe St. Thomas Kirchhof)
14 Uhr Görlitzer Park (close by to / nahe dem Spreewaldplatz)
15 Uhr Schlesischer Busch (next to the Watch Tower / nahe dem Wachturm)

Thursday/Donnerstag
11 Uhr Arconer Platz
12 Uhr Mauerpark
14 Uhr Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (on Bernauer Straße)

15.30 Uhr Bodemuseum (nahe / next to Monbijoustraße)

Friday/Freitag
11 Uhr Bundeskanzleramt

12 Uhr Haus der Kulturen der Welt (auf Dachterrasse / on roof top terrace)

14 Uhr Holocaust Mahnmal

15.30 Uhr Sony Centre (Potzdamer Platz)


Saturday/Samstag

13 Uhr Alexander Platz (close by the TV Tower / nahe des Fernsehturms)
15 Uhr Centrum
19 Uhr Finnissage at Centrum (Performance, film presentation and Installation)

For details on the locations please contact / Für weitere Informationen zu den Orten der Performance wendet euch bitte an Carmen Billows: 0176 64 043 043

David Rhodes Installation and Finissage

David Rhodes Centrum Residency - 12-18 December 2011

David Rhodes makes abstract paintings of vertical lines over black space. At a distance the stripes create a physical disorientation, close up though, the artist's interest in the surface of paint is revealed. His deliberate permitting of accidental imperfections opens up the possibility for an emotional as well as an intellectual response. David Rhodes lives and works in Berlin.

For his residency at Centrum David Rhodes will be animating his black and white paintings. By using painted tubes instead of flat canvases, he will be able to play with the movement his paintings create. Spinning, leaning, hanging, he will experiment with the tubular paintings in space.

The Finissage takes place at 19.00 on Friday 16 December and we are also open Saturday 17 14.00 - 18.00 December or by appointment.