Most Recent Work
'things not worth keeping' (1999-2002) an ongoing collaboration with Kirsten Lavers. Things Not Worth Keeping is a mesh of 'occurrences'*; mixed-media installations, works in video, digital photography, sound works, procedural performances, bookart and hypertext. Many of these are interactive and participatory. Aspects of occurrences to date are documented / presented 'in the rough' on our website - www.thingsnotworthkeeping.com.
things not worth keeping occurrences to date:
shre(a)d(d)ing title Installation for 'In The Event Of The Text - ephemeralities
of writing' Performance Writing Conference at Utrecht Theatre School, Holland,
April 1999 in which 'The Books' were first presented.
The Meltings one week process at the Maltings, Halesworth, Suffolk,
September 1999 exploring ideas around the drafting of The British Constitution
- a multi - media site specfic installation including 8mm film projection,
sound and animation ..
First draft for the British Constitution first screening of this video
work at the Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham November 1999.
Millennium Collection (1999-2001) 1000 people were invited by targetted
mail shot to propose a thing of their own that they considered to be 'not
worth keeping', and to suggest why this might the case, on December 31st 1999.
100 things were chosen to form a Millennium Collection which toured as a 'not
for sale' exhibition to Car Boot Sales across the UK. A full colour catalogue
of the Millennium Collection (Cambridge: Object Books, 2000) was launched
at the Artists Book Fair at the Barbican, London. (A Small Acts For The Millennium
Commission). Extracts from this work were featured in Small Acts For The Millennium
(London: Black Dog Books, 2000). An essay by things not worth keeping on the
Millennium Collection will appear in Performance Research Journal (Routledge,
2003). This project was runner-up in the inaugural Anglia TV Awards for Best
New Idea in 2001.
End of the Line . . . Platform, London May 2001- the Millennium Collection
Tour concluded with a two week interaction between the gallery space and a
streetside skip, initially containing the entire collection, surveilled continuously
by CCTV.
Verbal Into Visual, work selected for a group show at Central St. Martins
May 2001.
Retrospective Screen Dartington Arts Gallery, Devon, March 2000 - a
two week gallery based durational performance involving weaving, writing,
film, sound and projections.
Circadian Readings a 24 hour collaborative reading/writing of the books
from 'shre(a)d(d)ing title' as part of OURNOVEL24HRS at Norwich Gallery April
2000.
Doc 1 - 1 site specfic performed readings from 'The Books' in various
locations around the city of Berlin - resulting in a series of 11 text/image
triptychs flyposted at night. Part of the Acts of Language Festival at The
Liminal Institute, Dock 11, Berlin, September 2000.
'the books' 101 books (a contestable survey of a century of publishing)
condensed into two sibling books - readings and performances are ongoing ..................
currrently as source materials for a subscription only series of artists books
- the first two of ten issues have been completed (April and September 2002
ongoing).
heart of London a street work presented in Trafalgar Square on Saturday
8th June 2002 as part of Observable Occurrences, curated by Minefield and
hosted by VTO Gallery, Bethnal Green, London.
Residency for tEXt 2002 in May at the Phoenix Art Centre in Exeter,
during which we produced the video 'An Exeter Alphabet' with dj Johnny de
Bini, and the web piece www.missingriddles.co.uk.
things not wroth keeping have contributed the artists' pages for a special Fluxus issue of Performance Research Journal (Fall 2002)
Selected 'live' Performance Works:
ÔNight PiecesÕ (1981) an Arts Council Commissioned collaboration with Miranda Tufnell and Dennis Greenwood for Dance Umbrella at the Almeida Theatre. Other versions given at Riverside Studios, Birmingham Arts Lab and Dartington Dance Festival. ÔA narrative extraordinaireÕ (Performance Magazine)
ÔThe JittersÕ (1982) a dark side monologue with voice-activated light. Various versions given, the most important being - Performing The Word at B2, Wapping Wall (1982), Cafe Gallery, Southark (1992), Prema ÔTime BeingÕ Festival, Uley (1992), Nosepaint, London (1993). Video version commissioned and published by Grey Suit (Vol. 8, winter 1994). Radio version commissioned by Moveola ÔHearing is BelievingÕ for broadcast during Video Positive (1995). Ôfunny and intense, political and completely off the wallÕ (Andrea Phillips,WhatÕs On - London)
ÔSTREETS Paved With Gold - jarsÕ (1989) at Chisenhale Dance Space. Multiple media solo show with live video, tape triggers, text and movement.
ÔHot HitsÕ (1991) collaborations with Sianed Jones generated for a residency at New Langton Arts, San Francisco. Other versions at ÔMusic UnlimitedÕ Wels, Austria (1993) and ÔThe Return of the ReforgottenÕ in the Albert Hall, London (1995).ÔChaotic declamation. Beautiful cabaret.Õ (Kultur)
ÔSkin upon sKinÕ (1992) multiple versions (between 1992 -96), including SubVoicive, the ICA, Brooklands College, New Langton Arts (San Francisco), The Old Bull Arts Centre, Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry
'Institutional Dim' (1994) commissioned by Breathing Form through Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. A piece for the Old Town Hall, Oxford. 'Created to give voice and action to the Old Court Room of Oxford Town Hall. Cheek's enthusiastic imagination took hold of this grim theatre, so deeply stained with anxiety and authority, and produced a complex and physical solo opera that rattled the bones of the place and loosened some of its history. During the fifty minutes of the performance Cheek occupied every corner of court from the holding cell to the judge's lofty bench, calling up identities and hauntings at each position, to resonate in the controlled darkness' (Brian Catling)
ÔTongues UndoneÕ (1998) an integrated ÔliveÕ and mediated video-performance piece made with Sianed Jones and Martin Sercombe for the World Wide Video Festival at The Melkveg in Amsterdam.
Select Publications & Broadcasts:
ÔstrangerÕ, a revised version was published in Anthology of Twentieth Century British and Irish Poetry, ed. Keith Tuma (New York: OUP, 2001)
ÔcrowdingÕ (1998) a three and a half hour ÔliveÕ internet webcast, commissioned as part of torkradio from The Junction Multimedia, Cambridge in October.
'the Heart of Cambridge' (1998) (with Kirsten Lavers) a vox-pop montage for 'torkradio'.
ÔstrangerÕ (Sound & Language, 1996) Ôa startling, compressed exploration of the pathology and politics of travelling and of ÔhomeÕ; an exercise in international, interpersonal, intrapersonal defamiliarization including the experience of fatigue, disorientation and the same bourgeois magic wherever the airline takes us. Ô (Peter Manson, ÔObject PermanenceÕ, Glasgow 1996).
ÔMusic of MadagascarÕ written and presented for BBC Radio 3 (1994) - SONY GOLD AWARD Winner for Specialist Music Programme 1995. Reworked for Resonance FM on the South Bank, June 1998.
featured in the following magazines:
West Coast Line (Vancouver) / Open Letter (Toronto) / Reality Studios (London)
/ Angel Exhaust (London) / Talus (London) / Boundary 2 (Duke University, North
Carolina) / Poetics Journal (San Francisco) / Kontexts (Amsterdam) / Boxkite
(Sydney) / The Gig (Willowdale, Ontario) / Sulfur (Eastern Michigan University)
and collections/anthologies:
The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book, ed. Bruce Andrews & Charles Bernstein (Carbondale:
University of Indiana, 1984) The New British Poetry, (London: Paladin, 1989)
Floating Capital, ed. Adrian Clarke & Robert Sheppard (Connecticut: Potes
& Poets Press, 1991) The Conductors of Chaos, ed. Iain Sinclair (Picador,
1996) Binary Myths, ed. Andy Brown (Exeter: Stride, 1998) Word Score Utterance
Choreography, ed. Bob Cobbing & Lawrence Upton (London: Writers Forum, 1998)
Other, ed. Ric Caddell & Peter Quartermain (New England: Wesleyan, 1999).
Editorial / Curatorial Work - Committee Memberships:
Co-Founder of Chisenhale Dance Space, programmer and Chair of the Board of Directors (1981-95) and member of the Board of directors for Chisenhale Gallery.
Founder Member of Mobile Arts, an Industrial and Provident Society delivering community arts projects in a range of media throughout Wiltshire, 1984-88.
Dancer in Residence (with Mary Prestidge) for the London Brouogh of Tower Hamlets (1984-6) and member of the Borough's Working Party on Multiculturalism.
Co-Founder of s h i n k a n s e n with Ghislaine Boddington in 1989. Left in 1991.
Artistic Co-Director of Voice Over 1990 festival (with Ghislaine and David Jones of Serious).
Currently Co-Director of Sound & Language and editor of Language aLive books.
Programmer of ÔThe Nights of the Living TonguesÕ at Colchester Arts Centre and The Junction, Cambridge (1996-9).
Combined Arts Projects Committee at the Arts Council of England. 1995-1999
Live Art Advisory Group in the Visual Arts Department at the Arts Council of England, 1989-1995