Materialities Montage Mixer II
True/False film festival
1 - 4 March Columbia, Missouri
As part of the True/False film festival, 1 - 4 March Columbia, Missouri, I am remaking and reconfiguring the Materialities Montage Mixer interactive installation which was first made for The Ghosts of Songs - A Retrospective of the Black Audio Film Collective in 2007. This participatory experience explores the ways in which the Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1998) constructed their groundbreaking experimental non-linear feature films and tape-slide installations. Viewers will be invited to re-work and re-appropriate archival and found material in a participative process which characterised the Collective’s interest in 1980s British politics and art.
It will be shown in the TRANSMEDIA section of the festival which aims to delve more deeply into the frontiers of interactive transmedia, showcasing artists and storytellers who’ve jumped the fences of traditional platforms.
Transmedia
Neither/Nor
True/False film festival
1 - 4 March Columbia, Missouri
Dubmorphology will be creating a live soundtrack to an imagined film as part of the festival’s Neither/Nor program. This collaboration with writer and programmer Ashley Clark celebrates the work of Black Audio Film Collective as part of a programme that explores the shifting boundaries of documentary filmmaking. Founded by film director John Akomfrah and producers Lina Gopaul and David Lawson, Smoking Dogs Films emerged from Black Audio Film Collective and continues to expand upon the narrative possibilities of creative documentary, feature films, music videos and art based films.
During the festival, Clark is presenting four films from the collective’s catalogue: Handsworth Songs, Testament, Twilight City and Who Needs a Heart. The screenings will be followed by discussions with Black Audio Film Collective members Reece Auguiste, Trevor Mathison and Dubmorphology collaborator Gary Stewart.
Twilight City (1989) Director Reece Auguiste
Dreamed Native Ancestry (DNA)
Arts Catalyst
Nov 2017 - Jan 2018
An installation and programme critically addressing and re-thinking contemporary issues around race, migration, biopolitics and culture, through an Afrofuturist science fiction narrative and deep history perspective.
Dreamed Native Ancestry (DNA) inhabits an imagined scenario, drawing on Afrofuturist philosophies, to explore and celebrate the stories, experiences and knowledge of migrants and their families and diaspora peoples through a lens of technoculture and science fiction. The name of the installation playfully challenges shifting ideas around how we define identity – from biographical narrative and social context, to the authoritative, seemingly concrete, answers given by modern biometrics, such as ancestry DNA testing - to probe into complex questions of who we are and where we come from.
Concept and narrative by Gaylene Gould. Curated by Arts Catalyst’s Artistic Director, Nicola Triscott, Dreamed Native Ancestry (DNA)is the first part of Arts Catalyst’s long-term curatorial research programme Radical Ancestry, which explores deep histories of human migration and contemporary biopolitics of race.
Trevor Mathison, Zaynab Bunsie, Gary Stewart
Photo by Tom Hall
Reflections on Dub and the Aesthetics of Noise
Sound System Outernational #4
Goldsmiths, University of London
January 2018
The Poetics of Dub
Reflections on Dub and the Aesthetics of Noise
Trevor Mathison and Gary Stewart (Dubmorphology) and Dr. Das
Dubmorphology create experimental audio visual performances and installations inspired by and emerging from the spirit, practice and approach of applying dub philosophy as a way to test out, explore, probe and investigate speculative sonic territories of social transformation. For the conference Dubmorphology artists Trevor Mathison and Gary Stewart with occasional collaborator musician Aniruddha Das will be expanding on how dub relates to some of their artistic practice of electronic and experimental music through a performative lecture where Dubmorphology will examine the different way’s that they have used dub in unexpected spaces.
Dub Media Archaeologies – the Ghosts of Dub
Eddie George
Eddie George will be speaking about his ongoing research around dub, architecture, archaeology, the photographer Eugene Atget, critical theorist Walter Benjamin, and about what haunts dub and also who and what dub haunts. The presentation discusses cross-genre connection and features the music of Howling Wolf, some Bob Marley, some Frank Ocean, a little Buju and maybe some Sizzla and definitely some N’dagga Rhythm Force plus a few obscure 70’s African singles.
Sound System Culture & UK Dance Music
Felix Parry, Goldsmiths
This paper presents a socio-ethnomusicological investigation into Jamaican sound system
culture, its presence in England, and the subsequent influence it has had on music in the
UK. The assortment of styles throughout the UK’s dance music scene, such as jungle, drum & bass, garage, grime and most recently dubstep, all rely on the ‘DJ culture’ that has been built on the foundation of Jamaican music and its presence in Britain (Henriques, 2011). This paper intends to examine how the characteristics of the modern dance music performance, and its communal nature, have emerged from its Jamaican heritage.
Spiquency
Thali Lotus, CAYA Sound
A look at the relationship between Spirit, Frequency and Vibration and how this has an effect on audience connectivity with the Sound Artist, with particular reference to Roots & Culture & Dub compositions. 2018 Thali Lotus-CAYA sound system. Whilst most popular songs and music are favoured for their lyrical content and visual illustration, in the World of Sound System there is in fact a lot more then what meets the eye and hears the ears. In particular the resonance of music and sound at frequencies which are in tune with ones own vibration creates synergy between the individual and music, hence Spiquency.
Harry Caul's Workshop
BFI British Film Institute
October 2017
Installation and live performance by Dubmorphology in relation to the screening of Copolla's film "The Conversation"
Late At Tate Britain: Recall
Tate Britain
June 2016
June’s Late at Tate Britain is themed around Winifred Nicholson’s Sandpipers, Alnmouth,1933. The painting depicts a view of a coastal scene of a picturesque Northumberland village made while the artist was on holiday.
Taking inspiration from this artwork, with its dreamy and evocative feel, muted colours, abstract imagery of sea, beach, sand dunes and a flock of seabirds flying in formation across the canvas, we’ve invited a selection of artists to create an immersive event. The evening will explore sense of place, holiday memories and the feeling of escape and being transporting to somewhere else.
London based research, production and performance group Dubmorphology will curate an immersive and sensory journey through the collection. Designer-makers ELK and composers Cassini Sound, will create a hypnotic audio-physical installation derived from data originating on the surface of the moon. Plus a new commission from graphic designer and 3D illustrator Zigor Samaniego will produce a new digital animation. Plus eclectic soulful vibes, relaxed beats and ambient textures from Melo-zed.
No Colour Bar
Guildhall Art Gallery
10th July 2015 - January 2016
Curator Michael McMillian
Installation Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison (Dubmorphology)
‘No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990’ is a purpose-built multi-media exhibition and events programme that takes its impetus from the life works of Eric and Jessica Huntley and the Bogle L’Ouverture Press, a publishing house as well as a pioneering Black bookshop and cultural hub they founded in 1968.
The realisation that Britain was changing forever is no better articulated than through the lens of the pioneers of what was to become Black British cultural heritage. The Huntleys were the publishing powerhouses that spawned a dynamic generation of cultural and political leaders, whose stories are told and celebrated for the first time in the UK.
The project will create a visual record of the socio-cultural dynamics spanning the three decades by juxtaposing archival documents relating to popular and political culture - pamphlets and posters related to community campaigns, artist movements and ‘conscious’ popular entertainment, book fair flyers, LP sleeves, press clippings – with original works of art: paintings, sculpture, photographs and other relevant artefacts.
ROCKERS, SOULHEADS AND LOVERS: SOUND SYSTEMS BACK IN THE DAY
New Art Exchange
October 2015
Curator Michael McMillian
Installation Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison (Dubmorphology)
Sound Systems back in Da Day is a new exhibition exploring the golden era of sound system culture from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.
As a black cultural form, sound systems have provided the spaces where diverse communities came together, and still come together, in the dancehall. It is important for culturally diverse communities across Britain to regains, celebrate and communicate this heritage.
Help us tell the story! We are looking for personal stories of early sound system pioneers/practioners as well as testimonies from the communities of punters/'ravers' who dressed up, went out and danced at the clubs, dances and 'Blues' parties/Shebeens where sound system played.
Find out how you can contribute.
Michael McMillian
07710342097
m.mcmillan62@btinternet.com
Mission to the Land of Misplaced Words
Tate Modern
25th July, 12:30 - 21:30, free entry (no booking)
12:30 Sugar Ship Lands, Clore Studio (off Turbine Hall)
14:00 Dr Sue Fox interview by Caleb Femi
21:00 Ship's Log Performance (Turbine Hall)
Writer Gaylene Gould
Installation Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
Dr Sue Fox
Caleb Femi
As part of Tate Britain's Turbine Festival, the Mission//Misplaced Memory crew are docking the Sugar Ship for their second mission. This time the Data Thieves will delve into the memory of Britain's misplaced words. Which words have you misplaced and what memories do they carry?
THE MISSION
Language is memory vocalised. We can trace where we have been through the words we use and it is the job of the young to lay down new tracks. Over one day, with the help of linguists, young poets and visitors to the Sugar Ship, the Data Thieves will collect the words that have marked successive generations and changed the way English is spoken forever.
THE INVITATION
You are invited on board to contribute your favourite words to the Sugar Ship memory bank and join a live discussion with linguist Dr Sue Fox, Queen Mary University. Stay on to hear the closing Ship's Log performance in the Turbine Hall featuring a spoken word round up of the memories performed by Caleb Femi with a live mixed soundscape by international artists dubmorphology.
THE CREW
The Data Thieves are a collaborative team of artists, curators and facilitators who travel through space and time in their sonic laboratory retrieving the misplaced memories of the universe. On board the Sugar Ship, memory and conversation are triggered through a generative installation of sonic disruptions and visual projections to inspire, provoke and connect us.
Misplaced Memories, Tate Britain February 2015
DIS/PLACED
In\visible Cities, Gorizia, Italy
June 2015
Images Aniruddha Das
Installation Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison (Dubmorphology)
In\visible Cities was a five day festival of workshop, installations, live performance and shows involving artists from all around Europe exploring connections between visible and invisible cities through art and multimedia languages.
dis/placed is a new site specific audio visual performance installation exploring “outsider-ness,” solitude and exclusion using the visceral urban images of photographer Aniruddha Das. These abstracted images created from photographs of cities and environments all over Europe and in Gorizia will be accompanied by a newly constructed and orchestrated sonic piece created in situ by Dubmorphology artists Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison. Responding to the images and site of the 300m Gallery Bombi tunnel crossing the hill of Borgo Castello joining Piazza Vittoria via Giustiniani, dis/placed is the exploration of the imperceptible but powerful forces which create interdependencies between disparate people in an ever changing urban landscape.
African Diaspora Artists
March 2015
Project Curator Paul Goodwin
Art Directors Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison (Dubmorphology)
African Diaspora Artists in the 21st Century (ADA21) is a major new project that is building a new archive of filmed interviews with a range of contemporary British artists with links to the African diaspora. The interviews focus in detail on the artistic strategies, concerns and motivations of these artists in the production of their work in the setting of their studios.
While the primary focus of the interviews are on the works of art and their production as described by the artists themselves, the interviews also address some critical questions that have emerged in recent years around controversial notions of ‘post-black' art.
A collaborative project by the Cultural Institute & Institute for North American Studies, King's College London with Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts).
Mission to the Land of Misplaced Memories
Tate Britain, London
February 2015
Writer Gaylene Gould
Installation Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
Anamnesis and her Sonic Crew have lost their way.
Memory gaps confuse their ships co-ordinates while ghosts of misplaced memories leak from government archives. Countries are suing Britain demanding the reparation of their own memory banks and the crew has been guided back to Tate by a trail of sugar. In the hope of getting back on course, the crew plan to dock the SS Sugar Ship to discover the truth behind the secrets that have kept them drifting through space and time.
Over five days Anamnesis and her crew will collect and sonically re-master the memories of invited experts, gallery visitors and the building itself. Visitors are invited on board the SS Sugar Ship to participate by joining the discussions, retrieving their own lost memories and contributing their recollections to the sonic data bank.
Will this re-tune the crew’s instruments or create more memory holes?
A collaborative team using research and performance, sound and visual installation to explore how culture and history shapes our intimate memories.
Key Interviews:
Martyn Day
Human Rights lawyer who successfully represented the Kenyan Mau Mau people against the British government.
Dr Dele Olajide
Consultant Psychiatrist responsible for an acute male inpatient unit in the Psychosis Clinical Academic Group.
Dr Eyman Osman
Geneticist and specialist in gene therapy and genetic memory.
Patrick Vernon OBE
Health care professional and leading advocate for British African and Caribbean genealogical research.
Final Ritual
The character Anamnesis will perform live a fictionalised account of the Mission’s ships log. The performance will be accompanied by the misplaced memories soundscape, which will have grown with confession, analysis, reflection and rhythm over the duration of the project.
Mission Tumblr
Tate Britain
WriteTalkListen
Photo: Diana Agunbiade-Kolawole
Curating Carnival
Central Saint Martins, London
January 2015
Producers Sonia Boyce and Paul Goodwin
Choreography Serena Korda
Sound Design Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
Curating Carnival was a procession, sound and performance event that took place in The Street in Central St Martins coinciding with the anniversary of the first Caribbean Carnival to take place in London at the nearby St Pancras Town Hall in 1959. Curating Carnival is a follow up to the hugely successful performance The Sky is Dancing by CSM Fine Art XD Pathway students that took place in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall as part of Up Hill Down Hall: An Indoor Carnival curated by Claire Tancons in August 2014.
The Curating Carnival event at CSM continues student engagement with carnival from the Tate event by investigating carnival as an artistic practice in the broadest sense: exploring public procession, the carnivalesque, performance, the politics of the street and publicness, resistance and celebration. The event featured performances, mobile sculptures, projections and sounds from a wide range of students across several courses at UAL, including Fine Art and Performance Design and Practice. This project was instigated and is led by UAL’s joint Chairs of Black Art and Design, Professors Sonia Boyce and Paul Goodwin in collaboration with Senior Lecturer Anne Eggebert and Pathway Leader Stephen Carter of the BA Fine Art XD Pathway at CSM with choreographical coordination by artist Serena Korda and sound design by artists Dubmorphology (Trevor Mathison and Gary Stewart).
Tottenham Born
In production
Director George Amponsah
Producer Dionne Walker
Sound Design Trevor Mathison and Gary Stewart
Feature supported by Sundance and Bertha Foundation. An observational documentary about the urban life [and death] of Mark Duggan, the young man who was killed by armed police. The incident set in motion the London and UK riots in August 2011.
Up Hill Down Hall
Tate Modern, London
August 2014
Curator Claire Tancons
Sound Design Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
Coinciding with the Notting Hill Carnival, Tate Modern presents Up Hill Down Hall: An indoor carnival, a new performance commission guest curated by Claire Tancons that offers critical and artistic perspectives on Carnival.
Informed by the history of the Notting Hill Carnival as it reaches a milestone half-century of existence, Up Hill Down Hall offers critical and artistic perspectives on Carnival with performances for hundreds of participants by artists Hew Locke and Marlon Griffith against the backdrop of an architectural design by Gia Wolff and a soundscape by Dubmorphology (Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison) with a special intervention by Central Saint Martins Fine Arts students and recent graduates.
Up Hill Down Hall engages with Carnival as ritual of resistance, festival of otherness and performance art, and with the Notting Hill Carnival specifically as a contested site from which to reflect on notions of public space, performance and participation. It conceives of Carnival less as a theme than a medium and introduces practitioners across disciplines who draw from Carnival as a medium of artistic production and a form of social and political address.
London-based sound artists Dubmorphology remix live and recorded tracks of steel pan and calypso, reggae and punk with texts relating to the Notting Hill Carnival from Linton Kwesi Johnson to Zadie Smith, and elements from Gary Stewart’s ongoing oral history archive of the Notting Hill Carnival. The live remix, entitled Sonar, is played through a customised sound system on the bridge that crosses the Turbine Hall, alluding to sound system set ups under the Westway Bridge during Notting Hill Carnival.
dis.so.nance
Tate Modern Tanks, London
August 2012
Gary Stewart, Trevor Mathison, Dr Das, HKB FiNN, Gretchen Minerva Cummings, Sonia Mehta, Ramjac
Responding to the volumetric geometry, acoustic sonic quality and surface texture of the materials in the Tanks, Dubmorphology artists Trevor Mathison and Gary Stewart weave together a multimedia narrative that traces different epistemic, emotional, and socio-political viewpoints.
Together with guest sonic adventurers dub basist Dr Das, poet HKB FiNN, vocalist Gretchen Minerva Cummings, Sonia Mehta and percussionist Ramjac, they create a performance laboratory which explores the relationship between past legacies and struggles with our present lives and environments through an evolving mutation of live audio visual performance in perpetual flux.
dis.so.nance forms part of Undercurrent, a series of events, installations and interventions by audio, visual, digital and performance artists.
Over eleven days the programme invites a diverse range of artists and audiences to explore the relationship and influences of subcultures upon dominant or mainstream culture. At the core is the exploration of the ‘underground’ and the under-represented. The programme will capture the nuances, signifiers and codes of the transference of counter culture, as well as providing participatory and ephemeral art platforms to examine the parallels, contrasts and connections that make or define culture.
The Tanks represent a space for new modes of experimentation and participation. Undercurrent, re-considers how the exchange of ideas, creative actions, learning and artistic collaborative practices can affect and reconfigure the role of galleries and museums of the twenty first century.
Tate Tanks Opening
Tate Modern, London
July 2012
Performance: Dubmorphology (Gay Stewart and Trevor Mathison), Taksi (João Brasil and Domênico Lancellotti), Dr Das, Ramjac and Gretchen Minerva Cumming.
Video: Paulo Camacho
Kosmica
Arts Catalyst, London
April 2011
Performance Trevor Mathison and Gary Stewart
As Dubmorphology Trevor Mathison and Gary Stewart perform at Arts Catalyst, London UK a live electronic set and present an audio visual tribute to the first man in space as part of a worldwide celebration of the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight. A special Kosmica, monthly social galactic gathering programmed by Nahum Mantra and endorsed by ITACCUS, the International Astronautical Federation's Committee on the Cultural Utilisation of Space. Part of a new series of galactic gatherings for earth-bound artists, space engineers, performers, astronomers, musicians and anyone interested in exploring and sharing space in original ways.
Each month Kosmica brings together the cosmically curious and culturally quirky space community for a social mix of art–space programmes - a film screening, performance or live concert with a short presentation, talk and debate about alternative and cultural uses of space.
Encounter
Fondation Clement, Martinique
October 2010
Curator Dominique Brebion
Installation Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
The Creole language says ici-là (here-there) doubtless to extend the forces of here towards the infinite. It often insists on ici-là minm, (right here there), nowhere else but here which is nevertheless over there or up there (whence the Creole language gets là minm, right there meaning right now, immediately) as if to make a clean break between here and its near or far surroundings.
Glissant Edouard – La saison unique in La Cohée du Lamentin - Poétique V - NRF Ed Gallimard - 2005
How do the artists of the Caribbean perceive this nowhere else which is theirs, but which remains an exotic and faraway over there whose location is vague to all but the natives ?
History is unmade by way of three interconnected projected, interactive and sonic installations that together interrogate the different forms of historical and contemporary encounters with Martinique through the exploration of historical artefacts, ephemera, photographs, everyday objects and recently filmed video and sound recordings made in situ.
A group exhibition with Marcos Lora Read, Alex Burke, Thierry Alet, Christopher Cozier, Anna Lee Davis, Tirzo Martha, Oneika Russel, Ebony G.Patterson, Tony Monsanto, Ingrid Pollard, Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison, Polibio Diaz.
Big Chill, Summer of Dub
Eastnor Castle Deer Park, UK
August 2009
VJ’s Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
Concept Moody Boyz and Adrian Sherwood
Visuals for Big Chill, Summer of Dub, Adrian Sherwood and Tony Thorpe’s speaker-shaking concept of a musical tour from reggae to dub step and jungle to grime. Highlights included jungle legend Congo Natty and Dub Syndicate who reformed specially for their exclusive Big Chill set this year!
Moody boyz, Breakage, Jazzsteppa, Kode 9 & Spaceape, Dub Syndicate. Congo Natty
Image: Keith Piper
Mix It Up!
Tate Britain, London
March 2009
DJ Jazzy B
VJs Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
In the context of the Tate Triennial 2009: Altermodern, 'Britishistory' is a series of events that investigate shifts in British art and culture. These events aim to create a space for an inter-generational exchange of ideas and cross-cultural exploration of disciplines.
Mix It Up! asks what is British music? Is there an identifiable form? How does music impact upon other forms of culture? How do our tastes and styles create a national form? Join award winning film director John Akomfrah, musicians Jazzie B, Soweto Kinch and Johnny Flynn in conversation and performance. Special guest set by Jazzie B, live visuals by Dubmorphology and DJ Enidub creates soundscapes that respond musically to the Altermodern. Free Tours of Tate Triennial and sonic trail, The Ghost in the Machine produced by Soweto Kinch and the Visual Dialogues group.
Trace
Parliament Buildings, Barbados
Febuary 2009
Installation Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
History leaves an imprint. For this commission we have imagined that on arriving at the site for the installation in the West Wing of Parliament we find a mysterious but interesting looking device. We pick it up and nervously pull one of the many metal levers that adorn its ornate casing. It makes a sound and we hear a faint echo. It sounds like the sound effects used at a Reggae sound system. We decide to call it the original Echo Box. It begins to glow and we accept the invitation to turn one of the dials. The Echo Box splutters into life and in addition to sound we now see that there are also images being projected onto the walls. They appear to be traces of historical events which briefly tune in as we turn the dial with different degrees of clarity and resolution. It seems we have encountered a device that can reveal the imprint left by past events. We manage to get the Echo Box to briefly tune into three periods of time before it returns to its dormant state.
Past trace. Objects and fragments of chains, shackles and personal artifacts from traumatic events which have shaped the wider Caribbean become visible and occasionally coming into sharp focus.
Recent Trace Archival photographic images of Barbados between 1920 to 1970 begin to emerge and the audio visual signal from the Echo Box seems to have a much clearer impression of the recent past.
Present Trace The Echo Box now fully locks into the present receiving a very strong dominant signal picking up images and sounds from satellites, radio television, advertisements and computers.
Bitter Thickest Blood
New Art Exchange, Nottingham
October 2008
Installation Gary Stewart, Trevor Mathison and Obinna Nwosu
Commissioned for the opening exhibition at Nottingham's new flagship building New Art Exchange which opened in September 2008, this sonic installation created by Gary Stewart, Trevor Mathison and Obinna Nwosu interrogates the traces of evidence, meanings and conclusions formed as a consequence of teenage deaths at the hands of their peers.
Investigating space (conurbation vs. the country), architecture (physical, psychic and cultural infrastructure), time (history and memory) and place (economics and class) Bitter Thickest Blood presents varying perspectives on these attacks; music, spoken word, voice-over, soundtrack and atmospheric composition that present pieces of a jigsaw that seem to constantly mutate making a complete picture difficult to apprehend.
Bitter Thickest Blood takes a more forensic approach in its study of evidence, testimony and commentary. Music expresses a continuum of dialogues engaged in (and not engaged in) reflecting the social-cultural space occupied and being negotiated by (particularly) young Black teenagers and their communities, drawing a relationship between the local and global consumption of these forms, where similar 'phenomena' occur in a plethora of 'failed states'.
Acknowledgements
Cath March, Dr Das, Esther Baker, Director - Synergy Theatre Project, Excentral Tempest, Indie Choudhury, Poulomi Desai, Remi Stewart, Tahera Azizt, Thomas Crosbie aka PACE, VJ Coco, DJ FeelFree - Visionary Underground, Dr Yasmeen Narayan
The Dubstep Chronicles
Southbank, London
June 2008
VJ's Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
Concept Moody Boyz and Adrian Sherwood
Visuals for The Dubstep Chronicles part of the Massive Attack Meltdown Festival that took place in London, UK at the Southbank Centre’s Front Room. The event featured some of the biggest names in dubstep including Mala (Digital Mystikz), Kode9, Skream, Pinch, Horsepower, Jazzsteppa and the Moody Boyz.
Never underestimate the power of bass. This is a lesson that the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall learned as pieces of aluminium cracked and began to break free from the ceiling on Tuesday night as The Dubstep Chronicles rumbled its way through Meltdown 2008. No one was ever in any danger of being injured, but the low end frequencies compromised the building's structural integrity enough to force organisers to err on the side of caution and relocate the revelers to the dancefloor of the Royal Festival Hall. Everyone in attendance already was already enamoured with South London's signature sound, but this reaffirmed that affection: our music had the power to move buildings.
Whilst the first two DJs we had the good fortune of seeing warmed the crowd up nicely, it wasn't until Kode9 took to the decks in Royal Festival Hall that the party truly got started. Listed on the bill as simply Kode9, we received the best possible surprise a punter could hope for when his lyrical partner-in-crime, The Spaceape, joined the DJ on stage. Those familiar only with their debut album, Memories of the Future, were in for a second surprise, for whereas that album is a brilliant slow ride through haunted streets, this live experience took up the tempo and drove dancers into a frenzy. With so much to say that he couldn't stand still, The Spaceape flowed through his rhymes from one end of the stage to the other as Kode9 spun increasingly more devastating tracks.

A competent DJ simply mixes records, but a great one connects with their audience. Once again Kode9 proved that his skills as a producer are equal if not surpassed by his abilities as a DJ. The formerly polite gathering of dance music fans sipping beers after work crumbled away into the most action that the Royal Festival Hall is likely to have ever seen, with not a still foot in the house. We took our photos (see The Spaceape, pictured above) and quickly ditched our cameras to work up a sweat with everyone else.
The night continued as Jazzsteppa assumed control of the room on laptop and trombone, backed by a live drummer. Though it saddened us to have to leave in the middle of their set, our beat-lashed brains were dancing all the way across the bridge to Embankment and through the entire Northern Line ride home. So far Massive Attack have curated an amazing Meltdown and the festival is barely half over. Not only have they shown us their diverse range of influences through gigs featuring Gong and Yellow Magic Orchestra, but they've also demonstrated that they still have their finger on the pulse of the future by arranging a night to showcase a genre of music that we Londoners are proud to call our own.
Atlantic Worlds
National Maritime Museum, London
November 2007
Installation Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
Atlantic Worlds is a new permanent gallery in the National Maritime Museum, London UK. The gallery explores the interrelationship, connections and exchanges created between Britain, Africa and the Americas from 1600–1850 and looks at the impact of empire on three continents.
Paintings, prints and drawings, decorative arts and ethnographic artefacts are amongst the 220 objects from the Museum’s extensive collections showcased in the new gallery.
Atlantic Worlds replaces the Museum’s former Trade and Empire gallery and is planned as one of a pair of complementary galleries. The partner gallery will examine the world of the Indian Ocean and will replace the current Art and the Sea gallery.
The gallery presents four main themes:
Exploration and Cultural Encounters
Trade and Commerce
Enslavement and Resistance
War and Conflict
These themes reveal how geographical exploration and the navigation of the Atlantic opened up new trade routes from the early 17th century onwards and brought Europeans into contact with different cultures, setting in motion a dynamic of conquest and exploitation, as well as trading and cultural exchanges.
Lift Enquiry 2004
The Barge House, London
2004
Performance Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison
The London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) opening in 2004 took place over 50 days from 3 May to 21 June in venues as varied as the Laban Centre, the Science Museum, a London park, an allotment and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). I was one of 100 Londoners invited to give testimony to the question. "What is theatre to you?" Connected in diverse ways to the performing arts, the Enquirers were an intriguingly mixed bunch, ranging from the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company to a 14- year-old pupil at Holland Park School, and from a Buddhist monk who is the caretaker of the London Peace Pagoda to the chair of the British Council.
The testimony could take whatever form you liked a lecture, a performance, or even an installation. I invited artist Trevor Mathison to join me in creating a dub performance installation at the Barge House affectionally known as a 'theatre squat' on the South Bank.
Materialities Montage Mixer II
True/False film festival
1 - 4 March Columbia, Missouri
As part of the True/False film festival, 1 - 4 March Columbia, Missouri, I am remaking and reconfiguring the Materialities Montage Mixer interactive installation which was first made for The Ghosts of Songs - A Retrospective of the Black Audio Film Collective in 2007. This participatory experience explores the ways in which the Black Audio Film Collective (1982-1998) constructed their groundbreaking experimental non-linear feature films and tape-slide installations. Viewers will be invited to re-work and re-appropriate archival and found material in a participative process which characterised the Collective’s interest in 1980s British politics and art.
It will be shown in the TRANSMEDIA section of the festival which aims to delve more deeply into the frontiers of interactive transmedia, showcasing artists and storytellers who’ve jumped the fences of traditional platforms.
Transmedia
DUBMORPHOLOGY