Clear spot: Art as Play part 2

Clear spot: Art as play part 2

Alex Fitch is talking to three of the artists who have work displayed in the exhibition Play: Neil Zakiewicz whose piece is an electric guitar in the shape of a giant artist’s pallette and pain brush, with the amplifier disguised as an abstract painting, Natasha Kissell about her 3 dimensional painting that combines countryside painting with architects maquetts to create a fantasy landscape in a perspex box and Sarah Baker who has made a mixed media scultpture challenging the perception of fashion in art.
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I’m ready for my close-up: Creating Cartoon Characters

Originally broadcast 08/11/07:
In a show recorded ‘live’ in front of a studio audience, Alex Fitch interviews former Disney animator Vincent Woodcock about working on such films as The Tigger Movie and DuckTales: Treasure of the lost lamp as well as writing a book on creating cartoon characters. This is the start of animation month on IRFMCU… (mp3 format, 28.6mb)
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Six Pillars: Behzad Bolour, The Lucifer Effect & Shug Monkey

Behzad Bolour, the most unlikely BBC World Service presenter you could imagine (photo for proof) bombarded the ResonanceFM studios with an infectious effulgence.  In advance of the London ‘Rumi Rap’ concert that he helped organise, Behzad discusses his work and ethics.

ALSO: Shugmonkey, who designed the Six Pillars to Persia flyer, has produced a unique track especially for the show using a left-handed Saz and a mini-saz. Check out Shug’s vocals as featured on TransGlobal Underground’s new album MOONSHOUT.

Behzad discusses with presenter Fari Bradley everything from Iranian mountains to man’s simian beginnings. BBC World Service is known for it’s dry, matter-of-fact style. What a surprise then to meet a senior producer at Persian World Service who thinks nothing of about being photographed in a pink mini skirt, falling his knees during a televised broadcast or posting pictures of himself squatting over a bucket shower on his BBC-hosted blog. It is due to this unusual approach to TV and radio that he is the black sheep of the Persian world service. At the same time he is a life-line for many young Iranians, dispersed all over the world looking for a meaningful forum for their interests.  He often visits Dubai or Iran highlighting a variety of young people’s work, from rappers to film stars.

It is strange for us, in this climate of media trepidation as regards discussing Iran, to meet someone so freely spoken and happily in defiance of this prevailing attitude. Behzad says he thinks of god as a little child, which we take to mean that innocence and joy are divine characteristics (this is our interpretation, taken from Sri Ganesha, the eternal child god in Hindusim). He impresses on us his view that the days of a stern old man, waiting to punish us is outdated as an image of authority. It is the youth who will teach us, and we’re happy to hear it!

Also in this episode, Steve Kaszcinsky reports on Reza Aramesh’s contribution to an exhibition curated by Gordon Cheung: ‘The Lucifer Effect’. Reza is a former Six Pillars guest, back in 2005.

This show is the third in the second series of Six Pillars to Persia on Resonance 104.4FM and was recorded on October 1st 2007 at the ResonanceFM studios.  It was produced, engineered and presented by Fari Bradley.

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Clear spot: Art as Play part 1

Originally broadcast 06/11/07 at 1.30pm – Clear spot: Art as play part 1
The first of two micro clear spots looking at the exhibition ‘Play’ currently on at The Cello Factory near Waterloo. Alex Fitch interviews curator Julia Alvarez & art collector Sara Pierce about the exhibtion which celebrates ineractivity and playfulness in art, there’s an extract from Doug Fishbone’s conceptual video Footprints in the sand and some music by The Heard, a local community choir who performed at the opening night.
(mp3 format, 13.8mb)
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I’m ready for my close-up: The 51st London Film Festival – reviews part 5

Mark Stafford, James DeCarteret & Tom Geens begin their third week of discussion and preview of the films they’ve seen at this year’s London Film Festival, tonight focussing on three films that are getting wider cinema release outside of the festival – I’m not there, Eastern Promises and The Banishment

Originally broadcast 01/11/07 on Resonance FM (mp3 format, 27.7mb)

Hooting Yard: Bashing Biscuit Tins

If you were fortunate enough to be hanging around with Blodgett on a Thursday morning in the middling years of the last century, you would as likely as not have been witness to a display of rare skill. For it was Blodgett’s endearing habit in those days, on Thursday mornings, to bash out various national anthems, using his fists, and sometimes sticks, on the base of an upturned biscuit tin.

biscuit_tin.jpg

He would have eaten all the biscuits for his breakfast, of course. Blodgett had learned by heart the national anthem of almost every state and statelet on the planet, reduced each one to its rhythmic core, and bashed them out on biscuit tins. He would do this at home, or by the edge of a pond, or halfway up a hillside. In truth, it mattered not where he was, for he had fallen into a routine. Thursday meant biscuits for breakfast, then bashing out anthems. So energetically did he thump and bash that by the end of his recital the biscuit tin would be a dented and effectively destroyed thing. Apparently he passed the ruined tins on to Jasper Poxhaven, the sinister scrap metal dealer whose yard was a few doors away from Blodgett’s chalet.

This episode was recorded on the 6th October 2007. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the two publications Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars and Befuddled By Cormorants are available for purchase.

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I’m ready for my podcast: Asif Kapadia’s Far North

To compliment the live review shows that take up I’m ready for my close-up during this year’s London Film Festival, we have the second in a short series of exclusive podcasts featuring interviews with filmmakers and programmers involved in this year’s LFF. Following last week’s look at short films, Virginie Selavy interviews Asif Kapadia, director of The Warrior, about his new film Far North which premieres at this year’s festival…
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