Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
Film and sound stripped of ‘content’ and experienced spatially, to be looked at not on the screen but in the space of the gallery
Noise music for the eyes. A 6 screen 16mm projection performance of intense audio and visual stimulus.
Quartet improvisation by Klaus Filip – laptop, Radu Malfatti – trombone, Sean Meehan – snare & cymbals, Taku Unami – rice and dish.
Screening of films by Duvet Brothers, David Critchley, David Hall, John Latham, Judith Goddard, Mike Leggett, Tony Sinden
Taku’s actions strip back musical performance to one of its original proposals: what is an action and how does it create a situation for spending time together, for paying attention?
IN OUR LIFETIME, is an anti-imperialist resource, edited by Hussein Mitha, produced by Arika for Episode 11, featuring poetry, essays, questions, prompts, letters and works of anti-colonial imaginary.
As opposed to suggesting soundtrack’s to Brakhage’s works [which are almost entirely silent] Text of Light use his works to stimulate improvisation, enveloping them into the structure of the group much like an additional musician.
The Songspiels take on a mode of musical theatre developed by playwright Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill in the early twentieth century, presenting political and social concerns through the accessible and (often funny) form of song.
Mirror and Phantom Engineer performing an improvised soundtrack to Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 horror film prototype, Haxan: Witchcraft through the Ages.
Each of these films addresses place, landscape or location and the personal reaction to their magical or concrete properties. Watch out for Kren’s structural, throbbing investigation of a forest and Baillie’s intimate and humble essay on a blind guitarist and the relationship between songs of Mexican revolutionaries and the people and places they looked to inspire.
Taking our festivals south of the border to The Sage Gateshead we set out to offer a few cardinal pointers in the vast array of experimental music practices.
