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.
The first INSTAL festival (programmed by Barry Esson of Arika and Tiernan Kelly) featured a line-up including Robert Lippock, Philip Jeck, Fennesz, Paragon Ensemble, Icebreaker International, Defaalt and Rhomboi.
Everyday objects and materials (rubber bands, paper, a sink, microphones) disabused of their inertia and made to speak for themselves in a kind of focusing in on the tiny, repetitive, almost unobserved (sonic/ visual) potential of everyday things put into motion.
Sometimes delicate, sometimes harsh and jarring, Yagi’s koto solos are as much inspired by Nancarrow or Cage as they are traditional.
Ten short intimate one-on-one conversations with Robert Softley Gale – We all want to see ourselves reflected in the world around us—in society, in art, in culture… in porn?
Come for the crip ingenuity; stay for the smooth feels of what it is to be each other’s everything.
How do communities formed under the duress of violent othering and the joy of solidarity – such as ballroom culture, Black diasporas, Zapatistas – reform bonds of kinship?
Akio Suzuki and John Butcher performing in an abandoned oil tanker on Hoy.
What kind of listening and acknowledging do we offer each other? What is it to listen to an ‘elsewhere’, and do we ever do anything else when we listen to music?
Adamantly analogue, inspiring and frequently chaotic in performance, Metamkine draw no distinction between image and sound; during their intuitively improvised performances music and images are created simultaneously and equitably.
Looking at and listening to different ideas about sound and music, INSTAL 09’s collection of artists included Tetsuo Kogawa, vocalist Joan La Barbara, Phil Minton (and his Century FC feral choir), Austrian Actionist Hermann Nitsch, Steve McCaffery and many more.
These simple, one-take videos, relate personal experiences to the current conflicts in the Middle East via the most basic of means (a hotel room, a camcorder, John’s personal thoughts, concerns and convictions).
Akio Suzuki and John Butcher performing in an old underground reservoir in Fife.
