Hotel Diaries 1-8
John Smith
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).
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.
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).
A saxophone. Handheld fans. Shrill squeaks. Splutters, gargling. An incredible diversity of sounds, intensely focused by an inventive musician.
What does it mean to resist seeking assimilation or inclusion within, or let our demands be co-opted by the very systems we seek to dismantle?
Psychedelic and intense, and featuring some of the most visually stunning, mesmerizing and transcendent experiences you can imagine, batten down the hatches for some of the boldest, most immersive and abrasive works in experimental cinema.
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.
Killer of Sheep is an undisputed masterpiece of African-American filmmaking and one of the most poetic, perceptive dramas ever made about family and community.
A workshop inviting participants to enact a series of scores that explore witnessing, testimony, grief and mourning, facilitated by Mezna and Sadia, and accompanied by Sakina Ali.
Wordless, reverb drenched voice, ghosted electronics, seething and ferocious electronic damage and Patty Waters style vocal mania.
Black Boned Angel’s is a rock sound, stripped of all extraneous detail right down to its core, stretched out and nailed to the ceiling.
All ticket income goes directly to We Will Rise – a group of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and their allies who have come together to End Immigration Detention in the UK.
Includes: a classic of innovative computer graphics, ex-pat Scot McLaren on form, a riotous psychedelic oil show with a Soft Machine accompaniment, subtle manipulation of data feedback, a colourful road movie and a reworking of a lost Paul Sharits film.
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.