Bleu Shut
Bleu Shut reveals, and allows us to enjoy, our gullibility within the pervasive absurdity of modern life.
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.
Bleu Shut reveals, and allows us to enjoy, our gullibility within the pervasive absurdity of modern life.
A changing pool of people (40 or so at a time – artists, audiences, etc) talk for 90 minutes in a simultaneous series of open-ended round-table discussions, structured like speed dating, and mixed live as both a concert and for radio broadcast.
A saxophone. Handheld fans. Shrill squeaks. Splutters, gargling. An incredible diversity of sounds, intensely focused by an inventive musician.
How does this practice, that simultaneously resists and honours the distinctions between these genres, materials and senses, determine the inhabitation of another: a convergence of aesthetic and social experimentation?
“The miracle of Herman Melville is this: that a hundred years ago in Moby Dick…he painted a picture of the world in which we live, which is to this day unsurpassed.” – C. L. R. James
Glasgow. Free-playing quartet of bass/ cello/ voice from The Glasgow Improvisors Orchestra and Age Of Wire & String.
Can a musician create a sonic photograph; something with a depth of field, where you can hear sounds and their interconnections, much as you see objects and their relationships in a photo? Could a filmmaker use musical concepts to represent landscape?
An improvised film about our worlds at the brink, on the edge, in front of a crisis. To stand on the side of life, by seeing the resistance to genocide in Palestine as a turning point to overcome.
Chris Corsano, Akio Suzuki and John Butcher performing in the Hamilton Mausoleum, Hamilton.
Databases carry the same seeds of creativity that early documentary makers saw in film. Both can empower people by helping them to master information, both can be claimed to represent some kind of reality or truth.
A concrete walkway ending in mid air, a ridiculously tight squeeze between three office buildings and various other sites of Labour politician and council leader T. Dan Smith’s modernist regeneration projects and ‘slum clearances’ of the 1950’s and 60’s.
This mini, late-night ball will include categories inspired by the events earlier in the weekend.