June 2010

Saw us produce our first Trash Culture Revue. We hosted nearly 30 events over 4 days and hope to build on that in the future

FILM

Policed: Subject A
A young girl has been caught shop lifting, but is she really guilty? Or could the outer influences in her life take the blame? Glossy magazines, flashy ads on TV, if one submits to these influences then what choice do they have, but to act the way on the desires they produce?

This film puts on show three dimensions of a young girls life, and from that the three layers they have created in her personality. Influenced by Jennifer Saul, this six minute medley of personas aims to be a thought provoking exhibition of one persons true feelings, and the realities of life as a young female in society. Nothing is restricted, or held back; it is all put on show here. Evolving the Heideggarian theory of “the they” and allowing it to take hold; sit through the police questioning with her and see it for yourself, in “Policed: Subject A”

Policed: Subject 1
Ever been caught in a frame and policed into the digital world? Inspired by Jacques Rancière and his politics around the system of legitimising distribution of power ( “I propose to give this system of  distribution and legitimization another name. I propose to call it the police!”)  the subject in this short and abstract film explores some dimensions of what is allowed to be seen, what is not to be seen – what is sound and what is noise. At least that is what Ronan thought he was doing… do you have a different interpretation? Here you won’t be policed! You and your mind are invited to join and “create empty spaces of non-communication in between, distorting interruptions, to escape control.” (Deleuze)

MUTANT ROOMS: A Sitting Room
We ran our 3rd Mutant Shorts film competition and the 2nd in our MUTANT ROOMS series. It was our biggest competition yet and was won by Fiona O’Riordan with FLIPPING CHANNELS

 
THEATRE

Mutant Cabaret
Our Cabaret was a great success, it was hosted by Wasps versus Humans and included a mixture of performance poetry, burlesque, hip hop, dance, electronica, impovised music and rock n roll with;

Kevin Blake (DJ) playing his own electronic composition with The Cork City String Quartet
Stephen James Smith, the current Cúirt Literary Grand Slam Champion
getBeRned
Lady Grew
Chixie Dixx
Ruti Lachs 
The Jitney Trio

PERFORMANCE

AAARRRHHHGHH say it as you really want to by Noelle O’Regan
Noelle O’Regan is a promising young actress, who wishes to give you a brief look at what growing up is like for her. These 30 minutes takes you through her struggle towards social correctness, touching on subjects such as school, parents, puberty, socialising. With it’s heartfelt honesty this piece has the ability to move you to both laughter and tears.

READINGS

Shape – Changing
Readings from 4 works-in-progress by graduate students of the MA in Drama + Theatre Studies, U.C.C.
Producer Dr Ger FitzGibbon writes:
We were exploring the writing of very short theatre pieces – ten-minute plays, in effect – and gradually extending the scope of these as the material prompted. All four writers were working independently and yet, when we looked at the work they were developing, it was clear that, despite the diversity of styles and moods, there was a striking common thread. At the core of each work was the idea of shape-changing: the known familiar person replaced by a strange replica; the turbulence and chaos of political change; the ordinary processes of growing up or growing old suddenly destabilising what seem the most fixed relationships.

Pieces were by Aoife McCarthy, Danielle Kellerman, Niamh Quinlan, Tracy O’Brien and Jesse Weaver

The Celtic Tiger by Peadar Donohoe
Performed by Tantalus Cork School of Music Adult Drama Group. The Celtic Tiger is a collection of humorous and provocative vignettes exploring attitudes, foibles and issues of our recent economic miracle.

 
LITERATURE

Bloomspace
As usual we commemorated Bloomsday on Wednesday 16th with readings from ulysses, The Eden Sigers and musician Ken Cotter

WORKSHOPS

Better Questions
There is generalized hostility towards the university: we hear of the excessive costs of maintaining useless departments/disciplines, about the failure of third level education to provide skills that might be decisive in the labour market, about the laziness of academic staff and the apathy of students. Unheard are better questions about the intrinsic, potential powers of learning and emancipation found in the university.

This workshop was a space for exploring the openings and closings at work in the university today: the mechanisms for the pacification of the student and the quantification of knowledge but also the energies and potentials, the ‘lines of flight’, which escape these mechanisms.

MUSIC

The Trash Country Boogie
A Sunny Summer afternoon of Cowpunk music, beer and the best finger lickin’ food in town. Hank Wedel hosted a great afternoon with the following bands all doing their favourite country covers as well as country versions of their own music:
Stanley Super 800
Aaron Dillon and band 
Novella Hermosa

Music space 126
We did a good long intimate evening at Meades wine bar with:

EleventyFour
Ruti Lachs
Poet Kathy D’Arcy
Koko Tanjah
Walkperson
Harry Bird and The Rubber Wellies

Jinx Lennon
Using his words, electro beats, a six string and bullhorn Jinx Lennon A.K.A. Free State Nova exposes his cracked mirror view of Hibernia and society in general,drawing the audience into his world like a drowsy insect into the mouth of a flesh eating plant .Jinx has released several accaimed albums including ”Know Your Station Gouger Nation!!!”and last years ”Trauma Themes Idiot Times”and has been a regular at such festivals as the Electric Picnic,CQAF in Belfast,and last years Liverpool Irish Festival

Chunky Planet
A husband and wife collaboration, Chunky Planet’s commentary style lyrics and alternative indie/folk sound is no recipe for nostalgic love songs. A ‘tell it how you see it’ approach, they switch from the sweet to the absurd, always bringing a certain edge and rawness to their music.

Keith Mullins
Blessed with a wonderful self deprecating sense of humour, Keith Mullins describes himself as ‘another moany fecker with a guitar’. However, in a singer songwriter world filled with intense navel gazing, thankfully Keith Mullins doesn’t take himself too seriously and keeps the moaning to a bare minimum. On his debut album The Great Atlantic, which releases on February 19th, Mullins delivers ten beautifully crafted simple, honest songs.

November 2009  Saw us produce our 2nd series of events. While we hosted small events in June, this time round we took a jump, a risk and upped the ante with all events having over 150 people in attendance….next time round we’ll jump again

MUTANT SHORTS 2: MUTANT ROOMS

Our 2nd film competition was the 1st event on Thursday 26th November @ The Savoy Cork. After the success of the initial competition in June we decided to host another short film competition for our November weekend event. We have decided to run the competition as an ongoing film series called ‘Mutant Rooms’. It is our intention to develop this series over the next few years and in doing so create a unique collection of films based in different rooms, by different people, in different genres. The room for this competition was the Kitchen. I will be posting up the films on our Vimeo channel as soon as I have time  The competition proze was kindly sponsored by The Cork Film Centre. The Winner was Keith O’Connell. The two runner – ups were Hilary Williams and Fiona Dowling 

MUTANT CABARET

The cabaret was held on Thursday 26th November @ The Savoy Cork. We hosted a performance poetry + music + video night after the Mutant shorts competition. It was a mash up cutting hip hop, improv, performance, linguistic gymnastics, DJs and dada dada dada brought to you by wasps vs humans, Stephen James Smith, Meg Nolan, DEFAULT productions, Hilary Williams, Angela noelle, Electronic d.j. d.p.w.t. and The Mersk Music Collective

STANLEY SUPER800 GO MUTANT

The gig was held on Friday 27th November @ The Savoy Cork We were absolutely thrilled, delighted and excited to announce that the one and only Stanley Super 800 – Corks best band ever – came out of retirement for this once off special mutantspace gig. Stanley Super 800 are a four-piece indie-rock band from Cork. Their live shows explode with vigorous energy unleashing some of the most original sounds heard since the invention of the ear! They have released 2 EPs and one full length album, all gaining critical recognition. Tracks like “Summer in the City” and “Voices in the Music” regularly play on the national airwaves. The bands last release was “Louder and Clearer” on Irish independent label Sofa Records and was nominated for a Choice Music Award in 2007. Live shows, are primarily where Stanley Super 800 have been picking up most of their fans. They have earned their stripes from constantly gigging in everywhere from cow sheds to concert halls. While they occasionally do a stripped down country set, people can generally expect everything from banjos to megaphones and anything from melodic pop to complete electronic meltdowns. Formed in 2003 from when members of a traditional music group the Ceili Allstars began to record and play using electric instruments. Stanley Super 800 are Stan O’ Sullivan (guitar, keys and vocals), Flor Rahilly (bass and vocals), Mike Tosh O’ Sullivan (keys, banjo, clock radio and megaphone) and Dave Hackett (drums and lap-steel). The group is named after the founding member Eoin “Stan” O’Sullivan and a famous solid fuel cooker.Check out our radio for some SS800 tunes

www.stanleysuper800.comwww.myspace.com/stanleysuper800 

THE REAL WORLD IN A VINYLSPACE

Our clubnight was on after the SS800 gig @ The Savoy Cork with Dj’s The Yew Tree, Timethought, Flukey, SirCharles, exploring the realm of Soul, Disco, jazz, Funk, House, New Groove, 80s Groove, Boogie, Hip-Hop, Break + all round – get down street sounds. The record boxes span so many genres and a number of decades, each brings something different to the table. 7″ soul to old skool disco. Unreleased jazz to newly discovered Rap. Record labels such as Casablanca, Salsoul, Philly international, Motown, A&M, Tommy boy. There are artists too many to remember, and some you’ll never forget. Bringing a celestial sound that is outta sight but in our mind. The site is choca-block full of mixes for you to stumble upon and waiting to be discovered. So take a stroll inside your mind and see www.whatyoucanfind.com It’s a place, it’s a groove, it’s a touch, it’s a lie. It’s a find. It’s a truth, it’s a boy, it’s a girl, it’s a planet of change, a world without end, a friend in the night, a new old sound. It’s a track, it’s a bass, it’s a love, it’s a song, it’s a look, it’s a stance, it’s a should, it’s a would, It’s spoken word, it’s a dance. It’s a Night.  June 2009  Saw us jump into the real world and host a series of events produced by our members using mutantspace.ie resources. The production of these events was our first attempt at putting mutantspace.ie into action. It was with a view to putting in train a notion. An idea. A mutantspace festival at the end of the year. A festival that mutates, evolves and  keeps us thinking, playing, experimenting. I’m going to leave these events up for the time being to give our readers an idea of the breadth of work that was produced. I’m also hoping it will encourage more people to get involved and go with their instinct, their creative urge, their action so that by the time our mutantspace festival kicks into gear we’ll have a wealth of work and play

BREAKING BREAD: VOCABULARIES

The theme of ‘vocabularies’ stems from the fact that the way in which we arrange phenomenon and collate things, determines in part our capacity to understand the world and act in it. Vocabularies understood not merely as a list of words, but as a repertoire of communication- like the dancer’s repertoire. The more limited your vocabulary the more limited your capacity to do and to think. But, at the same time, the endless proliferation of new names and categories, our fetish for taxonomies, is equally limiting, creating boundaries around objects, people and ideas. The idea was to have it as broad as possible and to introduce people to things and ideas they may not get usually get a chance to. This is because of a common sense that certain fields are for people who ‘know’ about things. It is about an inequality of perceived capacities. In this way art, science, technology and practical crafts often feel beyond people, beyond their capacities. The talks are a presentation of something (an object, picture, film, photograph); a grown-up show- and- tell. Through the object a different vocabulary will be illuminated. Speakers are not communicating information as such, but an idea. In this way facts are not the central criteria. Fictional narratives are just as applicable. Subjects at the event were: Calligraphy, Work in progress, History of supermarkets, Outsider Art,  Tanks; T34 vs Panzers, My Grandmother and Tomás O’Crohan, Vocabularies, Neuro Dance, Foraging in Oakland, Digital typography, Dressage, British Male Comedians, Photos of Maryland, What Knot to do, The Casement diaries and Photos of dead dogs

BLOOMSPACE IN A MUTANTSPACE

Mutantspace.ie commemorated Bloomsday on Tuesday 16th June in Cork. As Joyce had Cork blood in him we reckoned it was about time we had a shindig to celebrate the great man and of course his masterpiece, Ulysses. We hosted musicians playing original music inspired by the book, sopranos singing songs from the book, writers reading passages from the book and poets doing original work. It was a free event and we served a Joycean supper of kidneys, sausage, gorgonzola, bread and wine [image gratefully created by Gosia]

THE NORTHERN NIGHTS IN A MUTANTSPACE.IE

Back drop, front drop, spin, clap, high kicks, low kicks. Northern Soul to some of you may mean nothing, but to others it’s a dusty memory of the best dance music, the best dancers and big old dance halls of the 60s and 70s. It’s a style that’s creeping back into the pops today, but will never compare to the original R&B artists of the day, spawning mostly from Black America. The more obscure the record the better. The Northern Nights DJS, Martin & Graham and our live band ‘The Mutantspacers’ made this a fantastically special, once off, hot and sweaty soul party For info on The Northern Nights go to their website

WALKING ON WATER

Maps are among the most important sources for tracing the development of a city through time. The geography of Cork city is unusual. The centre of the city is built on what was a series of marshy lands in the tidal estuary of the river Lee. Many of the main streets were only formed in the late 18th + early 19th centuries when the waterways between the islands were arched over with culverts carrying the water which still flows under the streets of the city. Musician Ken Cotter took people on a walk along Corks old waterways giving everyone a history of his Cork, his place and the spaces that have made the city what it is today.

MUTANT SHORTS [adventures in film making]

Mutantspace.ie invited groups of people to get together and create their own short films. The showcase had a theme that was announced online on Monday 15th June to ensure everyone had the same amount of time in which to produce their work. Film makers had a week to make their short and two days after that we screened them all. Congratulations to Michael O’Sullivan the inaugural MUTANT SHORTS CHAMPION 2009 with his film ‘Outside the Box’

EAT MY CAKE

Mutantspace.ie held a CUPCAKE competition at the FEASTA food market that took place on Sunday 28th June on Patrick Street, Cork during the Cork Midsummer Festival. We set up a stall and ran a competition for the tastiest, most crazy, over the top, delicious, silliest cupcake ever made. A panel of judges was appointed to honestly, impartially and truthfully decide whose cupcake was the best. The winner was be announced at the inaugural Amateur Food Awards later that day and presented with the very first mutantspace.ie cupcake trophy. Congratulations to Liz Slattery the inaugural EAT MY CAKE CHAMPION 2009 We will be putting up a gallery link page with all photos of the events. If you took photos at any of the events please send them in and we’ll stick them up. We achieved much with very little….it’s all possible