An idea written on the front of a chequebook
Responding to a call for proposals for a performance work commissioned by the Bluecoat in Liverpool and Hull Time Based Arts, in Hull, obviously, to reflect on the maritime histories of these two English mercantile city ports, Philip Courtenay came up with the following concept:
Ships come and go, but where are they coming from and where are they going?
Maybe it is on the journey we begin to discover something about where we are coming from as well as the places we encounter?
We come home after a journey, but what is home?
There is no human contact and exchange of raw material these days in the loading and unloading of cargo, must it always be containerised?
So, thinking about the world out there is essentially a psychological, cultural and ideological projection; is it the case we are just imagining the world?
Is the the world what the news says it is?
What is the world actually like beyond these two horizons?
Western horizons beyond Liverpool?
Eastern horizons beyond Hull?
Imagine an invisible line, a great circle to gird our planet, and that links Hull with Liverpool across the Pennines, but can also point to places in Europe, Asia, the antipodes, the Americas and the British Isles?
Why not follow this line?
See where it leads?
Make cargo along this line, at various locations along this line?
Make a cargo of art, messages made out of materials connected to information?
Bring the cargo to the dockside in Liverpool?
Unload the cargo with the help of people?
Deliver the cargo by sailing ship to Hull?
Complete the circle?
Watch this video - three and half minutes of wonderful Super8 (silent) footage, followed by five minutes of video (with sound), and rounded off with more wonderful Super8 film documentation from Santa Fe de Antioquia and Santa Marta in Colombia, of Lodestones working in situ before becoming cargo.
LODE-Artliner 1992 from espacelab on Vimeo.
So this is what, in fact, happened twenty-five years ago in 1992.
The physical and documented material will be re-installed this October 2017 in a Bluecoat exhibition that explores the fabric of the socio-political, cultural and economic environment where ideas are exchanged as well as things.
Working again with The Yellow House, Philip Courtenay will return to explore the original concept in a communication environment that allows for an increasing number of citizens of the world to exchange their ideas, explore the meaning of places, using a smart phone and a web page.
LODE by Philip Courtenay, Yellow House, Frontier Film and Sound on Video by Keith Stutter.
Thanks to Bryan Biggs at the Bluecoat for creating a space for experimental work, and Mike Stubbs and all the members HTBA.
Thanks to Mal Williamson for his video documentation and telling Philip Courtenay, spontaneously, whilst in mid-performance and in video documentation mode, "this is beautiful" as Yellow House participants loaded crates of the LODE cargo into the back of the ARTLINER sea container.
Thanks to WESTWERK, Hamburg for their contribution to the Ferens Art Gallery LODE installation.
Thanks to Tony Potts, Tanya Peixoto, Steve Mepsted, and Jenny and Ishmael of AND Magazine.
Thanks for support from Chris Sams, Claudia Fasola and Andrea Phillips (editor Hybrid magazine).
LODE commissioned by the Bluecoat Gallery Liverpool and Hull Time Based Arts as part of ARTLINER
Funded by:
The Arts Council
Hull Festival
Gateway Europe
and supported by Cooke's.
The LODE Project on Merseyside was made possible with support from Merseyside Maritime Museum, National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, and Merseyside Development Corporation, and Liverpool Moviola.
The LODE Project on Humberside was made possible by the European Arts Festival with support from the Sobriety Project, Golding Computer Services and the Ferens Art Gallery, and Liverpool Moviola.
