We are inviting artists/creatives to come and join us for an exploratory evening here at our HQ, The Edge on Thursday 16^th February, (2012);  We recently advertised a post here at Friction and were overwhelmed by a stunning volume of very passionate and creative people, mostly from our region, that we were unaware of.  Therefore we decided to have an evening where these people and other interested creatives could come and spend some time with us, meet other like-minded people and explore the possibilities of how individuals and groups might want to engage with Friction and our space ‘The Edge’.

We’ve never been good at accepting help, we always want people to get as much out of any work they do, as they put into into it – and we can’t afford hordes of staff on our very tight budgets.  What we can offer, however, is a wealth of experience in project and event management, art and participation, arts in the public realm, a very special venue and lots of fun.  Back in the day, Vivid, then more of a film-makers support agency than it is now, had a great system.  Volunteers would work for them, earning credits, which could then be used towards using their production facilities, equipment hire, etc, and we are putting together a similar system here.

What we need:

• Administrative help
• Project and event management help
• Venue maintenance and development help
• Project delivery help
• Interviewers for our two-year oral history project
• Artists and makers to help us build exhibitions and installations
• Performers – (in the widest sense of the word) for our events and interventions
• Front of house staff – for our events

What we can offer:

• Training in all of the above (we’ve been doing this stuff for 20 years)
• Credits towards equipment hire
• Credits towards hiring our venue, the Edge
• Credits towards training and mentoring (our artist/directors have had a hand in designing training initiatives such as Fierce’s Metapod and Creative Alliance’s programmes and we’re founders of CA), career and personal/practice development
• Credits towards developing your own events, festivals and projects (helping you throughout the process)
• Credits towards help in developing funding bids
• Credits towards anything else we can help you with

So, if any of this interests you, and you’d like to find out more, we’re hosting a volunteers event on Thursday 16th February 2012, from 6.30 at the Edge, 79-81 Cheapside, Deritend, B12 0QH.  We’ll be telling you more about all the exciting projects that we’re doing this year, more about the ‘volunteer offer’ and we’ll be providing refreshments of course.  You may have your own ideas – bring them with you!  If you’d like to attend, please RSVP to info@frictionarts.com, so we have an idea of how many chairs to put out.

see you there!

Friction Arts & Professional Incredibles presents:

SONIC ASYLUM
sonic sanctuary for music asylum seekers.

Deacon Martin
‘The man they couldn’t corrupt’
http://www.deaconmartin.ecrp1.com/index.html

Jonny Marks
Throat Singer Extraordinaire
http://www.myspace.com/jonnymarks77

Mahmutt
A unique multi-instrumental sonic experience
http://www.myspace.com/bet4mahood

Honeyfeet
Manchester based, Whisky drenched, foot tapping, rhythm blues jazz
http://www.honeyfeet.org/

First 20 people in get a signed copy of attached flyer by artist Krystian Garstkowiak.

Please spread the good word!

Props to Scott and the gang for the return of Outersight last Saturday.  Scott worked incredibly hard despite severe back pain to treat us all to his usual eclectic and inspired mash up of shorts, clips and sounds, this time with an American Gothic type horror theme, followed by a feature about a homicidal bed! Re, as they say, spect.

We’re busy as ever, juggling current, future and past projects like a circus octopus.  We’re working on what, hopefully, will be a long-term project on Castle Vale, for Active Arts, where we’re hoping to ‘lift the vale’ on this overlooked part of our city.  It’s early on, but we’re intending to create a series of projects and interventions to take people to the Vale and vice versa.  Watch this space.

Sandra is off to Brussels next week to speak at Banlieue’s D’Europe’s annual shindig, they’ve asked her to present the South Africa project to an audience of artists and arts professionals from across Europe, which will be nice.  Next year, all being well, she’ll be telling them about our adventures in Brazil.

One of the reasons we find (or make) life difficult, is our naive optimism, and belief in the inherent goodness of humanity.  We get stung over and over again, as we tend to trust first and ask questions later.  We have been described as militant optimists, and i suppose that is fairly accurate, we couldn’t really be any other way.  We do tend to wear our ethics on our sleeves, as it were, and we know this can make people uncomfortable.  Somehow, showing your moral standards publicly makes people think that, maybe you are judging them – fyi, being judgemental is something we are aware about and try very hard not to do. 

Now, one of the reasons we have survived so long (20years so far, how’s that for sustainability?) is that we have stuck to our guns.  Everything we do is debated, examined, discussed before we do it. We’ve got the luxury of being around each other 24/7, and being obsessive (or committed, delete as applicable) about what we do, we tend to pretty much discuss ‘The Work’ constantly and this has meant that ‘it’ has been the focus of our lives.  So, yes, we do tend to display our morals, ethics, our views and our politics pretty openly, we do tend to say what we think, and we are not scared to upset the applecart in the process.  It’s a dirty job.  But we never judge people on what they think, what they say, believe, feel. Only on what they do.  Mentalists we may be, but not judgementalists.

Where we get into trouble is that, in our lovely 21st century (we’re living in the future!), there is a tendency for there to be a gap between what people say and what they do.  This is fuelled by a sensationalist media and an obsession with PR – it’s more important to be famous, than to be famous for something (see X factor, Heat magazine, etc, etc).  So we are often told in the arts that image, branding (which always makes me think of branding slaves, for some reason), logos, etc are all important.  Indeed, there is now a whole sub-genre of artist who’s practice is all about that self-promoting approach, and many do very well at it.  Problem is, that often people get so tied up in the words, they forget what the words are supposed to be describing.  The map is not the territory.  One of our main articles of faith, or guiding principles or whathaveyou is: ‘If you are not doing what you say you are doing, then change what you are doing or change what you are saying’.  So we try hard not do so, and consequently tend to challenge it when we hear it.  Which gets us into trouble, because, well, people would often rather go along with the lie than remove a piece from the house of cards.  Where would be then?  Reality perhaps?

Disclaimer:  We claim no high moral ground here – we f*ck up, just like everybody else, we’re quite as capable of hypocrisy as anyone, we just ask that we all try harder.  This blogpost was authoured by Lee Griffiths.  Lee is only 50% of Friction arts and his thoughts and opinions may not be those of the other 50%, Sandra Hall.  They probably are though, we agree on most things, but are not joined at the hip, so maybe not, she’s more patient than me, generally speaking.

So, the other morning we got a cab in to work.  The driver was all , Hi, how you going.  Turned out he was Somalian and San had had a chat in Swahili with him before, possibly after a ’debrief’ session at the Anchor (Five Star cabs just have the most interesting drivers, for some reason, we’ve had many 45 minute chats, sat outside our house).  Abdul was well happy, things have been moving on back in Mogadishu and he was in an amazingly upbeat mood.  He cheerfully regaled us with stories of death, murder, gunshot wounds to the head, children caught in crossfire and the loss of countless family and tribal members. A nice bit of perspective, when you’re stressed out about putting in yet another funding application, or how to pay the gas bill.  I think it should be compulsory that, at least once a week, you get a chat with someone like Abdul, get a reality check – or whatever the equivalent might be.  Never forget to count your blessings.

Psynematic psychos, Outersight, are making a return to the Edge for Halloween shenaniganisation.  Expect the usual mix of fun, frolics and filmic goodness, great music, great visuals - all with that special, Outersight je ne c’ai bloody what?

This month is going to be very busy, here at the Edge.  There’s a whole range of stuff, from the international to the local, and hopefully, something for everybody.

First – an apology.  We had to cancel this month’s Sonic Asylum.  This was due to circumstances beyond our control, honest.  It’s never good to have to cancel a show, and we hope we didn’t disappoint anyone too much.  Sonic Asylum will be back in early December, with a special, festive line-up.

So- onto the good stuff.  First, the Brazilians are coming – soon!  From 16th-18th of September all over Digbeth, there’ll be a whole host of fantastic, Brazilian themed events, showcasing work from our overseas colleagues, alongside the very best of local artists for the very first Espirito Brum festival.  Keep an eye on their website for full details, but there’s a bunch of events here at the Edge.  Firstly, we’re proud to host the festival launch night, which features a screening of the Music Tree (fantastic Brazilian movie), alongside live performance from Wanderson Lopez, Bohdan Piasecki, Paul Murphy and Goodnight Lenin. We’re really looking forward to this one and hope you’ll join us from 4pm-10pm on Friday 16th September.

 On Saturday 17th, from 11am-5pm, there’s loads of Brazilian themed stalls, food and activities on offer during the day – all free.  There’s a chance to attend a workshop with amazing experimental percussionist Babilak Bah (if you like hitting things to make a noise, take this opportunity – only a fiver!).  The evening will feature live music from Little Sister, Escalado and Flavia Bittencourt.

And if that wasn’t enough, on Sunday we’ll be rounding off things here with the ‘People’s Kitchen’ – a mass Brazilian cook-up and wind-down with film screenings and accompanied by our friend Gilberto Mauro, making a return visit after his Flatpack appearance last March. The event will run from 12pm-6pm, and should be a lovely, chilled way to wind the festival down.

That’s just the stuff happening here, please keep checking the Espirito site for full details of the events going on at the other venues in Digbeth, including PST, the Spotted Dog and South Birmingham College.

And that’s not all, either.  On Monday 26th of September we will be receiving a return visit from our favourite purveyors of Canadian four-part harmony, the Wilderness of Manitoba.  Despite a hectic European tour, they’ve managed to squeeze a gig in at their favourite venue in the UK, the Edge.  Doors will be at 8pm – we’ll keep you posted about the details.

Sorry about this, but that’s not all, either, either.  On September 22nd, Sustained Theatre will be hosting another of their Space2develop projects ‘Artist’s Salons’.  The last one went really well, with some great ‘scratch’ performances and a good time being had by all.  If you’re starting out, and you make any kind of performance, check this event out.

We’re very excited and honoured to be helping on Espirito Brum this September.  Our Sonic Asylum collaborators, Soesen Edan and Tessa Burwood have been working incredibly hard to organise the festival, which will bring dozens of Brazilian musicians, performers and artists to Digbeth from 14th-18th September.  Espirito Brum is part of Espirito Mundo, which already has cross-cultural partnerships between Brazil, Spain and France, this is the first time it’s happened in the UK.

In the lead up the the festival, there’s already been visits by four Brazilian artists, and local street artist Newso has had work exhibited in Brazil.  After this year’s festival in Birmingham, a contingent of Birmingham musicians and artists will be part of a reciprocal festival in Brazil. This seems to be the beginning of a great potential relationship between our city and colleagues in Espirito Santo, a we are very pleased to be part of it.

So, keep checking out the festival website for details of concerts, workshops, performances and events, as information becomes available.  We’re holding a number of events here at the Edge, and planning some performances ourselves, so, see you at the festival!

We’re often asked what we are trying to achieve with the work we make, and it’s quite hard to encapsulate that in a soundbite or an artists statement or especially a funding application or a pitch.  Ultimately, I suppose, we’re trying to bring about the world which we’d like to be living in.  There’s a phrase going around at the moment, ‘militant optimists’, and that’s us, really.  Not that we believe we can change the world in a big way, I don’t think we’re quite that arrogant or quite that naive (though we can be both at times).  But I think everybody agrees that we don’t live in a perfect world (unless I’m seriously missing something) and it would be good if things were different.

Well, we believe that things can get better in the long run, and that art is our favourite way of bringing people together, and offering them a catalyst to look at things differently, to create the conditions for that better world. It’s a way of creating a space to create a different kind of sense of the world, a questioning, perspective-shifting approach to building a reality.  That sounded almost arty, I apologise, my, as they say, bad.

So all the stuff we do is working to that goal, hopefully each thing we do makes things just a little bit better and helps things head in the right direction.  And is fun, preferably.

We’re sort of evolutionary revolutionaries.

Viva la evolution!

So, we often say that the edges are the most interesting places to be – (see the word ‘liminal’ in a million dissertations in the last ten years or so).  That culture is like a ring doughnut, the sweet and tasty stuff is on the edge, whilst the centre is pretty empty and tasteless (why we called our space, The Edge). Maybe that’s a prejudiced view, but it’s something I personally have come to believe, and it’s no surprise that it’s happened.  My life has kind of pointed the way. 

I grew up on a council estate on the edge of the city, literally.  The Maypole estate, where our maisonette was situated, is a typical concrete jungle (i’m sure much improved since the early 70s, when I resided there), but just across the way the countryside begins.  So my days were spent between your usual trying to survive on a dodgy estate, attempting to read every book in the tiny portakabin that served as a library, and murdering a range of fluffy and feathered animals for our meagre dinner table – I got my first shotgun at the age of 8, my stepfather was an inveterate poacher and we would often go out for ‘country walks’, returning blood smeared, with pockets full of dead creatures and live ferrets.  So, I never joined in much with life on the estate, avoided the gangs (my possession of a number of illegal firearms, crossbows and evil gutting knives meant they avoided me, too), preferring the company of my books and the countryside to my potential compatriots.

I won a scholarship to a grammar school (King Edwards Camp Hill), where the ‘liminality’ continued.  I couldn’t stand school, the other kids were ‘too posh’ (actually they were all pretty middle class, but that was posh as far as I was concerned) – and it was definitely mutual.  Contracting a mystery long-term illness didn’t help, (which actually turned out to be a ‘mild’ dose of TB, diagnosed years later when we got our ‘TB jabs’), which meant I never really engaged with the school.  TBH, at that time the teachers wore cloaks around school, and there was a real ‘poor mans’ public school vibe at the place, so how was a poor boy from a council estate supposed to understand or engage with that world?

So, about the age of thirteen I discovered the joys of drug-taking, petty crime and sudden violence, spending the next couple of years indulging heavily in all three, whilst occasionally popping into school often enough to keep my mother from the arms of the law (obviously I put her through hell, poor woman – but I made up for it later, promise).  So, on the one hand I was going to this ‘good’ school, all uniforms, ‘old boys’ and games of fives (for fucks sake!), then going off to hang out with bikers, junkies, thieves, rastas, and, worst of all, musicians. I turned up to one of my ‘O’level exams on the back of a Triumph ‘Bonnie’, clutching a half-pint of stolen brandy, wearing nothing but a pair of old cut-off jeans – needless to say I am yet to obtain any official qualifications, though I probably earned a Phd in the old University of Life, having quaffed, smoked, ingested, injected, fought and fucked more than many people twice my age before I ever left school.

Anyway, I don’t want to write a whole autobiography here, I’m maybe being self-indulgent enough – the pattern has continued to this day, in that the communities and activities I have engaged in over the years have tended to be at the margins, in those liminal spaces between this and that, legality and illegality, society and anarchy.  The point I’m making, I think, and I’m not entirely sure, is that I have enjoyed it immensely, and continue to do so.  The edges of the doughnut are where all the taste is for me, and I guess that’s why we, as artists aren’t afraid to take risks (Sandra’s bio is very different, but no less liminal, born in Africa, punk, traveller, etc).  We’re actually more comfortable in places that would be out of most people’s comfort zones, it’s why we can breezily make work in some of the dodgiest places on the planet, why we can find a way to communicate with people that others feel they can’t.  And, I guess also it’s why we’ll never be part of the ‘art gang’, never be entirely accepted in our ‘own community’.

And of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way.