Category : Grand Union

Torsten Lauschmann: Before The Revolution opens Friday 20 January 6–9pm

Grand Union Christmas Party 15.12.11

Oh Come all ye and join us at Grand Union 9:30pm on Thursday 15 December for our Christmas Party (after the Extra Special People Christmas Quiz at Eastside Projects from 6:30pm). Featuring more artist DJs than you can shake a shiny stick at.

Virtual Space/Digital Trace 7pm Thurs 8 Dec at Grand Union

Join us 7–9pm Thursday 8 December 2011 for the finale of the brilliant Open File series at Grand Union.

An evening screening of video works concerned with the rendering of virtual space, the digital and the immaterial by Ed Atkins, Tom Badley, Trisha Baga, David Raymond Conroy, Richard Healy, Wiliam Rounce and Mark Titchner, followed by celebration drinks and a chance to informally chat with the Open File curators.

If you can’t make it in person, the screening will also be broadcast live on If Not Now by live stream – http://www.if-not-now.tv/

Programme features:
Ed Atkins Delivery To The Following Recipient Failed Permanently
Tom Badley Trancendental Etude No. 5
Trisha Baga Peacock
David Raymond Conroy Hauling/It is not the past, but the future, that determines the present
Richard Healy OFF
William Rounce Accumulation of Marginal Gains
Mark Titchner It Is You I Love The Most

Also at Grand Union:
We hope to see you on Thursday 15 December for our Christmas Party!
9pm – late, featuring all your favourite artist DJs. We’ll be starting after the much anticipated Christmas Quiz at Eastside Projects – hope to see you there.

Open File // Pavilion: Screening 23/11/11

7–9pm Wednesday 23 November
and then 12–5pm until 26 November 2011

Join us at Grand Union for the second in the series of Open File events; a screening of Harun Farocki’s Arbeiter verlassen di Fabrik (Workers leaving the factory)followed by Pavilion’s David Spraggs in conversation with Open File curators Jack Brindley and Tim Dixon.

Pavilion is a research project into the relationship between contemporary culture and capitalism. Focusing on spatial politics and production, Pavilion will present a specially curated film programme.

Harun Farocki Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik (Workers Leaving the Factory) 1995
Adrianna Palazzolo The End of Night 2011
Tom Crawford Aspiration Factory 2010
Jonas St Michael and Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh Riddel and Tony (spinners) 2011
David Spraggs Found footage on Dresden’s Gläserne Manufaktur (factory made of glass) found in 2010

Installation opens 12–5pm 24–26 November, with Farocki’s film screened on the hour each hour.

Open File launch 7-9pm Friday 18th November 2011

Events series, publication & website launch
18th November – 8th December 2011

http://openfile.org.uk

Open File is a curatorial conversation between artist Jack Brindley and curator Tim Dixon. Launching at Grand Union this autumn, the project will exist as an on-going series of live events, an open and expanding cumulative publication, and a new web-based archive and resource at openfile.org.uk.

Investigating ways in which we interact with architecture and space, these first 4 events will look into the past industrial function of the Grand Union building and its current manifestation as a gallery. Through the physicality of the gallery and virtual space of the website the project seeks establish an enquiry into the interaction between the material and the immaterial.

Echoes (disambiguation)

Friday 18th November 19:00 – 21:00

Steven Dickie
Solina HiFi
Vasco Alves, Adam Asnan & Louie Rice

The first in the Open File series at Grand Union, Echoes (disambiguation) will explore the relationship between sonic environments and physical space. Interested in ways in which acoustics permeate space, the architecture of the gallery becomes a vital component in the compositions.

Steven Dickie’s The appropriation of a sonic deterrent for cultural use and a simultaneous attempt to nullify it is a 2 part performance using ultra-high pitched frequencies made by the controversial mosquito device, in combination with bat detectors, specially designed ear enhancers and noise nullifying headphone.

Solina HiFi’s Camp Fire is an audio/visual performance using data collated from the performance space to calculate the space’s theoretical resonant frequencies and the conversion of light wavelength into sonic frequency (Angstrom to Hertz). The data taken from the space will give a finite number of frequencies which will be faithfully generated and played back into the space.

Vasco Alves, Adam Asnan and Louie Rice’s An attempt to activate the space beyond the confines of stereo loudspeaker arrangement is an attempt to activate the space beyond the confines of stereo loudspeaker arrangement; Using flares placed within a context where the sound of their burning is elevated to primary interest. Accompanied/contrasted with electroacoustic material, the light and smoke produced will engage with the architecture where the sound cannot.

This event will also see the launch of the Open File publication and website. The cumulative publication is a range of related material selected by Jack Brindley & Tim Dixon in collaboration with the other participating artists.

www.grand-union.org.uk

first fold records presents Bring Out Your Dead at Grand Union

first fold records presents Bring Out Your Dead
7pm – late, Friday 30 September 2011 at Grand Union

Join us for a night of live music, experiemental sounds and immersive visuals. Featuring Pierre and Karlheiz, Them Use Them, The Assembled Minds, Papa November, The Resource Centre, Einstellung, and Kipp Jones.

Free event, all welcome.

OUTPOST Open: Film at Grand Union 6.30pm Thursday 8 September

Grand Union is pleased to present OUTPOST’s touring film programme, selected by Benjamin Cook, director of LUX. Includes films by Charles CC Audsley, Mark Barker, Dave Charlesworth, Jenna Collins, Karen Cunningham and Kate Murphey.

6.30 – 8pm, Thursday 8 September 2011 at Grand Union, 19 Minerva Works, Fazeley Street, Birmingham, B5 5RS.

This is a FREE event, all welcome.

Artist Talk: David Blandy, 6.30pm Tuesday 7 June 2011 at Grand Union

Grand Union welcomes artist David Blandy to talk about his video work Child Of The Atom, with his grandmother, Anne Piper, a novelist, playwright and anti-nuclear weapons activist.

‘There is a familial myth that my late Grandfather would not have survived being a Japanese Prisoner of War had the atomic bombing of Hiroshima not occurred. So it could be argued that I owe my existence to one of the most terrifying events of human history and the death of 110,000 people.’ David Blandy

Child of the Atom features in Amen Brother, curated by Tim Dixon and featuring work by David Blandy, David Raymond Conroy, Steven Dickie, Sara Mackillop, Rachel Reupke, Tom Smith and Jack Strange.

Free event, all welcome.

AMEN BROTHER opening at Grand Union Fri 27 May

Amen Brother from Tom Smith on Vimeo

Grand Union is proud to present Amen Brother
An exhibition curated by Tim Dixon, featuring work by David Blandy, David Raymond Conroy, Steven Dickie, Sara Mackillop, Rachel Reupke, Tom Smith and Jack Strange.

Opening night 6.30-10pm Friday 27 May 2011- All Welcome

Featuring performances by Steve Dickie with Stuart Bannister: The Mean and a Bit More and More than the Average Number of Ears; a collective performance using the audience and their mobile phones.

Exhibition continues 12-5pm, Thursday – Saturday, 28 May – 30 July 2011

Interrogating themes of appropriation, mediation and sampling within contemporary art practice, the exhibition takes its title from a piece of music recorded by soul band, The Winstons in 1969. The 5-second, 4-bar drum breakdown in the middle of the track has become arguably the most sampled piece of music of all time.

Drawing a parallel to these processes and extrapolating from the ideas set in motion by these practices, this exhibition seeks to identify and examine a variety of sample-based artistic strategies; strategies consisting of re-presenting familiar forms, arranging myriad objects and images into new configurations, inserting existing material into original new narratives and remaking elements from found sources, enabling the artists to focus our attention onto on the cultural ephemera that they find around them.

Accompanying this exhibition will be a specially commissioned text addressing Jacques Derrida’s ideas on communication, repetition and iteration by Peter Dennis, a PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Reading.

Events/Talks/Performances:

Tuesday 7 June 6.30-8pm at Grand Union
David Blandy introduces a talk about his video work Child Of The Atom, with his grandmother, Anne Piper, a novelist, playwright and anti-nuclear weapons activist.

Thursday 16 June 6.30-8pm at Eastside Projects


A Talk (The one that begins with Bruce Springsteen).
David Raymond Conroy presents a talk about empathy and sincerity. Guiding us through a series of clips found on YouTube; ranging from recordings of live music performances, to stand-up comedy, to Hollywood cinema, the artist discusses the highly personal relationships he has built with these short videos and how they have come to be points of influence and inspiration.

Still from Amen Brother 2011 by Tom Smith

SEARCH ENGINE | Grand Union | 21 March to 30 April 2011

SEARCH ENGINE | 21 March to 30 April 2011
1 cycle of open-residencies and workshops, 3 artists groups, 1 place of arrival and departure, 3 ongoing research projects and works.
A 6-week programme of new research, contexts of collaboration, creation and distribution.





For SEARCH ENGINE Grand Union has invited three artists groups – Manu Luksch & Mukul Patel, American Mountains, GOTO10 – to work in the project space for two weeks each; taking as their departure point the investigation of the relationship between history and technology, and the way it connects to Grand Union’s locale, Digbeth (Birmingham).

21 March – 2 April
MANU LUKSCH & MUKUL PATEL, Kayak Libre [[free thinking, free transport]]
Thursday 24 March, 6-9 pm: Opening
Artists’ talk at Grand Union, 6.30 pm
Screening of shorts by Manu Luksch at VIVID, 9 pm

Thursday 24 Mar – Sunday 27 March:
Water Taxi available to book from 19 March.

Saturday 2 April, 12-2 pm: Final open workshop

2 April – 16 April
AMERICAN MOUNTAINS : Greenway
Friday 8 April, 12-8 pm: Not Romania day
Event 6-8 pm

Saturday 9 April, 12-8 pm: Greenway day
Event 6-8 pm

Friday 15 April, 12-8 pm: We Fucked This Up day
Event 6-8 pm

Saturday 16 April, 12-11 pm: Final workshop and Launch event

16 April – 30 April
GOTO10, /!POP!: points of presence/

Saturday 30 April: Final open workshop

Friday 13 May 2011, 12-8pm
Grand Union presents an exhibition of material produced throughout Search Engines.
Artists’ Talk
At 6pm the SEARCH ENGINE artists discuss their experiences on the residency programme with the project curator.