Tight Jeans was officially selected by the 2008 times BFI 52md London Film Festival where it was also voted the best short film by the Observer

AND here is another great film that she directed for Channel 4 THE FUTURE WAGs OF GREAT BRITIAN – i highly recommend it!

I can honestly say that, due to a childhood intolerance to “E Numbers”, I’ve never touched Red Bull before.

But this was different.

It was the only option. Fridges, shelves and rooms of the stuff.

You see, I was in Red Bull’s insanely amazing studios in south London all weekend, collaborating with the Red Bull Music Academy’s very own kidkanevil. We were tasked with producing a track, whatever we wanted, for two days. This is, actually, a lot harder than it sounds. Made harder by them having the worlds largest Pro Tools monitor – below – bear in mind that that’s a normal human head and the perspective is a little skewed… massive.

So, kidkanevil (aka Gerard) and I were emailing back and forth about themes, ideas, inspirations (which included rainbows, kittens and clouds. Very mature) and, in the end, decided that it was quicker to just shut up and do something. So we did.

92 channels of cello later, we were listening to “Mod Synth vs Cello”. We’re both, actually, very proud of it!

Lolo spent some of Saturday with us, and after picking through our sweetie stash, agreed to read some Victor Hugo poetry over the intro of the piece

We have to mix the track, but I’ll be performing it live at the next alt_classical on September 14th… nice and loud! All in all, a great weekend well spent, even supposing my caffeine levels were spiked higher than they probably have been before!

The brick series was House of Jonn reaction to the ‘RAW’ theme imposed by the Royal Academy of Arts for this years summer exhibition.

We were rejected….

Without sounding like whinny losers this was the reaction we were expecting and in a way played up to. The architecture room was co-ordinated by David ‘vitality, risk taking and a necessary sense of adventure’ Chipperfield.

We could not help but prod a little fun at ourselves and the theme by creating 4 very impractical and improbable brick types to live upto the RAW theme.

These included the acrylic Banana brick, Cock Arch brick, Wizard of Oz brick and the Recession proof brick. All were produced as editions of 25.

Description of something on the brick.The above images show the Wizard of Oz brick depicting a scene from the story of Dorothy and Toto on the yellow Brick road.

Something entertainging here

Above is the banana brick and below is the cock arch brick.

As part of Channel 4’s Coming Up scheme to showcase up and coming writing and directing talent Destiny Ekaragha has directed THE FUTURE WAGs OF GREAT BRITAIN. The film was written by the brilliant Abby Ajayi and it goes out on Channel 4 on Thursday 19th August 2010 at 23.40pm. It will also be available online on 4 OD.

http://www.channel4.com/tv-listings/daily/2010/08/19

They have a great cast including Bunmi Mojekwu (Eastenders, Misfits (TV) and Gone Too Far at the Royal Court), Ellen Thomas(Eastenders, Rev, Teachers, Doctor Who and Moses Jones) and Naana Agyei-Ampadu (nominated as Outstanding Newcomer by the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her role in Been So Long at the Young Vic).

Full review here

This year, there are seven CiRs. So if you’re thinking of applying for the CiR programme, this is the sort of talent you’ll be up against: Joel Horwood, an upcoming playwright who has enjoyed many a success including sell-out shows at Edinburgh Fringe festival and who recently saw his play It’s About Time performed at Latitude this year; Then there is House of Jonn, who are the dynamic architectural duo, Jordan Hodgson and Niall Gallacher, who recently collaborated with V &A residents to produce an artistic audience-engaging installation for Selfridges’ Wonder Room Windows called Welcome To Your City; Dean Quinn, a fashion designer who won Womenswear Designer of the Year at Central Saint Martins, was featured in the V&A Fashion in Motion presentation; Luc Mollinger, a director in theatre and opera, whose recent work includes Tales of Hoffman and who is exploring various ways to bring opera to the stage; followed by the enigmatic Peter Gregson, a cellist and somewhat of an expert in contemporary music, who has been working for Peter Gabriel’s record label to produce music for acoustic and electric cellos; award-winning Destiny Akaragha leads the way in the arena of Film, with her CV boasting a short film, Tight Jeans, which was pinpointed by The Observer as the best short film shown at the London Film Festival 2008; lastly, is Alex Shepherd who graduated with a degree in Photography and is energetically exploring an array of mediums across the art spectrum. …All sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it?

The Hospital Club is hosting an industry screening for Destiny Ekaragha, one of our current Creatives in Residence. Many of you may already know Destiny from the London Film Festival where her work was programmed in both 2008 and 2009. We’ll be screening the two shorts featured at the LFF for those who haven’t had the opportunity to see them in the past. We’ll also be screening Destiny’s new project ’The Future WAGS of Great Britain’. This new short was commissioned by Channel 4 and will be broadcast later in the year.

As part of the Courvoisier Live Spirit Festival Peter Gregson and artist Jamie Shaw collaborated to create a piece where they performed spontaneously in response to each other’s work.

Peter Gregson, Upcoming performances….

Le Poisson Rouge, New York, 8 Aug 6.30pm

“a young, tech-friendly Scottish cellist at the forefront of the new-music scene” – New York Magazine, Critics Choice for Classical

alt_classical, The Hospital Club 14 Sept, 7pm

Save The Date …..

WHITE SOMETHING- Written by Matt Wilkinson Directed By Destiny Ekaragha

House of Jonn have completed work with Tom Greenall and SCDLP Architects on the design and staging of Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio, in the grounds of a former Russian gulag. Performed in July by Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre of Russia, the opera was created as a promenade piece, part set design, part site-specific installation, using architectural elements to connect the present-day site with the story of political imprisonment in Beethoven’s 200 year old work.

SOOOOOO since graduating from the Royal College of Art last year House of Jonn’s Jordan has been involved in a rather unique project known as ‘Fidelio in the Gulag’. which we briefly blogged about in a previous post. After a long long long long long year of hard work and many unknowns the project has finally come to fruition and I could not be more happy!

The project has been director Michael Hunt’s vision and has been realised by the SCDLP architects office who myself and Thomas Greenall have worked alongside to achieve this. Our role was to facilitate the performance of this site specific opera through the creation and installation of set design interventions that worked within context.

In July, 2010, Perm State Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre will present a unique production of Beethoven’s only opera “Fidelio” on the territory of the former GULAG camp for political prisoners “Perm 36″, which is now a museum of the history of political repressions.

The production is conceived by the creators as a site-specific piece and not as traditional onstage performance. The epic number of cast members, inspired by the universal idea of love and freedom of Beethoven’s great opera, will bring the whole experience of the camp alive to the audience.

I’m really happy to have had this opportunity to share this project with you, I’ll make sure to post some additional images of the set in particular in the next posts.
Also we are currently in the process of making a short film of the project so I’ll get some clips up soon.

photos by Alex Gushin Salt