News: Zaklady na Zycie (Plant-Life), performance and installation environment
just back from Liste 15 in Basel, June
then to 'Playground' festival in STUK, Leuven (8th,9th,10th Novemeber 2010)
Co-production Huis a/d Werf Utrecht and Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam

‘Zaklady na Zycie’ is a performance and installation environment exploring Poland’s industrial past. In English, ‘Plant-Life’ is a play on words, as a plant can be as much a photosynthetic organism as a factory, power-station, or other large industrial complex. It is in this sense the piece attempts to achieve as much as state of David Attenborough as it does anthropological glance into the life of factories across Poland.

With performers lulling secular mantras in Polish, a visitor is able to follow English subtitles, as the fringe economy of the East reveals itself as a true giant, - manifest in the factories of chocolate, speedometers, cement and canned meat.

Pictured here, the magnificant Zbigniew Maciak.
Photo James Beckett

Full pdf for download here:

Zaklady na Zycie (Plant-Life), performance and installation environment

Concept, writer and director: James Beckett
Performers: Zbigniew Maciak, Maja Magdalena Jawor, Dorothea Nikiporczyk
Dramaturgy: Koen Nutters, Renee Copraij
Installation and stage: James Beckett, Lucas Steenhuis en Erik Jansen
Costumes: Janneke Raaphorst
Light design: Minna Tiikkainen
Sound Design: Slobodan Bajic
Tech: Roeland van den Beemd en Slobodan Bajic
Production leader: Coosje Idhuna Kuipers
Producer: Huis a/d Werf
Co-production: Wilfried Lenz, Rotterdam

Pictured here, the beautiful ladies:
Maja Magdalena Jawor, Dorothea Nikiporczyk
Photo Merijn van der Vliet

Full pdf for download here:

Zaklady na Zycie (Plant-Life), performance and installation environment

Using relics gathered from both functioning factories and industrial ruins around Poland, the stage environment is a series of re-creations, inspired by actual workplaces and even museums, reviewing the past-times of both company and state. The experience allows one to zoom-in, from the larger level of infrastructure, down to the single product of the factory
itself, such as a toothbrush. The tangible nature of this experience attempts to connect to histories through these found objects, in much the way a museum does with its artifacts of purported significance.

Photo Merijn van der Vliet

Full pdf for download here:

"Scythe 1 - 4 ( the Late Limburgerhof Extract-Arrangements)"

Bronze, original scythes, string and wood on belgian canvas boards in oak and plexi vitrines.

Thanks to Isaac Carlos for construction of vitrines.

Installation photos of all pieces here:

I asked an artist in the German village 'Worpswede' if I could make a silkscreen of an etching she had made some years prior. She is a middle aged woman who had moved to the village for its romantic history of art.

The village had a strong role in the the development of German Jugendstil, which centred around a nature obsessed artist by the name of Heinrich Voegler. His contribution, besides the actual work, was the organisation of the artists into a colony, with a strong socialist base. He was later to move to Russia, following which he moved to Kyrgyzstan, where he was later to die in abject poverty.

The translation I made of the artists piece, took the history of the village into account. Her original etching was mirrored, and reduced to two tones of red. After having agreed to the piece being made, I printed the works, after which she, by phone, changed her mind and refused to come and meet me. In total we met just once. She was afraid I was selling her work for my own benefit, a commercial process in which she would lose control. She did also not see the point of translation, and simply saw it as a copy.

Seen here are the prints being destroyed

(untitled, two sheets @ 70 by 100 cm each)

Thanks to Bernd Milla, Anne-Lina and Barabara Reil of Künstlerhäuser Worpswede

New work, finshed and waiting postage to:

'SONS – shoes or no shoes' museum in Kruishoutem, Belgium

Title: "The ancient yet useful agricultural tool takes the somewhat more affluent immigrant by surprise."

Scythe blade and shoe mounted on wooden panels.

A small retrospect of my N-collective concerts, as well as a record release of my new band, Wednesday the 18th at the ICA in London. This was realised in collaboration with Morten j Olsen, Koen Nutters, Kammer Klang and the Plus Minus ensemble as part of the festival "Calling out of Context"

The Plus Minus Ensemble is:
Alex Waterman, Joanna Bailie, Marcus Barcham-Stevens, Mark Knoop, Matthew Shlomowitz, Roderick Chadwick, Tom Pauwels, Vicky Wright
http://www.plusminusensemble.com/category/3-agenda

The ICA:
http://www.ica.org.uk/

The N:
http://www.n-collective.com/archive/

James Beckett, "Trophies"
played by the Plus Minus Ensemble:
Electronics with 8 percussionists on motor-cross trophies

Photo: Tom Medwell

"THE FRÈDERYCK NÙYEGEN SEASIDE MEMORIAL BAND"

James Beckett, Koen Nutters, Morten J Olsen
Lead and bass hurdy-gurdy, percussion

The band:
THE FRÈDERYCK NÙYEGEN SEASIDE MEMORIAL BAND
www.myspace.com/frederyck

Photo: Tom Medwell

Out now on vinyl c/o Künstlerhäuser Worpswede

14 years in the fond company of:
THE FRÈDERYCK NÙYEGEN SEASIDE MEMORIAL BAND

Thanks to Bernd Milla, Anne-Lina and Barabara Reil, Supported by Land Niedersachsen

James Beckett, Koen Nutters
"Rabbit to Score"
here played by the Plus Minus Ensemble:
Accordion, Clarinet, Guitar and Cello

The Plus Minus Ensemble is:
Alex Waterman, Joanna Bailie, Marcus Barcham-Stevens, Mark Knoop, Matthew Shlomowitz, Roderick Chadwick, Tom Pauwels, Vicky Wright
http://www.plusminusensemble.com/category/3-agenda

Out Now:

Available through this site for € 15, just write

Or through Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg

Softcover
21 x 29,7 cm
112 pages
100 color and 60 b/w ills.
English
ISBN 978-3-86828-031-9
25 Euro
2009

Also out Now:

'Transcriptions 1-6':

Available for free + postage - through SKOR, just write

Softcover
(A5) what-ever that is in cm
96 pages
55 color and 12 b/w ills.
English
Without ISBN
0 Euro
2009