Glasgow, Art, TV and Govan

Matt Baker and Tara Beall ...contemporary art as a collective action

BBC Scotland's Newsnight last night looked at the launch of the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art and featured NothingAboutUs - you can watch the clip here (you need to scroll to 16 mins 40 secs)

Voice testing over the Clyde

Frank from Voicebeat testing voice projection at the Riverside in Govan

Voicebeat choir members testing their voices across the Clyde with Steven Anderson.

About Us - Voices

The beautiful graphic was produced by Steven Anderson who is leading the 'Voices' strand of NothingAboutUs.

Full text for Human Megaphone is here:

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// = breaks in reading

Steinbeck

Results, not causes;// results, not causes.// The causes lie deep and simple//—the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times;// a hunger in a single soul,// hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times//; muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, //multiplied a million times. //The last clear definite function of man//—muscles aching to work, //minds aching to create beyond the single need//—this is man.

To build a wall, to build a house, a dam//, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself,// and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam//; to take hard muscles from the lifting,// to take the clear lines and form from conceiving.// For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work,// walks up the stairs of his concepts,// emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

This you may say of man//—when theories change and crash//, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought//, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate,// man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes.// Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back.// This you may say and know it and know it.

And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live//—for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken.// And this you can know—fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept,// for this one quality is the foundation of Manself,// and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.

Reid

Reject the insidious pressures in society// that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you,// that would caution silence in the face of injustice// lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

The challenge we face is that of rooting out anything and everything that distorts and devalues human relations

Steven Anderson

With an aim to coordinate a vocal aspect for Nothing About Us Without Us Is For Us, Steven is currently in the process of meeting up with various people in and around Govan and Partick who sing either in groups or individually. Discussions around world folk voices, religious voices, protest voices, participatory voices and Glasgow voices, and trials of oral sound beside, over and on the river will lead to an experimental presentation of live vocal performances on the 28th April.

Steven Anderson is an artist based in Glasgow with strong family links to Govan. Having studied at GSA and DJCAD, Steven works mainly in creating performances which present alongside each other; the unaccompanied voice, invited audience participation and archival artifacts. Most recently Steven created a performance event featuring Scots oral traditional singers and contemporary artists who use their voice as medium, within the site of Enlightenment portraits at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. This was followed by an exhibition and performance at Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen. Previous to this he had shown work at Catalyst Arts in Belfast and as part of Instal'10 at Tramway in Glasgow.

www.stevenanderson.info