SeaHouse Screening
Houdini was always at it, Damien Hurst couldn't get enough of it, I might be severely misled but i think DV8 did it and a version of Volpone had it, so why do all artists and performance companies at some stage want to stick things in a tank of water and watch them? If anyone feels like posting a comment i'd be interested to hear about other water based shows, of any scale. Maybe a performers story of how bloody hard it is, any disaster stories due to over ambitious plans, anything really.
My work with other companies invariably ends up with me drenched. Simple Maths and The Carrier Frequency with Stans Cafe; Schrodingers Box with Reckless Sleepers; Take Me To The River with Wendy Houstoun was a stop off on a boat trip on the Thames at Canary Wharf.
The project called SeaHouse with Simon Daw and Alistair Gentry started life as a show on Aldburgh beach during the festival in 2003. It was a great process, sun shining, in a kind of odd plunge pool, seeing how long i could hold my breath...There was a local radio guy came to interview us who couldn't have been more Alan Partridge if he tried - 'But it's not all fun right? There is a serious side?'...I felt like a performing seal, inside the tank, only able to answer questions in sign language.
For images of both version look here - http://www.alistairgentry.demon.co.uk/seahouse.htm
It may not be working but try again, they're good.
Rather than let that event disappear and go the way of all live performance we got together again in 2004 to make a film version. More abstract than the show, much of the filming was done by me holding a heath robinson underwater camera (made from a cctv lense in an ice cream tub). The result is quite a claustrophobic, comic, surreal narrative that if you want to look at it that way discusses the threat of rising sea levels. Post tsunami it took on another set of connotations. Ultimately it's a very nice set of moving pictures to look at for a few minutes.
So it's great that it's going to be shown at the very fine 7inch Cinema club at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth next tuesday.
Click here for their site - http://www.7inch.org.uk
The film has made its way to the Venice Biennale and (pretty disappointing) VAD Festival in Girona last year so it's nice to bring it back. Any ideas for other good film fests to send it to are gratefully accepted.