PRESENTING: F A C E S
Presentation for our: unit X proposal.
In order to get permission to use the sites we wanted for our project idea, we had to submit a proposal in the form of a presentation to a panel with members from the city council, CityCo, public relations from the university an architect and our tutors.
Our presentation was met with positive response and enthusiasm from the board including suggestions of who to approach and the promise of further contacts.
This is roughly what was presented to the council:
CONCEPT We want to get people drawing. We want to get people interacting. F A C E S mcr is a project starting with an event at Kraak gallery on the 8th of May and culminating with an installation around the windows of the northern quarter. The human brain is hard wired to recognise faces: it is a key part of how we communicate and express ourselves. We want use this concept to get people to interact with each other and with the places and spaces the faces with ultimately end up. Our aim is to get the people of Manchester to connect with one another and draw the creative potential out of the city and get it onto the streets. We hope to create a connection and strengthen the relationships between young artists and the creative community in the city. EVENT The ultimate aim of the event is to RECORD the FACES of mcr in preparation or them becoming a physical part of the city. Everyone who attends the event will have their face photographed at least once, hopefully more than once with as many different facial expressions as possible! Upon arrival everyone will be invited to have a typical ‘mug-shot’ style photograph taken, these will be printed immediately and pegged up within reach as a living, growing interactive installation around the room. The artists attending the event will have full access to the photographs as they are taken and will be using these to create something LIVE. The idea is that with this live inspiration, not only will the people feel part of something through seeing it happen, but will feel inspired to take up the pens and have a doodle on the photos pegged above their heads. WE ARE VERY KEEN TO GET A PHOTOCOPIER! We think this would be a great idea because it’s something people can use themselves, play around and have a laugh with, pressing faces, hands and whatever else up to be photocopies. This kind of injection of humour should help people to relax and engage a bit more with the concept behind the evening. DISPOSABLE CAMERAS: Another idea to engage people. When groups arrive we would give them a disposable camera between them and set them a few challenges that must be completed with it. Djs///////////////////////////////////// Artists///////////////////////////////// We will be documenting the whole experience through film and photography in preparation for our final exhibition in nq. THE EXHIBITION- windows The faces we record will all have the event in common, one point in time where they were connected by a place. These faces are not just single people, as a whole theyare Manchester, however small a cross-section we capture. The idea is to get these faces up in the streets as a physical record of what we achieved within the event and as something for our attendees to connect with outside of that time and place – general public to be intrigued by and check out. Encouraging people to explore the city and find their face, taking part of something which will be seen by huge numbers of people, connecting them in another way – injecting life into a rejected/neglected space. The installations around the Northern Quarter will go up about a week after the event has taken place. LOCATIONS: The Mackie Mayor Building Solway Exhibition Space (above Fred Aldous) The former Big Issue Office top corner of Oldham Street – hopefully? The United Building (Old Cinema on Oldham Street) and facing window (above the £5 charity shop) The window opposite this building is the top floor of a recording studio and is of the same aesthetic. We would really like to have corresponding imagery here to create a cross road link
A few ideas we have for this so far:
- a silly face
- a serious face
- a picture with/of someone you don’t know (and their name)
- a moustache face
Once it is complete we would ask them to write their names on the camera and hand it over!
The bands, djs and artists who will be LIVE on the night are:
Bands///////////////////////////////////
#Voodoo Vultures
#Black Lights
#Coup De Ville
#DIPSTICK Residents
#SION
#5eighty6 (Limbo, MCR)
#Doodle Residents
#AO crew (street artists)
#Haimer Atkins (film artists)
#Calum Crawford (sculptor)
#Harris Gillespie (photographer)
#Kate Willson (fine art)
Being the old meat market, this building would have been bustling with people buying and selling and we feel it is such a shame it is sitting empty and miserable. It backs onto a main road; the windows are clouded over and boarded up. We would like to breathe some life back into it by displaying FACES over them, in the windows and at lots of different levels to get people interacting with the building again as well as the faces they may or may not have already seen.
We like the location of this building as it’s in such a creative hot spot in the Northern Quarter. There is a lot of scope for playing with imagery with the different size and shapes of windows here.
Projection
Sitting on the corner of a busy junction, we think this would be a great space to have a projection of the footage from our event. Having moving visual imagery as part of our series of installations would help convey the atmosphere and feeling of the event and explain to the onlooker what we were trying to achieve and why there are so many faces looking down at them from windows and boards around the Northern Quarter!
This has 5 large windows, separated into small square panes. Our plan is to fill each window pane with a face, creating mural of Manchester’s faces to look down at Manchester’s faces.
