New Work UK returns this September with Mandy Mcintosh and The Gluts

 
The series that showcases the best of new British work returns this September with the premiere of Mandy McIntosh’s new film. The Animal Riot draws together a Ukranian story by Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov, Orwell’s Animal Farm and Congo the chimpanzee who exhibited at the ICA in 1957 into an extraordinary animated film illustrated by ape drawings that is a meditation on freedom and desire. Plus a live performance by The Gluts with costumes designed by Mandy Mcintosh.
NWUK is a collaboration between LUX and Whitechapel Gallery curated by Ian White

The Animal Riot (2010 21 minutes HD)

Music and Sound Design, Zeena Parkins

Narrator, Aidan Moffat

The text of the film is abridged from the original story “The Animal Riot” by Nikolay Ivanovich Kostomarov. Sometimes cited as an influence on Orwell’s Animal Farm, the story of the riot was written towards the end of the 18th century, before the Russian Revolution. It has remained relatively obscure. McIntosh’s film is a process of reactivation as well as an exploration of aesthetics, symbols and the marks animals make.
McIntosh utilised drawings from the collection of Marina Vancatova, a Russian primatologist based in Prague who has studied the picture making activity of primates for over twenty years. The apes became scenic artists, rendering the emotions and outlines of a farm and its environs where an uprising of domesticated animals takes place. The only human who can speak Animal, Omelko, converses with the animals and translates the dissidents and the conformists. For scientific purposes, the apes draw in response to empirical geometric shapes on A4 paper. Circles, triangles, zig-zags, broken circles and straight lines; to test how they will respond to systemic visual cues. These reactionary marks made by the animals accumulate in the film as indications of a potential free state, which is never realised by the marionettes. These 3d animals and people, constructed, styled and choreographed by McIntosh, perform the narrative and move like hand held puppets despite or to spite technology.
Mandy McIntosh is a former knitwear designer for fashion house Kenzo. She left Paris in the 90s to develop a practice which includes film, animation, socially-engaged ‘public art’ and design.
http://www.ham-and-enos.org.uk
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THE GLUTS
The Gluts are Gina Birch, Kaffe Matthews and Hayley Newman. They wrote and performed their eco-electro musical Cafe Carbon at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, now they just can’t stop writing…
Our name; The Gluts, is an allegory for over-consumption and capitalism, their roles within climate change and its effect on our world and people. Gluttony, as opposed to alcoholism, is part of an addictive cycle where the abused substance cannot be avoided. For example, people can eat too much but unlike alcoholics, who often abstain from consumption altogether, a glutton can¹t avoid food completely without starving.
http://www.cafecarbon.net