DIY: 2014 – Katie Etheridge and Simon Persighetti ‘Atmospheric pressure: Performance vs Weather’

An experiment in engaging with the liveness of place, through attempting to collaborate with one of it’s most unpredictable elements: the weather.

Project summary:
Atmospheric Pressure invites a group of artists to come together in an exploration of possible strategies for collaborating with the weather as an agent for Live Art. Can we make a performance that can only happen if its raining? An installation that is only activated by the sun? An art tool kit for windy days?

This is not a workshop about adapting projects to different kinds of weather, or making site specific performance in spite of the weather. It is an experiment in harnessing and embracing the weather as a potential collaborator in the creation of live work.

Through play, practical experimentation and sensory experience, we will become human live art barometers as we respond to live weather conditions. Activities may include: experimental weather forecasting, making up rain dances, watching waves, storm chasing, sun tattooing, field trip to Britain’s only desert, cloud mapping, testing local weather lore, and jumping in puddles. The workshop will culminate in a weather specific performance event on the final afternoon.

Dates, times, location(s):
Thursday 11 September 6pm – Saturday 13 September 10pm, Folkestone.

Application procedure:
Atmospheric Pressure is for both artists already working with site based practices, and for those who predominantly make work indoors and would like to escape the studio. We welcome storm chasers, sun bathers, urban, suburban and countryphiles, those who wear flip flops from March to October, poncho sellers, goretex fetishists and paper dress designers.

Participants will be selected through the submission of an expression of interest.

To apply, email Katie Etheridge cc'ing Aaron Wright with the subject header ‘Atmospheric Pressure’

Please include a paragraph about you and your work, and in addition, tell us:

Why you want to collaborate with the weather

How this workshop is relevant to your current or developing practice

When you last jumped in a puddle

Atmospheric Pressure is open to 10-12 participants. We ask that you are able to commit to the whole workshop. Participants will need to pay for their own travel, accommodation, and food, except for the welcome dinner on the first night. Low cost accommodation will be arranged [3 nights camping tbc].

Deadline, noon, Monday July 21st.

The artists:
Simon Persighetti is a walking artist and a core member of Wrights & Sites, a group of performance-trained artists producing site-specific performances, walking projects and other art works since their formation in 1997. Katie Etheridge is an artist working across live and mediated art forms to make performances and interventions that investigate the interrelationships between people and places, and artists and audiences. Etheridge & Persighetti’s collaborative projects include Signs and Wonders with Phil Smith, commissioned by Live@LICA and Green Close to mark the 400th Anniversary of the Lancashire Witch Trials http://signsandwonderslancaster.tumblr.com/, and Porous City/Take me to the Bridge for Compass Live Art, http://porous-city.tumblr.com/

Contact:
Katie Etheridge

This project is part of DIY 11: 2014 and is supported by Folkestone Fringe.