On the Saturday 26th November 2016 the crew at 1000 Plateaus pulled off another remarkable event with no funding and a huge amount of good will from the artists involved. It is a shame it has taken so long to edit the event video but after going through three different editors it is finally here.
An exploration of the urban supernatural, occult temporalities, uncanny architecture, hauntology, the phantasmagorical, the monstrous, supernatural cartographies and the psychogeographic imagination. The event was part of the first Darkfest, a celebration of creativity in Portsmouth, UK inspired by the Supernatural Cities Project.
A night saw a range pf performances and collaborations including audio visual performance, live electronica, spoken word, installations, interstitial architects, psycho-geographers, kinetic sculptors, live artists and theatre makers. As an example of the work produced we have added to this post the transcription of a community poem collated from audience contributions during the night. You can see a bit of this being performed in the video.
Transcription of live community poem, 1000 Plateaus with Portsmouth Darkfest event Nov 26 2016
Dark or Darker, What to Expect
I have no idea what to expect.
I have come to the strangest party and
I don’t know what it is. It’s skulls
but it’s the wrong… It’s the wrong…
I like to stand in the back with a drink and judge.
There’s a canvas everywhere, coverings, shrouds.
Light. And dark. Without barriers, with
accidental wings. Dance, light and dark!
The conversations are a stream of bubbles floating
room to room, people dancing their light around each other.
In the smoking, burning, upstairs, the witches
are not burning their sanitary towels. Disappointingly.
Concrete, tarmac, rust, salt air. You’re going to need it.
Salt air, you’re going to need it. Immersive. Innovative.
The colour, the lack: like New York City, the East Village,
back in the day. I have no idea what to expect.
I don’t know who Roy is.
I can’t watch this apocalypse. Is it over?
I can’t watch this total eclipse. Or
am I just hungover?
Dark, or darker, not only the cold
makes me shiver. Toil and trouble,
the big grin on my face, part of the creed.
Crumbs. The throbbing underbeat.
This is extravagance. The run run run railway triangle
adding its algebra leaves me all numb.
The people tonight have seen all manner of things.
Haven’t they. All manner of things. Haven’t they:
Shivering Miss Fortune wishing your misfortunes
to come true, staring into the crystal dark
and darker I don’t know what to expect. I don’t
know… Embrace the feeling, shivering or not.
Poem collated during, and read live at, Dark or Darker Shivering or Not at Coastguard Studio Saturday Nov 26 2016. Curator, Stella Bahin. Text selected from contributors including: Mike Bailey, Kitten, Carly-Ann, Victoria Lesley, Melanie, Jack, Gloria Fortune, Jess, Coastguard Studio, Anon, Emma, Alan, Will Hughes, Annette, Kate, Carolyn Hughes, Toby Noyce, Julia Noyce, Roy Hanney, Will Sutton, Jo Bell, Karl Bell, Eilis. More words to follow including from some contributors not mentioned, because not included, above. With thanks to everyone who supplied text.
