DISTANCE: exhibition programme

DISTANCE is a roaming performance festival that explores our relationship with distance, now and into the future. This year DISTANCE is hosted within Wunderbar as part of a three-city tour. You'll find DISTANCE events throughout Wunderbar. 

Ryanair to migration, trespass to Skype; from new technology to age old customs, we face a multitude of choices as to how we engage with people across the world and across the street.

This year, Wunderbar's creative director has been guest curator for DISTANCE, which arrives in Newcastle for its final stop this year following visits to Riga (Latvia) and London. DISTANCE has invited artists to create new work inspired by the distances between the three cities, three festivals, and you.

Here's a video from the first leg of DISTANCE, at Homo Novus in Riga, Latvia.

Antropozoo

Thursday 3rd November 2011 at 17:00 until 18:00

Valters Silis (Riga, Latvia)

Valters Silis spent almost ten years of his life working in a zoo. Following this powerful experience taking care of animals, he now works with humans. This performance is about what makes the human species special. If we were put in a zoo how would we be able to distinguish ourselves from the other animals? 

Booking Information

Free event for limited audience.

Thursday 3rd Nov 5pm as part of The 5 O'Clock Show

Saturday 5th Nov as part of the Distance All-dayer

Peak Anxiety Satellite

Saturday 5th November 2011 at 17:00 until 18:00

Steve Levon Ounanian (Los Angeles, USA)

PEAK ANXIETY SATELLITE is an amateur experiment which tries to bridge the gap between our desire for a better future and our everyday anxiety about the present compromise. In this experiment, Ounanian reproduces the design of a soviet era anxiety receiving satellite (whose design may or may not have been releaed on wiki-leaks); sending human anxieties over a short distance to be received by a 12 foot aerial balloon set to orbit the earth. 

2360 Miles Travelled Hand to Heart

Thursday 3rd November 2011 until Saturday 5th November 2011

Sorrel Muggridge and Laura Nanni (Norwich, UK and Toronto, Canada)

As our sense of the scale of the world has shrunk, 2360 MILES explores how to make the enormity of global distances something we can physically comprehend. Sorrel and Laura will represent the 2360 miles between the three cities with a scaled length of rope. They invite you to help in their attempt to erode this scaled distance by walking the streets of each city, guided by knowledge of the borders, water, rises and falls found in distance between Riga, London and Newcastle.

Guided walks will take place Friday and Saturday during the festival starting from High Bridge Studios check.  You can also pick up instructions from High Bridge Studios to do the walk unguided at anytime. 

Booking Information

Walks begin at High Bridge Studios. Times to be confirmed

Trespassing

Monday 31st October 2011 at 10:00 until Sunday 6th November 2011 at 18:30

Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir (Extraterritoriality)

Ruti and Maayan will be arriving in Riga, London and Newcastle as visitors and as strangers.

While in each of the towns, they will navigate their way into and around public and private events to which they haven't been invited, making a film of their encounters and experiences as they go.

TRESPASSING provokes questions around the thin lines, mostly outcomes of cultural constructions, between hospitality and trespassing.

The Cartographies of Travelling Without Moving

Monday 31st October 2011 at 09:00 until Sunday 6th November 2011 at 17:00

Peter J Evans (Newcastle, UK)

There are numerous comings and goings, take offs and landings, arrivals and departures, constantly occurring. On the surface one journey resembles another, but each movement is individual, each cellular twitch unique and even in stillness we travel.

In this work, visitors who are flying to or from the festival are invited to take the airline disposal bag from the seat in front of them and, in graphite, map the rush of g-force and drop of altitude through their own muscular system. These drawings are then gifted to a growing and ongoing collection that displays not only the geographical distances we all travel but the gaps and similarities within our shared experiences.

To take part, pick up instructions from Wunderbar HQ, or watch the video instructions on our website.

Booking Information

At the HQ, drop in anytime. 

Field Broadcast

Monday 31st October 2011 until Sunday 6th November 2011

Field Broadcast (London, UK) featuring: Nomadi (Riga, Lavtia), Rob Smith (London, UK) and Sean Maltby (Newcastle, UK)

Over the duration of DISTANCE, Field Broadcast brings three artists live to your computer desktop, direct from the remote landscapes in which they are broadcasting. Unannounced, these broadcasts create a playful interruption to your daily life, allowing you to take a field trip to a place somewhere else.

Booking Information

Full details of how to book for guided walks, workshops, talks and to download Field Broadcast, all available on www.wunderbarfestival.co.uk

Antropozoo

Thursday 3rd November 2011 at 17:00 until 18:00

Valters Silis (Riga, Latvia)

Valters Silis spent almost ten years of his life working in a zoo. Following this powerful experience taking care of animals, he now works with humans. This performance is about what makes the human species special. If we were put in a zoo how would we be able to distinguish ourselves from the other animals? 

Booking Information

Free event for limited audience.

Thursday 3rd Nov 5pm as part of The 5 O'Clock Show

Saturday 5th Nov as part of the Distance All-dayer

Peak Anxiety Satellite

Saturday 5th November 2011 at 17:00 until 18:00

Steve Levon Ounanian (Los Angeles, USA)

PEAK ANXIETY SATELLITE is an amateur experiment which tries to bridge the gap between our desire for a better future and our everyday anxiety about the present compromise. In this experiment, Ounanian reproduces the design of a soviet era anxiety receiving satellite (whose design may or may not have been releaed on wiki-leaks); sending human anxieties over a short distance to be received by a 12 foot aerial balloon set to orbit the earth. 

2360 Miles Travelled Hand to Heart

Thursday 3rd November 2011 until Saturday 5th November 2011

Sorrel Muggridge and Laura Nanni (Norwich, UK and Toronto, Canada)

As our sense of the scale of the world has shrunk, 2360 MILES explores how to make the enormity of global distances something we can physically comprehend. Sorrel and Laura will represent the 2360 miles between the three cities with a scaled length of rope. They invite you to help in their attempt to erode this scaled distance by walking the streets of each city, guided by knowledge of the borders, water, rises and falls found in distance between Riga, London and Newcastle.

Guided walks will take place Friday and Saturday during the festival starting from High Bridge Studios check.  You can also pick up instructions from High Bridge Studios to do the walk unguided at anytime. 

Booking Information

Walks begin at High Bridge Studios. Times to be confirmed

Trespassing

Monday 31st October 2011 at 10:00 until Sunday 6th November 2011 at 18:30

Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir (Extraterritoriality)

Ruti and Maayan will be arriving in Riga, London and Newcastle as visitors and as strangers.

While in each of the towns, they will navigate their way into and around public and private events to which they haven't been invited, making a film of their encounters and experiences as they go.

TRESPASSING provokes questions around the thin lines, mostly outcomes of cultural constructions, between hospitality and trespassing.

The Cartographies of Travelling Without Moving

Monday 31st October 2011 at 09:00 until Sunday 6th November 2011 at 17:00

Peter J Evans (Newcastle, UK)

There are numerous comings and goings, take offs and landings, arrivals and departures, constantly occurring. On the surface one journey resembles another, but each movement is individual, each cellular twitch unique and even in stillness we travel.

In this work, visitors who are flying to or from the festival are invited to take the airline disposal bag from the seat in front of them and, in graphite, map the rush of g-force and drop of altitude through their own muscular system. These drawings are then gifted to a growing and ongoing collection that displays not only the geographical distances we all travel but the gaps and similarities within our shared experiences.

To take part, pick up instructions from Wunderbar HQ, or watch the video instructions on our website.

Booking Information

At the HQ, drop in anytime. 

Field Broadcast

Monday 31st October 2011 until Sunday 6th November 2011

Field Broadcast (London, UK) featuring: Nomadi (Riga, Lavtia), Rob Smith (London, UK) and Sean Maltby (Newcastle, UK)

Over the duration of DISTANCE, Field Broadcast brings three artists live to your computer desktop, direct from the remote landscapes in which they are broadcasting. Unannounced, these broadcasts create a playful interruption to your daily life, allowing you to take a field trip to a place somewhere else.

Booking Information

Full details of how to book for guided walks, workshops, talks and to download Field Broadcast, all available on www.wunderbarfestival.co.uk