ICML PRSNT… Black
Rainbow
@ Motorcade / FlashParade
PV: THU.10.12.09(7-9PM))
OPEN: FRI.11.12.09 - SUN.13.12.09 (12-6PM))
THU.17.12.09 - SUN.20.12.09 (12-6PM))
Unlike the constant buzz and hum of artist-led scenes in metropolitan centres, independent cultural activity in regional cities tends towards the dynamic of ebb and flow. Collectives often split up when individual members leave to pursue careers or post-graduate study elsewhere, with the self-renewing metropolis most often being the ‘elsewhere’ destination of choice. The interregnum between one group leaving and another forming can seem like an eternity when there is only the cultural offer of the officially sanctioned public institutions to fall back on.
InterCity MainLine or ICML came into being during and because of one such hiatus which saw Bristol’s independent scene ebb once more. At this juncture the temporary project space Rhys & Hannah Present had recently disbanded, LOT was a distant memory, R O O M had moved to London and Station was no longer operating a regular programme. Only Plan 9, formed in 2004, was still active but even this long running group was subject to the vagaries of public funding, and inhabiting a space with a time limited tenancy(*1). Out of these flat times emerged the collective ICML, otherwise known as Jamie Bracken Lobb, Rob Chavasse, Rhys Coren, Myles Donaldson and Tom Hobson, as well as their friends, rivals and fellow UWE graduates The Bristol Diving School(*2): two groups formed by individuals who were tired of waiting for someone else to set up the projects they wanted to be part of.
(1*It should be noted that The Cube Microplex has been running in Stokes Croft for over ten years, independent of all funding. Whilst without doubt a major influence on independent cultures in the city and far beyond, this collective’s interests are focused primarily on activism, cinema, music and performance rather than the visual arts and its markets, hence I have not included them in the list of spaces above.)
(2*Tom Hobson is in the lone graduate who trained at Cardiff rather than UWE, proving the notable exception to my sweeping statement. )
ICML differs from its forebears and contemporaries since it is not a gallery or project space but a “bi-monthly publication, reflecting on and collaborating with different artist-led initiatives across the UK”. In order to gain the necessary insider knowledge, research trips are undertaken in one intensive burst hosted by fellow artists, writers and curators from cities that include Manchester, Norwich and Birmingham. What is then learnt and experienced forms the editorial, making ICML a project truly in and of the moment. Photocopied in monochrome and only containing the content contributed by the core group and their collaborators, ICML journals are the polar opposite of the glossy ‘creative’ city brochures whose main function is to reinforce what is already apparent; namely that the city in question, homogenously interchangeable, contains a museum alongside other vestiges of heritage; at least one or more contemporary arts centres and multitudinous places to shop, eat and drink. ICML is instead directed at the cultural tourist prepared to put the work in, to trudge round looking for near invisible project spaces and to sleep on the floor of newly made acquaintances. It is produced for a niche rather than broad readership; if its content appears to be completely mystifying or willfully obscure, then it’s not intended for you.
ICML also has localised as well as external concerns. It is not just a mechanism for scouting out different models of practice, meeting new people and bringing these references back to Bristol; ICML also provides a valid excuse for the collective to get together, to move beyond pub banter and to talk about their own work seriously (although not so seriously that the devastatingly cutting humour for which the group is known is ever entirely put aside). The founding ethos behind ICML was not just to mimic existing friendship groups, or include people with the best address book, but to base their intra-collaborations and external forays round a genuine respect for and interest in each others’ work. The model that comes to mind is of the often dreaded art school crit, except here the group is entirely self-determined rather than a random selection formed out of the wider year group.
This uncompromising stance leads us to the here and now, to “Black Rainbow”, a group show organised by and featuring all of ICML in their individual guises. Initially the decision by ICML to show their own work in the city in which they are based may appear to be a surprisingly traditional approach. Conversely, however, it could be considered more ‘traditional’ to follow the new orthodoxy: deferring showing their own work to that of their peers from other regions which in turn would allow the group to bask in the reflected glory of the talent they have sourced from elsewhere and feed the art world’s insatiable appetite for novelty. Therefore, the new orthodoxy - acclaim by association - quickly becomes the new traditional or safe option, whilst the original traditional - showing your own work - somehow seems the more risky or daring of the two options. Or perhaps it seems particularly so in this instance since not only do they as individuals rarely show in their home town, ICML members are also exactingly critical of their peers who will now have the opportunity to judge for themselves how they measure up.
But enough of contexts and strategies for a moment, what about the work itself? Unsurprisingly, there is a distinctive crossover in sensibilities between the individuals who form ICML, especially since everyone involved was born between 1983-6. Shared references include the surreal world of 1980s children’s TV with its universal use of bright colours, puppets and unhinged adult presenters, as well the accumulative experience of watching endless black and white films on terrestrial TV before there was such a thing as entertainment on demand. Several members of the group share a fascination with the recently obsolete yet still functioning VHS tape, both with its physical form and the effect on memory of obsessively watching and re-watching its gradually degrading images. There is also a shared inclination to indulge in the pleasure principle of repetition and in one liners, be they textual or visual – putting the smile back into the Happy Shopper, for instance – or a mutual delight in further bamboozling the viewer by tricking their senses with effective but low-fi techniques, altering environments and objects with light, water, smoke and noise. As the bridging generation between the pre and post Internet world, these are artists who are at ease with sampling and re-ordering; adept at creating new meaning out of the fast paced, endlessly circulating world of image, and yet, their digitally infused casualness also contains more than a hint of nostalgia for the slow time of analogue days. Like ICML in its printed form, “Black Rainbow” also promises to be in and of its moment.
Yet what of the current moment into which ICML has emerged? Writing more or less exactly this time last year for the group show “Goodbye Space, Hello Spaces”, just as Rhys & Hannah Present handed back the keys to their arcade space, I asked what was to come next for the independent scene in Bristol and who was next to step forward. That question has been decisively answered since the city can, for the first time in several years, finally claim to have a network of independent projects and spaces, not just the aforementioned ICML, Plan 9 and The Bristol Diving School but also Motorcade / FlashParade and Works / Projects. Since they mainly survive in the day to day through short tenancy agreements, one-off grants or self funding and, in the case of Plan 9, no funding and no tenancy agreement, the buoyancy of this scene is precarious and therefore potentially only temporary. Whilst all of these are projects are testimony to weeks, months and, in some cases, years of labour, any or all of them could disappear over night, leaving Bristol once more top heavy in terms of its cultural offer. As Arts Council England South West draws to a close in April next year, merging with the Midlands to form one huge western facing council (just as all of the councils of the northern regions will join together to form one giant North), Bristol now faces an uncertain future competing with larger cities and their well established cultural infrastructures within newly defined regional boundaries. Whilst it is far too late to revenue fund an independent space or project, there are still grants left that could make all the difference to each and any of these ventures*3. So, with this in mind, the question I pose now is not to the artists of Bristol but to ACE SW: What would you rather be remembered by? Comfortably sustained visual arts forums, professional development agencies and other marketing-led initiatives that promote, rather than produce culture? Or a thriving independent artist-led scene that has survived against the odds? Your legacy, your call, their future.
(3*It is interesting to compare the fortunes of artist-led projects in Bristol who have been subject to stop/start funding with those of their counterparts in other regional cities, such as Outpost (Norwich); Moot (Nottingham), Eastside Projects (Birmingham); Workplace (Gateshead); International 3 (Manchester); The Royal Standard (Liverpool), who, amongst many others, have benefited from consistent funding, most often in the form of revenue grants, and are therefore able to run for years and/or hand over well established organisations with high profiles and secure spaces to younger artists in the city. It is equally enlightening to consider too the major biennials, triennials and international visual arts festivals that take place in every region, other than the South West.)
© Marie-Anne McQuay, 09/12/09
Disclaimer: All views held by the writer are entirely her own and are not those of the institution for whom she works.
