STILL NOT OUT OF THE WOODS (MAC, Belfast)
(also see:STILL NOT OUT OF THE WOODS (Bastogne, Belgium) - installation, 2015)
(also see: STILL NOT OUT OF THE WOODS (Chateau Gontier, France) - twig text, 2015)

The MAC, Belfast. June 28th - 2nd Sep 2012

Here are some pictures of Still Not Out Of The Woods - the Shipsides and Beggs Projects show at the MAC, Belfast.

The video installation is 13min long and derives from a tunnel via ferrata climb to the blasted summit of Cima Lagazuoi in the Dolomites - the scene of extreme mountain warfare during WW1.

The fence wires are all amped up so you can play them like a guitar. At the opening three artist/musicians (Seamus Harahan, Allan Hughes and Stuart Watson) played the wires - very experimental, heavy noise. More artists and musicians are invited to respond and record something over the duration of the show - with the concept of producing a vinyl album of the recordings.

Here's a recording of the opening intervention:

'Yasgur's Farm Electric Fence Connection' (excerpt from opening night performance)

Here's a walk through video of the show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCC6CBwHcKQ&feature=youtu.be

and a shorter clip:

Short gallery walk through Still Not Out of The Woods: SBP Mac Belfast

 

Gallery blurb:

Dan Shipsides and Neal Beggs are both, artists and climbers. They have been collaborating since 2003 creating various works under the name Shipsides and Beggs Projects. The artist-duo use their shared passion for mountaineering as a way of exploring the intertwined notions of life, culture and society.

Over the last three years, Shipsides and Beggs have been working on an open-ended creative research project in the Italian Dolomites based around a type of mountaineering called Via Ferrata (meaning the “iron way”) which was developed during WW1 as a way of accessing strategic summits.

The source of this new work is a Via Ferrata route they climbed to the summit of Lagazuoi. This route is unusual because it goes up the inside of the mountain – an ascent of 400 meters. From this experience the artwork mutates around conflations of narratives, interests and creative development combining political and military history, religion, counter-culture and popular music references.

These ideas are bound up in the shape of the five pointed star, a visual metaphor for the nation, the state, the flag, a sign of rebellion, a Rock and Pop emblem, celebrity, and the cosmos. The installation also incorporates a series of wires which reference wars, borders and partitions, as well as referring obliquely to communication and the electric guitar, the work shifts through time from the ‘Great War”, to the 1970’s.
In linking seemingly disparate experiences, narratives and references - ranging from a creative experiential approach to art and life to local politics and religion, pan European narratives of WW1 to the banalities and revelries of popular culture and science – the artworks throw up difficult renderings and incomplete arguments – however it also offers fluid open meanings and the potential for re-imagining or destabilizing assumed meaning.

 

Artworks (clockwise from steps):

RIZLA MOUNTAIN
Neal Beggs. Rizla packet.2001

RIP VIC CHESNUTT
Neal Beggs (Shipsides and Beggs Projects). Small wall drawing on left wall. 2012

YASGUR’S FARM ELECTRIC FENCE CONNECTION
Neal Beggs (Shipsides and Beggs Projects). Wire Fence and sound installation. 2012

YUPA STAR
Dan Shipsides (Shipsides and Beggs Projects). Video installation. HD video 13min. 2012

PARTITION IS THE FRENCH WORD FOR SHEET MUSIC
Neal Beggs (Shipsides and Beggs Projects). Large wall drawing on all three walls. 2012

STAR FIRE
Dan Shipsides. Matches. 2011

STILL NOT OUT OF THE WOODS
Shipsides and Beggs Projects. Handmade 7inch record sleeves. 2012