Documentation of the R&D process for The Common Line project March-September 2018. A partnership project between Blind Ditch, Controlled Frenzy, and Geography at University of Exeter with support from Rural Recreation. Funded by AHRC-EPSRC this R&D was kindly supported by University of Cumbria.

The Common Line - AHRC-EPSRC R&D

The Common Line

The Common Line R&D process

A participatory arts project developed from crowd-sourced creative writings by bus passengers about their journies on the D bus in Exeter. Commissioned by University of Exeter, Arts and Culture 2018 in partnership with Stagecoach.

D-tour: thoughts looking sidewards

D-Tour: thoughts looking sidewards

D-Tour: thoughts looking sidewards – single channel video

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Colourful interactive map of Buckland estate in Newton Abbot

HappeningHere!Map

Happening Here!

An interactive map of Buckland

Culture & Review On Phonic Fm: August 2015: Culture Hour – O-B-A-F-G Special

O-B-A-F-G

Collaborative audio work and radio documentary

A short edit of This City's Centre, 3. Here Now, a performance incorporating live video streaming, staged between a third-floor office space in Princesshay, Exeter and the streets and homes of the city. This City's Centre was a digital triptych for Exeter. Developed by Blind Ditch in 2013 in partnership with Exeter Phoenix, RAMM, Exeter College and funded by Arts Council England, Exeter City Council and Arts and Culture at University of Exeter.

Performers in order of appearance: Phil Smith, Katy Villa, Jonny Rowden, Students from Exeter College, Jane Mason, Lizzy Humber. Music is from Consort of Fower Parts composed by Matthew Locke in Exeter 1660 ca. played by Cat Radford on accordian outside Exeter Cathedral. Camera by Philibert Patricot. Edit Volkhardt Müller.

This City's Centre 3. Here,Now

This City’s Centre

This City’s Centre 3. Here, Now – video trailer

Volkhardt Müller (Blind Ditch) and John Wylie (Cultural Geography, University of Exeter) discuss This City's Centre 1. Window

Private Views and Public Art

A long journey through the city centre shopping centre livens up the morning (August, 2008).

Global Player - the long play

Global Player

Global Player – the long play

A 24 minute documentary on the process and impact of the project including interviews with partners and collaborators. Filmed in 2007 in PAL!

VANLAND Documentary

VANLAND

VANLAND documentary about our working process 2004-07

Short video work using 'home movie' footage created to be used in the performance and installation 'Who Wants to be a Hero Now' in 2006. Edit Volkhardt Mueller, sound John Levack Drever, words Natalie Mcgrath performed by Cat Radford. Child Lena Mueller.

Divine

Who Wants to be a Hero Now?

Divine – video used in the 2006 installation

Young graffiti artist Spike gives our caravan a face-lift. Too many people on country fairs have been suspecting we're selling caravans. No more of that from now on!

VANLAND Trailer 2006

VANLAND trailer 2006

A collection of documents and media produced over the course of 20+ years.

Intimate human-machine feedback loops explore themes of ethical fragility.

Live Art

Performance for the opening of tEXt Festival, 2004

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The title of the work comes from Aristotle. In his philosophy, a long succession of pleasurable inner sensations cannot make up genuine happiness or Eudaimonia. It requires a correct relationship with the world. In this durational work ancient classical iconographies are juxtaposed with the ephemeral qualities of video in a touching examination of the real and the ideal, the banal and the beautiful. There are fleeting visitations of greatness, goodness, peace, and moments of physical struggle, pain, and failure. All the time the shifting images of the video monitors show themselves as external daimonic commentaries, providing singular but constantly changing viewpoints of the performers success or failure.

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thechosen

Simon Persighetti, Artistic Director tEXt Festival.

Creating an analogue environment from digital hardware, Eudaimonia juxtaposes a strenuous choreography of some of the classical images at the roots of Western culture with a technologically live space. The performance space is set up as a self-contained system in which the technology appears as part of an extended nervous system, both contradicting and supporting the human effort in its centre. As the performers step into the inner circle of hardware, their movements generate and manipulate an electro-acoustic feedback. Spinning words of hope, desire, doubt and prayer trace across their bodies, triggered by a software that responds to the alterations of sound. Cause and effect can no longer be identified as every action changes the environment, and every change in the environment affects the actions within.
Eudaimonia varies in length and the audience is encouraged to come close and experience the environment from all sides, move around it and walk in and out of the location.

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Developed by Blind Ditch from the performance <a href="http://www.volkhardtmueller.com/project/feedback/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Feedback</a> by Volkhardt Müller. Performed by Paula Crutchlow, Henning Hegland, Volkhardt Müller &amp; Cat Radford. Text by Paula Crutchlow. Software by Daniel Harris. Tech assistance and video documentation Tim Dollimore.
Commissioned by: tEXt Festival and developed in residency at Dartington College of Arts 2004 with support from the HEFCE Business Fellow.
<ul>
<li>May 2004 Launch event for tEXt festival, Exeter Phoenix. Curated by Simon Persighetti from Wrights &amp; Sites.</li>
<li>30th July 2004 Launch event for Eclectic Tech Carnival, Port Eliot LitFest. Curated by i-DAT at University of Plymouth.</li>
<li>6th September 2006 Presentation for the panel on the Experiential and Cerebral at (Re)Actor First International Conference on Digital Live Art at Queen Mary’s College, London.</li>
<li>20th September 2006 Launch event Anti-Static Festival, Brewhouse Theatre, Taunton.</li>
<li>10th September 2007 Performed at the DRHA Conference, Dartington College of Arts, Studio 8</li>
<li>7th, 8th, 9th December 2007 Performed at Intimacy: Across Digital and Physical Performance, Goldsmiths University, London.</li>
</ul>