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

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Happening Here!

An interactive map of Buckland

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

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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.

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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.

A digital triptych for Exeter. Inspired by interviews with city centre residents about the view from their window.

Public Realm

Cross art form

Social practice

Phil Smith in one of a series of 'This City's Centre' publicity images for the live performance '3. Here, Now'. Photography: Benjamin J Borley

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Talking with the city - project development

Interviewing Exeter residents outside the cathedral

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Devising and producing This City’s Centre was an intensive process that involved street interviews and actions, public meetings and discussions, documentary making and guerilla film screenings, devising, rehearsal and work-in-progress sharings in empty shops, visiting 39 Exeter residents in their home, a museum launch, a group map reading event and a live performance. We prototyped and tested a new streaming platform, ran performance making workshops at Exeter College (collaborating with 4 dedicated and talented performing arts students), recorded the cleaning team at Princesshay shopping centre on their morning rounds… and sculpted a lot of cardboard consumer waste.

5 Minutes Dreaming - looking down Fore Street as part of our mobile window event

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Our first actions involved gathering volunteers for the video installation.
&#8220;Does your view belong in a museum? We are looking for views from terraced houses, student flats, basement apartments, Georgian mansions, homes on hills, next to the bypass, looking over the quay, from behind the football stadium, next to the mosque. Whether you’ve lived in Exeter all your life, or for a few months, we’d love to hear from you.&#8221;
The criteria for participation was living within 10 minutes walk of Cathedral Green, a space which seemed to be identified in our research as both the medieval and contemporary centre of the city. It has a contested and invisible history as the former common burial ground and the site of 5th November mass bonfire performances and insurrection. It is currently one of the only spaces in the city centre where people can pause for a while without needing to engage in consumer activity.  This initial parameter for participation was quite difficult to set, as Phil Smith pointed out in his introductory text in the 3. <a href="http://www.thiscityscentre.net/performance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Here, Now </a>performance, Exeter could be described as a centreless city and as such is truly post-modern. Also what and where the ‘centre’ and the ‘heart’ of Exeter was, was the question we were asking as a driver for the whole project.
Our original quota for participating city centre residents was 20, but due to an enthusiastic response from fliering, on street recruitment and the <a href="http://www.thiscityscentre.net/5-minutes-dreaming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5 Minutes Dreaming</a> intervention, we ended up working with almost double the number.

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The interview materials gathered by Volkhardt Müller were distilled by Volkhardt and composer John Drever into a 120 minute installation 1. Window showing at RAMM (Royal Albert Memorial Museum) 23 July – 22 September 2013. The installation shared 3 minutes of of each view… condensed from a 30-45 minute interview. This was accompanied by <a href="https://vimeo.com/76316817" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Private Views and Public Art</a>, a discussion between videographer Volkhardt Müller and Cultural Geographer <a href="http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=John_Wylie" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Wylie</a> (University of Exeter) held at RAMM, 13 Sept 2013.

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With the interactive map 2. Linger, we wanted to make an experience that involved being physically inside the views collected by the project; to offer a more visceral understanding of the views that could be seen from a mediated distance in the museum. We re-combined the interview sound files with invitations to make your own small actions and provocations on the street sites of the city centre window views for both the passersby to engage with, and also as a kind of gift to the people who had participated. These instructions and media files encouraged micro performances that might periodically happen in front of their windows, interrupting the daily flow of Exeter life in unusual ways.

Jonny Rowden performing in 3. Here, Now in St Stephen's House

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From our initial call out for installation participants, 7 brave residents volunteered to work with us to make the live performance event. With widely varying experience of technology and video work they were extraordinarily generous with their time, thoughts, and their private domestic space, contributing a really wonderful energy and raft of ideas to the event. We worked together over a 5 month period meeting in person and rehearsing over skype.
We had a weeks residency in the former Oggy Oggy pasty shop in the Guildhall shopping centre in June which formalised some of our structures and approaches and tested audience interactions, texts and choreographies.

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Professor Cathy Turner, University of Exeter

Our final performance event ran over 5 days in St Stephen’s House, Princesshay, the home of the Princesshay management team who gernerously supported us with space, time and resources and were endlessly patient with the increase in unusual noise and traffic in their daily work space. This site specific digital performance used specially designed streaming technologies to connect views of city centre streets from five Exeter homes, with the audience in the city centre venue. Local band <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheBigVmusic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Big V</a> accompanied the live action which mixed spoken word, movement and audience interaction ‘to create a genuinely affecting performance event’ (Exeunt).
This City’s Centre 3. Here, Now took place 17 – 21 September 7pm, in the empty 3rd floor offices of St Stephen’s House, in Princesshay shopping centre, Exeter.

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Devised by Blind Ditch members Paula Crutchlow (director), John Drever (sound designer), Volkhardt Müller (scenography &amp; videography), Cat Radford (producer) from an original idea by Volkhardt Müller.
The work was manifested in collaboration with associate artists and contributors: Stavros Didakis, Carla Hayes, Lee Hodges, Lizzie Humber, Tom Matthews, Jane Mason, Natalie McGrath, Philibert Patricot, Jonnie Rowden, David Salas, Phil Smith, Katie Villa, Tony Walker, <a href="http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=John_Wylie">John Wylie</a>. With many thanks to <a href="https://soundcloud.com/the-big-v-music" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Big V</a>, Exeter College Students: Lauren Berry, Leah Burt, Hannah Curwen, Benjamin Commins, and the 40 Exeter residents who shared their views with us.
Funded by Arts Council England, Exeter City Council and Arts &amp; Culture at University of Exeter.
Supported by RAMM, Exeter Phoenix, Unexpected Exeter, Exeter College, I-DAT at University of Plymouth, Guildhall Shopping Centre, Princesshay.

<ul>
<li>February 2013 Project launched with a crowd sourced image collection of window views curated in terms of their relation to the distance from Exeter city centre.</li>
<li>6pm, 21 March &#8211; Public meeting <a href="http://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Exeter Phoenix</a>. Find out how to get more involved in This City&#8217;s Centre.</li>
<li>Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd March 2013 5 Minutes Dreaming&#8230; a mobile bay window street intervention researching city centre views as part of<a href="http://NOSE2013.wordpress.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> NOSE</a></li>
<li>Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd March 2013 Guerilla screenings &#8211; Video edits of a selection of window views were simultaneously screened at the Bikeshed Theatre, The Living Room (Polsloe Rd), Hanger 124 and Off the Hook in Fore St, <a href="http://www.eccentre.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Exeter Community Centre</a> as part of<a href="http://NOSE2013.wordpress.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> NOSE</a></li>
<li>1pm, Thursday 6 June 2013 Performance fragments and live views at the Bikedshed Theatre1pm, Thursday 6 June 2013 as part of IGNITE</li>
<li>23 July &#8211; 22 Sept 2013 Part 1. Window. Video installation at Exeter&#8217;s<a href="http://rammuseum.org.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Royal Albert Memorial Museum</a>.</li>
<li>21 Aug 2013 Part 2. Linger. Public map action in Exeter city centre to launch the interactive city walk.</li>
<li>Screenings 10 Aug weekly until mid September 2013. Micro-documentaries hit the streets/online. A collaboration with <a href="https://vimeo.com/davidsalas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">David Salas </a>as part of Exeter Phoenix Film Bursary programme.</li>
<li>13 September 2013 Private Views and Public Art. A public talk at <a href="http://rammuseum.org.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RAMM</a> about the making of the 1. Window installation with Volkhardt Müller and Professor John Wylie.</li>
<li>17-21 September 2013 Part 3. Here, Now. Digital performance in a third floor office space in St Stephen&#8217;s House  Princesshay as part of UNEXPECTED, Exeter City Council&#8217;s Festival of Outdoor Arts.</li>
<li>12th &amp; 13th December 2013 Digital Documentaries screening as part of Two Short Nights at Exeter Phoenix.</li>
<li>31st January 2015 i-audiences symposium &#8211; a presentation on This City&#8217;s Centre by Paula Crutchlow as part of a discussion on the effect of communication technologies on the experiences and expectations of theatre audiences. University College Falmouth, Penyrn Campus, 9.30am-1pm</li>
</ul>