Channel / 2049 by residents of Whitebeck Court, Alan Dunn, Claire Nolan, SH!T Theatre & Maria Stukoff
Location: STAF Live (staflive.com)
Date: Monday 6th May, Monday 13th May, Monday 20th May, Monday 27th May
Time: 6 – 6:30pm
Duration: 0.5 hrs
Image Credit: Alan Dunn
Channel / 2049
It is the future. Everyone is a broadcaster and content maker. The high-rise residents of Whitebeck Court in Charlestown, Manchester have their own media channel to share views on housing, local history, technology, health, animals, food and, of course, the weather. Channel / 2049 is created by residents* in collaboration with artists Alan Dunn, Claire Nolan, Sh!t Theatre and Maria Stukoff.
Channel / 2049 reimagines the first UK Superchannel, a project by Danish artists’ group Superflex, commissioned in 1999 by the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT) and Liverpool Housing Action Trust (LHAT) as an innovative online community TV channel that gave voice and skills to elderly high-rise tenants at a time of major redevelopment. Pioneered prior to broadband and the rise of social media and developed by Maria Brewster (FACT) and Paul Kelly (LHAT), the Superchannel in Liverpool’s oldest tower block evolved into the city-wide tenantspin channel, led by Alan Dunn (Channel / 2049 collaborator), that further explored high-rise living and imagination, including the SuperBlock radio play set in the year 2040 developed by tenants and artist Jeff Young for BBC Radio.
SH!T Theatre Bio:
Trained in music, performance art and long-form improvisation, Sh!t theatre work with a D.I.Y aesthetic using found materials, intentional D.I.Y appearance and the wearing of grotesque clown makeup, challenging themselves and the audience to find common ground passed the alienating look. Their work is political and personal, using comedy, music, multimedia, audience interaction and live documentary practice. It celebrates ‘live-ness’ – lines are learnt, but instead sections are left to be devised on stage and pieces re-written with the specific audience in mind.
Sh!t have won awards for their work and had their shows featured as one of the ‘top 20 to see. They love improvisation, cracks in the facepaint, failure and being SH!T.
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Alan Dunn Bio :
Glasgow-born artist Alan Dunn creates artworks using sound and digital images, collaborating with thousands of citizens to unlock the hidden stories in communities. Alan is a Reader in Art and Design at Leeds Beckett University and has been involved in a number of projects including a current AHRC-funded Network that is sailing between Liverpool and Isle of Man to consider Wirral-born writer Malcolm Lowry in relation to increased care of our oceans.
He has developed projects with ICA, BBC Radio, Tate Britain, National Science & Media Museum and Liverpool Art Prize. He has a long-standing relationship with the Bluecoat, exhibiting here for the first time in 1996 as our Euro ’96 Football Artist In Residence.
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