Car party
(The NEoN party in a carpark: Dundee, UK)
The weekend is almost over and I am just in transit back to Glasgow from a two day Edinburgh – Dundee – Dunbar trip that has squeezed a surprising amount in. On Friday I attended a talk by German comic book artist, Arne Bellstorf at the Glasgow School of Art. Basically I snuck in because of a helpful tip off from a friend and he and his work are timely inspiration for a couple of projects I’d like to do in the coming weeks. From that, I travelled directly to Edinburgh to meet two friends (see the post before last) for a meeting. It was a productive and very late evening and I stayed there for the night, moving on in the morning to Dundee to rendezvous with another friend, Hazel. I got to see her new house, visit a reclamation and recycling centre, a gallery and then the highlight; the NEoN party in the carpark. That was yesterday, so today Hazel drove us to Dunbar to visit a university friend, her partner and their (relatively new) baby boy. An action packed weekend and tour of Southern Scotland in one go.
NEoN stands for North East of North, a basic description of where the arts collective is based, I would guess. They had organised an event over two floors of a local multi storey carpark; it included dancers, musicians, artists, poets, performers and showcased digital arts and media projects. It being Scotland, there was also an astoundingly well stocked bar and a barbeque both serving a varied selection of refreshments. Would you believe that to beat the long queue at the bar, there were even a few waitresses who would take your drink and food orders and your money, returning a couple of minute later with your change and order. Considering there were no tables or seats and they had to return to the spot they found their customer, it was a treat that Hazel and I enjoyed immensely.
Having never been to a nighttime car park event, or for that matter, a daytime one, we had no idea what to expect. Some elements were guessed at like the pounding music (as there are no neighbours to disturb) and the plastic cups for the drinks. What we hadn’t succeeded in anticipating was a man playing music he had composed on an old game boy, the percussion band, the body poppers and break dancers. If you’ve never heard of ‘body popping’, the trick is really in the name; it’s a style of dance consisting of small, concentrated jerky movements – they remind me of robots or mime artistry speeded up. In this picture, you can see some screens and projectors being powered by cycling attendees.
We all had a lot of fun and I enjoyed the fact that the party was mildly shambolic at points, that’s what an experimental digital arts festival in an urban public space should be all about. The venue was perfect in some ways as each of the artists or musicians could drive their vehicle all the way to the sixth floor and set up their equipment wherever they wanted. There were transit vans dotted all over the event with cables, screens, amps and generators. You can see the tape on the ground and all the other people in coats and gloves. It was cold. The portable lavatories just outside the ground floor entrance were somehow positioned to wobble with the tiniest movement from the person inside. I don’t believe that was an artistic installation, rather unfortunate locations.
– Today Rosie is drawing in Glasgow, UK –
