17 August - Thursday 24 October 2013

 

A new exhibition by Pil and Galia Kollectiv, including four special evening events

A gig by Charlie Megira and Gold Bars Plus Earth Rod and Eǝrth Rod 29 August

A live performance of Terminal 28 September

A night of other film works by Pil and Galia 9 October

 

For Terminal Equilibrium, Pil and Galia Kollectiv present two film installations. Terminal: A Miracle Play with Popular Music from the End of the World explores the politics of post-apocalyptic fiction. A theatrical staging of a morality play for end times and future folk music, it recasts eschatology as a foundational myth for a future society. The piece is accompanied by a live music performance, vinyl recording and a series of traditional craft objects expanding the universe established in the film.

We Are Equilibrium presents a dialogue between two computers. The conversation opens with a simple text book problem in business studies, but gradually the language, mimicking the application of game theory in the business sector, becomes more abstract. The two interlocutors become adversaries trapped forever in a competition without winners.

Both pieces interrogate the latent belief structures underlying neo-liberal thought. Post-apocalyptic writing and cinema are grounded in an ethos of survivalism. Invoking Rousseau’s state of nature, these fictions propose violent scenarios in which nuclear holocaust, environmental catastrophe and other disasters generate a libertarian politics of pure pragmatism, negating the possibility of democratic deliberation. Game theory, originally developed during the Cold War, similarly posits the negotiations of rational, adversarial agents as the basis for a bare society in which cold calculations dictate private decisions. Terminal and Equilibrium both narrate this familiar scenario, but at the same time question its validity. 

Pil and Galia Kollectiv are artists, writers and curators working in collaboration. Their work addresses the legacy of modernism and explores avant-garde discourses of the twentieth century and the relationship between art and politics. They often use choreographed movement and ritual as both an aesthetic and a thematic dimension, juxtaposing consumer rites and religious ceremonies.

They have had solo shows, The Future Trilogy at Te Tuhi Center for the Arts, New Zealand, Svetlana, at S1 Artspace, Sheffield, 2008 and Asparagus: A Horticultural Ballet at The Showroom Gallery, London, 2007. They have also presented live work at the 5th Berlin Biennial and the 5 well as at Kunsthall Oslo, Arnolfini, Bristol and Late at Tate Britain. This year they are participating in the Athens Biennial. Their solo show Suck the Living Labour opens at Ort, Birmingham on 4.9.13. They are the directors of artist run project space xero, kline & coma and work as lecturers in Fine Art at the university of Reading.
Terminal is supported by Merz Barn Project and Arts Council England. The performance of Terminal was co-commissioned by Electra for Drugo More and HKD Teatar, Croatia. 
 

Charlie Megira and Gold Bars, Plus Earth Rod and Eǝrth Rod
Doors 7:30pm

 

For the first time ever in the UK, the unmissable Charlie Megira will be on tour this month with thee amazing Gold Bars, arranged by Pil and Galia Kollectiv

The Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies featuring Charlie Megira
Berlin-based Charlie Megira is Tel-Aviv’s answer to Link Wray. His distorted postpunk surf rock operates on the premise that Elvis is not dead and there is nothing that can’t be improved with more reverb. 

Gold Bars
With their crazed, warped and crunched organ-led punk n roll from London, Gold Bars bring keyboards and distress to music you can dance to.

Earth Rod
Serf Punk band Earth Rod is a trio from Leicester, featuring members of Thee Ludds and Meaty Bone-Bone, trading in fast paced, cacophonous and shambolic fun. 

Eǝrth Rod
Phillip Henderson has a body - while he is out of it he plays drones, drum kit and electronics - he also chants and sings. Eǝrth Rod (Nottingham)

 

Film night of other Kollectiv works

 

 

Future Trilogy:
In November 2005, IKEA announced a new store opening in Edmonton to be accompanied by an offer of a significant price reduction on leather sofas. When 6000 people arrived to compete for the discount, a riot ensued, injuring 16 shoppers. The Future trilogy takes this event as the starting point for a speculative history of a fictional future. The Future for Less (2006) imagines the consumer riot as the foundation of a new totalitarian state religion imposing the tenets of modernism on the masses. In Better Future, Wolf-Shaped (2008), a rural cult perverts this official creed through pagan rituals of architectural worship performed at Celtic burial sites in Cornwall. The final instalment, The Future is Now (2009), similarly shot on 16mm colour film, stages the triumphant conquest of the industrial wasteland surrounding IKEA Edmonton as a popular uprising, revisiting the original riot as a future reenactment.
 

Co-Operative Explanatory Capabilities in Organizational Design and Personnel Management:
Based on an online image archive documenting the construction and history of an early computing company, the fictional story of "Co-Operative Explanatory Capabilities in Organizational Design and Personnel Management” follows the development of an experimental approach to worker productivity into a religious cult. The film investigates the place of creativity in efficiency management and the operation of bureaucratic systems in a post-industrial work environment.