Video Jam at Knockdown Center

Video Jam, a U.K. based experimental film/music collective comes to Knockdown Center! This event pairs musicians with film-makers to explore the dynamic between live sound and moving image, responding to the musical, cultural and artistic influences of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The program spans a variety of genres including essay film, live 16 mm film performance, archive footage, cartoons, animation, and more – including several new commissions! The event is part of a larger project that will culminate at The Barbican center in London later this year. Video Jam is made up of Sam Hughes and Flux Artists-in-Residence, Eliyana Evans, Sarah Hill, and Shereen Perera.

Background to the project

For the past two months Video Jam have been doing a residency at Flux Factory (Queens), the residency will culminate in a high profile event at The Barbican, London later this year, responding to ‘Basquiat: Boom For Real’ – the first UK retrospective of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work. Video Jam have commissioned 5 New York based filmmakers to create new moving image works responding to the life, work and influence of Basquiat, bearing in mind the exhibition’s main focus – Basquiat’s relationship to music, literature, film and television, placing him within the wider cultural context of the time. Each film will be scored by a UK based musician/band at a live event at The Barbican later this year. Video Jam at the Knockdown Centre is an informal, playful version of the event at the Barbican later in the year, pulling together our Basquiat research whilst in New York. We have chosen a range of talented New York filmmakers and musicians to work with – who all in their own way respond to Basquiat’s dizzying array of tastes, influences and styles.

About Video Jam

Video Jam is a unique event series which commissions musicians to compose and live perform original accompaniment for short contemporary film. We are committed to creating engaging events in interesting places which seek to challenge conventional ideologies within moving image and sound. Every programme features a variety of short film and video with a particular emphasis on experimental and independent work. For each, a different musical act or sound artist is selected to compose an original score of their own interpretation to be performed as a live accompaniment.

In addition to these signature ‘blind collaborations’, Video Jam is dedicated to commissioning, producing and presenting new moving-image and sound work. This ongoing project facilitates emerging to mid-career artist filmmakers and composers with the means to work together over an extended period of time, whose final pieces are then staged in collaboration with cultural partners across the UK and beyond. These have included events with FACT (Liverpool), the Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester), Manchester Science and Industry Museum, and a 3-part UK tour in collaboration with Slip imprint, supported by Arts Council England.

Initiated as a grassroots venture in January 2012, Video Jam has hosted over 45 unique and often site­-specific events including numerous commissions from international organisations, attracting consistently large audiences of up to and over 1,000. Featured in Time Out, i-D, a-n and The Quietus and shortlisted for a Sky Arts Scholarship in 2015, the events have cultivated an ever-growing network of over 380 local, national and international artists. Video Jam has showcased many first works by emerging regional talent, providing visibility within programmes featuring a diverse range of award winning artists such as Jeremy Deller, Hetain Patel, Dieter Moebius, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Meklit, Simon Faithfull, Soda_Jerk and Phil Solomon. Past events have featured films of 1 minute and 40 minutes spanning all genres, scored by a kaleidoscopic selection of musical acts: from electronic artists, contemporary classical composers and jazz singers, to spoken word poets, punk bands, opera, and everything in­-between.

www.videojam.co.uk