Search Results

Making a Cagney A simple guide Build A Cagney All events have a time where audiences have a chance to co-create Cagney Content. For better or worse, this is Canon too! If you would be interested in having your work shown at one of our upcoming events, we’d be honoured to have you. If you would be interested in creating work in relation to the Cagney experiment, we literally cannot stop you! If you would like assistance, as a multimedia project, we are always looking for collaborators and there is almost always something currently in the works that could do with another pair of hands. So, if you want to try out a new form, or open yourself up to new collaborators, we’d love to hear from you. Each voice negotiated and work organised on a case by-case basis, to suit the project and those involved. In The Meantime: As the project has grown, we realise that approaching it may feel daunting, so we have outlined a foolproof formula to creating your own Cagney Content today! 1. Look: any/all Cagney content, as well as anything that interests you: your favourite anime, instagram etc 2. Analyse: Consider any/all of the following: What did this make you think about? What did it remind you of? What questions did it raise? Do you see something missing? 3. Reflect: what do you want to try today? This could be writing, drawing, free-forn Jazz etc. Don’t worry about a finished product just yet. 4. Combine: using the thoughts of step 2 with the ideas came up with in step 3, go! Set out some time you are able to put to this idea, and go with it. We’ve found it helps to think about where this art could be shown- is it a trailer? A fragment of a feature length movie? A Soundtrack to a Yoga class? 5. (optional) If you fancy, let us see/hear/experience it in whatever way works for you- tagging us in a social media post, sending it via private email or even showing it to us in person. If you are interested, this could be featured in an event on it’s own, or even included in a larger project. All uses of your creations are treated on a case-by-case basis, explicitly with your permission, and unless you would rather stay anonymous, fully credited and included in our Hall of Fame. The spice of life, and this project, is variety. Whatever level you consider your skills, if it’s Macaroni art or your life’s practise, the most important part is that it is exists, and we are thrilled to see any sign of Cagney! Read More

Meet Cagney The Comoonity Forum The Collection New Project: Symbiocene Journal of Captured Messenger

Posthuman Symposium Forest Forge, Ringwood The Posthuman Symposium was a week long residency in 2021 that brought together artists of different disciplines to explore posthuman aesthetics. Each artist was encouraged to introduce an experiment. These ranged from explorations of posthuman concepts in pagan ritual to experimentation with manipulating form through lighting. This was made possible through crowdfunding via livestream, where participating artists and members of the community shared their existing work in posthumanism On the research: My Research that week centered on the use of disembodied facilitation- using text-to-speech and projected text to facilitate communical creation without being physically present. These workshops focused on different forms, such as using writing prompts to create poetry and reference images to inspire sculpture and generative works. This was to investigate how removing the physical presence of a facilitator would effect the dynamics of a community. These experiments led to the successful creation of sculpture, generative art pieces and poetry. As an observer, I noticed an uncertainty and tension in the group that led to a one-sided instruction based form of facilitation. The group enjoyed the reveal of the poem they had collectively created, but became frustrated as I experimented with more playful behaviour, with text on screen changing the text prompt while they were thinking of an answer. This revealed to me the potential power imbalance in this form of 'remote facilitation', as the disembodied facilitator had no social cache, they are unable to be held accountable. The only thing the group can do is refuse to participate. Beyond my proposals, a recurring theme of the Posthuman Symposium was how Posthuman concepts can be discussed without entering an apocalyptic post-modern view, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. How we can challenge anthrocentrism and deconstruct binaries of human identity, without losing sight of the driving forces underpinning community oriented work and collective creation? Moving forward, I found the exploration of ancient anglo pagan practises from the lens of posthumanism an interesting proposal, grounding concepts branded 'sci-fi' in a community strengthening context. Particularly, the concept of 'communing' with natural forces. This has led me to explore more with archival material, particularly the use of extinct animal calls as a basis for composition. This led me to the creation of 'Symbiocene', available below. Notes from process

Meet Cagney The Comoonity Forum The Collection New Project: Symbiocene Journal of Captured Messenger

Why? Bypass: From Galleries and Theatres to online communities, as a shape-shifting project, Cagney is built to help makers break into new spaces, slipping past gatekeepers and disciplinary boundaries. Through this, our makers can experiment with new forms and relationships with their work. Showcase: Cagney reveals projects through digital and analogue events, giving artists a chance to show and potentially monetise their work, as part of a larger exhibition or performance. Connect: Making can be lonely. As a series of collaborations, makers are able to swap notes and fill in the blanks others leave. Albums turn into virtual experiences, graphic designs turn into 3D textures. Experiment: Fuelled by interactions that blur the line between creator and audience member, Cagney is a space to explore new forms of audience interaction and collective creation. Anything else? The Cagney project is always looking for ways to give artists better value for their work, and make it as accessible and attractive as possible for newcomers. So if you have any ideas, or requests for those involved in the project, we are all ears! Feel free to contact the page on instagram, or send an email to: whoiscagney2020@gmail.com The Cagney Collection

I am the Bomb Union Theatre, Riverside Studios, Queens Park Art Centre 'I Am the Bomb' is a daring and experimental play inspired by Lewis’s struggle with depression and SSRI-induced psychosis, set against the backdrop of an unexploded WWII bomb found near his London flat in 2018. Click here to the the audience reaction On the show: After creating a series of shows getting to grips with generative synths and sample manipulation, I wanted to put more limits in place. ​ This started with my housemate and collaborator Alexandros Paneris, who found a free, funkily out of tune piano on facebook. Speaking with the director Lewis Miles, we wanted to ground the design in the auditory hallucinations of the protagonist. Key words from these discussions for me were sounds of touch and distant noises in an apartment complex. This led to me setting an hour timer, and me and alex doing anything with this piano besides playing it- feeling the mechanisms of the piano, creating sounds along it’s wood panels and lightly depressing the keys. After this, we took turns playing piano inspired by these key words, and the strange atmosphere this long form task had created. This led to the bulk of sound of the show, using these vaguely intimate sounds that would collect meaning from the text onstage, creating subliminal messages and innuendo, as the sounds came across as movements next door, or memories from years before. Once the groundwork of the design had been created, I also drew from vintage sound effects- vinyls created to depict the UK’s constructed memory of the war and the ‘good old day’s that followed. This allowed the music to follow the spectrum of our character’s dissociation from reality across the piece. Sound Design with your friends! A how to: do what you need to do to get a sense of the world of the play, then try and translate that into feelings, movements, objects. This might get something like 'wood, velvet sofa, brushing' etc. Now find an object, activity etc that you think will evoke this, like a form of foley design, but for less tangible things than footsteps or murder. Now, with your friend(s) find a way to record this object, set a 30-60 minute timer and discover together what sounds you can get from it with as little verbal communication as possible. Try and start by not using the object as intended, saving that for when the timer is over. With luck, this will give you a palette of sounds that seem of the same world; the start of your design. Notes from process

Sightings Below is a timeline of past Live meetings with Cagney since first contact. Posthuman Symposium With the aid of Forest Forge and The Posthuman Symposium, we experimented with new ways for large audiences to encounter and create Cagney, in a series of participatory rituals. Cagney's Infinite Holiday Hallucination To fill the void left by Michael Bublé, humanity got what they deserved with Cagney's infinite Holiday Hallucination livestream. This led a virtual adaption of Cagney's Space Game and a line of Christmas Cagneys, created by our audience On Root Festival Cagney's very first possession occurred in an event created by Georgia Crowther, hosted at Fusion Arts Center, Oxford. Cagney's role began as an installation, a debut for Cagney's Space game, created with Henry and Will Tribble. After possessing an assistant, Cagney asked the audience 'Who is Cagney?'.

CAGNEY.ORG New Media. Community Arts. Get in Touch STORY Cagney is an extra-dimensional shape shifter, that reaches out to musicians, game makers, visual artists and members of the audience through live and digital events. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Cagney serves lifestyle products, wisdom and interactive experiences Find out More: Why Cagney Cagney Collection Meeting Cagney If you want to meet Cagney and the community, sign on to our mailing list below and get updates for released projects and upcoming events. follow us for callouts, or reach out to us to collaborate. Subscribe Form Submit Thanks for submitting! Why Cagney Cagney Collection Contact whoiscagney2020@gmail.com @Cagney2020 Home: Contact

Dark Matter Visuals by Gisela Mulindwa, Dark Matter has been performed at The Roundhouse, Theatre Peckham and the Vault Festival On the show: Early versions of this work started in 2017, resurrected and remade around three or so times, with our collaboration continuing in other projects taken on by director/performer/writer Tatenda Matsvai that often followed similar themes, but crossed into film and live music. From so many opportunities to explore having been taken, the stakes felt high here. ​ The goal of the sound of this show was to try and balance a sense of huge scale (in terms of time and space), while also creating a sense of intimacy and internal dialogue with the performer and audience. We wanted to try and break down this binary. ​ ​ ​ This led to the manipulation of recordings from Nasa’s Mars Rover and other deep space recordings to present a ‘dark matter’ liminal space. In the 360 degree speaker set up in our tunnel venue, combining these sounds and presenting them with no explanation felt eerie, and blended well with the vibrations of trains passing overhead. Alongside sounds of space, material from Tatenda’s family was recorded, alongside traditional Shona instruments such as the Hosho and Mbira played by Tatenda. We also looked for intimacy in the inclusion of club music, taking inspiration from playlists created by Pussy Palace, the setting of key scenes. With the access to surround sound and an audience sat either side of our performer, we were finally able to nail this idea we’d had years ago, of immersing the audience in darkness, using sound as a set. This left room to experiment with immersive sound: How to create biblically accurate rain: imagine a tunnel with a row of five speakers either side across the length of an audience sat either side. Using 3-6 recordings of rain, place the closest/most immediate sounding recording in the center row of speakers, and the more distant sounds further away from the center. The slightly damp smell of the tunnel left this effect with audience members looking around, wondering if they could complain about the weather. Notes from process Let’s Work Together Get in touch so we can start working together. First Name Last Name Email Message Send Thanks for submitting!

A Cagney Collection Meet Cagney the Intermedial Deity. Click an image to learn more

On Canon: Those exposed to Cagney often refer to 'Canon'. They take Canon to mean the accepted collection of 'true' information about Cagney. They reject any depiction of Cagney being 'more true' than others. As personal encounters with Cagney are limited, 'Truth' is instead garnered by aspects of Cagney that appear consistently, through shared interest and witness accounts. get me back to...