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The Special Guests are about to start working on a new show, called Something Got a Hold of Me.  We're going to be rehearsing for the next three weeks and then showing the piece to an invited audience in Bristol.

We're also trying a new way of working. Our work has always been devised collaboratively and democratically, which means we often ended up with long, long discussions over tiny quibbles with what we were making, and the work sometimes, not always, but sometimes suffered because of that. It meant that we ended up with a lack of clarity over what we were trying to say, to achieve with each piece. So when we wrapped up Nightfall, our most ambitious and longest project to date, we realised we needed to make some changes.

So this new show, the first (and possibly only - we're going to see where we end up) incarnation of which we're making this October, is going to be led for the first time by an outside eye, a director, a leader, whatever you want to call it. We're hoping that this will bring a clarity to the work and enable us to make work faster and more efficiently.

So anyway, we spent last week exploring some ideas associated with religious cults. We're interested in power, the mis-use of power and charisma and the reasons why people become drawn in to these often tragic social orders. We're also interested in society's reaction and means of dealing with cults and how that complicates our idea of being free. We've been especially interested in Waco and Jonestown as two differing examples of how cults work.

We start rehearsals proper in the next couple of weeks and will be showing the results of our work on Friday 17 October at Bristol Old Vic. If you would like to attend, drop an email to matthew@thespecialguests.co.uk and we'll add you to the list.

We'll also be using the showing as a mini-fundraiser for the company, so do bring along any spare change. Any donations gratefully received.

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The Special Guests
Something Got a Hold of Me
“It’s all right, I’ll watch it on TV”

Something Got a Hold of Me is a performance about religious cults, charismatic leaders, power, persuasion, weakness and how everyone is really just looking for something, a little something to make them happy. Let The Special Guests become masters of your destiny.

The Special Guests are Arnolfini Associate Artists and members of residence.org.uk

A recent survey showed that many people that travel to Britain would not consider Bristol as a place where they would go. further research showed that the main reason for that is that they simply did not think of it. They would go to London, and perhaps make a stop at Canterbury on the way back to Dover and that's it. What a shame. If you have any interest in arts or feel any fondness for industrial surroundings, Bristol should be high on your 'must visit' list of cities in Europe (and it's also highly recommended for any MTB enthusiasts out there, we still have dreams about the facilities at the Mud Dock).

Walking through the city or along the docks you can still feel the industrial days that have passed since the rise of Liverpool as the dominant harbour city on England's West coast. Many of the factories and warehouses are still there, even though they've been vacated long ago. But the buildings are not abandoned. a lot of them now house so called 'creative industry' companies (Like Aardman, production company of the famous 'Wallace and Gromit'), museums and galleries or pubs and clubs. A clever thing the Bristol city council has done is build a large shopping area 'Broadmead', which means that in the actual city centre, there is more room for culture and leisure and you don't see those hideous buy-buy-buy signs everywhere.

A couple of things deserve to be mentioned about Bristol (we won't recommend either visiting the 'Brunel ss Great Britain', it may have been voted best British museum of 2006... it's just not our 'cup of tea'). Arnolfini is a great venue for seeing contemporary art. They regularly change exhibitions (we visited the Far West exhibition which was very cool indeed) and since the entrance is free, you will have a few pounds to spend in their bookshop which has one of the greatest collections on art and philosophy we have ever seen. Watershed is just across the canal from Arnolfini. This organisation promotes cultural activity, creativity and innovation but we just went there to catch an arthouse film and have a drink. We absolutely loved the atmosphere there and no doubt, you will as well. From those places it's just a short stroll over the millennium square (actually, we never saw the name of the square, but it looked exactly like the Millennium Squares you see scattered about in every British city...) that has some really cool architecture to the Harbourside. No match for the Harbourside in Sydney, but a very nice area to walk around in.

You can read about Bristol all you want, but there's nothing like the actual experience. Go and fill your iPod with Portishead and Massive Attack and book your tickets.

So I'm chuffed that Qu Junktions are bringing him back to Arnolfini on Thursday 18 September to play again, this time alongside Mapstation and Chipper.

It's gorgeous, basically.

I am working on three big book projects so I will have new books to show. Come by and say hello.

1. Why do you see a hint of columns on the far right and left in the Mona Lisa?
They create “the impression that she is sitting in an open loggia.”
2. Where in The Last Supper do you find Judas knocking over the salt?
John sits at the right hand of Christ (in the center of the picture), and Peter leans toward him, shoving Judas aside. Judas “clasps the purse containing the silver coins he received from the authorities and knocks over the salt.”
3. Why does the man stand next to the window and the woman away from it in Giovanni Arnofini and His Wife?
The wife’s position “associates her with the ‘inside world’ of the home.”

How to Read a Painting: Lessons From the Old Masters (Abrams, 2004) is an excellent collection of analyses of more than 100 great paintings, each shown on a two-page spread with callouts that highlight some of its interesting aspects. Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife, shown here, hangs the National Gallery in London under the title The Arnolfini Portrait.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

While we're at it, some highlights from Venn in no particular order: the delicate plucking and buzzing of Hauschka's doctored piano; the homely folk, Robert Wyatt covers and Tyneside lilt of Rachel Unthank and the Winterset; Flying Lotus blowing away the hangover at Thekla on Sunday night; the non-Murcof Murcof set at the Planetarium, the jangly, wounded sound of Wildbirds and Peacedrums; The Feral Choir, which pulled me out of a bed I'd fallen into too few hours before; The Skate Park (need I say more - wandering the streets at 5am with the Arnaud Rebotini ringing in my ears); the sun, the shandy, the hanging about.

The Flemish painters were at the vanguard. Here is the first great masterpiece with the new oils—The Arnolfini Marriage by van Eyck in 1434. Of course it is a masterpiece NOT because of the oils but because van Eyck had a genius' aesthetic sense.

Here is a close-up of the mirror in this painting:

Jan van EYCK
Portrait des Epoux Arnolfini
(Giovanni Arnolfini et sa femme)
1434 - huile sur chêne

La petite pomme à gauche sur le rebord de la fenêtre des époux Arnolfini

For the past seventy years, de Chirico's city has been one of the capitals of the modernist imagination. It is a fantasy town, a state of mind, signifying alienation, dreaming and loss. Its elements are so well known by now that they fall into place as soon as they are named, like jigsaw pieces worn by being assembled over and over again: the arcades, the tower, the piazza, the shadows, the statue, the train, the mannequin. (Robert Hughes, Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists)

When I visit art museums, I usually like to take my time. I would focus on one or two sections, rather than visually ransack the whole panoply on display. I would like my visit to be memorable by taking time to mind the details, up close as well as from a distance, letting the physical presence of the work sink in, including the texture of the brush strokes, and if possible, the smell of the paint (without tripping the alarms!). Thus, with a limited time in Madrid, I had skipped the Prado entirely, and visited the smaller Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía to spend a whole afternoon with Picasso's Guernica. I did the same thing with The Arnolfini Wedding at the London National Gallery, The Birth of Venus at the Uffizi, and The Raft of the Medusa at the Louvre.

It actually takes more effort to establish an emotional connection with a very iconic work of art--something that one has seen countless times in postcards and picture books. The anticipation and expectations cloud, even spoil, the immediacy of being right in front of it. It is difficult to disentangle my previous experience with its innumerable reproductions and confront it directly for the first time. That is why I delight in discovering new works (at least to me) thrown in with the celebrated ones, because I can engage them with a fresh eye, without the burden of memories. Imagine therefore my astonishment stumbling into the Lenbachhaus in Munich and finding a horde of Kandinsky, Marc, and Macke; or turning a corner at the modern Pinakothek and be confronted by Max Beckmann's tryptych The Temptation of St. Anthony; or coming across the hopeful murals of Hans Erni--Swiss constructivist painter, if ever there was one--while on "official tour" of yarn salesmen at, of all places, the Transportation Museum in Zürich.

Such was my surprise in discovering the early work of Giorgio de Chirico whilst perusing the Impressionists at the MoMA in New York. What caught my attention, in particular, were the clever titles he assigned his work: both poetic and occult, they evoke rather than signify what is depicted on the canvas. They could be titles of metaphysical sonnets (The Nostalgia of the Infinite, The Enigma of a Day), the metaphors of psychoanalysts (The Anxious Journey, The Melancholy of Departure), or captions on the trumps of modernist Tarot cards (The Duo, The Seer, The Song of Love, The Serenity of the Scholar). Indeed, for de Chirico, the use of vanishing points is a ruse, and, together with distortion of proportions, actually render the picture flat (Hughes), which, to me, is not unlike the medieval iconography in Tarot cards.

I thought at the time his paintings were a little derivative of Dali's desolate landscapes littered with disembodied objects, and to some extent Magritte's painterly palette and style. It turns out that these paintings from his pittura metafisica phase (1911-1917) predates the Surrealist movement of the early 1920's, and it was Dali and Magritte, the quintessential Surrealist painters, who, in fact, appropriated his gestures. This revelation calls to mind Borges' little essay (does he write any voluble ones?) Kafka and His Precursors where he observes that "every writer creates his own precursors".

The poem "Fears and Scruples" by Browning foretells Kafka's work, but our reading of Kafka perceptibly sharpens and deflects our reading of the poem. Browning did not read it as we do now. In the critic's vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotation of polemics or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future (c.f. T. S. Eliot, Points of View, 1941, pp. 25-26).

In the same way, I recognized Dali and Magritte, and the Surrealist imagery, in de Chirico, whose images where nabbed by the visual artists of the movement as the proper "motifs to express their vision of an estranged urban world" (Hughes). The Surrealists created de Chirico as much as he created them, and our reading of his pittura metafisica is from now on "sharpened and deflected" by their parlance.

After the 1920's de Chirico abandoned the Surrealists and the French avant-garde, and went into a long decline as an "obdurate" classicist chasing after the ideal of Titian. "[He] alone had stepped out into the light of classicism, leaving Picasso and the rest behind in their 'primitive' darkness and willful modernist regression" (Hughes). He spectacularly failed, and from 1945-1962 painted backdated forgeries of his own earlier avant-garde work. "[If] modernist critics and the collectors they influenced were going to make capital from his youth while insulting his maturity, then let them eat fake" (Hughes). Interestingly, Dali, who never abandoned Surrealism, suffered the same extended decline; in contrast to de Chirico who backtracked and luxuriated in bygone styles, Dali stagnated in endless repetitions of Surrealist mannerisms.

For a long time the near universal judgment on Salvador Dali was that he had outlived himself. The Surrealist work he did from 1929 to 1939 was brilliant and durable. After that came decades of repetition and kitsch, the years of his collaborations with Walt Disney-- never completed--and his magazine ads for Elsa Schiaparelli lipstick. (Richard Lacayo, Time Magazine, 13 Feb 2005)

One of the kitsch he produced in his old age was a deck of Tarot cards, with each of the 78 cards signed in his typical flourish. On the first numbered card, the self-styled Surrealist poses as The Magician (El Mago), with his impossibly stiff, upwardly curved moustache. In the end, it is hard to decide between the avant-garde artist who aspired to be an academic painter, or the one who was reduced to a parody of himself, who was the sadder Fool.

The Nostalgia of the Infinite Paris 1912-13? (dated on painting 1911) Oil on canvas

The Anxious Journey Paris, spring-summer 1913 Oil on canvas

The Evil Genius of a King Paris 1914-15 Oil on canvas

Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure) Paris, early 1914 Oil on canvas

The Song of Love Paris, June-July 1914 Oil on canvas

The Enigma of a Day Paris, early 1914 Oil on canvas

The Duo Paris, winter 1914-15 Oil on canvas

The Seer Paris, winter 1914-15 Oil on canvas

The Serenity of the Scholar Paris, April-May 1914 Oil and charcoal on canvas

The Double Dream of Spring Paris, January-May 1915 Oil on canvas

Playthings of the Prince fall 1915 Oil on canvas

The Amusements of a Young Girl late 1915 Oil on canvas

The Faithful Servitor 1916 or 1917 Oil on canvas

Great Metaphysical Interior Ferrara, April-August 1917 Oil on canvas

Właściwie to czy są to zaślubiny, to pewni być nie możemy. Niektórzy historycy sztuki podejrzewają, że pan Arnolfini jedynie pozdrawia osoby, które wchodzą do pokoju, a nie składa przysięgę. Skąd wiemy, że ktoś wchodzi do pokoju? Widzimy to w lustrze zawieszonym za Arnolfinimi. Zazwyczaj zakłada się jednak, że są to świadkowie zaślubin, podczas których nie trzeba było wówczas kapłana.

Wiele dysput wzbudziła też suknia pani Arnolfini, a dokładniej jej wybrzuszenie. Historycy sztuki tłumaczą je panującą wówczas modą, ale nie brak plotkarzy twierdzących, że pani Arnolfini jest w ciąży.

Jak było naprawdę, nie wiem. Wiem za to, że Jan van Eyck popisał sie kunsztem niezwykłym. Spójrzcie na lustro. Widzimy nie tylko odbicie Arnolfinich i świadków (jednym z nich jest być może sam van Eyck), ale także dziesięć scen pokazujących śmierć Jezusa, które malarz umieścił na ramie lustra.

1434 r., olej na desce, 82,2 na 60 cm, Natonal Gallery w Londynie

In other news, Mayfest is picking up pace and the programme is now almost complete. We'll be announcing the programme at the beginning of March and we have a new website launching in a couple of weeks which is really exciting. We're working with The Design Tailor on this.

I'm also working on the marketing for HighTide 2008, which takes place 1-5 May in Halesworth, Suffolk. The programme for this will be announced on Thursday 28 February with a press conference, followed by a party in the evening.  Check out the website for details of it all.

And me?  I'm reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murukami and listening right now to Electrelane, but have also been getting all excited by Adrian Orange... And on Friday it's Ridiculusmus at the Barbican with Tough Time, Nice Time and Pina Bausch's Cafe Muller and The Rite of Spring on Saturday at Sadler's Wells. Oh yes.

And finally, tomorrow night I'll be going to the Residence Scratch night to see Kettle of Fish and Ed Rapley.

Over and out.

Nightfall, the new show from The Special Guests premieres at Arnolfini in Bristol.

Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 January, 4.40pm
Tickets: £8/£6
Booking: 0117 9172300
www.arnolfini.org.uk
www.thespecialguests.co.uk

"An inventive, cool creation ... which hurtles the audience from belly laughs to a bad taste in the mouth with unsettling speed" The Stage on This Much I Know (Part One)

We showed a work-in-progress version of Nightfall at Arnolfini in July and we're working on the full version in October, November and January.

Oh, and we're just beginning the long road to a brand new website, so keep checking www.thespecialguests.co.uk and see what's happening.

We showed a work-in-progress version of Nightfall at Arnolfini in July and we're working on the full version in October, November and January.

Oh, and we're just beginning the long road to a brand new website, so keep checking www.thespecialguests.co.uk and see what's happening.

Last week I went with a group of young people from the Channel Zer0 media club and their facilitator Gary, to see the Black Audio Film Collective exhibition at Arnolfini gallery in Bristol. For me it is an important exhibition as Black Audio are part of the reason why I do what I (try and) do, which is makes films (particularly exploring Afrikan [Black] British stories) and support others to make work for themselves. I was already at film school (Newport) the first time I came across them, in the mid 90's, but they definitely inspired me with confidence in two vital areas of filmmaking; 1) Be bold & inventive with your creative approach, and 2) Don't hold back on what you want to say. 'Handsworth Songs' and '7 Songs for Malcolm [X]' are an education in pushing the envelope in documentary production for anyone. Style and content / content and style. Hand in hand. Essential viewing. Those films restored my faith in not only endevour of making media, but also in the importance of getting hidden voices heard.

Another reason I hold Black Audio high up on my list of influences is because it was out of the film collective/workshop tradition, that also included London's Sankofa Films, that inspired Black Pyramid Film & Video Project in Bristol; the only black production company in South West England. When I left Newport it was Black Pyramid that I began working for, and out of that came my longstanding working relationship with Rob Mitchell. We set up Firstborn Creatives 7 years ago and still going strong.

Anyway....that's enough about me, what about the young people's reaction to 'Handsworth Songs' and '7 Songs for Malcolm'?

"Boring...not as good as Spiderman..."

"All this history is draining me...."

These are two comments I heard. That's not really fair as there were many (correction: many-ish) positive comments as well, but these two comments cut me deep and broke my heart, as these were mostly black young people not realising how important these works are to African British culture and what this movement represented - the first time en masse Black people had made media for themselves in this country. I had to bite my tongue and diplomatically encourage a conversation about their feelings whilst trying not to dictate or preach. I think I got away with it, but it wasn't easy.

As Rob said knowingly when I told him about it, "Why should they know how important it is?"

And it's true. What's important for me doesn't have to be for them, no matter what cultural background they are, but....

...and there is a but here.....

...for young members of a media club surely they SHOULD have an appreciation of such things, even if it wasn't to their taste. I don't like 'Birth of a Nation' and am not fond of its director DW Griffith due to him being a supporter of the KKK, but I still recognise the important impact he had on the development of filmmaking.

That's one of the things with community media education projects. It's informal. No one can be preached to and everyone's opinion is valid, within reason of course. Opinion can be challenged, but I am not their preacher and they are not my flock. I guess the main thing is that they were exposed to that work. They now know it exists. They had access. Whether they choose to access it or not, whether they choose to try and understand it or not, and whether they choose to create their own works or not is entirely up to them. They are their own people and have the right to choose, but as facilitators the least we could do was make them aware in the first instance. The rest is their choice. That is one of the challenging things about democracy. We may not always agree with others' choices, but have to respect them.

With hindsight I would do exactly the same again and continue to bite my tongue and try to be diplomatic. I've had my time and now this is theirs. I remember the first day at film school our enthusiastic lecturers took us to watch David Lynch's EraserHead. I thought it was awful and had (and continue to have) no real idea what it is all about. That was 14 years ago. Last year I bought it on DVD for £5. I haven't watched it since, but it's still there.