Preview: Moving Targets, Arnolfini

Pictured above: The Straits, Westway Cinema, Frome, Courtesy of Bristol Archive Records, pic: John Spink

In punk’s 40th anniversary year, Arnolfini’s Moving Targets season (July 29-Sept 11) draws on Bristol’s unique independent spirit and explores punk as an attitude with more than one history and meaning.

Delving into the city’s archives, Moving Targets uncovers a hidden history of anti-authoritarian creativity across music, visual art and political activity. New artist commissions and collaborations spill out of the gallery and explore how punk is articulated today, through provocation, broadcast, dialogue and a cyberpunk aesthetic.

Here are some of Moving Targets’ participants to tell us more.

Gillian Wylde
Artist
Tell us about your contribution to Moving Targets.
I’m making a series of works that include ‘effervescently discordant’ video collaged with writing, sound and performance. The Day The World Turned Day Glo moves continuously and freely through closed systems and around ideas/punk attitude and punk processes of DIY and amateurism, lo-fi and failure, connecting blow-backs and debris of analogue, mixing the digital with the handmade. Circumnavigating some of the more mainstream histories and narratives of the late 1970s, the work revises, re-examines and re-centres punk sensibilities of queer, black and feminist voices with narratives of punk process and attitude in the 21st century. 
www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/gillian-wylde-the-day-the-world-turned-day-glo-1

Mike Darby
www.bristolarchiverecords.com
What are you bringing to the season?
Here at www.bristolarchiverecords.com we have supplied a lot of archive photos, posters and imagery so that younger people can work on recreating images in 2016 that were taken from 1977 – we hope that the art students enjoy the link with history and produce amazing work for visitors to Arnolfini will enjoy.

What was late 70s punk like here in Bristol?
First-generation UK punk was a London fashion statement designed to shock people. As it spread around the country to the different communities and demographics it got twisted and changed. Here in Bristol it was more art punk/post-punk. There were a few classic punk bands like The Cortinas, The Pigs and later The X-Certs. The poverty people suffered right up to and through the 80s made the youth want to rebel, and a gang culture was created. Whether you were a Punk, a Mod, a Skin, a Rocker or a Rasta, safety in numbers always helped.
www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/bristol-archive-records-and-shane-baldwin-in-conversation

Rachael Clerke
Performance artist
Tell us about your contribution to Moving Targets.
We – the Great White Males, AKA the world’s favourite anti-virtuoso drag king punk band – will be performing Cuncrete, a satire about the housing crisis and men in suits, performed by women dressed as men in suits. It’s got five songs, and live cement mixing on stage. The next day I’m running a workshop with musician Daisy Moon where women can come and form punk bands regardless of musical ability.

Did punk uniquely have its place in divided, disillusioned late 70s Britain, or might that spirit resurface anywhere and at any time?
I’m pretty sure it’s got a place in divided, disillusioned 2016 Britain, actually…
www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/rachael-clerke-cuncrete

Rachael House
Artist
What will you be ding for Moving Targets?
I’ll be facilitating the making of a zine – a small, cut-and-paste, handmade, personal publication. Visitors will be invited to contribute a page (or two). The theme and title of the zine is Agency – Make your Mark, and it’s about having a voice in the world and making a positive difference in large or small ways. Materials will be supplied for people to draw, collage or write, sharing what is important to them.
My favourite zines are funny, provocative and outspoken. Zines are a place where we hear from people often excluded or ignored by mainstream media. They help us find like-minded people, build communities, educate and entertain.

How aligned do you feel with the punk ethos?
I feel aligned from the ends of my green painted toenails to the tips of my short pink hair! As a teenager, punk was a very formative time, it shaped my tastes and values.
I lived in Kent, so punk wasn’t about bondage trousers and the Kings Road. I saw bands at my local art college, went to Anti-Nazi League/Rock Against Racism marches and rallies, and read Lucy Toothpaste’s articles in Spare Rib feminist magazine. I bought clothes from jumble sales and painted my shirts. I retain from that time a love of lo-fi, the handmade, the amateur, things made with love. The DIY ethos is very important to me: if you want something to happen, you can make it happen.

Is the punk spirit alive and well?
Punk spirit resurfaces all the time – just not usually wearing the same clothes, making the same noises or having the same media impact (probably a good thing). As long as there are outsiders they will bond over something with a similar spirit to punk. Not backward-looking, though: young people make their own culture. In the nineties it was Riot Grrrl and queercore. In 2016 we have spaces like DIY Space For London, a political, affordable venue for bands and more, run by its members.
Young people are often very politically engaged, in LGBTQIA causes, feminism, anti-racism and more. We live in times that are tougher in many ways than the 1970s, but if we have some agency in the world, in making art, music, zines and nuisance, then I allow myself some optimism.
www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/agency-make-your-mark

Find a full rundown of Moving Targets at www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/moving-targets