AndrewGrantham.co.uk

A clip of the Disinformation “Blackout” Sound Mirrors video by Barry Hale is available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsR3qyJDk0c

Club-Feroviar reported at the end of January:

Pakistan Railways (PR) are ready for expanding and improving railway links with neighbours countries, Iran and Afghanistan, linking Chaman to Spin Boldak and Quetta to Taftan, according to the Minister of Railways, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. The Minister said PR has made all necessary preparations for linking Chaman to Spin Boldak in Afghanistan and added it is waiting for the approval of Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai. Railway links between Quetta and Taftan are also taken in consideration, the Minister going to leave next month in Iran for to discuss this project with Afghan officials.

While I’m doing an update, I’ll mention that the Hythe Civic Society has completely sold out of copies of Echoes from the Sky. There’s none left. So don’t e-mail them to ask about buying one!

An e-mail informs me of the following event.

10th Disinformation solo exhibition
“Fire in the Eye” + “The Origin of Painting” “The Analysis of Beauty” + “Blackout”

Saltburn Artists Projects
30 Marske Road
Saltburn TS12 1QG
20 Jan to 11 March 2007
www.saltburnartistsprojects.org.uk
http://rixc.lv/waves/en/txt08.html

The exhibition features “Blackout” - Barry Hale’s highly influential (and frequently copied) video of monolithic, concrete air-defence Sound Mirrors.

“Blackout” was made to accompany Sound Mirror imagery created by photographer Julian Hills in 1996 (for the packaging of the Disinformation “Antiphony” double remix CD, published in 1997). The “Blackout” video has been shown at The Royal College of Art (London),chirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt), The Dom (Moscow), Galerie fur Zeitgennossische Kunst (Leipzig) and others, and exhibited at The Mac (Birmingham), CCCB (Barcelona), Quay Arts (Isle of Wight), Q Gallery (Derby), South Hill Park (Bracknell), The Waygood Gallery (Newcastle), The ICA (London), Event Gallery (London), Wrexham Arts Centre and The Latvian National Museum of Art.

Disinformation videos available on You Tube…

Hope you enjoy!

1. Disinformation “Artificial Lightning”* Live at The Hayward Gallery, London
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5s8RURPJ-Y
(*aka “The Origin of Painting”)

2. Disinformation “The Origin of Painting”
Live at Fabrica, Brighton
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vi-lB_2_qg

3. Disinformation at NTT ICC Tokyo (extract)
Phase of Post Music concert series
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sLFx4T8R74

4. Disinformation “The Analysis of Beauty”
Premiered at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMtz9ciE9M0

5. Disinformation and Hari Kunzru (extract)
Interview for “The Lounge” on Sky TV
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L1o5zUWkOM

6. Disinformation vs Strange Attractor “National Grid”
Live at New Corsica Studios, London + detailed text
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B13-09K-Ubc

7. Disinformation “The Origin of Painting”
Live at Wrexham Arts Centre
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji6Wvp7aALE

Raymond Thompson of the Seaham Family History Group writes to say that “One of our elderley residents seems to recall a concrete structure (long gone) which he believes to have been a sound mirror situated on an elevated site in Seaham, County Durham about 2 miles from the coast.” On seeing a picture of the Sunderland Carley Hill Mirror he said it was the same design, and another Seaham resident “remembers it vividly”.

There isn’t a mirror in Seaham today, so presumably it has now been demolished, but does anyone know more? The north eastern mirors are all a bit of mystery, no-one seems to know anything about them. While I don’t really know the area, from a map I’d guess that Hartlepool and Seaham would be good locations for mirrors if some kind of chain had exisited incorporating the surviving mirrors at Boulby, Redcar and Sunderland.