films

about

art

education

&
cultural heritage 

The Machinery at Kelham Island

This three screen video installation expresses the dehumanisation and alienation of the industrial worker - relentlessly subjected to an exhausting cycle of repetition.

Documentation of The Machinery video installation at No Bounds Festival, Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield. The Machinery is a collaborative artwork by Caroline Radcliffe (clog dancer), Sarah Angliss (composer and digital artist) and Jon Harrison (digital film maker).

November 2022

Life Game Eulogies | Festival of the Mind 2022

A series of emotional film shorts featuring five ‘future eulogies’ for endangered species.

Produced and directed by artist Paul Evans, Professor David Edwards and conservation scientists from The University of Sheffield School of Biosciences.

A commission for Festival of the Mind 2022.

CAER HEDZ

In July 2015 pupils from Glyn Derw High School and Michaelston Community College spent a day on a live archaeological dig. Working with CAER Heritage Project lead artist Paul Evans and filmmaker Jon Harrison, they made their own 'celtic heads' from clay then brought them to life in a pop-up animation studio.

This Caer Heritage Project production for the Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities Festival 2015 won the Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community trophy at the 2017 Times Higher Education Awards.

A film by Jon Harrison and Paul Evans 2015

The Machinery Installation

Making its premier at the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Festival 2018, The Machinery Installation is a collaborative art work by Caroline Radcliffe (clog dancer), Sarah Angliss (composer and digital artist) and Jon Harrison (digital filmmaker). 

The three screen, immersive, sound and visual installation expresses the dehumanisation and alienation of the industrial worker - relentlessly subjected to an exhausting cycle of repetition.

The ‘heel-and-toe’ clog steps are layered with looped sounds taken from a working, 19th century cotton mill and a 21st century call centre, emphasising the connections between the two industries.

Documentary film by University of Birmingham, October 2018.

On Shared Ground

A short film made in collaboration with communities in Sheffield, Cardiff and Aberdeen. The film features three different hill forts, Bennachie, Caerau, and Wincobank that have varied histories of human visitation and habitation.

A film by Paul Evans and Jon Harrison 2014

The Machinery 360°

A 360° video for smartphones and VR headsets, ideally with headphones. To view in 360 VR on a phone, open in the YouTube App and wave your phone around or pinch and scroll to explore the space. On desktop click and drag around the video.

The Machinery is a clog dance first performed by women in the cotton mills of Lancashire and passed down through families and communities for over 200 years. 

Clog Dancer and Artist: Caroline Radcliffe.
Composer and Digital Artist: Sarah Angliss.
Filmmaker: Jon Harrison.

October 2021

The Model Village - Caer Heritage Project

Made for the Connected Communities Utopia Festival at Somerset House.  On 9th June 2016 CAER Heritage Project lead artist Paul Evans and film maker Jon Harrison led the first of two 'Model Village' creative workshops at The Glamorgan Archives with students from Michaelston Community School. Selected animation sequences from this workshop were combined with an interview with Dr Stephanie Ward made at the Glamorgan Archive and film sequences from the Ely estate. 

This Caer Heritage Project production for the Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities Festival 2016 won the Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community trophy at the 2017 Times Higher Education Awards.

A film by Jon Harrison, Viv Thomas and Paul Evans 2016

Zion - The Forgotten Graveyard

On 29th September 2018 the Friends of Zion Graveyard unveiled a plaque to commemorate the saving of the 200 year old burial ground of Zion Congregational Church Attercliffe which had been found locked and abandoned when volunteers from Wincobank were searching for the family vault of anti-slavery campaigners Mary Anne Rawson and her family, the Reads of Wincobank Hall. They were soon joined by others including members of Friends of Wincobank Hill and Friends of Wardsend Cemetery, past residents of Attercliffe and long lost relatives of those buried in the graveyard who helped organise a successful fund-raising campaign and bid to the National Lottery enabling them to purchase the site to save it from development as industrial land. This short film was made to record the first year of this extraordinary project.

The Machinery by Caroline Radcliffe & Sarah Angliss 

" To anyone interested in the relationship between music and automation, The Machinery is a fascinating work. Devised by women working in the Lancashire mills, the steps of this nineteenth-century ‘heel and toe’ clog dance directly mimic the repetitive sounds and movements of cotton mill machines, Radcliffe and Angliss take it back to its industrial context, as they juxtapose it with found sounds and video fragments."

Performance film exhibited as part of the Marvellous Mechanical Museum at Compton Verney,  30 June 2018 – 30 September 2018.

Recorded 12 November 2016 at Algomech 2016, Sheffield

Unearthing Utopia

Reflections on two community archaeology projects, CAER Model Village Project led by artist Paul Evans and Middlefield’s Utopia organised by Professor Carenza Lewis and Dr Ian Waites at the University of Lincoln.

A film by Paul Evans, Jon Harrison and Viv Thomas 2017

Herbert Read & Alec Clegg: A Revolution Realised

National Arts Education Archives Gallery (31 Jan–29 Mar 2015)

Two of the most influential educators of the 20th century - Herbert Read, English anarchist, poet, literary critic and co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts and Sir Alec Clegg, Chief Education officer for the West Riding of Yorkshire (1945–1974).

Recorded 25 March 2015 at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Den Making in Greno Woods

Greno Woods is a site of ancient woodland recorded as far back as the Middle Ages. Own by Sheffield Wildlife Trust this is now a large and beautiful nature reserve covering 178 hectares next to the residential areas of Grenoside, Ecclesfield and Chapeltown. There is evidence that Greno Woods existed as early as 1600AD and has played a critical role in the local economy ever since. Here students from the University of Sheffield's School of Architecture help with the sustainable conservation and management of Greno Woods so it can continue to play an important role in the well-being of local wildlife and local residents.

Sheffield Wildlife Trust 2014

AlgoMech 2016: Sampler Cultureclash - Lace Tells

A performance by: Louise West - Bobbin Lace / David Littler - Voice, Music Box and electronics / Jason Singh - Voice, BeatBox, Music Box and electronics / Nathaniel Mann - Voice, Tuned Axes, 'Hurdy Gurdy', percussion / Alex McLean - Live code.

Recorded 12 November 2016 at Algomech 2016, Sheffield

Behind the scenes at Wincobank's annual Lantern Procession and Pageant. 

Each November, on Wincobank Hill in Sheffield, South Yorkshire UK, over 250 people walk by torchlight through ancient woodland and climb up to the hill fort in the dark to watch a re-enactment of the crucial moment in history when Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes handed over the rebel King Caratacus to the Romans, in chains. On the way they see trees lit up by candle lamps, hear the haunting music of the lone piper Helena Reynolds on the hillside, see the University of Sheffield's fiery Iron Age forge and sway to Celtic melodies.

Wincobank chapel, Sheffield 2014 

Professor Jenny Clack: Beautiful Minds Series 2, BBC4

For palaeontologist Professor Jenny Clack, who solved one of the greatest mysteries in the history of life on Earth, success was far from inevitable. She recounts how she had to overcome a series of setbacks before she found and described the fossil Acanthostega, a 365 million-year-old creature that offered dramatic new evidence of how fish made the transition onto land.

Animation by Jon Harrison

Broadcast Mon 16 Apr 2012

Simon Blackmore, Antony Hall and Steve Symons: Rock Music 

Owl Project have developed a range of interfaces and techniques for transforming the ancient process of making a hand axe into a live musical performance. In 'Rock Music' Owl Project delve 5000 years back in time to one of the oldest known creative processes, making sharp tools from rock such as flint. 

ICLI 2016: International Conference on Live Interfaces St Mary's Church, Kemptown, Brighton, UK. July 1st, 2016.

Malham Cove 360

One of a series of 360° video panoramas with original music compositions. Made for VR headsets, tablets and smartphones to aid remembering and reminiscing around well-known and familiar landmarks and landscapes, supporting relaxation and well-being in care environments.

Music composer: Ben Crick
Orchestra: Skipton Camerata

To view in 360 VR on a phone, open in the YouTube App and wave your phone around to explore the space. On desktop click and drag around the video.

2024