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 film maker).
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 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
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 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.
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
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
Herbert Read & Alec Clegg: A Revolution Realised
NAEA 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 with University of Sheffield
Greno Woods is a site of ancient woodland recorded as far back as the Middle Ages. It's own by Sheffield Wildlife Trust. Greno Woods is a large and beautiful 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.
2014 for Sheffield Wildlife Trust
AlgoMech symposium - Ellen Harlizius Klück - PENELOPE
Weaving in pre-industrial times is usually seen as a domestic female preoccupation claiming no intellectual activity. Although it has been a ubiquitous craft in ancient times, it has hardly ever been considered as contributor to intellectual concepts or to the history of technology. The team of the PENELOPE project thinks that it is time to reconsider weaving as an important part of intellectual history and especially the history of digital technology.
Recorded 13 November 2016 at Algomech 2016, Sheffield
Bretton Marbles - David Hill
Introduced by Professor John L. Taylor (Principal of Bretton Hall College from 1983 to 2001). Dr David Hill (professor of fine art at Bretton Hall during the 1980s and 1990s) tells how his research revealed that 'The Bretton Marbles', two objects which were displayed in prominent positions at Bretton Hall from the 1960s onwards and used as plant pots and ash trays, were in fact valuable antiquities.
Recorded 13 May 2017 at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
AlgoMech symposium - Rosamaria Cisneros - Machine Choreography
Rosamaria talks about a digital performance dance piece that was created implementing participatory research methods and a post digital perspective. The work was born out of a residency with Random String where I was exploring the intersections of screendance, shadow puppetry, Flamenco, the Romani/Gypsy community, the number 28 and intangible cultural heritage.
Recorded 13 November 2016 at Algomech 2016, Sheffield
AlgoMech Symposium - Alejandro Albornoz - Jose Vicente Asuar: Chilean pioneer
In the early 70's a small group of people started the computer music activity in Chile. Among these group of professionals and students, there is a remarkable figure: José Vicente Asuar, composer and engineer, pioneer of electroacoustic music in Latin America.
Recorded 13 November 2016 at Algomech 2016, Sheffield
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.
2014 Wincobank chapel, Sheffield
Roman Paska: Fear of Puppetry
A discussion of the trajectory of the puppet in art and society from the anti-puppet prejudice of the European Humanist tradition to the emergence of puppetry art as the defining performance mode of the 21st century. Roman Paska is a writer, director, filmmaker and puppeteer.
ICLI 2016: International Conference on Live Interfaces Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA), University of Sussex, UK. July 2nd, 2016.
Simon Blackmore, Antony Hall and Steve Symons: Rock Music
The 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.
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
Sheffield's Woodland Heritage - an illustrated talk by Prof. Mel Jones
This talk and slide show by Sheffield woodland expert Mel Jones explores the historical, archaeological and ecological importance of ancient woodland.
This event took place at Upper Wincobank Chapel, Sheffield, 3rd January 2013 and was hosted by The Friends of Wincobank Hill.