Smash Lab X

SMASH LAB is a bi-monthly explosive laboratory of performance art and live art. The night provides an exciting platform for emerging and established artists to share new performance work with feedback and debate from the audience. SMASH LAB started in June 2011 and is part of the thinking and drinking programme at The Book Club, London.

Live performance:
JULIE ROSE BOWER
TWISTED LOAF
ALICE MALSEED
NIKE
LOUISE ORWIN

EXPECT: spells, rum and ginger, you tube generational selfie films, knotting, knitting, roller skates, Beyonce, teenage obsessions, sexual absurdity & hyper gendered explorations.
JULIE ROSE BOWER


JULIE ROSE BOWER is a live artist, writer and performance director. She makes original performance installation work concerned with oblique storytelling and making the everyday extraordinary. At SMASH LAB Julie Rose Bower will present The Spinning Dress, the second of a triptych of dress pieces, the first of which was The Teabag Dress. The Dress Triptych explores unusual dressmaking processes and how they may invoke unusual activities in the wearer. The Spinning Dress uses a knotting motif and takes as its action the appearance, disappearance and reappearance of a crocheted dress. This piece is inspired by the idea of a very long hex or spell, and the audience may make suggestions for what the subject of such a spell might be. Using drone music and projection this durational performance installation enters into an arena of uncanny wish fulfilment as in the story The Three Spinners by the Brothers Grimm.

TWISTED LOAF are Libby and Nina, a female clown
duo who interweave character sketch comedy into their set.
Politically incorrect and sexually unashamed the characters teeter on the edge of absurdity and propel the show into uncertain calamity.

"Classic shticks with a completely stupid modern spin. These two girls are totally idiot and we love them for being so horrible at everything they try and do - however stupid it is"

LOUISE ORWIN is an artist working in performance, video and photography. She is preoccupied with liveness, awkwardness, femininity and masochism- but above all, she likes to have fun. For SMASH LAB Louise will present Am I Pretty/Ugly? - a performance which follows her trail of research into how Generation YouTube uses the ever widening field of social networking to reach others. "Using as its starting point a worrying trend in which teenage girls post videos on YouTube asking the faceless viewers of this platform to judge their looks, taking into account my own forays into this genre of vlogging, throwing in a live experiment, and some embarrassing stories from my teenage years, I will be attempting to ask questions about how recent advances in technology are changing the way we perceive ourselves and each other. What happens when we find YouTube answers all our questions? If it has become a mirror of our society, what is being reflected?"

NIKE
Nike are a new multi-disciplinary performance duo hailing from the north. Samuel Kennedy and Jacob Fairclough are influenced by hyper representations of gender and personality in culture. For SMASH LAB they will present b-day. The piece is improvised physically and musically based around ideas of easily consumable sexuality.

ALICE MALSEED is a London based performance maker, facilitator & writer. For SMASH LAB X Alice will present 'Seen in Soft Focus' - a show about disappointment, rum, and ginger beer which will be shown at Latitude festival laster this year. See it at SMASH LAB first!

PLUS DJ set from Lucy Railton (Kammer Klang)Lucy Railton is a renowned sound artist, composer and musician. Early in the evening you will here a relaxed montague of sounds played between performances. Later in the evening expect a very eclectic mix danceable gems.

SMASH LAB showcase the crème de la crème of established and emerging artists exploring mediums of performance and interaction. If you love live art and appreciate its many forms then there's no other place to be on Tuesday 4th June.
We recommend that you book in advance as this event has a limited capacity
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