Documentation of the R&D process for The Common Line project March-September 2018. A partnership project between Blind Ditch, Controlled Frenzy, and Geography at University of Exeter with support from Rural Recreation. Funded by AHRC-EPSRC this R&D was kindly supported by University of Cumbria.

The Common Line - AHRC-EPSRC R&D

The Common Line

The Common Line R&D process

A participatory arts project developed from crowd-sourced creative writings by bus passengers about their journies on the D bus in Exeter. Commissioned by University of Exeter, Arts and Culture 2018 in partnership with Stagecoach.

D-tour: thoughts looking sidewards

D-Tour: thoughts looking sidewards

D-Tour: thoughts looking sidewards – single channel video

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Colourful interactive map of Buckland estate in Newton Abbot

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Happening Here!

An interactive map of Buckland

Culture & Review On Phonic Fm: August 2015: Culture Hour – O-B-A-F-G Special

O-B-A-F-G

Collaborative audio work and radio documentary

A short edit of This City's Centre, 3. Here Now, a performance incorporating live video streaming, staged between a third-floor office space in Princesshay, Exeter and the streets and homes of the city. This City's Centre was a digital triptych for Exeter. Developed by Blind Ditch in 2013 in partnership with Exeter Phoenix, RAMM, Exeter College and funded by Arts Council England, Exeter City Council and Arts and Culture at University of Exeter.

Performers in order of appearance: Phil Smith, Katy Villa, Jonny Rowden, Students from Exeter College, Jane Mason, Lizzy Humber. Music is from Consort of Fower Parts composed by Matthew Locke in Exeter 1660 ca. played by Cat Radford on accordian outside Exeter Cathedral. Camera by Philibert Patricot. Edit Volkhardt Müller.

This City's Centre 3. Here,Now

This City’s Centre

This City’s Centre 3. Here, Now – video trailer

Volkhardt Müller (Blind Ditch) and John Wylie (Cultural Geography, University of Exeter) discuss This City's Centre 1. Window

Private Views and Public Art

A long journey through the city centre shopping centre livens up the morning (August, 2008).

Global Player - the long play

Global Player

Global Player – the long play

A 24 minute documentary on the process and impact of the project including interviews with partners and collaborators. Filmed in 2007 in PAL!

VANLAND Documentary

VANLAND

VANLAND documentary about our working process 2004-07

Short video work using 'home movie' footage created to be used in the performance and installation 'Who Wants to be a Hero Now' in 2006. Edit Volkhardt Mueller, sound John Levack Drever, words Natalie Mcgrath performed by Cat Radford. Child Lena Mueller.

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Who Wants to be a Hero Now?

Divine – video used in the 2006 installation

Young graffiti artist Spike gives our caravan a face-lift. Too many people on country fairs have been suspecting we're selling caravans. No more of that from now on!

VANLAND Trailer 2006

VANLAND trailer 2006

A collection of documents and media produced over the course of 20+ years.


<p><strong>A performance and street intervention</strong> about learning landscapes, negotiating territories, sharing cultures and making home.</p>


Performance

Public Realm

Land Marked at the International Devising Theatre Conference, Dartington College of Arts 2001. Photograph by David Williams

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<p><em>Land Marked </em>was created in 2001 – echoing and reflecting on the UK’s then obsessions with how communities are made and broken (Survivor, Big Brother, the EU…). The piece addresses the manipulation of territory, the circulation of power, and the patrolling of borderlines – from the micro level of the family to the macro level of nations. Heimat, Casa, Hjem, Home.</p>


Land Marked at Plateaux Festival, Moustonturm, Frankfurt

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<p>Carrying with them everything they own, three foreigners arrive in a new place. Your place. Asking for your hospitality because – ‘it’s a harsh world out there, and nothing is worth more than a little kindness to strangers’ – they proceed to map the territory, to learn the landscape and to make this place a home.</p>


<p>On a blank piece of 4m square paper, the performers work with pens, domestic lights, and a ghetto blaster to construct and reconstruct a ‘living’ map – their own memories of home interwoven with stories and images of the local land and community. This creates a performed geography where ‘real world’ sound and ‘fake’ sound effects collide with each performers ‘mother tongue’, in a landscape where metaphor and memory are friendly neighbours with observed reportage. Under the guise of democratic process, the three strangers argue and rearrange themselves, to try and establish a shared history. Alliances are made and broken as each person desperately tries to smuggle into the group their own idea of what a home should be.</p>
<p>The piece was performed simultaneously in German/Italian, Norwegian and English.</p>


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<p>At the Frankfurt premiere we made a 3 channel video/sound installation edited from research walks around Frankfurt. A looping mediation of the ‘real’ Frankfurt the audience had just arrived from (or were exiting into), the installation was presented in the foyer of Mousonturm surrounding the entering audience and acting as a prologue/epilogue for the more abstracted geography of the performance itself.</p>


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<p>As research for performances of Land Marked in Exeter and Wimborne summer 2002, we made a series of mapping interventions; attempting to ‘learn’ the lay of the land from the perspective of the people who live in it, and building them into the live performance. The performers moved around town finding pitches for their map at varying street sites in each town. The public were invited to donate information in the shape of directions, pictures, anecdotes and sounds to the map; telling their own stories of ‘home’ by chatting to the performers as they moved around the town. This working process significantly influenced the subsequent development of our 2004 rural film-making project VANLAND.</p>


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<div class="content_boxes"><strong>Devised by</strong> Blind Ditch. Director Paula Crutchlow (UK), composer John Levack Drever (SCO), performers Henning Hegland (NOR), Heiko Fischer (BRD), and Cat Radford (UK). Frankfurt video installation was facilitated and edited by Volkhardt Müller with sound by John Levack Drever. Further UK performances and creative mapping research developed with Augusto Corrieri (I).</div>
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<div><strong>Commissioned by</strong> Plateaux Festival at Mousonturm, Frankfurt &amp; Theatre at Dartington College of Arts for the International Devising Theatre conference, 2001.</div>


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<li><strong>Work-in-progress sharing</strong> at International Devised Theatre Conference, Dartington College of Arts</li>
<li><strong>9 – 30th September 2011 </strong>Residency, Mousonturm, Frankfurt</li>
<li><strong>October 2001 </strong>Performance Dartington Arts</li>
<li><strong>7 – 9th December 2001 Land Marked</strong> Plateaux Festival, Mousonturm, Frankfurt</li>
<li><strong>26 + 27th July 2002 </strong>Street mapping Intervention HEM Festival</li>
<li><strong>1st August 2002 </strong>Performance Exeter Fringe Festival</li>
<li><strong>4th August 2002 </strong>Street Mapping Intervention and Performance at The Round Festival, Wimborne</li>
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