Visual Art
Blithe spirit
Graphic designer, composer, record label founder and lover of ‘a very British kind of weird’, Julian House talks to Neil Cooper about his first visual art exhibition
he future as we imagined it floated into view somewhere between I950 and I975. This was when a peculiarly Iinglish strain of science- liction emerged. fuelled by postwar possibilities and (‘old War paranoia. Qlltllt’i‘liltl.\‘.\' and The Pit and I'll/age UT the Damned set a tone of implied spectral horror that was picked up by Dr Who in its behind-the-
sofa. BB(‘ Radiophonic Workshop years. These things
—- along with the subverted rural idyll of The Owl
ephemera by designer/composer Julian House.
‘\\'e've created slightly weird and wrong fragments hinting at something relating to an event or happening in the fictional village of Belbury. but without ever being specific} says House. ‘It‘s something almost cultish that might have gone a bit wrong. and using the language of a religious folk cult or something.‘
House’s parallel universe first came into view via
Ghost Box records. the label he founded on swathes of
retro-futuristic musical and visual ephemera. It went beyond I*)7()s clip-show fetishism — and what House calls the ‘bIokeish. Nuts magazine' approach of Life
On Mars — to create its own blurred landscape of
pseudo-scientific sense memories.
Visually. releases by imaginary artists such as Belbury Poly. the Advisory Circle and House's own Focus Group recall I97lls science textbooks. The Belbury Poly”s recent From an Ancient Star album even went so far as to include its own booklet of Look and Learn-style discoveries. All of which mines a vein
8" "'5 ”ST 30 Apr-t: Mm 2009
‘WE'VE CREATED SLIGHTLY WEIRD AND WRONG FRAGMENTS'
of what House calls ‘a lost Britain'. one in which old television. music and books are ‘evocative signifiers‘ of something 'specilic to a time and place. which co- exist even though they don‘t seem to lit’.
‘There was so much going on at that time. with technological changes. climate changes and so on.‘ he
says. ‘We‘d just come out of the (i()s and an age of
psychedelic folk. and the people involved were getting
jobs in the media. Storylines from Nigel Kneale were Serviee and the creepy foreboding of 1970s public information films ~~ filter into The New Spirit Happening. an exhibition of imagined ectoplasmic
being popularised through Dr Who. where people were also being exposed to experimental electronic music in a populist fashion. In this way. the BB(‘ Radiophonic Workshop were more influential than The Beatles.‘
Beyond Ghost Box. House has a day-job as a designer. providing record covers for kindred spirits such as Broadcast and Stereolab. as well as less obvious clients such as Oasis. The New Spirit Happening runs throughout Le Weekend. the leftlield music festival at Stirling‘s Tolbooth. where the Changing Room gallery is now housed.
Coincidentally. Broadcast were due to headline the festival but were forced to pull out. while Drew MulhoIIand (whose own adventures into electronic esoterica as Mount Vernon Arts Lab influenced Ghost Box) will play a set with Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley. A couple of years ago Ghost Box re-released MVAL‘s long-lost Quatermass-inspired album The Seance at Hoh's‘ Lane. The ghosts in the machine. it seems. are working overtime.
The New Spirit Happening, Changing Room Gallery, Stirling, Fri 1 May-Sat 6 Jun.
THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
=l: The Associates DCA marks its first decade with a rich. impressive group show of work by well-known contemporary artists. all of whom have a connection to the gallery. Dundee Contemporary Arts, until Sun 21 Jul.
* Phil Collins: The World Won’t Listen The British artist's must—see three-part video installation. filmed in Colombia. Turkey and Indonesia. features fans of The Smiths performing karaoke versions of tracks from the 1987 album of the same name. as well as fan letters and defaced Britney Spears posters. See review. page 89. Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 37 May.
>k Willie Doherty The twice Turner Prize-nominated artist brings his hauntingly beautiful films and photographs to the Fruitmarket. Reviewed next issue. Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, until Sun 12 Jul.
>l< No Horizons The Artist Rooms collection may have garnered all the attention, but this modest exhibition of works drawn from the collections of Charles Asprey and Alexander Schroder, at the same gallery. is also well worth a look. Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until Sun 79 Jul.
>l< sh[OUT]: Contemporary Art and Human Rights Striking and thoughtful social justice-related exhibition explores universal ideals of love and tenderness as well as the abiding fascination for artists with the human body. See review in LGBT, page 59. Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, until Sun 7 Nov.
* Julian House: The New Spirit Happening First visual art exhibition by House, the founder of Ghost Box records. See preview, left.
The Changing Room, Stirling, Fri 1 May-Sat 6 Jun.