Alistair Gentry in Colchester

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: COLCHESTER ARTS CENTRE

Alistair Gentry: Magickal Realism will open at the Colchester Arts Centre on Wednesday 24 February 2010 at 7.30pm.

Colchester Arts Centre and ArtSway Associates (funded by The Leverhulme Trust) are pleased to announce Alistair Gentry: Magickal Realism, an exciting and compelling live performance based upon the life and work of Dr John Dee, the proto-scientist, court magician and fortune-teller to Queen Elizabeth I.

Magickal Realism is part of Gentry’s long-term project to reconnect contemporary art with pre-industrial British forms and genres. He aims to rediscover some of the important but underappreciated people, events and ideas that have nonetheless shaped our country and the world.

In the late 16th century John Dee and his partner, the medium and fraudster Edward Kelley, frequently communicated with ethereal realms and predicted the future during their "angelic actions". Magickal Realism revives some old tricks and techniques of historical fortune tellers and occultists, combining them with 21st century digital video to recreate the strangeness, paranoia and wonder of an England where witches were completely real, anybody who was anybody had somebody else plotting to kill them, and magical dolls could threaten a person’s life.

Delivered through a mixture of performance, storytelling, installation and new technologies, Magickal Realism will actively engage audiences with British history, relying on their participation to deliver the outcome of these modern “actions” which will change according to individual responses, questions and input.

The past is returned to life in the present using interaction with the audience, animation, video, and other contemporary technologies television, radio, wireless equipment, the internet. Gentry will also call upon contemporary, secular heroes and villains as a source for wizardly interpretation for this one night performance. Gathered from a wide range of historic and rarely seen images and documents including the notebooks of Dee himself, Magickal Realism offers a fascinating insight into British history and contemporary culture. http://www.alistairgentry.demon.co.uk/MagickalRealism.htm

Magickal Realism has been supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts, and by ArtSway Associates programme funded by The Leverhulme Trust.

Alistair Gentry is an artist and writer who works nationally and internationally in video, animation, installation, drawing, photography, performance, text and programming. He is the author of two published novels, and is currently writing another.

He has exhibited at galleries and festivals throughout the UK, Europe and Asia including la Biennale di Venezia, the Edinburgh Film Festival and the International Symposium on Electronic Art. His work often involves oratory, storytelling, historical and contemporary folklore, esoterica and Forteana of the British Isles, mainland Europe and Asia.

Recent work is extensively researched, sometimes using scientific or academic methodology in earnest, sometimes pataphysically or satirically. He has been artist in residence at the University of Edinburgh’s Genomics Policy & Research Forum (2006-2007) and in 2007 at the Contemporary Art Terminal in Shenzhen, China. In 2004-2005 he was awarded an Artist’s Fellowship by English Heritage and Arts Council England to live and work the English/Scottish border making new films for ‘Phantom Power’, a solo exhibition about the persistence of ancient stories in modern forms. He is an Associate Artist at ArtSway.

ArtSway is a unique place in the UK’s New Forest to see, discuss, make and engage with contemporary visual art. A purpose-built and architecturally important gallery space hosts a changing programme of exhibitions and wide-ranging creative opportunities for all.

ArtSway Associates is ArtSway's continuing professional development programme for ten artists who have previously undertaken an ArtSway residency. The programme offers critical support, advocacy, training and seed funding for creative activity over three years. ArtSway Associates is financially supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Arts Council England.

Alistair Gentry: Magickal Realism
Date: Wednesday 24 February 2010, 7.30pm open, 8.00pm start
Location:Church Street, Colchester, Essex CO1 1NF
Contact: Box Office Tel 01206 500900 – Buy Online at www.colchesterartscentre.com

Artsway Extra Coach Service:
For the opening of this exhibition ArtSway have organised a free coach which will leave from Tate Britain at 5.30pm and return to London for 12am.
Cost: Free
Places will be limited. If you are interested please contact Jack Lewis on 01590 682260 (+6) or email: jack.lewis@artsway.org.uk