DECAGRAM ART AND CRAFT

Video: founding event DECAGRAM 1.0 - pairs of bands collaborating with each other and a small orchestra - at The Queen’s Hall Edinburgh, 2013.

Producing events at DECAGRAM has had a profound impact on me and has influenced my approach to digital innovation: first creating a safe space for collaboration, then pushing at the boundaries of the possible.

I have over a decade of experience in project management and creative process innovation at DECAGRAM Art and Craft CIC a ‘profit-to-artists’ beer and events production company and community of creative practice.

I have learned how to produce unique cross-artform events, facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations, co-design project formats and research the needs of artists and performers first-hand.

The evolving multi-year process co-creating a series of ambitious artistic collaborations taught me how the most productive relationships involve not only leading but being led. A striking economy of communication and expression can be reached when a group practices empathy and seeks inclusivity of diverse viewpoints.

Slowing yourself down makes you faster: an attentive, trusting working atmosphere transforms private challenges into shared creative opportunities.

Skills

Event Design · Concept Development · Cross-artform Production · Event Production · Interdisciplinary collaboration · Cross-functional project management

UNFORESEEN I
(Hidden Door Festival 2015)

SOUND + VISION
(Hidden Door Festival 2014)

Founder and Creative Director: DECAGRAM Art and Craft CIC

I generated the concept and brand of DECAGRAM a new craft beer, the proceeds of which went towards musicians, artists and creative projects.

The bottle also displayed a QR code to access a complimentary download of music from artists participating in an event where the beer is being stocked.

There is a problem of fairness and sustainability in the live music industry for emerging artists, whereby they work (and pay for materials) to market their shows for venues, and then they also pay large rents, leading to very low pay per artist even at busy events, and net 'paying to play' at less busy ones.

DECAGRAM beer combats low and precarious pay with a new income stream.

It de-risks artists staging their own events as revenue comes not only from the door take, but also from the bar.

Venue rent could also be paid in-kind with retail beer stock (that cost DECAGRAM less to produce), reducing the cost of staging a professional event while making the venue more money than the cash equivalent (via the onward sale of the beer). A virtuous cycle.

The financial cushion created by this model enabled focus on more boundary-pushing small and medium-sized events, some highlights of which are listed below:

UNFORESEEN I
(Hidden Door Festival 2015)

In 2015 I co-produced, promoted and co-curated an adventurous, multidiscipline collaboration between musicians, artists, academics and audience which is aimed at future iterations taking previous events' work as their starting point

Each event of the four-day run was re-shaped by an interdiciplinary group artists in 24 hours, in light of the effect of the audience’s response in the prior event.

Partners included Anarkik3D (3D digital haptics company), Edinburgh Napier University Digital Design department, Martin Parker (The University of Edinburgh/Edinburgh College of Art), Claire Hills (Project Space), Martin Sweeny (Unstable Creations), DECAGRAM and SuperRational Ltd. Full credits including the artists, are in the video below.

Barriers between performer, medium and audience were challenged, as was the nature and context of creative collaboration and made thought-provoking as well as entertaining by the short turn-around times for the artists’ new iterations.

Video https://vimeo.com/164686162

Review (toward end of article) http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/stage/13411054.Interactive_walls_tumble_as_Hidden_Door_comes_to_a_close/

Two further UNFORESEEN projects took place in 2017:

UNFORESEEN II
(Hidden Door Festival 2017)

Series of three cross artform collaborations combining performance, talks and audience participation featuring artists in dance, motion graphics, improvised electronic music and acoustic music, with guest moderators. (Pictured)

UNFORESEEN III
(Paradigm Electronic Arts festival)

A collaboration featuring unique dance-powered sound app with responsive visual backdrop. Feat. Danjeli Schembri, (Rockstar North, visual tracking and audio code), Marie Williamson (Aerial Dance Theatre, dance), Brendan McCarthy (Ray Interactive, motion graphics and code).

Producer & Performer:
SOUND + VISION
(Hidden Door Festival 2014)

I produced an ambitious event at the third Hidden Door festival with DECAGRAM collective. We organised a seamless feature-length programme of live music complemented by both short film and live visuals, with synchronised performances taking place across two different venue-spaces in the Market Street Vaults, Edinburgh.

An unusual video monitoring system was required to ensure the musicians could keep in time despite the festivals bar and thick walls separating the two stages, and we displayed this on screens that the audience could see, creating a haunting combination of in-the-flesh performance and performance mediated by digital image (which could be witnessed in reverse by wandering through to the other venue).

The event is better described by the footage:

Video: https://vimeo.com/99822312.

Skills: Event Production, Interdisciplinary collaboration

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011

The download portal I co-founded (MSA/tentracks.co.uk - predecessor to DECAGRAM) was appointed an official co-sponsor of Edinburgh International Film Festival’s ‘Soundtracks’ sessions, a new strand for the film festival in 2011 along with Domino Recording Company.

I co-produced an ambitious finale event ‘Music Pictures’, running a competition which resulted in 10 new music videos being made for songs from 10 Scottish bands, and the tracks then being performed live by the artists in front of the videos projected on the big screen at a sell-out performance.

This inspired the cross-artform events direction DECAGRAM took forward.

About Music Pictures: https://www.theguardian.com/edinburgh/2011/may/27/edinburgh-bands-ten-tracks-music-videos-eiff

About Ten Tracks: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/oct/20/tentracks-website