Luke Owain Boult looks ahead to the Cardiff Contemporary arts festival and the lasting impact it hopes to have on the city.
Back for 2016 is Cardiff’s biennial festival of international arts, Cardiff Contemporary. Taking inspiration from Marconi’s breakthrough radio signal in 1897, when he sent the world’s first ever wireless communication over open sea from Flat Holm Island to Penarth’s Lavernock Point, this year’s theme is communication. The title of the theme, Are You Ready?, are the words Marconi used in this message. Four years later, Marconi and George Kemp sent the first ever transatlantic signal. For this fourth edition, Cardiff Contemporary have asked artists to consider Marconi’s project, and how it’s developed into the modern age with constant communication.
For 31 days, there will be 10 new commissions from Wales-based and international artists, including a permanent sculpture on Cardiff’s waterfront and the reuse of two of the city’s derelict landmarks, where artists will communicate their ideas around the world, leaving a lasting mark on the city. The festival’s hub this year is the historic Angel Hotel, from which commissions will spread around Cardiff. October is a month filled with artistic celebration across the city: Cardiff Contemporary coincides with the seventh instalment of prestigious international arts festival Artes Mundi and the city-wide Swn Festival, one of the best events in Cardiff to discover rising musicians.
This year’s lineup of artists includes Megan Broadmeadow’s Let The Stars Be Set Upon The Board, an installation inspired by the Antikythera Mechanism. The ancient Greek bronze instrument contains multiple moving parts and has been described as the earliest analogue computer. Broadmeadow will use this seismic archaeological discovery as the basis for a new sculptural work. Laura Ford’s Keepers Of The Wall will add a mysterious something to a Cardiff city centre landmark, combining fantasy with political reality – it’s anyone’s guess what, as it’s being kept secret. Czech artist Roman Štětina’s collaboration with curator Louise Hobson Shave And A Haircut – Two Bits is a collection of works in a city centre street that requires the public to pass through to become active, promising to reference Marconi and the success and reassurance of the radio.
Robert Montgomery’s Cardiff Poem 2016 works with neon, fire, billboards, painting and print, creating breathtaking pieces in public spaces across Europe, fusing poetry with art. Montgomery’s piece will be on display facing Cardiff Central Station, welcoming travellers. Heather and Ivan Morison’s Love Me Or Leave Me Alone (LMOLMA) is work that is simultaneously art, architecture and theatre. The duo will build their first permanent public building, inspired by Norwegian stave churches, and 1960s West Coast American beach shacks serving as food and drink outlets in Cardiff Bay. Anthony Shapland’s The Hand That Makes The Sound explores signwriting as an art form, while Charles Danby and Rob Smith’s Limelight reflects upon the canals, quarries, tramways and kilns that fed the heavy industries in south Wales. They will use digital technology to stream live feeds reflecting on this history to an unannounced city centre location and online, with burning quicklime illuminating the broadcast.
Richard James and Angharad Van Rjiswijk team up with comedian and writer Stewart Lee and Andy Fung in The Hill Of Dreams. This audiovisual installation is based on the psychogeography of childhood and the wider themes explored in Arthur Machen’s book of the same name. Richard and Angharad will travel to locations from their childhoods in Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and the southern Netherlands to record the landscapes. Their findings will be built upon by Stewart Lee recording an original narration for the installation, while Andy Fung will paint a complimentary work based on his Trinidadian upbringing.
Cardiff’s tactileBOSCH’s Garden Of Earthly Delights is a multi-media exhibition in Cardiff Bay’s Old Post Office, collecting together site specific videos, paintings, photography, cabaret, performance art and more. Cardiff’s multi-aspect community space and indoor skate park Spit & Sawdust also team up with Edwin Burdis in a project that draws parallels with skate culture and art, looking at the experimental outcomes.
Cardiff Contemporary, various venues across Cardiff. Thurs 20 Oct-Sat 19 Nov. Admission: prices vary per event. Info: www.cardiffcontemporary.co.uk