(Algo|Afro) Futures presents a return of the Creative Coding Circles for 2025! These will be a series of free, relaxed and casual meetups for Black artists and musicians interested in learning about live coding for music and visuals. Across three sessions beginning 25th March and taking place at Vivid Projects, we will be sampling beginner-friendly […]

Black Hole Club returns for 2025 with a focus on nurturing creative practice through sociability, making a space to share and discover with the support of others. The socials are by invitation and are gathering artists and creators to join us at our Allison St Site and build a culture of exchange together. Our aim […]

Observe Protocol is a work in development by Vivid Lab resident Oscar Cass-Darweish hosted onsite at Vivid Projects. The work represents the invisible interactions that persistently take place between our digital devices in real time within our building at Allison St. Once you enter the space your devices will be interacting with and changing the […]

We are very excited to be welcoming new proposals for artists to take up residency with us as part of Vivid Lab in 2025. Vivid Lab offers an environment for artists to develop projects that explore new processes, ideas, techniques and critical thinking. The Lab operates year-round and we welcome proposals for activities in 2025 […]

This autumn Oscar Cass-Darweish – an artist, creative coder and web developer with an interest in the struggle for autonomy in our daily interactions with hardware, software and code – takes up a Vivid Lab residency. Oscar’s artistic and critical methods are used in projects, artworks and workshops focusing on the value of unpacking digital […]

Part of a programme of archival research, We Did It Together brings Internationally acclaimed artist Gary Stewart to Birmingham to lead a series of creative digital workshops in community libraries. Gary is known for his innovative practice spanning art, technology, and social engagement, and will be delving deep into our archive of 1980s-90s materials capturing […]

ways towards something + Radio Stall On July 5th 2024, collaborative sound collective ways towards something gathered to sound Vivid Projects out of Minerva Works and celebrate the practices held onsite since 2013. For Sound Out they were joined by Radio Stall who recorded and broadcast the work that manifested onsite. You can listen to […]

Exhibition at The Exchange Vivid Lab resident Exodus Crooks is exhibiting new work titled We need 2 tlk, at The Exchange, Birmingham, as part of AI FUTURES. Taking the form of a moving image installation, and working in collaboration with movement artist Chelsea Gordon,We need 2 tlk explores public perceptions of AI, and how technological developments have […]

A conversation with Dr Ian Sergeant and Antonio Roberts and more Ahead of his solo exhibition at Vivid Projects in May, artist Antonio Roberts sat down with Dr Ian Sergeant for an in-depth discussion about his work, which you can listen to here. ‘A Boy is a Gun’ is an exploration of stereotypical roles within […]

In April 2024 we screened two timely films exploring the legacy, aesthetic strategies and histories of the 1980s UK Black Film Workshops. South, Morgan Quaintance, 2020, 28 minutes Taking two anti-racist and anti-authoritarian liberation movements in South London and Chicago’s South Side as a point of departure, South presents an expressionistic investigation of the power of individual and collective voice. […]

Homeland: a night of films curated by Candice Nembhard for all fruits ripe series.  Homeland brought together the work of directors exploring Germany’s regressive attitudes towards racism, class and ethnicity through the lens of queer relationships, migration, housing and grief. The works ask us to reconsider the liberal label of modern Germany by digging into […]

In February we welcomed back Dirty Draws for another queer life drawing session! This installment centred around their take on Valentines with the theme of ‘The Greek Loves’. Attendees could expect, in their words; “a steamy little life drawing class, where we explore the many different types of passions the Ancient Greeks gave name to. […]

West Midlands based British-Jamaican multi-disciplinary artist, educator and writer Exodus Crooks has developed a series of exhibitions with the support of Vivid Lab. Common themes in their practice include the relationship with the self, which often manifests as questions regarding the possibility of self-actualisation, spirituality, domesticity, dispair, passion and longing. Recent works developed with Vivid […]

A Celebration of ten years of Black Hole Club We opened our 2024 programme with the second instalment of Cosmic Modelling, marking part two of an exhibition celebrating ten years of supporting artists through Black Hole Club. Through processes of creative practice, experimentation, collaboration and mentoring, we have worked with close to 90 artists through […]

ways towards something are a collaborative group who are convening on a monthly basis from January 2024 to June 2025 with Vivid Lab to produce experimental sound that harnesses the spirit and aesthetic of DIY. They work with open-source software and low-cost tools and instruments to research what manifests when creative momentum is given time […]

Cosmic Modelling was presented as a two-part exhibition that celebrated ten years of supporting artists growth through Black Hole Club. Running from November 2023 and February 2024 it was a celebration of experimentation, collaboration and creativity. As Black Hole Club moves forward to a new iteration after working with close to 90 artists through our […]

A Reflection on Samiir Saunders’ Residency On 11th November 2023, Samiir Saunders hosted.‘Exit Strategy’, the closing event of their 2022-23 Vivid Lab residency. Samiir’s residency focused on researching themes of shame, coercion, and free will, in order to further develop their interactive performance work titled Mind Control Victims Anonymous. During the residency, Samiir also created […]

Queer Life Drawing A life drawing session which focused on artistic freedom and exploring the queer experience through (crass) art exercises. The aim was to encourage play and creation through a number of absurd briefs that Dirty Draws hope would make you giggle. High concepts, low brow –like soiled lingerie or Lambrini in a crystal […]

An evening of dancing, tea and horoscopes. Maxx Gentleman presented an uncomfortable exploration of Australiana convict heritage in a Queer Horror context within a kitchen disco environment set to a Donna Summer and Sonic Youth infused live soundrack. Maxx incorporated elements of previous performances KITCHEN DISCO HOME INVASION and SOUNDTRACK to create [sombre music fades out], […]

A Medical Drag Transthology Brought to you by XYZ Projects (CIC), Dr XYZ is a satirical take on the healthcare service announcements of the 1960s and 70s. The purpose of the project is to act as a training film for the current NHS England staff, equipping them to give trans and non-binary patients the level of […]

In August 2023, Vivid Projects + Ikon programmed a series of free performances curated by Vivid Projects for Passionate Pilgrim, Melati Suryodarmo’s first UK solo exhibition. Suryodamo is one of Indonesia’s most important living artists, known for her strenuous durational performances that last several hours, testing the limits of mind and body. This programme was […]

Digbeth First Friday This Digbeth First Friday we are delighted to present an evening of live algorhythmic performances by the artists  participating in the 2023 programme, produced by the amazing Antonio Roberts and supported by Tyger Blue who took part in 2022. Join us for a series of live sets which promise to be intriguing, […]

Artist, performer and musician Antonio Roberts works with technology in innovative ways, exploring authorship, gaming, digital and reproduction. In the Spring of 2024, his Vivid Lab research residency focused on developing an experimental narrative fiction game using Twine software. This work was showcased from May 3rd to May 11th 2024 in a solo exhibition at Vivid […]

Between 2022 and 2023, Birmingham-based, multimedia poet, artist and performer Samiir Saunders developed work with us under Vivid Lab. The focus of thier residency was on researching themes of shame, coercion, and free will, in order to further develop their interactive performance work which took the form of Mind Control Victims Anonymous, which took place […]

During her Vivid Lab residency, Hannah Sawtell developed the project Useful Tools an innovative collective project that celebrates women, technology and sonics in the West Midlands.   Useful Tools is a project that is mindful of collective & common ownership of the means of production, skill sharing and also access. The project will be developed with […]

Performance – Workshop this is a group performance after all… Samiir Saunders is a queer, Black, mixed-media poet based in Birmingham. Samiir is undertaking research to explore mental health, free will, coercion and the relationship between an audience and a performer as part of their Vivid Projects research residency funded by Arts Council England. On […]

Matters of Interest For this edition of Matters of interest, we invited the public to Mol’s first ever IRL workshop at Vivid Projects, with Black Hole Club during Digbeth First Friday. In this first-ever IRL MoI, we explored the re-cultivated land of the ‘library’ themed reader that we developed with others during an online workshop […]

SCREENINGS ‘a ROLE to PLAY’ Esther Johnson (2019) PUT PEOPLE FIRST TURC Video/BFW (1983) PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT  TURC Video (1988) Stories of contemporary workers struggles. Esther Johnsons’s 2019 film, ‘a ROLE to PLAY’ was co-commissioned by Animate Projects and Junction Arts as part of the WORK project. The film tells stories of the impact of […]

In winter 2021, Black Hole Club invited audiences to The New Earth for a programme of events that evolved through experiment, process and conversation. Over four days, activities and work responded to a cycle of terrestrial events: from arrival, exploration, trading to rewilding. Each day was a response to a new and unknown environment, the […]

Pádraig Condron Vivid Live, in partnership with Shout Festival, presented a sharing of newly developed work by Pádraig Condron in 2021. Pádraig Condron is an Irish Italian queer body, finding catharsis in an autoethnographic practice. Their theory-led practice aims to untangle personal experiences; considering the human body, distinct from the mind, as a space we inhabit […]

Videotheque offsite “When you’re redeveloping a city, it shouldn’t be in the small print, ‘this is for men only, this is for the able bodied only“ Heather Powell’s 1988 film Paradise Circus – made with the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop – features as part of the How We Live Now: Reimagining Spaces with Matrix […]

Black Hole Club Throughout the week of the summer solstice, Black Hole Club invited audiences to turn away from the sun and revel in the shadows. DOOM was a co-authoring of works for the longest day of the year, a guttural collective outpouring through performance, video and the testing of new propositions through practice and […]

Continuing the live performance series as part of their CO(VID) residency, George Saxon and Ryan Sehmar  – working under the moniker of Spect. Anon –  have developed a fourth online live event, ‘EAR(th) WORMS’. This new performance work is an exploration of auditory hallucinations, playing with layers of reality and temporality. “Descending into an ecstasy of […]

Spect. Anon Spect. Anon was live on Instagram at 16:00, Sunday 28 February for the third streamed performance of their CO(VID) residency, which took place in a shared creative isolation. “… you remind me of my birth, that was quiet until i was disposed into the world, i gave pain to my mother, my birth was […]

Artists Newsletter #1: The 1980’s In 2021 we announced Artists Newsletter #1: The 1980’s edition edited by Black Hole Club. This was the first of a new series of publications celebrating the a-n archive, and Black Hole Club were commissioned to unearth the past, probe the present, and look to the future. For Artists Newsletter #1: […]

Spect. Anon CO (VID) artist residency Under the moniker of SPECT. ANON. George Saxon and Ryan Sehmar are working with Vivid Projects as part of a year-long residency to re-imagine worlds under curfew during a shared self-isolation. A series of events, referred to as interludes and intervals, are developing within the environment of an empty […]

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery vs Black Hole Club. For Cut Copy Remix, artists Alis Oldfield, Rosa Francesca and Leanne O’Connor – all from our development programme Black Hole Club  – were co-commissioned alongside artist Mixed Milk to explore the creative potential of Birmingham Museums Trust’s Digital Image Resource. Birmingham Museums Trust is the only collection […]

In 2020 Vivid Projects and Vivid Live were pleased to announce VLTV, a series of Live Art works made to be experienced digitally and available for seven days on our Vimeo channel. A new artwork was presented each week every Friday at 7pm. Curators Introduction: Hello.What is VLTV? Drawing from the public access tv stations […]

Black Hole Club presented a Mayday Reader of work and conversations that asked, what holds value for us in this present?  Who is there for us right now and who do we want to hear from? Do we want to start or stop, in times marked by rolling news, tech trillionaires, isolated shopping and clapping for […]

Black Hole Club’s Winter Season Through November and December 2019, Black Hole Club programmed Under Different Stars, a constellation of events with their cohort. The season included Crit Clubs, live art installations, a residency by Kirsty Clarke that responded to and joined our activities and a day of conversations for BHC with Schüle Wampe at […]

selina bonelli Vivid Live in association with Fierce Festival presented (un)certain twitches – a new work by selina bonelli. Lip lock: a twitch used on the lip of a horse that can allow minor procedures to be carried without the use of sedation (no guarantees). Muscle twitching: the involuntary effect of unconscious muscle contractions. selina bonelli’s work looked […]

In 2019 Vivid Projects announced Bcc: an international group exhibition co-presented by Decoy Magazine (Vancouver) and Vivid Projects (Birmingham).  The exhibition drew from Decoy Magazine’s unique email subscription programme, which commissioned new work by digital artists around the world from 2016 to 2019. The programme used a collective patronage model and endeavoured to protect the […]

Emily Roderick & Emily Warner Coming together to disrupt each other’s practice, Emily Roderick and Emily Warner presented new collaborative work that translated and tangled their artistic processes. Pointing their interests toward physical adaption and digital dysfunction, Emily and Emily performatively explored the capacity of their attention and the reductive structures that frame understanding. They […]

In 2019 Adam Lewis Jacob undertook a one year residency with Vivid Projects as part of WORK, a project to produce films exploring ideas and the realities of what ‘work’ means for the ways we live today, engaging directly with the experiences of contemporary working lives. The project was developed by Animate Projects and delivered […]

Screening & Talk Two and a half thousand people marched with veteran Birmingham activist and campaigner Muhammad Idrish through Handsworth to Birmingham City Centre on 8th October 1983. Their simple slogan : ‘Muhammad Idrish Must Stay – Stop the Deportation!’ Vivid Projects and BM&AG proudly presented Here To Stay! Here To Fight!, a screening of […]

Digital Collaboration Salon An artist salon to discuss and present recent creative media bursaries developed with our artist cohort Black Hole Club. Participating artists include Edie Jo Murray, Carol Breen, Matthew Evans and Yoke Collective. Curator and artist Antonio Roberts will open the session with a presentation on open source software, free culture and collaborative […]

In BAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Love, artist Adam Lewis Jacob hosted an event that presented existing material both from the TURC (Trade Union Resource Centre) archives, his own artistic practice and contextual references across artists film, photography, cartoons and sound. The TURC archives held by Vivid Projects incorporate a number of radical materials including community video and grassroots […]

VIDEO – DATA Featuring The Vasulkas, Steina,  Michael Lightborne, Sarah M Farmer, Shelly Knotts, co34pt, Heavy Lifting, Coral, Mike Dring, Sian Macfarlane, jack_mugglestone, Carol Breen & Matthew Evans, hellocatfood Mediafest Part Two explored how the domestic cathode ray tube TV set, video tapes, the CD and the laptop have driven the aesthetics and politics of […]

SLIDE TAPE is a limited edition book drawn from the 2013 series of exhibitions, artist’s residency, events and symposium held at Vivid Projects, Birmingham and Loughborough University Arts. The publication and original exhibition programme emerged from a curatorial collaboration between Yasmeen Baig-Clifford, Director of Vivid Projects and Mo White. A broad description of slide-tape is that it is […]

Vivid Projects is pleased to announce MEDIAFEST, a one month exhibition juxtaposing new media art works by UK artists with innovators from the 1970s-80s. The season includes live audio installations, performances, screenings and discussions, culminating in an Algorave on 27/10 for Museums at Night, 2018. Weeks 1 & 2 | 5-6 October | 11-13 October […]

The Viscerisahood returned for an evening of performance and installation to open HER HORROR. They warned attendees to expect the unexpected .. Transmutation which blurs the boundaries between gender, creation, destruction and the human need to procreate and attach personality to the inanimate. The body fluids of femininity, life giving milk and blood, and the […]

A Line Between The Heavens and The Soil In association with Supersonic festival 2018 we presented Ferric Lux. Exponent of blackened techno and ritual, Ferric Lux returned to unleash an unholy mix of ambient noise, esoteric techno and black metal, scored over distorted, flickering images received from another plane. An event not for the faint […]

Birmingham Dance Network in association with Vivid Live During May and June 2018, Birmingham Dance Network in collaboration with Vivid Live was in residence with ChoreoMatch: creating a space for dancers, choreographers and artists to experiment with an untested idea and meet new collaborators. After stepping into the unknown and working at Vivid Projects for […]

Embrace your dark side and experience HER HORROR. A darkly ecstatic blend of ritual, body horror and transformation as we celebrate the bicentenary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. EVENTS HER HORROR | Opening performances 15 June, 18:30-21:00 | FREE | Exhibition continues 16 & 21-23 June, 12:00-17:00 Vicky Roden works through performative and object based practice […]

FEMME FERAL “In tough times, everyone has to take their share of the pain” Theresa May ‘THIS IS OUR AMBITIOUS VISION as we are ENGAGED IN A STRUGGLE THAT IS FOUGHT ON MANY FRONTS AND IN MANY FORMS we are TAKING CONTROL OF OUR OWN AFFAIRS and it is VITAL WE MAINTAIN OUR DISCIPLINE keeping ourselves […]

Repeator Interdisciplinary collective REPEATOR presented a pop-up installation responding to newly digitised 80’s archive, beginning with workers campaigns against discrimination, original campaign print materials and audio from TURC Video and the Birmingham Trade Union Resource Centre. This rich archive of community media and early media arts production was inherited by Vivid Projects in 2013. In […]

SHOUT Festival Twiggy Birmingham Slap in the Face is serving a multi-media art show extravaganza that penetrates the inner workings of the creative and twisted mind of Twiggy Birmingham (aka Christopher Twig). Twiggy Birmingham is an ongoing creative project spanning over three decades that takes the body, costume, adornment and performance to the level of […]

Do you remember the Handsworth Cultural Centre?  Vivid Projects and Collecting Birmingham put together a series of events that explored some of the hidden histories of Birmingham, contained in their archives and collections. This special event at Soho House comprises a rare screening of African Oasis (1982), a documentary exploring the former Handsworth Cultural centre and a […]

No Copyright Infringement Intended was a group exhibition, curated by Antonio Roberts, exploring the relationship between copyright and culture in the digital age, investigating how the concept of ownership and authorship is evolving and coming into conflict with outdated copyright and intellectual property laws. Since the 1990s the internet has provided the opportunity for mass […]

Black Hole Club and Vivid Projects presented Superseded, an exhibition reflecting on outdated technologies built for the display and transmission of video signals, inspired by the recent cease in production of VHS players. Superseded featured a screening of Rosa Menkman’s 2012 Collapse of PAL, an audiovisual homage to the now deprecated PAL video signal. Alongside […]

Black Hole Club and Vivid Projects presented an evening of audio experimentations made in response to the deprecation of FM radio transmission and shift away from analogue audio technology. Featuring a live-streamed performance from Chicago-based artist and musician Jeff Kolar, alongside performances and installations from Black Hole Club Artists Alex Billingham, Coral Manton, Daniel Hopkins, […]

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Heath Bunting, MTAA, Rafaël Rozendaal, Critical Art Ensemble, Lorna Mills and Ryder Ripps. Dot.Art was an exhibition and events programme presenting artworks from the first wave of Net.Art alongside more recent projects produced since the rise of web 2.0, social networks and easily accessible search engines. Taking place in Vivid Projects’ […]

Embodiment, augmentation and remixing This lab consisted of demonstrations and critical thinking considering the impact of digital technologies on the innovative British artist Donald Rodney. Artists, curators and technologists examined the artist’s final works, re-defined through embodiment, augmentation and remixing. Participants included: Mike Phillips, Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Director of Research at i-DAT, University […]

Algorave returns to Birmingham to close Vivid Projects’ 2016 exhibition season. An Algorave is a party where electronic music is generated live from algorithms. The word was coined around 2012, initially as a joke, but has since taken hold with Algoraves taking place in over 40 cities around the world.At an Algorave the creation of […]

In collaboration with Birmingham Dance Network and the exhibition, Reimaging Donald Rodney we presented a new work. Dancers Becca Thomas, Suzanne Grubham and Genevieve Say were commissioned to develop a performance in response to Psalms, the late artist Donald Rodney’s autonomous wheelchair. Developed in 1997 for Rodney’s final solo exhibition before his untimely death, the […]

We welcomed audiences to board the free Art Bus and gallery hop between eight of Birmingham’s top art venues. We held a special late viewing of our exhibition, Reimaging Donald Rodney, with na chance to meet the curator and producer, be guided through the works and enjoy some refreshments. Participating venues included: Barber Institute, mac, […]

In 2016 we presented screenings of two important films exploring the artist Donald Rodney’s life: The Genome Chronicles and 3 Songs on Pain Light & Time. The screening included a Q&A with curator Ian Sergeant and Yasmeen baig-Clifford, Director of Vivid Projects. 3 Songs on Pain Light and Time (1995) is a rarely seen video portrait […]

An afternoon exploring Donald Rodney’s work, its relevance and resonance, in a special Collecting Birmingham partnership with Birmingham Museums Trust. An informal two part event, with lots of opportunities to talk, reflect and eat cake. Opinions shared will have a direct impact on what Birmingham Museums collects on behalf of the people of Birmingham, so come […]

Curated by Ian Sergeant & Produced by Yasmeen Baig-Clifford In 2016 we presented Reimaging Donald Rodney, a programme of exhibition and events exploring digital legacy and identity through the work of Black British artist Donald Rodney (1961 – 1998). This was the first UK exhibition to specifically examine Rodney’s digital practice, and included an events […]

Experimental Film Workshop Led by Midlands based artists Sarah Walden, John Bradburn and Ollie MacDonald-Brown. An experiential one-day collaborative workshop celebrating occultism, cut-ups, mash-ups, derailing mass media control, and psychic liberation. Exploring the range of film and image making practices which inform the NOISE + NOSTALGIA exhibition, participants looked at experimental film and image making […]

What is the place of the music video now? Screenings from HOME TAPING and VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR introduced by Yasmeen Baig-Clifford, Director of Vivid Projects followed by a panel discussion with Justin Smith (Fifty Years of British Music Video 1965-2015) and award winning film and music video director Richard Heslop. Launched with a remit […]

Nicholas Bullen, Cathy Wade, Justin Wiggan The Post-Punk era is repackaged for consumers through filters that construct half-truths and diminishing echoes of original events, leaving historic tracks conflicted in their communication with listeners. Presenting works as a live performance installation, Nicholas Bullen, Justin Wiggan and Cathy Wade focused on the role of nostalgia as an […]

In 2016, Vivid Projects presented NOISE + NOSTALGIA, a season of film exhibition, screenings and live events exploring the Post-Punk aesthetic in moving image and sound. The season featured key artists working with film between 1979-87 and examined the means by which moving image culture, it’s making and meaning was disrupted after punk.  Provocative and […]

Death Drawing Class 27 November 2015, 6.30 – 8.30pm Art Macabre, London’s purveyors of ‘death drawing’, inject a lethal dose of theatricality, curiosity and playfulness into the art of drawing from life. Drawing upon concepts, questions and ideas shared earlier in the day, Art Macabre invite you to explore deathly themes through a hands-on, creative […]

Academia meets art Academia meets art; join academics and artists for an afternoon of discussion and film exploring the relationship between creative practice and death. The salon features reflections on the work of artists including Derek Jarman, Ian Breakwell and George Saxon, together with academic perspectives from Universities of Birmingham and Bath. Dr John Troyer/ […]

Forbidden Soviet Music ‘On The Bone’ Many older people in Russia remember seeing and hearing strange vinyl type discs when they were young. The discs had partial images of skeletons on them and were called ‘Bones’ or ‘Ribs’. They are images of pain and damage inscribed with the sound of forbidden pleasure; fragile photographs of […]

Join Vivid Projects this November for an exhibition and events season exploring the surprising and dark side of art and the body. ——————————————————————————- EXHIBITION PROGRAMME: Friday 06 – Saturday 21 November | admission freeX-Ray Audio: Forbidden Soviet Music ‘On The Bone’ Many older people in Russia remember seeing and hearing strange vinyl type discs when they […]

AUTOICON was a dynamic internet work that simulated both the physical presence and elements of the creative personality of the artist Donald Rodney, one of the most significant and essential artists of his generation. After initiating the project, Rodney died from sickle-cell anaemia in March 1998. Re-Imaging – AUTOICON is a research project exploring the digital […]

Polly Hudson with Katye Coe, Charlie Morrissey, Florence Peake, and Daren Pickles Polly Hudson, Katye Coe, Charlie Morrissey and Florence Peake have worked together, in different configurations over two decades, and share underpinning approaches that focus on the viscerality of the body. In the spirit of 9 Evenings, Polly Hudson lead the Vis-er-al  salon, bringing the artists […]

Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer founded the Judson Dance Theater in 1962, the genesis of a movement that proved to be a vital force in modern dance in the following decades. Rainer performed Carriage Discreteness as part of the original 9 Evenings series and it is the only one of her choreographed pieces to incorporate technology into its very structure. Rainer transmitted instructions to the performers, […]

Darren Joyce, George Saxon & Justin Wiggan Drawing on their groundbreaking projects with the health sector, the artists presented new research exploring empathy, nostalgia and recall through audio, performance and film. Their individual contributions were intended to clash, coexist and repel each other.  Justin Wiggan explored the portrayal of nostalgia, drawing from the empathy tests […]

Singer-songwriter Bumi Thomas and Professor Hugh Montgomery, Director of the Institute for Human Health and Performance at University College London, joined for a live music experiment and discussion exploring the connection between the emotional, the medical and the musical. Vivid Projects, in partnership with Body of Songs, invited curious audience members to drop in, listen and observe […]

Robert Rauschenberg Robert Rauschenberg was among the founding members of Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a non-profit organization established to promote collaborations between artists and engineers within in industrial environment. Open Score is a movement piece that was performed as part of the original 9 Evenings series. Robert Rauschenberg derived the content of his performance from the characteristics […]

Work by UK and international artists critiquing surveillance culture. STEALTH, curated by Antonio Roberts, presented recent work by UK and international artists critiquing surveillance culture and the invasive and pervasive technologies that shape our daily interactions. Utilising a variety of media including installations, video, social media and software, the exhibition explored how technology affects and […]

John Cage In 1966, ten New York artists and thirty engineers and scientists collaborated on a series of innovative dance, music and theatre performances: 9 Evenings:Theatre & Engineering. The programme included artist John Cage, whose Variations VII made use of electronic equipment and systems to capture and manipulate sounds present at the time of the performance. […]

Sarah Angliss and Emma Kilbey In this short performance, the breaths and gestures of people in the room seem to be echoed in changes to the everyday clutter around them. Lamps, cups and other objects also play back traces of those who are absent. The participants could choose to observe these events as they unfolded […]

Preview Night In 1966, Billy Klüver of Bell Laboratories initiated 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, a project which brought together ten New York artists and thirty engineers and scientists to collaborate on a series of innovative dance, music and theatre performances which blended avant-garde theatre, dance and new technologies. 9 Evenings became seminal – the event leading to the influential project E.A.T. or Experiments in Art […]

Vivid Projects kicked off 2015 with RADICAL NETWORKS, a programme of aesthetic disruption and questioning of the moving image, ethics and digital legacies. RADICAL NETWORKS took a subcultural perspective, seeking out and introducing practices and tendencies from emerging communities of artists, makers and collectives. We invested in R+D with university and third sector partners to […]

George Saxon and D. John Briscoe (1949-2013) “A masterpiece”“A remarkable heart aching and beautiful experience”“The performance was amazing, the anger & frantic energy” These are audience responses to a groundbreaking exhibition of work exploring the last taboo, dying and death. In 2013 artist George Saxon commenced development on the central work for exhibition, A Record […]

In 2014 Vivid Projects presented a month-long season of exhibitions, provocations and events investigating the impact of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS). ‘Looking Out From The CCCS’ was a snapshot into four decades of Birmingham culture, from indie print to film workshops, 70s clubbers to style magazines, grassroots activists to contemporary artists working with […]

EVENTS PROGRAMME Throughout June 2014, Vivid Projects cast an eye over the key areas of feminism, cultural identity and activism, bringing together people who started out in the Centre with those curious about its legacies to explore the wider impact of Cultural Studies in Birmingham. Artists, writers, social networkers, cultural provocateurs, new young feminists, archivists […]

Design School, Loughborough University In a day of keynote presentations, roundtable discussion and screenings this symposium aimed to broaden the scope of knowledge of the slide-tape, exploring the history, artists and aesthetics of this often overlooked artform since the 1970s and its importance in the field of moving image media. Speakers/Participants included: Michael Archer (Goldsmiths University of London), Yasmeen Baig-Clifford (Director, Vivid Projects), Nina Danino […]

featuring Graham Peet, Carola Adams, Karen Newman and Cathy Wade THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER, 6PMSome Girls – Tape Slides and Posters presented by Carola Adams and Graham Peet The Some Girls poster project with young women in the West Midlands was initiated in 1978, when the National Association of Youth Clubs ran an action research project into the […]

at Library of Birmingham Artist Cathy Wade invited the public to join her during her residency in The Pavilion, at the extraordinary new Library of Birmingham as part of the four month Discovery Season curated by Capsule. CAROUSEL was a unique opportunity to experience making a collective art work with the original slide format. Virtually a lost medium, there is an […]

Artists: Black Audio Film Collective, Ian Breakwell, Nina Danino, Bill Furlong, Sunil Gupta, Tina Keane and Cordelia Swann. The SLIDE/TAPE exhibition offered a fresh appraisal of an abandoned medium. Primarily associated with expanded cinema practice in the 1970s-80s, slide-tape installation expanded definitions of sculpture through setting out a dialogue between still image, sound and the […]

A series of events, perofmances, screenings and exhibitions which took place at Vivid Projects and other locations throughout 2013.

Participation was an exhibition and archive project examining the ‘missing voice’ of independent moving image practice: the film and video workshop movement which was activated by the ACTT ‘Grant-aided Workshop Production Declaration’. Firmly rooted in VIVID’s workshop origins as the Birmingham Centre for Media arts, established in 1992, Participation focused on the emergence of new […]