Output details

Bustleholme: a performance with Keith Harrison and Napalm Death

Bustleholm was a live collaboration between Keith Harrison and the ‘grindcore’ band Napalm Death. Initially intended for the V&A and conceived during Harrisons 2012-13 Residency, during which preparatory drawings and models were made. However, this event was cancelled for that venue, in itself resulting in The Times lead article (20 March 2013) that stated in 'Music To Crack Pots By’ that “The V&A may have scrapped one of the great artistic performances of our time……..”. The event was later realized in the Modernist setting of the De La Warr Pavilion in 2013, supported by a £6800 grant from The Arts Council. The tickets for the performance were sold out within six hours of release.

Within this project, as with the companion works by Harrison, and alongside the technical activity – frequently a ‘testing to destruction’ – runs an awareness of social issues: the relationship with the audience, the value of artefacts, references to working class settings and buildings and to popular music.

In this latest exploration of the limits of ceramic practice, using high volume sound, the band play a special live set through an experimental sculptural sound system constructed by Harrison, clad with blue and yellow ceramic tiles. This set of three specially created ceramic sound systems were based on the group of vivid blue and yellow tiled tower blocks on the Bustleholme Mill Estate, West Bromwich where Harrison first lived. Both Napalm Death band members and Harrison grew up in Great Barr, Birmingham and in this event Harrison’s structures were destroyed during the one-off, live performance. (www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3717808.ece)