Supernormal Festival 2012 details

A development from the 15-year-long Braziers International Artists’ Workshop, and now in its third year, SUPERNORMAL hugely expands its component of contemporary visual art. Alongside independent galleries and artist-run spaces more than 50 individual artists have been invited to create work during the festival, some of it constructed on site with direct audience involvement.  At SUPERNORMAL 'Experiment' is not a dirty word and the avant-garde is for everyone.  

This year's SUPERNORMAL welcomes Brighton-based underground legends Tatty Seaside Town and UK-wide experimentalists  Bang The Bore as guest musical curators, and they’ve excelled themselves in assembling a diverse and invigorating selection of cult curiosities and boundary-breaking iconoclasts, from Warp Records’ electronic pioneers Seefeel to the Dutch psych leviathans Silvester Anfang II and British drone-rock veterans The Telescopes to acoustic and folk-based acts like Caroline Weeks and The Mary Hampton Cotillion, and way beyond into the outermost reaches of innovation and experimentation.   

SUPERNORMAL is an intimate event for an audience of five hundred, a non-profit event entirely organised and curated by a small network of artists and musicians who share its aims and ethos. The event takes place on an eco-site with fresh running water, eco toilets and hot outdoor showers with a wooded camping area.

A world away from the financially motivated and nondescript British festival circuit, SUPERNORMAL replaces its humdrum played-out atmosphere with a true sense of adventure; a unique experience somewhere between an early 70s Glastonbury and an eccentric village fete.

In short, SUPERNORMAL is the alternative’s alternative.

LIVE MUSIC

After the Rain/ANTA/Barnabas Yianni/Bilge Pump/Black Octagon/Black Tempest (Space Opera)/Bleeding Heart Narrative/ Bolide Awkwardstra/Bugbrand/Caroline Weeks/Cold Pumas /CoverGirl/Daniel Alexander Hignell DOGEESEEGOD/Dr Bluegrass & The Illbilly 8/Embla Quickbeam/Fairhorns/Fat Bicth/Gary Goodman + Nick Hudson/Gigantes/Hamilton Yarns/Hey Colossus/Hexenvurfolgung/James Blackshaw/Joeyfat/JonWood/Kogumaza/La La Vasquez/Lonesome Cowboys From Hell/Mary Hampton Cotillion/Nil/One Unique Signal/Patrick Fitzgerald/Plurals/Purson/Ragnaarok/Sauna Youth/Seefeel/Scotch Bonnet/Shudder Pulps/Sly and the Family Drone/Sticks/Stig Noise/Sweet Williams/Sylvester Anfang II/Team Sports/Thee Bald Knobbers/The Black Neck Band of the Common Loon/The Cosmic Dead/The Family Elan/The Pheromoans/The Telescopes/The Wandering Hand Society/Trojan Horse/Twenty One Crows/Undersmile/VENTS (Emily Breeze)/Woolf/Workin Man Noise Unit/You're Smiling Now But We'll All turn into DEMONS/Zero Map

ARTISTS

Aditi Kulkarni/Bermuda Triangle Test Transmission/Brian Duggan/Bristol Driving School/Campbell Works/Chooc Ly Tan/Claire Kennedy/Coffee and Sponge/Cool Diabang/Emergent Behaviour/Erdal Eles/Fiona MacDonald & John Holland/Gaynor O’Brien/Gert-Rude/Ginko/Hackney Secular Choir /Holly Slingsby/Hula Dog/Jarek Hubloj/Jarek Hubloj/Jerrica /John Hughes/Jordan McKenzie & Aaron Williamson/Juan Gabriel Guittirez /Juan / PabloEchiverri/Kay Walsh/Kisito Assangni/Lupa Connection/Lee Campbell/Lina Hakim/Live Timeline Actions/Motorcycle Showroom/NCP: Baz V. Concrete Famine/Ortelius Drew/Pantomime Pony/Post Fems Postal Service/Rest Area/Ruth Marx/Ryan Hughes/Samar/Sender Brocken Field Research/Society is Possible/Structures & Spaces/Susanne Pillar/The Analogue Photographer's Magic Show/The Love of It/Tom Woolner/Various Artists is Dead/Spike McGarrity/Will Cruikshank/Wondermenttable

Supernormal Festival lineup and details

SUPERNORMAL’s atmosphere is reminiscent of an early Glastonbury combined with the artistic ambition of a non-elitist Glyndebourne and a Utopian vision of experiment and inclusion.
 
SUPERNORMAL’s manifesto harks back to the days of the artist-led do-it-yourself festivals of the 60’s & 70’s – a far cry from the corporate machines of many of today’s affairs.  
 
SUPERNORMAL is a 3-day determinedly non-commercial arts and music festival investigating amongst other things, the power of arts practice, cult music and experimentation to reshape the festival format through collective action. It takes place in the grounds of Braziers Park with its 17th Century mansion eccentrically restored in the Strawberry Gothic style (which is itself home to Britain’s oldest secular community and was the childhood home of both Marianne Faithful and Ian Fleming) all in 50 acres of verdant Chiltern landscape. SUPERNORMAL joins the dots between art, music, performance and film – staging both impromptu spectacle and more timetabled events. 
 
Guest music curators Rocket Recordings present a rare live appearance from psychedelic noise band Skullflower, with Gnod & Teeth of the Sea sharing the stage with artists that inspired them. The legendary Cindytalk bring their hard-edge  Romanticism and ethereal vocals to an audience who knew there was beauty way before Antony Hegarty arrived on the scene. The audience is also invited to bring along their best and worst cassette tapes to the Mix Tape Amnesty Lounge and to contribute to the Supernormal Zine. A film the same length as an album is screened. A 1957 caravan – Mobile Cottage Industry, is re-appropriated as a black and white thatched cottage. Music and film experiment An Island features. Let Me Feel Your Finger First stage a performative lecture frighteningly titled Post-Colonial Cannibal. 
 
Further guest co-curator Heidi Heelz brings an esoteric mix of scratchy punk from The Cravats, disturbing electro from mAn-fLu and super-8 comedy-classic The Weakerman not to mention Sing-along-a-Wickerman. Hákarl (communion) encourages improvisation and collaboration whilst staging an epic 36 hour continuous musical escapade to bridge the gap between artist and audience. An artwork becomes a venue for performance and live music is a visual intervention. Beer is served by artist-builders from a cement mixer whilst long drinks are mixed in a sandblaster. Outside of the festival parameters, Kosmiche collaborators GNOD run a pirate stage completely at odds with the programme.  More acts will be confirmed and more surprises revealed.
 
Emerging from the annual Braziers International Artists Workshop started in 1995, SUPERNORMAL is a radical interpretation of that blueprint, intended to give the arts a far wider audience and artists a far greater challenge than the usual artists’ Residency.  It offers an opportunity for dialogue, exchange and experiment in a way that benefits all in an environment where risks can be taken and leaps of imagination can occur. Independent artist-run spaces like Black Dogs, Liverpool Space-Station Sixty-Five, Pitt Studio, Various Artist, Broadwalk Arts and Studio1.1 London amongst others will be presenting a range of artists to challenge and change received ideas of what the proper environment for the visual arts actually is.
 
SUPERNORMAL is a non-funded not-for-profit event organised and curated by a small network of artists and musicians who share the aims and ethos of this truly alternative festival which can only happen due to their tireless work and the help of like-minded people pitching in and just getting involved. The organisers work for SUPERNORMAL entirely without pay.
 
SUPERNORMAL continues the tradition of anti-establishment counter-cultural activity dating back to the Second World War, via the site of Braziers Park home to Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research; a community driven by collective action, striving for social co-existence. A film will be shown of archive footage from the sixties of the likes of R.D.Laing, Alexander Trocchi and John Latham all contributing to the revolutionary Braziers spirit.
 
SUPERNORMAL is an intimate event for an exclusive audience of five hundred, allowing the exploration of the site and out-buildings where a whole range of events will take place. Braziers Park is an eco-site with fresh running water, eco toilets and hot outdoor showers with a wooded camping area.

http://supernormalfestival.org.uk/

Supernormal Lineup

Bands/Live Music
Primordial Undermind
Skullflower
Teeth of the Sea
Thoughtforms
Gnod
Cindytalk
The Cravats
Fuzzy Lights
Emily Breeze
The Nuns
DogFeet
mAn-fLu
Night of the Long Swords
Contempt of Effort
Arthur Brick
Monkey Island
Lin Sangster
Warewolves
Proxy Music
The Envelopes
Georgie Huntley
The A Band
Neurotic Mass Movement
Bang Stroke Blow
Ratface
Medicine and Duty
Cold in Berlin
Black Moth
Black Tempest
Z+
Flats
 
D.J’s
Born Bad
Jimmy the Fingers
GlamRacket DJs
Dirtytalk
The Wildbunch DJs
DJ Surrenda
The House D.J’s
Echoes and Dust D.J’s
 
Spectacles
The Mixtape Amnesty Lounge
Fuckwit Productions Bar
Hackney Secular Singers – Punk Choir
Supernormal Superstore
Caravan Disco
Hákarl (communion)
Sing-a-long-a-Wickerman
Let me feel your finger first: POST-COLONIAL CANNIBAL
 
Artists
Sandy Vella
Working Mens Klub
Yoke & Zooms Mobile Cottage Industry
Richard Ashrowan
Various Artists
Others TBC
 
Art Spaces

Black Dogs, Liverpool Space-Station Sixty-Five, Pitt Studio, Various Artist, Broadwalk Arts and Studio1.1 London