Alchemy/Schmalchemy – Geoff Bright, Gillian Whiteley and Walt Shaw– operates with a set of practices and activities which play with the idea of alchemy and – consciously parodying notions of authentic transformation and contrived artifice – schmalchemy. The punning assemblage – Alchemy/Schmalchemy – delineates a spoofed oscillatory space of mischief and problematisation in which the live performance makes itself (un)known.
The group uses ritually arranged ‘scientific’ apparatus and adorn spaces with a range of found votive objects and materials – bottles, coloured liquids, microscopes, pipes, mirrors, projections, from antique projection apparatus, pendulums etc. Acoustic musical instruments are combined with ramshackle low-tech sound-producing equipment: this might include an ancient harmonium (pedal-driven), an old mechanical gramophone alongside low-tech electronics. Soundworks produced have an emphasis on intensity, through highly focused and energised attention, which can build to quite ‘electrical’ levels and then in an instant dissipate, disappear and reappear to be built up again in repeated cycles. Alchemy/Schmalchemy has even .been known to drill through walls and Earth, Air, Fire and Water have all made an appearance.
Manifestations
WEDNESDAY 1pm 17th October 2018
Alchemy/Schmalchemy
Manifestation VII – Rhodiacéta (Re-) Response
Martin Hall Exhibition Space, Loughborough – Listen to a 6mins audio excerpt of the performance here
TUESDAY 5pm 11th July 2017
Alchemy/Schmalchemy
Manifestation VI Manchester
Provocations, Improvisations: Encounters between Art, Sciences & Qualitative Research
Summer Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University
TUESDAY 5pm 6th July 2015
Alchemy/Schmalchemy
Manifestation V Manchester
Provocations, Improvisations: Encounters between Art, Sciences & Qualitative Research
Summer Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University
SATURDAY 9pm 6th December 2013
Alchemy/Schmalchemy
Manifestation IV-Sheffield
Showroom, Sheffield
SATURDAY 3pm 13th May 2013
Alchemy/Schmalchemy
Manifestation III Bradford
New Bradford Playhouse, Bradford
SATURDAY 3pm 24th November 2012
Alchemy/Schmalchemy
Manifestation II Bradford
Fabric, Bradford – Watch the video of the performance here
SATURDAY 8pm 28th JULY 2012
Alchemy/Schmalchemy
Manifestation 1 Sheffield
Bank Street Arts, Sheffield
