In 2002 The Light Surgeons played two sell-out shows of their live cinema performance All Points Between at the Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. The events generated such interest that the Tyneside Cinema invited The Light Surgeons to do a residency project in Newcastle.

TLS applied their self-sampling aesthetic to a different kind of filmmaking and took inspiration from the Surrealist parlour game of exquisite corpse. Their idea was to create a portrait of a city through a creative collaboration with its local inhabitants – artists, musicians, writers, photographers and animators observing and commenting on their own city. The films structure would then evolve through a process of mass observation – each participating artist creating elements of the final collage that would represented a chimera of the city. The finished films were also remixed and performed live alongside the original musical scores composed for each film.

The Chimera Project: Newcastle & Gateshead (Duration 28 minutes)

The first experiment brought together Newcastle based artists: Christo Wallers, Jackie Scollen, Steve Bird, Laura Reid, James Postlethwaite, Huw Thomas, Michael Jeffries, Peter Clark, David McClure, Alex McGregor, and Tom Bland. The project was run over a six month period through a series of workshops.

The resulting film is a psychogeographical map of the city through interviews, field recordings, animations and audiovisual tracks. It reflects the city’s people: their hopes and cynicism towards their bid to become European city of culture, their military and seafaring heritage, and their love of football – capturing its fast changing architectural landscape.

Edited by Chris Allen, James Price, and Jude Greenaway

In 2001 The Light Surgeons were approached by Scarlet Projects and asked to produce a visual installation for the news company Bloomberg’s London HQ. Working in collaboration with architects Powell Tuck Associates, TLS designed a three screen video installation and interactive LED ticker display for their reception area along with a video floor installation on a stair way that joined their two buildings.

The content for the video piece was recorded during a six week trip, stopping in seven very different cities around the world. Filming consisted of a series of visual studies focused on movement of people, stock exchanges and trading, transport systems and the rich architectural environment of these modern metropolises.

The final films were carefully edited to evolve ambiently across the screens and were filmed in such a way that the people passing the camera in each country appear projected to scale in the space.

Directed by Christopher Thomas Allen & Jude Greenaway
Camera: Christopher Thomas Allen, James Price & Jude Greenaway
Produced by Becky Gates & Mathew Higgs
Commisioned by Scarlet Projects

In 2002 The Light Surgeons played two sell-out shows of their documentary performance All Points Between at the Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. The events generated such interest, and the Tyneside Cinema invited The Light Surgeons to do a residency project in Newcastle.

TLS sought to apply their self-sampling aesthetic to a different kind of filmmaking and took inspiration from the Surrealist parlour game of exquisite corpse. Their idea was to create a portrait of a city through a creative collaboration with its local inhabitants – artists, musicians, writers, photographers and animators observing and commenting on their own city. The film’s structure would then evolve through a process of mass observation – each participating artist creating elements of the final collage that would represented a chimera of the city. The finished films were also remixed and performed live alongside the original musical scores composed for each film.

The Chimera Project_Middlesborough (Duration 28 minutes)

This film was produced in 2003 as the flagship commission for the first North East AV Festival that brought together the three regional cities of Newcastle, Middlesborough and Sunderland. The project was directed from a production space in the city over that autumn by TLS member James Price as artist in residence and was then edited by The Light Surgeons at their London base.

The local contributing artists were:

Jamie Macdonald, Nicky Peacock, Clive Tonge, Lindsay Roe, Liz McCormack, Sam Harrison, Rayees Rashid, Robert Page, Russell Smith, Marni Henderson, Katherine O’Connor, Imogen Busby, and Marty Collantine.

The film charts a day in the life of this troubled but proud North East town. The industry that gave birth to the urban area is still very present in the town, but large scale unemployment and misguided governance have given the area terrible problems with dereliction, drugs, and prostitution, and a bad image problem in the country at large. The film looks at the people who choose to live there and how a sense of community, love, home, and hope keep them there.

Project Director: James Price
Producer: Becky Gates
Edited by Chris Allen, James Price, Ben Tseng and Jude Greenaway

The Drake Music Project brought together a range of musicians and artists with different abilities and disabilities, to collaborate with each other through a series of creative music workshops. The project was run regionally in the UK and each group presented the results of this collaboration through live performances with a full visual accompaniment from The Light Surgeons.

Collaborating artists: Christopher Thomas Allen, Robert Rainbow & James Price
Project produced by Rebecca Gates
Documentation film by Rob Rainbow & James Price

Commercial show reel of motion graphic production and visual idents created for different fashion brands between 2000 and 2006. These where used in the context of live events, instore marketing and to promote collections as motion “look books”.

Projects include Alexander McQueen, Diesel, Firetrap, Gola, Ringspun and Boxfresh.

Visual Production & Animation: Jude Greenaway, James Price, Chris Allen, Tim Cowie, Yunus Akseki & Luke Best
Producers: Alice Ceresole & Becky Gates
Music: The New Pollutants & Ursula 1000

Audio visual production made for a Topman fashion show in 2002.

Direction: Christopher Thomas Allen
Animations: Jude Greenaway & Christopher Thomas Allen
Producer: Becky Gates
Music mash up: Scanone

Audio visual production made for a Topshop fashion show in 2002.

Direction: Christopher Thomas Allen
Animation: Jude Greenaway & Ruth Mcloud
Producer: Becky Gates
Music mash up: Scanone

The performance was commissioned and developed by onedotzero festival and was toured internationally between 2001 and 2003.
The following excepts from the performance where recorded at the World Wide Video Festival in Amsterdam, 2001.

APB: A WORLD OF EXTORTION

APB: SO YOU KNOW

APB: A PENNY IN MY POCKET

THE 9TH INNING

APB: WILD MAN OF NEW YORK

APB: THE BOOK OF CHANGES

APB: SUICIDAL MELODIES

A full documentation of this performance is availble on the “Lost Leader” DVD, Published by Gasbook in Japan. Three of the original Scanone audio tracks are available on the “Down & out” 12″ record. These tracks are featured below from our Soundcloud.

Collaborating Artists: Christopher Thomas Allen, Jude Greenaway, James Price & Robert Rainbow

Touring:

APB (All Points Between)’ onedotzero5, ICA, LONDON – 2001
World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam – 2001
onedotzero_nottingham, Nottingham, UK – 2002
Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, UK – 2002
B.TV Festival, Sheffield, UK – 2002
onedotzero_manchester / Futuresonic, Manchester, UK – 2002
Roppongi Think Zone, Tokyo, Japan – 2002
onedotzero_sfmoma, San Francisco MOMA, USA – 2002
Electrofringe, NSW, Australia – 2002
onedotzero_munich, Munich, Germany – 2002
Auto Festival, Sheffield, UK – 2002
Visonic AV Festival, Belfast, Ireland – 2003
Pixelache Festival, Helsinki, Finland – 2003

London Loves Laforet presented a snapshot of London life as seen through the eyes of 10 of the brightest new stars on the London scene. A mixture of young designers, architects, club promoters, stylists, models and artists, came together to present their own particular style, and give us a glimpse into their personal and distinctive view of London life.

Each person was represented by a life-size doll, packaged like a Barbie Doll, and dressed by themselves in their own selected clothing. Their lifestyle was presented through the packaging – with accessories as well as personal information about them, detailing their favourite things and places.

A TV monitor incorporated into the packaging played a series of commissioned video portraits which reveal more about their likes, loves and humour.

BILLY BILLINGHAM

CLAUDINE SPITERI

JIMMY BULB

Produced and Directed by James Price
Curated by Scarlet Projects

The second installment of the “Gilligan’s Travels” project, this digital short film was commissioned by onedotzero festival in 2001. Wandering street poet and philosopher Robert Alan Weiser continues his monologue with this tale of two cities. Taking us from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the west coast of California, to the twin towers and busy streets of New York City.

The film blends a host of different documentary material, Super8 and DV footage, motion graphics and stills photography with an original sound track by electronic artist Scanone.

Directed by Chris Allen & Jude Greenaway
Produced by Shane R J Walter & Matt Hanson at onedotzero
Co-Produced by Antonio Russo Merenda at Hysteria Films
Location Production by Matt Higgs
Edited by Chris Allen & Jude Greenaway
Assistant Editor: James Price
Sound Design & Music by Scanone

Commissioned by onedotzero & Co-Funded by the Swedish Film Institute

This digital short was commissioned for the Channel 4 programme SWEN – The News Backwards, produced by Flame TV in 2000. The resulting film is a journalistic investigation of the Menwith Hill US Airbase in Northfolk; its alleged connection with monitoring telecommunications and spying on companies to further American interests around the world. We were given access to a limited amount of ITN archive footage, the rest of the film and interviews were recorded on location in Northfolk.

Directed & Edited By Christopher Thomas Allen, Jude Greenaway & James Price
Sound Design by Scanone