Tag: ironman

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Recent games, writing, performing.

An image of me talking at Videobrains, hannah nicklin, videobrains, games, performance, writing

 

It’s been a while! It was 3 months ago I last posted an update on here, largely due to a lot of the work I’ve been doing having it’s own dedicated online presences.

An image of me talking at Videobrains, hannah nicklin, videobrains, games, performance, writingSince last writing, I’ve finished the community storytelling project Your Home From Here in Lincolnshire, which resulted in a gently interactive sound piece for the village green in North Hykeham. Accompanied by some lovely sound work by Daniel J. Harvey, you can have a bit of a listen, and read some workshop participant’s stories and poems over at yourhomefromhere.com

I’m now 3 months into my residency at Videobrains, which is taking up a lot of my time and money, but is also super great and challenging in all the right ways. Helpfully, Rock Paper Shotgun picked up the talks for a series of features, the first 3 of 6 you can read below, and also, if you’re interested in anything to do with psychogeography and games, there’s still plenty of time to help support the work over on my Patreon. In the meantime:

  • Read about Jake Elliott, the scale of the US, and the landscape of our late capitalist lives: here.
  • Read about Holly Gramazio, being an incomer an play in the city: here.
  • Read about Kerry Turner, the European and American Gothic, Disneyland Paris, and Malham Cove in Yorkshire: here.

EFAMB Flyer imageI’ve also almost finished work on Equations for a Moving Body. And I COMPLETED A FULL or ‘IRON’ DISTANCE TRIATHLON. It was hard, but I was equal to it. That’s a cool feeling. You can see a lot of the process/thinking/writing/research for that show on the subdomain ironman.hannahnicklin.com — and there’ll be a premiere in Leeds/Sheffield end of October – look out for me announcing it on Twitter. Hopefully we’ll get an Autumn 2016 tour together out of that.

I’m continuing to work with UEL on socially engaged performance and interactive practices, this Autumn running a series of 4 sessions working on a new piece of community participative art with the Applied Theatre BA. I’ve also done a bit of guest lecturing/mentoring for the Game Design course at UAL, and for performance/theatre MAs over at the university in Chichester.

Oh! And there’s a book out on DIY theatre with a contribution from me on what we mean when we talk about interaction, you can buy that right now for £15 on Unbound – there are some great contributors.

Hannah Nicklin speaking at the V&A as part of the Pushing Buttons Late on radical game designI’ve performed/spoken at the V&A radical games Late Pushing Buttons, and in 2 days will present as part of Now Play This a new piece of writing born out of the Games We Have Known and Loved story collecting game (tickets still available!).

And really excitingly, I’ve just begun a brand new commission working with the Social Housing Arts Network working alongside Poplar HARCA on a new piece of community storytelling that will hopefully result in a brand new game-type-thing. Initial thoughts are to use Twine to map the stories of the estate, but of course the work will respond to the community, so I’m looking forward to finding out what they have to tell me.Social Housing Arts Network, SHAN, HARCA, Hannah Nicklin, art, community, games, Image of Limehouse Cut in Poplar, overlaid with the Social Housing Arts Network Logo

Finally, I’ve release a limited run of 50 of a brand new little zine collecting some of my poetry, following Songs For Breaking Britain I’ve been writing a lot more, you can buy it over here for only £3 +p&p, with a bit of cover art from a life drawing class I went to.

Phew!

I don’t have much money or time, but boy when I write it all down like that I don’t think I could describe a better way of going through life. Cool. Onwards!

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Ironman is go!

I'm in there somewhere, swimming

I AM MAKING A SHOW ABOUT SPORT IT IS EXCITING.

This is a long overdue update because most of the updating on this has been via a new subdomain I set up for Ironman especially. And all my new writing is going in Zines or on tumblr blogs. But basically I am currently in Newcastle in the first week of making (provisional title, and probably not the final one because it’s a trademark and stuff) IRONMAN. Which is my latest bit of work about the physiology and psychology of endurance sport. IT FEATURES ME ACTUALLY DOING A REALLY BIG BIT OF ENDURANCE SPORT.

Here’s what I’ve written about the show in that way where you write things before you know what the thing will actually be:

Ironman is about our bodies in a world that transports our minds places bodies can’t follow. Ironman is about the physiology of endurance – when our brains tell our bodies to stop – and the psychology of carrying on. A 2.4k swim, 112 miles of cycling, then running a marathon. It is about how the thing that shocks people the most is when you tell them you’re not allowed headphones. Just you, alone, body and mind, and the next moment. For 12 hours (or more) It’s also about things like my friend who died, John. About the marathon I ran in his memory. It’s about the reasons I cycle, swim, and run. 

I’m working with a documentary maker Niall Coffey, Alex Kelly as designer and dramaturg, 3 whole scientists/psychologists, a coach, at 4 theatres, and with support from 3 different funders. I’m EXCITED.

If that’s interesting sounding to you, you can COME TO A WORK IN PROGRESS SHOWING. There are two next week in Newcastle on the 12th (6pm) and 13th (3pm) of Feb showing very early days two weeks of R&D. It’s totally free to attend, but you do need to book. I’ll also let you know when it’ll be in Sheffield, Stockton, and London further down the line.

And you can follow my training/making process as I blog it at ironman.hannahnicklin.com

172 days until the event. Eek.

 Also I did some other things recently, which you might find interesting:

Other things! Since I last blogged (blimey this was a long time ago), Fun Palaces came and went and was a great big bit of fun. I’m really proud of the work I did as ‘Digital Champion’ on the project

I did an interview with Eleanor Turney at The Space about that work, and generally things I think about how we think about ‘digital’. Said article saw the coining of the nickname ‘Digital Grinch’ for me which I am totally down with.

I’ve also been trying to get better at poetry still, by putting things up on xpoemxday.tumblr.com as and when I write them. I’m quite proud of this poem about my mum.

I performed Songs For Breaking Britain as part of the All Change Festival and it got a lovely write up on Exeunt: “the voices that Nicklin has collected speak of unemployment, of despair, of fear and lack of inspiration. But there is also joy and hope and huge generosity.” – Catherine Love

I made a new thing – a durational performance game called ‘Games We Have Known And Loved’ which collects stories of games and play that debuted at GameCity 9 in October, and which also went to Dialogue Festival in November.

I also wrote a 20 minute piece of spoken word out of all of the stories I collected for the closing party of GameCity – It had a lovely write up in Rock Paper Shotgun and you can buy it in Zine form on my new exciting ‘shop’ (I’m going to put up a first zine of collected poems soon* too!). It’s cheap. You should buy it and then wait ages for me to post it because I’m in Newcastle right now, come on, pay attention.

*at some point.

And finally, I’m enjoying working more in and around games, particularly advocating for games in culture/arts/funding spheres – I’m currently doing some associate producing with The Space and have written an article on the bits of games that cross over with art/performance in the UK. 

Great things that my friends are doing that you should check out too.

  • The Lifes & Loves of a Nobody by Third Angel (half of whom I’m working with in Newcastle right now!) is at The Albany in Deptford until Saturday
  • Everything Harry Giles does, generally, most recently FarmForm and this lovely Twine gamepoem
  • And check out these two gamepoems from @v21 and Holly Gramazio
  • Plus the Pornography For Beginners blockpushing game that Holly made in reaction to the UK’s porn updated (outdated) legislation.
  • Adam Dixon‘s frankly cavalier promise to make a new game a week this year is throwing up some lovely stuff.
  • Jack Bennett is currently touring with Too Much Too Young which I’m excited to see next week.
  • Unfolding Theatre‘s Lands of Glass is touring too, which looks much fun.
  • I’ve played The Quiet Year recently and found it totally mesmerising (only $8 all you need is 6 dice, some counters, and a pack of cards to play).
  • Also, lots of new stuff coming up at Sprint Festival at CPT, including a new work in progress from Action Hero, and My Mate Pat Ashe‘s night of games and performance Beta Public. Which will probably be OK (it always sells out).
  • Finally, Olympians have a new record coming out SOME TIME. Like, it’s taking ages, but just before the end of the year they released a single from it. Why not round your evening/morning/afternoon off with Brunch Cannon?