Across The Tracks and Through The Looking Glass

To See Exclusive Shots of Arcadia Glastonbury 2010 Build and Official Arcadia Videos Click Here To See My Post-Festival Blog Entry!

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

 The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, is the largest open-air music and performing arts festival in the world.

The main attraction for many revellers for the last few years has been one of the smaller, more underground arenas known as Arcadia.

 

                                                                                                                                                 

Arcadia is a synchronised pyrotechnic stage and lightshow sculpture arena featuring world class bands and deejays and illuminated by lasers, intelligent lighting, water jets and flamethrowers and is built from military and NASA scrap, primarily jet engine components.

Deejays and bands play live surrounded by what must be the most incredible spectacle of light, smoke and flame on the planet, as tens of thousands of people dance in an ecstasy of ritual theatrics and shamanic pyrotechnics.

Think Heironymous Bosch meets Mad Max versus ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ and you’re getting somewhere.

     

 

I was delighted to find out that my painting is thought of so highly by the visionary behind Arcadia, Pip Rush, that I have been asked to design and paint all artwork for the entire Arcadia arena at this years Glastonbury, 2010; the festival’s 40th Birthday.

Pip’s the younger brother of Joe Rush,  founder of the Mutoid Waste Company and has spent much of his life since a baby in the delirium of Joe’s events;  we share many similar inspirations and themes in our work.

  The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter- A Painting by Me…..

…and some Graffiti by me…..

We put our heads together and have been bouncing ideas backwards and forwards so expect  something a bit special.

Year by year Arcadia Spectacular have expanded at Glastonbury, starting off in ‘Trash City’ in 2008 with the Mutoid Waste Company. It was so successful that they were given their own field in 2009, this was in turn so successful that  this year, 2010; to quote organiser Micheal Eavis…

"We’re giving over an extra 15 acres to Arcadia …..because the feedback we got on that area was fantastic.”

As a result the Arcadia crew are ramping up the spectacular even further, featuring a new top secret ‘Afterburner’, the main stage structure, which  takes the whole show to the next level.

Mutating daredevils on highwires and trapezes will do battle with actual lightning bolts, pyrotechnics and flamethrowers high above the arena in a mid air extravaganza of cosmic significance and electric delight that will bring the ‘invisible world’ into living focus before your very eyes and ears.

I will be doing my best to provide this sensory feast with an incredible surround of amazing art that will help Arcadia to transport minds to places and times far from this dimension.

Thanks to the guys at Chrome and Black paint shop in Shoreditch, East London, yet again, for looking after us so well….

                  

                      Arcadia Stage Line Up Glastonbury 2010

                     Weds 23rd-Sun 27th June 2010

 

Arcadia photos Creative Commons many thanks to Luke Robinson  theadz01 and Russ Garrett