MCH | BLANK

Official website for Mark C. Hewitt & Blank Productions

Work as a performer
live work and theatre / readings / video

Lockdown vids
2020

Personal Space was an online exhibition of international performance art curated by Surface Gallery, Nottingham. The exhibition particularly related to video work made during the first periods of national lockdown in England early in the coronavirus crisis of 2020. The exhibition was launched on the Surface Gallery website in October 2020 and features work by a wide range of practitioners, my own contribution consisting of nine very short videos related to the most recent version of my poem sequence, Scrublands. They were filmed on my mobile phone while lying in bed. My own description, used as an artist statement to accompany the work, is given below.

PersonalSpace1PersonalSpace2

The artist statement continues: "I had no particular expectations but I thought the results were interesting. Done in any other context at any other time it would not be the same piece of work."


Les Coffrets
2020


Voiced two of the poems in a collection of micro-videos made in collaboration with artist Matt Parsons related to my poem sequence, Les Coffrets. The two I voice - Limelight and Apprenticeship - each have a vague autobiographical resonance about them, although I sought largely to abandon the authorial voice for this sequence in favour of chance elements, such as overheard words and found phrases. Apprenticeship also involved an ad hoc 'chorus' assembled by Janet Ayers and recorded in Portsmouth in January 2020.

Limelight »
Apprenticeship »

LesCoffrets-Apprenticeship
Still from Apprenticeship.


it's time to consult the captain of the ship of dreams
June 2014


Site-specific performance at Foundry Gallery, Lewes, created for the group exhibition, Future Dreaming, curated by artist Guyan Porter. Accompanied by a continuous sound of the sea, the audience hear the recorded voice of a narrator describing - in real time - the series of activities being undertaken by a protagonist, who examines the contents of the exhibition and finds himself none the wiser. The protagonist looks for clues to the nature of his predicament amongst the detritus and newspaper cuttings he finds on the floor but they provide no useful insight. In the end he calls out to the captain of the ship. He pleads for information regarding the nature and destination of the journey that he and his fellow passengers are embarked upon, but receives none.

FD3
Photo by Guyan Porter


Expiry tbc.
2013


Collaboration with composer Peter Copley in which the text was created in response to the music. Set in the hereafter, the piece deals with ideas of memory and mortality. Written for live and recorded cello and live and recorded voices, it was first performed as part of Brighton Fringe Festival 2013 with lighting design by Kristina Hjelm.

Expiry screenshot 2


Scrublands
2012


Multimedia collaboration with live music for string sextet presented in a subterranean venue beneath Brighton Town Hall (The Old Police Cells Museum) as part of Brighton Fringe Festival 2012. The use of an underground venue was intended to evoke the Ancient Greek notion of katabasis, or descent into an underworld. Music was composed by Peter Copley and performed by the Bergersen Quartet. The Guide was played by Kathryn McGarr. The works also featured images by painter Tom Walker and a video sequence by artist Abigail Norris. The performance was based on my poem sequence Scrublands, in which a figure projected into a barren underworld is looking for the way out.

SCRUB15Fru copy
Photo by François Norris


Fade Away Radiate
2011


Work as a performer with director/theatremaker Matthew Scott of 1157performance group. Using texts by Richard Foreman, this multimedia piece was devised and directed by Matthew Scott and told a story of sleaze and violence. Around this same period I also worked with Matthew Scott as writer/performer on another work in progress, The Tao of Hamlet, which explored his favourite play and his adherence to Kung Fu and Chinese martial arts culture.

FadeAwayRadiate1


89% and Rising
2008


First project working as a performer with avant grade multimedia physical theatre company, 1157performancegroup. In retrospect, a formative connection. 89% and Rising involved five performers as the panel in a provocatively absurd game show about attitudes to HIV/AIDS. Devised and directed by Matthew Scott and Jo Dagless of 1157, the piece was performed by Matthew Scott as The Moderator, with Kathryn McGarr (no.1), Adam Milford (no.2), myself (no.3), Clare Davies (no.4) and a randomly selected member of the audience (no.5). The piece toured to a number of venues in the South East and Midlands during 2008, culminating in a residency at the Cockpit Theatre in London.

89%2
No. 1 and No. 3. Photo by Jo Dagless


Body Language
2006


Solo performance related to my life study writings (nudes in words) completed at artist life study groups between 1997 and 2006. The work was performed at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in July 2006, directed by Matthew Scott of 1157performancegroup.

BodyLanguage MCH eye
Photo by Josh Pulman


City Running
2006


Nocturnal live art project and exhibition curated by the late Greg Daville for Brighton Fringe 2006, in which artists would go out from the Phoenix Gallery at 11pm to "complete a reconnaissance, gather material, or execute an intervention" in response to Brighton at nighttime, returning around midnight to present and talk about their work for a live audience during the early hours.
CityRunning001


Catastrophe
May/August 2001


Catastrophe was a collection of four Samuel Beckett dramaticules (mainly from the 1980s) - Rockaby, Ohio Impromptu, A Piece of Monologue and Catastrophe - directed by David Lavender for Komedia Productions. The production ran for 10 days at Komedia, Brighton, and a further three weeks during Edinburgh Fringe 2001. I performed in three of the four pieces alongside actors George Dillon and Denise Evans.

OhioCatastrophe
Left: Ohio Impromptu (with George Dillon) / Right: Catastrophe (with George Dillon & Denise Evans)

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Other information on these projects elsewhere in this website.

Below: working on
The Butcher's Tale, a short film by Drew Hewitt (Waterloo Station, 2008)
Butcher'sTale