CCA Highlights: September 2023

Live-to-Air: Áine O'Dwyer/Alexandra Spence/MP Hopkins

(Theatre, 2 Sep)
Commissioned as part of Radiophrenia’s two-week-long radio broadcasts, this event sees three sound artists give recorded performances live from their studio at CCA. In Court Music, Áine O'Dwyer positions microphones at various places around the theatre space, from underneath the audience to inside an instrument. O’Dwyer employs both traditional compositional techniques and subversive sound-art concepts to capture a moment in space and time, embracing the relationship between sound and environment. In Hall, shell, mall, bell. Alexandra Spence imagines the ambient sounds of everyday life as a sort of conversation, attempting to re-compose sonic memory through field recordings, analogue technologies, and object interventions, and in Creases, MP Hopkins distorts voice, feedback and text scores to present listeners with a delicate, degraded piece of sound art.

SQIFF Queer Filmmakers Group

(Creative Lab, 2 Sep, 30 Sep)

The Scottish Queer International Film Festival returns to the CCA from 26-30 September, but the mission of expanding Scotland’s queer film scene is something the CCA pursues year-round. The SQIFF Queer Filmmakers Group is an initiative to bring local queer filmmakers together for monthly two-hour group sessions in which they can network and workshop projects. With two of these congresses happening in September, and open to creators of any skill level of filmmaking, this is the perfect time to get involved with this emerging collective. Later in the year, the group will run a short films pitch contest and will be giving £500 to contribute towards the production of two films.

Wei Zhou: The Unspeakable In Pursuit Of The Uneatable

(Intermedia Gallery, 8-30 Sep)
The centuries-old practice of zhiguai ('tales of the strange') is intertwined with contemporary science fiction in this exhibit by multidisciplinary artist and Glasgow School of Art alumnus Wei Zhou. A multichannel video installation will play as guests are invited to explore the sounds, scents and textures of an immersive narrative of othering, alienation, and metamorphosis. The huli jing, or fox spirits, of Chinese mythology are known for their tendency to shapeshift, often into women, and this archetype is reimagined through non-male-centric, non-human-centric sexuality and femininity, and placed against the historical institute of fox-hunting in the UK.

INCLINATION Film Club: Before We Move

(Cinema, 13 Sep)
INCLINATIONS, the CCA’s volunteer-run film club of DIY cinema, returns with a presentation of Before We Move. Aleksandr M. Vinogradov’s documentary maps the Queer Tango movement, following Otar and Misha, who dance in defiance of the prejudice they face in their home of St. Petersburg, before traveling across Europe and meeting many other dancers and members of the LGBTQI+ community who use tango as a symbol of provocation and celebration. The film is presented in partnership with Rebel Tango, Glasgow’s own Queer Tango project, who have made the CCA their home.