kino residency: encyclopedia press release

Hello, my name is Henry Ireland and what I am doing is writing an encyclopedia of things I know off by heart. I will sit in the basement of Cafe Kino between the hours of 9am and 5pm from monday the 13th to friday the 17th of February under exam conditions and attempt to write everything I know onto A4 sheets of lined recycled paper. I will take a 30 minute lunch break and will look away from the page every 15 minutes in order to prevent eye strain and repetitive strain injury to my wrist. You can contribute to this project by adding an illustration. There will be an illustrator’s seat with full instructions.

I’m doing this for a few reasons. Firstly, I’m interested in the ways in which we choose to store information, like the difference between oral and written histories, finding a compromise between flexibility, accuracy and longevity. I’m also curious about what I actually know, what I’ve mis-remembered, where the holes in my knowledge are largest and what things I associate with each other. Finally I’m doing this because I spend about 7.5 hours a day reading at my usual job. I thought it would be interesting to reverse this and spend 7.5 hours a day putting out information rather than taking it in.

The writing of this encyclopedia is a performance and when it is finished, I will take it home, type it up, alphabetise it and present it in an exhibition at the end of this year, bound with your illustrations.

kino residency: event 1

I have organised my first event at Cafe Kino to take place between Sunday the 12th of February and Friday the 17th. The main event is a five day performance called encyclopedia. On the Sunday before this performance begins, I will be giving an explanation and lecture about language and communication, followed by performances by MXLX and Wig Smith:


MXLX is the most recent incarnation of Matt Loveridge. Matt’s experimental, often loop and noise-laden, compositions are eclectic and often highly ambitious. He plays guitar in Beak> and bass in Yoshy! Recently he released a three part piano drone piece under his own name on Stitch-Stitch Records. It was called ‘Atworth’, named after Atworth church in Wiltshire, where it was recorded. Each composition he creates contains an inventiveness, originality and thoughtfulness that gives them all a truly unique beauty, sometimes in stark contrast to the brutal sounds that go into their construction. Matt has will be playing an acoustic piece of work, making use of improvised chanting.


Wig Smith is the solo moniker of kora player Will Newsome. Will is perhaps best known as one half of The Hand. He plays a variety of folk instruments, his songs are collections of stories and often contain little known facts and pieces of folklore. His first solo album, entitled ‘A Means of Escape through a Hedge’ was released in April 2010. Will is playing at Kino again on Friday the 17th, supporting Vialka. This gig just happens to coincide with the completion of the encyclopaedia performance. Will is going to to link his two performances, giving a pleasing symmetry to the whole thing!

flickin' the 'v's

Spent most of my free time over the last week printing this artwork for the next tiger & panda & ox ep, flickin' the 'v's. I'm pretty pleased with how they look now and I think they will be ready to buy around the 2nd of march when we are playing at Old St Mary's. The nets for this packaging are recycled card and they came from a company called eco-craft ltd. I have Steve Brett to thank for telling me about this company. As well as being excited about the artwork, we listened to a rough mix I had made of the songs the other day and were pleasantly surprised. I'm looking forward to finishing this project!

foggy photo

I took a photo of the barbican in the fog before christmas. This is taken from where we live. I have some other foggy photos rattling around.

william ireland

This year, my brother Will said that he would be 'making' his Christmas present to me. I had no idea that what he was making me (with some help from my dad) was this incredible music box. It has four sound effects that play on a loop, whose tempo can be controlled and plays a tone that can be altered with a stylus on the pad he made out of an old palm pilot he found on ebay. It is one of the most amazing things anyone has ever given me and I thought it deserved to be seen on here.