CHRIS SOUL.co.uk
About Me
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Since completing a Masters in Writing for Performance and Publication at the University of Leeds I have continued my artistic practices in Chichester, West Sussex. In this old historic city I have been involved with the 'I Am Joy' arts collective, an organization passionate about giving a platform and voice to emerging, young creative talent. In this regard, I helped set up the Joy Magazine, with the aim of showcasing and promoting artists, writers, performers and journalists across the region. This publication has tied in with the Joy Gallery and the annual 'I Am Joy' arts and music festival. It has given me experiences in seeking funding and advertising, learning about design and printing practices as well as distribution and social networking.
As part of this growing arts scene in Chichester, I have performed poetry at various venues, taken workshops, been involved in exhibitions and have written articles for the local press. In addition to 'I Am Joy' activities I also have connections with the Chichester Festivities new Fringe Festival, the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fantasy and Fairytale, Transition Chichester and Tongues and Strings. It is my aim to eventually take a PhD at the University of Chichester, continuing my research and practice in areas such as animation, myth and esoteric traditions, while still being involved in the community in a positive and engaging way.
I work across many disciplines; painting, animation, creative writing, performance and journalism. I tend to focus on a couple of projects at a time. Recently, I have finished writing a full length poem-play called 'Above and Below', which concerns itself with climate change and war. I am hoping to workshop this in London later in the year. I am also preparing to take my own workshops in animation for this year's 'I Am Joy' festival and I am seeking funding to enable myself to move forward my animation practices; to produce an animated-painting/ short film based on my own poem, 'The Alchemist's Son.' On top of this I am readying a collection of poetry that I hope to publish one day.
In my 'spare time' (if there is such a thing) I enjoy songwriting and experimenting with music production. From 2008-2009 I wrote songs and performed in Rubber Band. A highlight was playing at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.
Aside from the arts, I enjoy engaging with people in any way and I am a keen traveller. Before my degree in Fine Art, I travelled the world, which included two months spent in India. It was an experience I will never forget and I have such respect and passion for the Indian culture. The world trip also saw me partaking in skydiving (I hate flying and heights) and nearly drowning during white water rafting! During my degree I took part in a sponsored hitch-hike from Leeds to Morocco, raising around £1500 for an African based charity. It is something I would love to do again.
If you would like to know more about my activities or about 'I Am Joy' and the Joy Magazine then please email me at the contact below.
Cheers!
"Painting seems like an impossibility with only a sign now and then."
Philip Guston
"What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies and anthropomorphisms...The drive towards the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive... It seeks a new realm and another channel for its activity and finds it in myth and art generally. This drive continually confuses the conceptual categories and cells by bringing forward new transferences, metaphors... to refashion the world so that it will be as colourful, irregular, lacking in results and coherence, charming and eternally new as the world of dreams."
Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense
Animations
Paintings
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"Of bodies changed to other forms I tell:
You Gods, who have yourselves wrought every change,
Inspire my enterprise and lead my lay
In one continuous song, from nature's first
Remote beginnings to our modern times."
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Painting is an activity. From the caveman to modern times it has been a human activity; creating marks, gestures, signs which can be personal, historical, universal or mythological. Painting is a language but its signifiers are never fixed, they are always in transition. A painting is evidence of action. It is a trace of human activity.
A painting though can go beyond its frame. A painting can become a photograph- a photograph can become a frame- a frame can become an animation. A 'painting-animation' can open up the activity of painting. A painting has a time not just a space...
I have been writing stories for as long as I can remember. It all started when I was five years old and I rushed into my classroom at break-time. To my horror there was a small boy sitting in the corner, wearing a white shirt and a Tom and Jerry tie that I owned at home. The boy was me. I screamed and ran out., confused by what I had seen. Weeks later, I began writing ghost stories and have never stopped writing since...
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Although I studied Fine Art for degree, I went on to take a Masters in Writing for Performance and Publication. I write short stories, novellas, novels, poetry and plays. Recently I have completed a full play entitled 'Above and Below' (a page of a draft is seen below). It is written in verse and free verse form. My research interests in regards to painting and writing often cross-over; I have a keen interest in the power of myth, fairy tale and esoteric traditions.
Poetry
Stories
Travel
News Blog
Workshops
Research
Collaborative
Rubber Band playing at the Cavern Club, Liverpool, 2009
Rubber Band
Rubber Band originated as a two-piece back in 2003; Anthony Charman and Chris Soul wrote and recorded albums together in bedrooms and kitchens. By 2008 the band had grown to a four-piece with the additions of Karl Duggan on keys and Tom Chapman on drums. Until August 2009 the group performed at over 20 venues, including the famous Cavern Club, and recorded a 12 track album: Rubber Jukebox.
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The major influences on the band have always been 60s pop/ rock, the Beatles, Oasis, David Bowie and Bob Dylan. However, if you are to listen to 'Rubber Jukebox' the band never stick to convention. While ultimately holding the hands up to pop, the band strayed into folk, blues, psychedelia, heavy rock, funk, ballads, religion and sometimes utter madness.
The band broke up in August 2009 due to the recession, trains and broken converses.
Click below to listen to them:
Live
Recordings
Chris Soul (solo)
I first picked up a guitar in 2000, inspired by the poetry of The Beatles' song 'Across the Universe'. I taught myself how to play and learnt scales and chords for piano. Without ever having lessons I have written and recorded over 150 songs since I was 16. I first started by recording dodgy experimental songs using two tape cassette recorders; overlapping sounds and shoving microphones down the inside of pianos. I even got my sister to play trumpet on a couple of tape recordings and these still exist somewhere; whirring and whining with the rasp of the tape machine. Over the years, though, I have pushed what I can do with limited equipment and capabilities.
Progressing from tape machines, I moved to using diabolical Windows recording software, before moving to Cubasis and aquiring some fairly decent mics. Recording music is like keeping a diary and for ten years now I have kept a musical account of my moods and thoughts, sometimes acting the alter-ego or working within a band. I know I'll never make a career out of it, but one day I can perhaps pass my tapes, CDs and nonsense onto whoever will listen, or the songs will just disappear, rot away, across the universe...
Above: Some songs from my 17 track album, 2009, recorded in my bedroom, sometimes on my bed.
50 Pence (AKA Chiselly Dizzelly)
50 PENCE IS CHICHESTER'S FRESHEST RAPPER. FROM HIS STUDIO NEAR SELSEY HIGH STREET, 50 PENCE IS UNLEASHING SOME HEAVY SOUNDS AND DROPPING BEATS LIKE NO ONE ELSE. SET TO RELEASE HIS FIRST EP THIS SUMMER ('GET A JOB, OR DIE CRYIN'') 50 PENCE AKA CHISELLY DIZZELY HAS A BRIGHT FUTURE. TACKLING ISSUES LIKE UNEMPLOYMENT, BANKERS, BOREDOM AND TESCO EXPRESS, CHISELLY KNOWS WHERE ITS AT! KEEP YOUR EARS TO THE STREET AND LISTEN OUT FOR THE BEAT! CLICK ON THE ALBUM ABOVE TO LISTEN!
www.myspace.com/50pencechichester
The Invisible Griffin
"Cactus" is the Invisible Griffin's second album. Recorded in a mountain cave in 2008-2009, he has worked hard to create an epic 12 track album, which reflects the Griffin's rise and fall as a King of all Time (hear five tracks above) It is remarkably different to 2004's "Electric Press", which found the Griffin alienated in modern life, losing his consciousness to constructs. You can hear the Invisible Griffin's experimental sketch-songs below:
The Invisible Griffin lurks in the desert, in the mud. He shovels sounds and burns them to the sky. Like Adam, he grows as cactus; a family of freaks. He dreams of kingship, and emerges like Lazarus, bright as the sun, searching for his queen... oh Queen Sheba. With one hand around his mistress, he unites sky and ground and squarks the language of the birds, until his mind is broken to pieces; shrapnal like seeds, impregnating the earth. Then, once again, the Griffin will rise from flame.
www.myspace.com/theinvisiblegriffin
Live at the Cavern
Part One
Part Two
Back
Rubber Jukebox by Rubber Band
Click on the album above to hear five tracks taken from Rubber Band's 12 track album: Rubber Jukebox.
Radio Songs= Pure pop. David Bowie gets mangled in a radio sound system. Bring back old fashioned rock n' roll!
Three Kids And A Wife= A big Dylanesque moan about modern life with quirky keys and drunken guitar riffs.
Man In White= a dreamy poem-song about selling your soul. Builds to a rolling climax.
Blow Me Away= Ballad. Time on your brow, in the wind...
Love Land= Fast based blues mayhem, finishing unexpectedly with solos, half-time dreams and love.
If you would like to hear the other tracks from the album including Itchy Toes, the manic About A Clown, the pounding Mr Monkey or the epic finale It's Not God's Fault, then please email Chris Soul
(contacts below)
50 pence (AKA Chiselly Dizzelly)
Links to other bands/ artists
'I Am Joy' is a Chichester based arts organisation with the aim of giving a platform and voice to emerging creative talent at a grass roots level; to shake up the city, inspiring new generations of fresh talent to engage in the arts: in music, writing, art, performance and innovative practices of all kinds...
Originally estabilished in 2007 by Joe Worthington, Chris Chapman and Guy Adams, the collective has gone from strength to strength. Since early 2009 I have been involved; setting up the Joy Magazine and helping with the Joy Festival (above) and the Joy Gallery. Click on the click below to go to the website.
www.iamjoy.co.uk
In the summer of 2009 I helped set up and then released a new publication for Chichester: The Joy Magazine. The magazine's simple aim is to showcase and promote the talents of emerging creative individuals in Chichester and beyond. Our first issue (front cover to the left) featured Hugh Dunkerley (the West Sussex Poet Laureate), Mark Wigan (well known Street Artist) as well as contributions from new writers, poets, journalists and illustrators. The magazine is in assocation with Chichester's 'I Am Joy' arts collective and the 'I Am Joy' arts and music festival.
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Submit your poems, stories, illustrations, journalism, views, reviews and advertising enquires to: thejoymagazine_googlemail.com
Click on the links below.................................
www.thejoymagazine.blogspot.com
The Joy Gallery first opened in December 2008 in South Street, Chichester. Originally a commercial gallery set up by Joe Worthington and Oli Baker, it has now moved to Guildhall Street (by Priory Park) and is run by Joe Worthington and Sarah Wilk.
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Left: Painting by Joe Worthington, exhibited as part of 'Sedition: Hushed' 2009
The Joy Gallery is a platform for artists living and working in the South. A rubik's cube style space that blends contemporary painting, print, urban art, sculpture, photography and crafts. Situated just off of Chichester's busy North Street The Joy Gallery invites one and all to take the time in admiring art work of high and inspiring standards.
As a branch of the I Am Joy Arts and Music Festival we encourage people to join our mailing list , this will give you access to the up and coming music and art events in Chichester.
www.thejoygallery.co.uk
Community
'I Am Joy' arts collective
The Joy Magazine
The Joy Gallery
Links
WORKSHOPS/ TEACHING:
Bishop Luffa Secondary School Art Department (teaching experience), 2010
Greek Theatre Masterclass, Pimlico Academy, London, 2010
5 day Creative Writing/ Drama Workshops, I Am Joy festival, Chichester, 2009
PUBLICATIONS:
The Joy Magazine, Chichester, (Chief Editor) 2009-onwards
The Chichester News, Chichester (Freelance Journalist/ Editor) 2009
MUSIC PERFORMANCES:
With Rubber Band:
The Cavern Club, Liverpool, 2009
The Fiddlers Elbow, London, 2009
Purple Turtle, London, 2009
The Troubadour, London, 2009
Tommy Flynns, London, 2009
Dublin Castle, London, 2009
Boston Music Rooms, London, 2009
THEATRE:
Creative Producer/ Artist/ Writer/ Theatre Projections
Engineer on Tales of Iris, New Stages Postgraduate Festival,
University of Leeds, 2008
TRAVEL:
India, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, USA, Austria, Spain, Italy, Tunisia, Morocco. The Morocco Hitch: raised money for charity by hitchhiking from Leeds to Morocco!
OTHER: CRB checked.
CURRICULUM
VITAE
DATE OF BIRTH:
20/05/1984
CONTACT:
chrissoul_hotmail.co.uk
thejoymagazine_googlemail.com
CURRENT ADDRESS:
Chichester, West Sussex, UK
EDUCATION:
-UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS 2007-2008
MA Writing for Performance and Publication
-UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS 2004-2007
BA Fine Art (First Class Honours)
-SURREY INSTITUTE OF ART AND DESIGN 2002-2003
Foundation studies
-A-LEVELS: Art (A), History (A), Philosophy (A)
ART EXHIBITIONS:
The Joy Gallery, Chichester, 2009 (mixed show)
Sedition Hushed, Guildhall, Chichester, 2009
Tales of Iris, New Stages Postgraduate Festival,
University of Leeds, (Creative Producer) 2008
States of Art, University of Leeds, 2007 (Degree show)
The Common Place, Leeds, 2006 (Joint show)
POETRY PERFORMANCES:
Transition Chichester, Assembly Rooms, 2010
Tongues and Strings, La Havana, Chichester, 2010
Chicken Fever, RP Entertainment, Farnham, 2010
Oxjam, Chichester University Chapel, 2009
I Am Joy Arts and Music Festival, Chichester, 2009
The Joy Gallery, Chichester, 2009
Rubber Promotions, Wheatsheaf, Farnham, 2009
Click for contact form
Metamorphosis: The Creation
(Frames from animation)
Paintings from
other animations
'What Is Painting?'
(Frames from video)
Mystic Men, Cosmic Trees,
Hedgehogs and Snakes...
Painting the Conceptual
Oldies
A Painting-Animation
Why Am Joy? (Work-in-progress)
What Is Painting?
Animation Sketchbook
Why Am Joy?
(Work-in-progress)
"It is occasionally possible, just for brief moments, to find the words that will unlock the doors of all those many mansions in the head and express something perhaps not much, just something of the crush of information that presses in on us from the way a crow flies over and the way a man walks and the look of a street and from what we did one day a dozen years ago. Words that will express something of the deep complexity that makes us precisely the way we are..."
Ted Hughes
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For me, I find poetry the best and most comfortable medium for expressing complex ideas in a creative way. I have a special interest in how poetry can challenge conventional thinking or can highlight contemporary issues, particularly climate change. Only in the last year have I taken to performing poetry to audiences. Recently I performed at the Assembly Rooms, Chichester, in front of the mayor. It was part of a Transition Chichester event; a group trying to make the city greener and more active.
As Chief Editor of the Joy Magazine in Chichester, I also have a vested passion in publishing and showcasing local poets. I also help co-ordinate events, acting as a platform for local writing talent.
Submit your own poetry to the magazine.
Email:
The Ghost of the Guildhall
The Alchemist's Son Part 1
(Monday-Thursday)
The Alchemist's Son Part 2
(Thursday- Sunday)
Eternal Winter, 2002
(A poem read at Sedition Hushed,
an art exhibition responding to
William Blake's trial in Chichester)
The Alchemist's Son
(a poem about a boy who goes off
to sea- audio version.)
Eternal Winter
(from 2002, poetry in motion and
the ills of climate change)
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Red Bird's Call
In the middle of a vast body of emerald green there is an ancient, magnificent tree. It is so tall its branches embrace the comfort of clouds and caress the movements of both sun and moon. Its trunk is so thick that it bears the memories of the air and the fruits of time, and its roots reach so deep that the rumbles of Mother Earth can be heard rising, trembling the tree with the spinal notes of life; the melody of nature itself. Legend has it that whoever sucks the sap of this tree will be blessed with eternal life.
One spring morning, a man appeared by the tree. He was a prince, beckoned by the prospect of futures throne and desperate to live forever with such power. For ten years he had marched across the body of the Earth with his band of explorers, scientists and tycoons. After trekking and gutting their way through rainforests and jungles they had found the great tree, looming above a sea of emerald green. The tree was so colossal and impressive that many of the princes men fainted in admiration upon seeing it. The prince, though bewildered, was able to smell the sweet liquor of the tree. He inhaled its secrets like a man awakened from a lifetime of dreams.
With a large axe the prince sliced a wound across the trunk. The tree began to ooze its bloody sap. The sap trickled down the ancient veins of the bark and flowed like molten gold into the princes palms. Without hesitation and in accordance with his greed, the prince drank the sap until his stomach flowered and the heat of life surged up along his spine. He was now immortal.
When he returned to his kingdom, the prince crowned himself the King of Forever. He announced his great reign by setting out his plans for Mans eternal progression. He glowed golden with the sap of life from the heights of his throne, and thus bore thousands, millions, even billions of children at his command.
At the end of his first hundred years of rule, a serpent snake slithered to the Kings feet. The snake hissed and whispered in his ear. If the King accepted the wisdom of the serpent he would be granted not only possession of the Earth itself but all of its glorious riches too. Without hesitation and in accordance with his greed, the King succumbed to the snakes temptations and began implementing plans on a massive scale. First, he conquered every continent and trampled over native inhabitants. With spades, axes, cannons and drills the King and his followers ploughed and scarred the Earth, like slicing and tormenting skin. They cut down trees, smashed into mountains and even drilled into soil and sand. Following the worming intricacies of the snake, they discovered the great riches of the Earth. The Earth had secret saps; black blood, black gold; oil and coal.
The King held the coal in his hands and smelt the thick perfume of the oil. He laughed at his increasing fortunes. Not only was he immortal but now he owned the blood of the Earth itself.
It was during the next a hundred years, that a raven, yellow-eyed, flew upon the Kings shoulder. Muttering from its beak, the raven offered the King invaluable information. If he accepted the ravens ideas, then the King would control the greatest energies of the world and be more powerful than any other Man. So without hesitation and in accordance with his greed, the King succumbed to the ravens temptations and began construction of huge power stations, chimneys and machines. Across the body of the Earth he commenced the burning of the Earths blood. Plumes of black smoke rose from every land. Chimneys choked the lungs of the sky and sent tears of acidic sorrow to the ground. The energy and power the King possessed was seemingly infinite. So he burned everything he could until the lights of his kingdom, the trillions of lights, illuminated the Earth with a sparking, buzzing fury. From his castle window the King watched the raven depart, black as smoke, ascending to the charred remains of the sky.
The King danced amid the disco lights of his electric palace. He laughed at his ever-increasing fortunes. Not only was he immortal, owning the blood of the Earth, but now he possessed the energy of all. The power was unbelievable, so he continued Mans eternal progression.
It was at the end of the Kings first four hundred years, that a peacock displayed its rainbow colours. The King, impressed by its wonderful feathers, listened to the peacocks advice. The peacock argued that the King needed to be flamboyant and make the Earth a spectacle, an ode to Mans domination. So without hesitation and in accordance with his greed, the King accepted the advice of the peacock and began to change the world into a fairground of fancy. Using his unending electric energies, the King smouldered cities into circuit-boards, slashed fields into railway lines, dumped concrete onto every grassland and erected buildings that reached for the moon. Bedazzled by the kaleidoscope of peacock feathers, the King fashioned cars and airplanes. These machines suffocated the sky with further toxins and deafened the Earth with the sound of smoking roars.
The King flew in a plane over his lands, raising a champagne flute to his success. He laughed at his ever, ever increasing fortunes. Not only was he immortal, owning the blood of Earth and possessing the energy of all, but now he was exuberantly ingenious too. The sights from above were unbelievable, so he continued Mans eternal progression.
As time passed, the King became restless. Upon seeing a swan he decided he wanted to be pure, like a God. The swan had something to say, but he did not listen. He instead formulated his own plans. He wanted to control the Earth, make it easy, and make it marvellous beyond anything the universe could comprehend. With the help of his scientists, he constructed a gigantic super computer to predict the future. The computer controlled everything on Earth, including time, and it needed vast amounts of energy for it to work. So the King burned and burned and burned everything that he could muster. He even invaded uncooperative lands to take their black-gold, their oil. More smoke rose to the sky so that at points the King couldnt see a thing. But then, the lights of the super-computer blinked into life, sending pulses of unimaginable energy across the planet. The surface of the Earth was scorched by the synapses of Man. The Earth became a giant brain, a manifestation of Mans will. The brain hummed and spat with artificial madness.
The King plugged himself into this madness, charging with relentless energy. He laughed at his ever, ever, ever-increasing fortunes. But, as the years rolled by, the computer gave its answer, its final prediction. It was not good. The Kings spine cracked.
A phoenix, rising from the fires of Earth, sprung before the Kings wild eyes. The phoenix was enormous, blazing with Natures wrath. The bird was choking in smog and terrified by the heat and electricity of the air. Its wings were dripping with the blood of Mother Earth and it glared right into the Kings soul, as if searching for the meaning to Mans existence.
It was then that the phoenix decided upon giving the King a lasting lesson. It took the King to see the ancient tree. The tree, once full of life, was now dying amid a graveyard of fungus and metal. The once magnificent tree was now tiny; stooping and sad. In the winter of Man its leaves had withered and the bark was grey. Its roots were exposed and decayed in tarmac. The ground, once green with emeralds, was littered by the ash of ages. As the King listened to the trunk, he could only hear a faint beat, a distant hymn of Mother Earth. The once golden sap had dried and hardened to lead.
The phoenix told the King that if the tree died, so would he. His life was not ever-lasting if the tree was dead. With despair, the King looked at the world around him; the carcasses of trees, the smoking sky, the buzzing of lights and the putrid fumes of cars and chimneys. Everything was connected and so he felt the sap in his own veins harden, saw the greyness return to his hands, found his hair falling out to his shoes, felt his spine crack and then his eyesight vanished.
In the desperate darkness that followed, the phoenix called to him: It can change. It can all change.
Time is Yo-Yo
An illustrated novella
(Read online)
(Shortlisted in the HarperCollins
Act on CO2 Fairy Tale Competition)
Turn page here->
Workshop/ teaching experience:
Bishop Luffs Secondary School, Chichester - voluntary teaching experience in the art department, 2010
Greek Theatre Masterclass at the Pimlico Academy, London, 2010
Five Day Creative Writing/ Drama workshops at the 'I Am Joy' arts and music festival, Chichester, 2009
Various home tutoring in creative writing
FOR WORKSHOPS AND HOME TUTORING CONTACT ME ON THE EMAIL BELOW!
THANKS!
I am currently looking to do more youth based workshops in the Chichester area in subjects such as animation, painting and creative writing. As part of the 'I Am Joy' arts festival 2010, Chichester, I will be hoping to lead some workshops in animation and collaborative painting in association with the Wrenford Arts Centre and The Chichester Boys' Club.
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