Autumn 2017, IssueAutumn 2017, Three City Club newspaper Welcome to the City Club – a programme of A SPACE FOR EVERYONE new art, performances, family activities, happenings and talks inspired by the original vision behind Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes has a history of art like no other city, developed in collaboration with its pioneer residents. One minute you were painting a mural in an underpass, the next someone stuck a video camera in your hand and invited you to talk about your life. Artists turned up everywhere: in schools, at community workshops, festivals and fairs. The Milton Keynes Development Corporation, pictured left, was fond of quoting Shakespeare in their publicity material. Early on, they reminded us ‘the people are the city’. We’ve made this the theme of our 50th birthday special edition, which not only celebrates a unique place but also invites us to look again at everyday creativity. In this issue we hear a myriad of voices from Milton Keynes, go on a camping trip to the Blue Lagoon and plan the mother of all parties. If you aren’t already exhausted, we share our interior design scheme for MK Gallery and propose how you can help to shape the art of tomorrow. MK Gallery is undergoing a major expansion. Once work is completed, City Club will be a permanent physical space. For now, it’s a pop-up space in different parts of the city; a virtual space through its own website; and an imaginative space for the people of Milton Keynes. Architectural Design magazine, June 1973. The Milton Keynes Development Corporation launched their unusual plan for a City of Trees by posing with a fully-grown example. The first of three special editions of AD magazine To find out more and how to get involved: documenting the work of this visionary team. www.cityclubmk.org Happy Birthday Milton Keynes! On October 21st, Midsummer Boulevard Caroline Devine’s immersive sound installation, City of Things, OCTOBER 21ST — between The Point and MK Gallery will come alive with Feast of Fire and A DATE TO REMEMBER will resonate through Midsummer Arcade until 5 November. other City Club events. On the right, a timeline of the main moments; below, Fiona Boundy responds to this major new work, commissioned City Club lead artist Gareth Jones charts a brief history of leisure in MK. During the day, visit Caroline Devine’s City by Bletchley Park for City Club. of Things in Midsummer Arcade or create slogans and badges with Freee in Margaret Powell Square. THE LEISURE PRINCIPLE DEVINE SOUNDS City Club begins in What is the sound of a city? Is the early 1970s with it traffic humming, sirens wailing, Feast of Fire kicks a national theme park builders shouting? Or neighbours off from 6.30pm at The proposed for the disused arguing and pigeons cooing? The Point car park, with brick pits south of noise of urban sprawl is something the Spellbound shadow Bletchley. Cowcommon we desperately try to block out show. Afterwards, nearby Canyon ambitiously rather than make an effort to hear. Midsummer Boulevard aimed to “combine the will be lit up with cultural attractions of Not so for Caroline Devine. City fire sculptures and a metropolis with the of Things, her new immersive sound soundworks until 9pm climate and beaches of work, explores by ear the city where or thereabouts. the Mediterranean.” It she lives and works as an artist was too fantastic to be and composer. It captures the rich built, but you can marvel acoustic ecology of Milton Keynes, with at what might have been all its subtlety, layers and detail. on the back page of this newspaper. A meeting point between the urban and the natural, Milton Keynes was a The thinking behind modernist city planned to be greener this project was then than the surrounding countryside. At around 8.45pm, The incorporated into a As with its design and architecture, People’s Procession sequence of mind- communities and customs, the sounds Future leisure: In 1974, the City Club boasted a complex will leave the MK Rose boggling plans for the array of activities, including an Electric Garden. of a city are central to its identity. in Campbell Park City Club in Central to promenade along Milton Keynes, from which From the dawn chorus in Linford Midsummer Boulevard. we’ve drawn inspiration. called Norman Foster political climate of the Wood, to the micro worlds of buzzing From here, Mr Wilson’s None of these futuristic designed an avant-garde late 1970s. Funnily enough, mosquitos, Caroline has recorded the Second Liners will lead schemes were built. leisure complex for a private it wasn’t built. But the natural sounds of the city over the us back to The Point car company, an arrangement that idea did morph into The last year. Using advanced recording park for a live set of Following from this, reflected the Point, the UK’s first techniques, City of Things captures dance classics in their a promising architect multiplex cinema, and Milton Keynes at different times of inimitable New Orleans a social space for day and throughout the year, as one jazz style. Afterwards, the people of Milton season morphs into the next. dance to DJ Ritu Keynes. Amazingly, it spinning tunes from was built. Through song, chant and poetry the the last fifty years. voices of the city also weave their And now, some thirty way through the composition, creating years later, it is a powerful harmony. Football fans, set to be demolished. Buddhist monks and a host of choirs But the City Club bring their passion, verve and dignity also rises, focused to this sonic portrait of a city, around MK Gallery whose people are its energy, strength and the radically and future. expanded field of contemporary art in In our contemporary world of The evening will the 21st century. noise we often forget how powerful The power of listening: Caroline Devine in Midsummer Arcade, the location of her new sound work for City Club be rounded off with We look forward and significant sound can be in a finale of music, not back, watch the communicating a mood, a meaning and fireworks and fire latest movies at a resonance. Sound can transport window resonators, tannoy systems and drawings. All events Xscape, and visit us to a specific time and place, “Football fans, hidden speakers, the very fabric of this are free, street food Citylab to find out and also bring heightened awareness building - for many the heart of Milton and drink will be for what happens next. of our immediate environment. Buddhist monks and Keynes - will sing with the voices and sale throughout the sounds of the city. evening. Party! City of Things’ complex and evocative a host of choirs soundscape offers a new way of City of Things was commissioned by Wish you were here? The Point PLAN YOUR EVENING form a sonic portrait” in its 1980s heyday, as featured on a striking AT CITYCLUBMK.ORG listening to this remarkable place. Bletchley Park working in partnership postcard by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. It will be presented through to with MK Gallery, Heritage MK and The UK’s first multiplex cinema is today scheduled for demolition. 5 November in centre:mk. Using The Open University. www.cityclubmk.org 2 www.mkgallery.org 3 Magic lantern: an intrepid resident of Bletchley explores the site once earmarked for the most amazing theme park in all the land. What followed was a joyful example morning. An evident sense of ownership The next morning, dog walkers stumbled of how the innate creativity of and authentic participation was into our new neighbourhood as we people seeps into the adoption and revealed as people proactively shaped attempted to condense our luggage into appropriation of material, space their situations and surroundings. This containers it seemed unlikely to ever and experience. Our makers became no doubt was the dream of the original fit. A persistent rumble travelled architects, fashioning teetering architects for Milton Keynes, designed across the reserve from some invisible tripod and pyramid forms. A simple as it was to accommodate the needs of source in the distance. ‘What’s that light sculpture was flailed wildly in all of its residents. noise?’ we curiously asked a volunteer the air, momentarily transforming our helping us with our packing quandary. gazebo into a rave seducing all nearby Around the campfire, conversations ‘I’m not sure, it sounds like a mosquitoes to join the party. circled the city past and present. rollercoaster’ he responded. So maybe Hopping from subject to subject we in those few hours Cowcommon Canyon, The materials we brought swiftly discussed the necessity of dumplings its dynamism, energy, innovation and developed lives of their own - playing with stew, how the Lakes Estate that fabulous impossible theme park, their part in servicing this new city residents long for the Adams shop to were realised a little bit after all. within a city. Our torches lit the route return, and how they should perhaps to the toilets for the unprepared, be known as ‘Bletchens’. All reminding our scissors clipped back brambles to us of the value of shared social space save bare legs from scratches and our and simple conversation in the dowels were used by the intrepid young cohesion of fire starters to move burning grass. We communities and became a late night city library with connectivity of returns gratefully made the following city dwellers. Last summer, City Club Associate Artists Bethany and Willow Mitchell met a group of Bletchley residents for a campout at the Blue Lagoon.