Matthew Sheret

A little while back I got involved in a project called ditto, and my contribution to it will be going live within the next few days.

Between the 14th – 17th May Camden’s Roundhouse will be hosting a series of electronic art and music performances under the banner Short Circuit. On Saturday 16th May, while the main space hosts the fantastic Touch presents… line up, the Roundhouse Studios will be hosting a select audience for the one-time-only collaboration ditto, which will be streamed live around the world for an audience that could, potentially, be limitless.

The ‘catch’ of ditto, should there be one, is that the event will not be recorded, preserved or saved in any way. ditto is an experiential performance, and every contribution – from over twenty acts and performers – will be deleted during the event’s finale.

Once I joined the project there was a role that seemed to fit really nicely with the fragmentary bursts I’m currently writing in threesixfivestart: In the run up to the night I will be releasing a narrative in around 60 parts on the project’s Twitter page, while will compile to form the abstract journey we all take to get to the night itself, as artists and audience. The piece itself will be called ‘Countdown’.

I’m pretty pleased with how things have gone this far, and I’m really excited to see what comes next. Elements of the journey have been left open for me to play with some of the feedback I get, in keeping with the interactive nature of ditto.

So, get involved: add the ditto.tv Twitter account to see the countdown unfold and head over to ditto.tv itself to find ways to take part.

I should probably have plugged this a while back, but I thought I’d wait until I had it in my hand before blabbing about it, and pretty much as soon as I got it in my hand I got broken sick and busy as all hell. BUT…

Because We Cannot Lie All Night Together.

My story ‘To Build A Home’ opens this fourteen-track compilation ‘zine curated by Gareth Los Campesinos! to sell on their U.S. tour.

A version of the story appeared as Pressing No. 51 on The Polaroid Press, and as you can guess, it being me, it’s a really personal little piece. The ‘rules’ of the ‘zine were that we had a to write a story about a song inextricably linked with a break-up. As a result it’s a truly heart-on-sleeve collection, and also a really great mix of stories and sounds.

Being asked to contribute was quite an honour. I met Gareth briefly back in April, and by typing the words ‘christie malry’s own double entry’ into his phone seem to have flipped a switch in his head. I really hope this is a good thing. I love Los Camp!, and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed defined 2008 for all the reasons I’ve listed here before, so having them carry my words around for a few days feels good.

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Big changes ahead for me. I’m moving out of the Muswell Hill flat in the next month, and finishing my time at 176 with the opening of Matt Stokes’ Gainsborough Packet &c. What next? A quick, and manic, week in New York started the year and has given me a few ideas.

2009 I’ve been really optimistic about, and it’s shaping up nicely so far.

Matthew Sheret, Listening to Marc Ellerby‘s Panel Borders interview, 2009

Denver International and its fourteen hour layover crept up on me with a purely vindictive smile.

(Crossposted here I’m afraid)

So, here it is.

When The Polaroid Press started back in January the model always included me producing a physical document to accompany it. At first it took the form of the flyers, but the problem with me ordering 2500 copies of “A Life…” was that there was no fucking way I was going to get shot of them all. So I ordered half as many copies of “Before…”, but moved into The Lady’s with little more than a suitcase for four months, which somewhat dented my enthusiasm for looking at things with my name all over them and my drive to get them out there. But the principle was sound, I just needed something more, something to use them for.

My initial plan was to do half a dozen flyers and sell a couple of hundred of them as a bundle at some point down the line. But, frankly, that just didn’t feel right. So I started to plot a Polaroid Press “zine” that would be photocopyable and basic, a thing to tout my words in a more substantial form than the flyers. It was Sean who pointed out that that didn’t quite seem to fit with the project’s ethos. So at the tail end of September, motivated by The Lady breaking up with me and a long week of sobriety, I started taking steps toward producing a proper document, an almost-zine that had all of The Polaroid Press’s quality and quirk in a pocket-sized pack.

The results are better than I could possibly have hoped for.

Twelve stories, on the rear of prints of the Polaroids that inspired or accompany them, bound in a hand-stamped envelope with a new introduction for the collection. A “zine” in spirit, but just a little bit different, a combination of words and pictures that I really fucking love.

On November 15th I’ll be at Thought Bubble comic convention in Leeds, which’ll be the first chance to buy them in the flesh, a bargain at £3.50. I’ll be offering any remaining from the first run on the website after that (or perhaps earlier, if you e-mail and ask me very nicely) before seeing if a second run is worthwhile.

It’s been an interesting road, getting here, but hopefully this marks the start of the second phase of The Polaroid Press.

I’m really excited by the thought of that.

Matt, listening to M83 while staring longingly at The Polaroid Press pack, 2008