jonnybaker

a light through the noise

at grace on saturday night we had an amazing evening. 10 people created something in response to advent, picking a passage from a prophet or a theme. i am collating all the pieces and we will add them to the grace archive at some point. joel baker made an amazing video - his intro is below. the track he played with it was ben frost - theory of machines which has been switched out for putting it online as we don't have permission for it. but do switch it for yourself if you can. i honestly thought this was amazing (not just in a biased parent way!). it's been added to the proost advent series here. anyway here's the spiel from joel to go with it...

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned." Isaiah 9:2

When reading a few verses / passages for inspiration this one really struck out at me.
As we come to the end of the year we reflect; pulling together end of year playlists, highlights and lowlights, miles run, walked and cycled, goals and achievements. But one thing I haven't particularly wanted to reflect on is what's going on in the wider world. It’s pretty depressing.

Sometimes it feels as if we are walking in darkness and could really do with seeing a light. This then was my visual response & exercise. By scraping various headlines from the past year or so, I tried to see if I could shine a light through the noise and give us something to hold onto as we move into 2025.

settle - ambient prayer 2

the second ambient prayer at grace on saturday went really well. the whole thing is here - ambient prayer 2 - including the playlist, card, exercises, movie and slides. we have made sure we put everything up so if anyone else wants to try it out it's all there. feel free and let us know how you get on. i am hoping to develop say a series of 6 over the next year or so. it will be quite a nice off the shelf intro to contemplative prayer.

i have enjoyed thinking about a visual idea to go with each one. this time it was an old grace idea reworked - shake up a jar and watch it settle. i  loved how it came out orange which was to do with some christmas left over syrup from making candied grapefruit - it had a bit of campari in it which helped the liquid be a bit thicker! it definitely slows you down - you know it's slow when a drip of water falling from the lid feels like some action. it lasts around 4 minutes so the challenge is to watch it all!. the average length of viewing on instagram so far is 16 seconds which tells you everything you need to know about social media and attention span.

i am adding the jar as a worship trick - why not?!

 

halo

i called in to see halo, an installation at st stephens walbrook as part of the london design festival. a pendulum loops round henry moore's altar with a light that moves up and down completing loops. a long exposure photo creates the halo effect. above are ambient projections looking like the northern lights. it was well done. for what it's worth my own take was that it would be interesting to expand this project conceptually by exploring notions of the sacred elsewhere - locating the halo outside the church walls.

i took a video of halo in case you want to see the pendulum in real time as it were or get a sense of the ambient projections overhead.

apollo christmas - new movie on proost

there's a new movie on proost from jon birch - apollo christmas. the latest update from proost has links to various advent and christmas resources but here's what it says about this movie...

This week we launch Jon Birch's wonderful apollo christmas movie.  On Christmas Eve 1968 astronauts orbiting the moon made an amazing broadcast.  With incredible visuals, euphoric electronic music and the words of the three astronauts - this movie takes a different spin on wonder at Christmas.

waiting and silence

waiting and silence is a new video on proost made by paul hutchinson and narrated by pádraig ó tuama.it is a  28 minute documentary, which explores a quaker meeting during an act of worship. it's perfect for lent exploring the role and function of silence and contemplation in our society. delighted to have this land at proost which continues to surprise against the odds with all sorts of creative content... there is a trailer here on youtube which gives the flavour.

if you follow the blog you'll know i am a big fan of silence - see for example the presence of silence

people walking in darkness

for the first time in a while the advent grace was nine, where we take the traditional nine readings from nine lessons and carols and invite nine people to choose a piece of music and do something else - a reflection, ritual or whatever.

this year was great with a whole range of contributions. a favourite of mine was the first ever contribution from dave and helena who are new to grace. they made this wonderful film to go with the reading from isaiah 9 about 'the people walking in darkness'. 

we have quickly added this to proost so it's available to anyone now - it may be a bit late for this year but tuck it away for next if so!

song of the sea - pain, loss and the magic in life

song of the sea is an amazing animation - go see it! sadly lots of people think you have to have kids to go and see a film like this but this really is not the case! it's an extraordinary film. it's a beautiful tale and stunning drawing - worth seeing for that. but it's also moving and powerful leaving you with a lot to think about. there's a mythical tale that runs parallel to a story of loss with some of the mythical characters played by the same voices as the characters they resonate with in real life. brene brown would have a field day in relation to the numbing of emotions to avoid pain - which leads to numbness across the board. in the case of the film it leads to losing the magic of and in life. i have been reflecting since that it is song in the film that frees trapped emotions - and art has that power in a way nothing else does… anyway i don't want to spoil the story. but it's a bit like where the wild things are with it's parallel of max's life and the monsters on the island. the forthcoming pixar film is also set to explore emotions which looks fun (though the trailer suggests it won't succeed in avoiding clichéd gender stereotypes). song of the sea has 99% on rotten tomatoes 100% on flixster, mark kermode gave it 5 stars - so i am not alone in my being wowed.

wake up!

last night i watched charlie brooker's screen wipe 2014. it's a month by month roll through the year with him taking pops at virtually everybody in his perceptive and sarcastic fashion. i laughed out loud several times. part of me wishes he would rant less and shift the tone as i think he has things to say to a much wider audience but i like it none the less... but in the middle of it was an extraordinary five minutes by the wonderful adam curtis who is the most brilliant documentary maker, at least when it comes to taking a helicopter view of the narratives in the wider culture. turns out that that segment is on youtube so take five minutes of your life and watch it.

i've called the post wake up because it's one of a number of things that i have read or watched recently that have reminded me of how much things need to change and i need to wake up and (together with others) imagine and work towards a different kind of world and society than the one we have now...

how to be an urban cyclist

jen's talk from greenbelt on how to be an urban cyclist is online

greenbelt 40 trailer

6 women one skyscraper no permission

loved watching this from greenpeace

put down your ipads and put on your ipatches!

kester holds forth on pirates on ted talks exeter...

i liked his book but never got round to reviewing it - especially the first half of the book and his exploration of the commons and beating the bounds. 

so much beauty in the world...

northern lights

chasing ice

last night i went to see the film chasing ice which was put on by ealing transition. it's well worth seeing if you get a chance. if you are in doubt about the shifts in climate, after watching james balog's time lapse movies of glaciers you will have a visual picture that is at the same time utterly compelling visually and will make you want to lament. it's what he calls the extreme ice survey. the commitment to place 25 cameras in extreme positions and conditions to take hourly photographs of glaciers is amazing...

james balog gave a TED talk in 2009 and towards the end of this you see some of the time lapse movies. it's well worth 20 minutes of your life.

i have been meaning to go to a gathering of ealing transition for a while so it was good to finally go and meet people and hear of local initiatives in response to climate change and shifting our dependency on oil. it's an extraordinary movement. one of the anglican 5 marks of mission is care for the environment. one brilliant way of doing that would be to join in with transiition if it's going on near you.

if you liked the ADVENTurous movies

it was a great day at ADVENTurous yesterday - if you liked the movies shown, several were from proost and three were made especially for ADVENTurous.

elf issues and garbage garbage were both by jon birch and shown in the day

prophet(tear) and wonky donkey were both on display in the exhibition and harry performed wonky donkey.

if you are interested in advent resources on proost, have a look at our advent news which summarises lots, or click on the seasons button and search advent and/or christmas.

oh and it's been pointed out to me after my blog post yesterday that advent actually starts today - advent sunday - of course! so all you people who have advent calendars with a dec 1 or advent candles with a 1 what were you thinking?!

reversible thinking

i love this video created by sarah roberts. sarah is from edinburgh and is on the missional entrepreneurship week which is part of the cms pioneer training. a year ago sarah left her job with a dream and idea of working to help young people whose parents are in prison in scotland and is on the week to work that idea up. she is working with families outside

rembihnutur - thanks bob!

Sigur Rós - Rembihnútur from Sigur Rós Valtari Mystery Films on Vimeo.

bob carlton sent me a link a couple of weeks back to a new video from sigur ros. they have commissioned a series of films to go with the album valteri. this one tied in so perfectly with the wake up theme and service i outlined in the previous blog post i couldn't believe it! we showed this during the communion at the end of the service. i was so hoping that one of the people would open thier eyes towards the end and sure enough...

weed it and reap

what a lovely story - weed it and reap

gorgeous loops

it's been quite a remarkable few months on proost. wonderful content has just made its way to us as if by magic! we've had seasons before where we've had to do much more searching it out. this month on proost we have two new artists which we always love...

tim dendy is a london based freelance video maker, vj and photographer who is in moot. years back we did a series of worship images in a video tape as it was then between the ground breaking collective one small barking dog and grace. anyway he has created 7 movie loops using time lapse photography that are really gorgeous - vy loops 4. tim's loops seem to blend both the beauty and fast paced nature of life in the city. if you look on the page you can watch one of the loops there. in keeping with the ever shifting realm of technology we have made these loops hd size - i.e. great quality and size.  

then we have an album dark matter from  a feckless boy. they hail from scotland and their music is soulful, aching and spiritual. there's something in the scottish soil that seems to cultivate this sort of soulful artistry in wonderful measure. have a listen to the preview track beza's song on the album page.

india is...

i have got to know jonathan simpson through his dad phil who is a good friend and who works at cms. his dad travels around asia networking, catalysing and supporting mission. his son has clearly caught the love of asia and travel and he is quite the photographer. have a look through the images on his web site which is a lovely site all round.

anyway these days if you've got a decent camera which jonathan has, you can shoot fabulous movies and there are several movies on the site as well...

jonathan has put a movie together and entered it in india is... - a competition to capture something of india in a short film. his movie is india is for skiers. go and have a look and do take the trouble to vote for him!