Earlier this month I responded to a call for a photographer to get involved with arts collective Uhr. The trio were looking for someone to collaborate with on their project Uhr III, having already created two audio/visual pieces – post punk in sound coupled with stark minimal imagery – available to view below. I was intrigued & wanted to find out more about the Penwortham three.
Who is involved in Uhr?
Uhr is principally John Harkins, Jack Harkins and David Chambers although Uhr intends to collaborate with other artists at a future time.
What is the idea behind Uhr?
Uhr creates pieces of artistic work that comprise of music, video and photography among various other mediums. Uhr’s work is often minimalist, stark, clean, functional and abstract. This work is made with the intention to be exhibited at live events, online and in curated spaces. The idea to come together in the form of an artistic collaboration rather than a conventional band or group came from the conversations that we had prior to getting together to create work. These conversations highlighted a mutual interest in the importance of visual art in the music scene, a collective desire to take that concept further and also a disdain at how the opening up of the conventions of the music scene to more creative ideas is often frowned upon and labelled pretentious and not a second thought is given to it.
What has Uhr created so far?
Uhr has released an audio/visual piece of work entitled PreUhr. PreUhr constitutes of two acts, Act I – Two Gulls and Act II – Written Reply which are both available on our YouTube channel and website for viewing. Uhr is currently working on songs and visual work to exhibit in a live environment. Uhr is also recording some of these as predecessors to the PreUhr work and hoping to release another audio/visual piece of work in the near future.
What was the concept behind the latest shoot?
The concept behind Uhr’s collaboration with Lisa Brown was to portray the Uhr as ‘hypernormal’. The idea was to create a sense of abnormality by using plain, unconventional clothing and using the immediately built environment, in this case a new and partially occupied housing estate.
Where can people view Uhr’s work?
Uhr’s current Audio/Visual work PreUhr is available on our YouTube channel and website (listed below). News, updates and new work will be posted on our Website and Facebook page.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk_OsyaM5P9JEezX_wMaNkQ
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UhrFYI/
Website: www.uhr.fyi
Uhr can be contacted at comms@uhr.fyi
Possibly one of the most compelling post modern collections in the world