Our largest commission in recent times has been to produce a set of video installations for the Cutty Sark, which was closed to the public in November 2006, with the intention of its being reopened early in 2009. The first phase of the work, which involved the creation of a triple-screen piece for the ship’s temporary pavilion, was launched at Easter 2007. Three weeks later the ship suffered a devastating fire, which led to the temporary cessation of work on this project. On 24 th January this year the Cutty Sark Trust was granted additional funding, amounting to more than £10,000,000, from the Heritage Lottery Fund. This means that work has been resumed, with the result that we shall be making a short film on the history of tea in China, to be shot (in various spectacular locations) in April. Other work for the Trust will include a film on the production of wool in Australia & an installation on the Literature of Ships & the Sea.

We have continued to develop our relationship with the cellist Neil Heyde & with the Kreutzer String Quartet, whom we have filmed performing works by Lutoslawski, Stravinsky, Jim Aitchison, John Cage, Michael Finnissy & the Greek Cypriot composer Evis Sammoutis. Our work with Neil has included the recently completed DVD Electric Chair Music, based on Time & Motion Study II, for Cello & Electronics by the avant-garde composer Brian Ferneyhough - see ‘Productions’ for details - & Improvisation & Synaesthesia, a live collaboration between musicians and the abstract painter Mark Rowan-Hull. We have also been making audio recordings with members of the Kreutzer Quartet at Wilton's Music Hall, the most recent of which features Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time & Stockhausen's 1968 piece for improvisers "The Right Duration" [click to play].

Our work in the field of poetry has included Companion of Angels: A Celebration of William Blake, an experimental piece commissioned by the City of London - see ‘Productions’ - & a short piece with the poet & novelist Iain Sinclair, based on his John Clare book Edge of the Orison. In the autumn of 2007 Colin went to St Petersberg with director/academic Sara Jolly to shoot a pilot for a proposed film on the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. In addition we have continued to work – slowly, & without funding – on our trilogy of American films, on Robert Creeley, Jerome Rothenberg & Michael McClure; work on the latter (Abstract Alchemist of Flesh) has included filming sections of the poet’s once controversial play The Beard, as well as interviews with Ray Manzarek (co-founder of The Doors), Dennis Hopper, actor Peter Coyote & the composer Terry Riley.

Last November we recorded a tribute to the poet Bill Griffiths, who died 13th September 2007. This recording, which features archival readings by Bill himself, as well as a host of friends & fellow poets, including Geraldine Monk, Will Rowe, Clive Bush, Alan Halsey & Harry Gilonis, is available on a double CD from Alan Halsey: alan@nethedge.demon.co.uk, price £12.00.