I/The Frog is raising money because Simon The Human had a pituitary brain tumour removed in 2018 followed by PTSD and the secretion of frog's is used to help heal PTSD.

The Frog Story So Far...............................

In 2018, an accidental discovery of a 3cm Pituitary brain tumour was found, the tumour was making Simon’s/The Human’s optic nerve do a dogleg, and the tumour had to be taken out through the nose before the optic nerve snapped, and Simon The Human went blind.

Luckily, the tumour was benign, but consequently, Simon The Human produces no testosterone, so must put 5 pumps of testosterone gel on their thighs every morning. Luckily, we have no image of that!

Bouts of PTSD followed, and they saw a counsellor, and around this time, and very quickly but considerately, The Frog evolved. It was not as if Simon The human was dissatisfied with their life, they were relatively happy, despite the fact there had been many sacrifices. Yet there was a deep desire, sometimes consuming, to help others who feel trapped and overwhelmed, though they probably would not admit it, by the weight of expectation.

Simon The Human had been having conversations around the idea of performing as a frog with a good friend back in 2016, who was obsessed by them, by their abilities to transform, adapt and survive. Frogs can move between heightened camouflage, textures, bodily mass, and expressive, celebratory colour, and this particularly intrigued Simon The Human.

Simon The Human yearned to hug, to embrace and see other perspectives! The Frog was an opportunity to slow down and take in how others reacted to The Frog.

Cranial trepanation is one of the oldest surgical interventions that was carried out in ancient Egypt as treatment for cranial trauma and neurological diseases, but it also, the Egyptians believed, had the magical and religious purpose of expelling the evil spirits which caused the mental illness, epilepsy, or migraine symptoms.

Coincidentally, only a week before Simon The Human’s brain tumour was removed through a hole in his skull and out through his nose, he performed a collaborative soundtrack with the artist Ruby Tingle for an event to mark the temporary closure of Manchester Museum, amongst the Egyptology gallery collections.

Channelling the Egyptian spirits through sound, movement, and song, transforming from wearing death masks made from graphite rubbings from the museum’s textures of history.

Into golden frog-headed gods, a symbol of fertility (or productivity). To Simon The Human, the gothic and Egyptian ideology, through this performance, was about confronting death by expressing and celebrating life.

The alter-ego gives Simon The Human/The Frog free reign, to play, to roam and action whatever they yearn, to act in whatever way they feel. The Human learns from The Frog and The Frog learns from The Human, both gaining confidence from this, allowing for both realities to merge and be celebrated, in the hope of passing this on to other humans and at the same time breaking some rules.

The Frog embraces the realms between real life and fantasy, the blurring of boundaries between the real and imagined, akin to the surrealists embracing the depths of the unconscious, to unlock the power of imagination.

The Frog invokes a paramnesia-like state in fact, blurring the boundaries between reality, and fantasy and desire.

Life has had bad press of late, the Covid pandemic, Brexit, the cost-of-living crisis. Environmental collapse! And Simon The Human and The Frog want to go some way to try and amend this in some way.

Although frogs/amphibians global decline is concerning, they have weathered many pathological storms in the past. Over many millions of years, they have evolved a suite of skin secretions to kill and eradicate invading pathogens and some of those defences may be of use to humanity.

Secretion produced by frogs and toads to regulate (akin to the testosterone gel for Simon The Human) and maintain their skin, from antibacterial qualities. In particular, the secretion of Ecuador’s Phantasmal Poison-arrow Frog was found to be 200 times more effective than morphine, and the medical processes can come without harming any frog. Furthermore, protein found in amphibian skin can influence human brain activity, such brain conditions as Alzheimer’s disease and clinical depression and PTSD!

To both Simon The Human and The Frog, the uses of prosopopoeia, the rhetorical device in which a performer, speaker or writer communicates by performing and singing as another person, or an animal, or an inanimate object, is very important. It is used by Simon The Human and The Frog to give multiple perspectives on the action being performed or described through their writing.

Frogs, toads, amphibians are extremely important to our health and Simon The Human and The Frog explore this through roaming and singing in galleries, towns, cities. They hold up a mirror, they play games with the public spaces and other humans or animals they come across.

It is the openness to be playful within situations, that allows for an awareness of the present conditions to become enhanced and to align this with the artists body and the costumed and masked persona that is being performed in.

The Frog likes to sing and collaborate with others, and sometimes they see themselves as an alternative town crier, with brass bell in hand, picking up on multiple conversations, often singing out impromptu gossip, whatever they tune into and hear!

The Frog has been influenced by several performers in relation to acting out through personas and outfits and how this influences the behaviour and bodily language of The Frog. This includes actor, author, comedian, critic, director, humourist, journalist, MC, performance artist, playwright, producer, publicist, public speaker, and songwriter Will ‘The Human Frog’ Ferry. As a contortionist, in 1901, ‘The Human Frog’ drew huge audiences at the Theatre Royal to see a great spectacle on stage – a reincarnation of a giant swamp.

Suddenly a large green frog appeared, coming out from the bottom of a pool on the stage. This was Will ‘the human frog’ Ferry. Made up to look like a frog, he imitated different frog movements and sprang to the top of a tree stump, where he executed improbable contorted shapes whilst balancing himself on a small piece of wood.

In relation to this The Frog is interested in moulding into spaces, performing, reacting, and flirting with the architectural spaces of The Whitaker and reacting to Ruby’s works in the exhibition, the textures, colours, shapes and contours.

Another influence on The Frog is the short-lived Dada nightclub Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, in neutral Switzerland in 1916 (and later revived in the 21st century). It was founded by Hugo Ball, with his companion Emmy Henningsvas.

Events at Cabaret Voltaire were pivotal in the founding of the anarchic Dada movement. The cabaret featured and mixed spoken word, dance, music, and costume performances. The events were often raucous with artists experimenting with new forms of performance, The cabaret exhibited radically experimental artists, many of whom went on to change the face of art, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, de Chirico, and Max Ernst.

It is Hugo Ball’s shamanistic-like performances mixing animal-like sounds and ceremonial dress that are the biggest influence on The Frog.

The Frog’s interest in Cabaret Voltaire and Dada, stems from their interest in rejecting logic and prescribed behaviour and instead expressing irrationality, randomness and following instinct and subconscious desire. Language guides our behaviour and guides what we think and don’t think, do, and don’t do, but like Dada, The Frog tries to break this down by embracing irrational thought and behaving instinctively by utilising bodily language and moving with and through spaces and the lives of others, opening up new perceptions and interactions with the world.

More than ever in our fast-paced, competitive world, it seems we all have our personas, whether embraced or not, we all have our strategic mask of identity, both private and in the public realm. The social characters that we adopt, often considered an intermediary between the individual and the institution.

The Frog does hold up a mirror. One time The Frog entered a craft market in a town hall and The Frog was embraced, being asked for selfies and high fives. However, even though somebody had said that The Frog was harmless to the security guard, the security guard with the firm grip, was still determined to escort The Frog out and whispered in The Frog’s ear ‘you are scaring others, and you are scaring me, get out of here now and don’t come in here again!’ Ironically around us were kids with painted zombie and other horror faces from the face painting stall, but the bruised mark where he grabbed was physically real! Holding up a mirror indeed!

Performances have included at HOME in Manchester for John Hyatt’s Club Big, The Manchester Museum, The White Hotel in Salford for the Not Quite Light Festival, Warrington Art Gallery, Chetham's Library in Manchester, PAPER Gallery in Manchester for ‘This Land Is Our Land’, AIR Gallery in Altrincham, Soup Kitchen in the Northern Quarter, Manchester, a series of impromptu performances at Treacle Market, Macclesfield and of course more recently here at The Whitaker for Ruby’s wonderfully polymathic, heuristic exhibition.

The Frog is very excited about a series of films, the second of which they have just made with filmmaker Jay Zjawinska and a future project they are doing transforming and performing an outdoor public space in Leeds, creating a performance and installation which would include several different coloured frog head masks on poles, which historically were used to encourage fertility, encouraging a coming together of community, inviting others to wear the masks alongside a collaged soundtrack, and finally transforming into Simon The Human’s collective band L.A.S.H.!

Like Will ‘The Human Frog’ Ferry The Frog has hopped off into lots of tangents, they have co-curated exhibitions and projects like /KITE\ happening, they have written a chapter for Derek Horton’s Soanyway magazine, which is around the subject of prosopopoeia, The Frog has been co-making and performing in films and of course singing lots.

They have even started to take over Simon’s lecturer roles at University of Huddersfield and University of Chester and in April give a bride away at a wedding!

'The Frog' is always evolving and time travelling, a soup of sorts, and tries to give voices to cities, towns, villages, environments, spaces, and places, both physical and of the mind.