H\Blog
May 2007

A Fish called Wonder Date added 25.05.07 by David Bickle Publication Like a single super-sized sardine housed in its own mobile tin can the ‘Purfleet One Float Carnival’ was always going to be a difficult dish to serve up. Intentionally conceived by the artist Jane Wilbraham (ably assisted by yours truly) as an object of indeterminate and ambiguous origin the fish is also uncannily familiar, and richly associative - it conjures thoughts of the Trojan Horse and Jonah and the whale (yes you can get inside it) of fun fairs and circus freak shows, of carnivals and processions, it is a joyous and unashamed assemblage of all these vernacular moveable moments. Here the art moves to the audience, exchanging the familiar gallery convention. It is reliant on both truck and driver to ‘deliver the goods’ a cargo of food that can not be eaten- a cipher for something missing and not quite right with the world –GM food anyone?. A fish that is at once scale-less yet full of them (one for each day of the year to be exact) The fish lived for one day in May though rumour has it that it may be seen again at some watery inspired event. So watch this space again.

Boxmanship Date added 25.05.07 by David Bickle Publication Architecture will not be the same again. A genius film by that genius theatre group Forkbeard Fantasy. Go watch the video at..... youtube.com/ Check out more at...... www.forkbeardfantasy.co.uk/

Colour Matching Date added 23.05.07 by Rebecca Williams Publication Adjusting your photographs to get the colour 'just right' can be a tricky business. The Old Masters of painting spent many years learning about colour. Why not take advantage of their expertise and use it to help with colour correction. When Photoshop developed the CS series it included a new tool called 'Match Colour.' This tool enables you match one set of photos to another. But there is another thing you can do with 'Match Colour' that is pretty clever: You can match the colours in your photos to those in famous paintings. For more information and a tutorial follow this link. www.unfocusedbrain.com/projects/match_color/

Bored of Blair Date added 15.05.07 by David Lomax Publication Contrary to popular belief, Tony Blair was not the only person to retire in the history of gainful employment. This last week, Lars Von Trier also announced that he may have to retire, in his case, from filmmaking due to the after effects of severe depression. The Danish writer/director was the co-founder and most accomplished member of filmmaking collective ‘Dogme 95’. They sought to use the opportunities for spontaneous and cheap production offered by digital media to reassess the notion of truth and reality in filmmaking. Their manifesto was to use only ‘found’ lighting conditions, props and scenery as well as improvised scripts to generate their films. This was just starting to get interesting as Von Trier was beginning to make genuine Hollywood movies whilst manipulating and adapting the tenets of this manifesto to suit. What some see as his mainstream breakthrough movie, Dogville was one of my favourite films of the last few years, starring Nicole Kidman and Paul Bettany. Lets hope the flimsy sequel Manderlay will not be his only legacy. Have a look at his back catalogue ( Click Here and make up your own mind. Here’s the Dogme 95 website for a bit of background too! Click Here

Memories of a Dance - The Icing on the Dance Floor Date added 11.05.07 by Anna Motture Publication A worn down floor or holes in a carpet tell a story of age and tiredness - they are normally replaced, any memory of who has walked there, where they have come from, where they are going becomes entirely lost. Linda Florence, award-winning print designer currently exhibiting as part of the Creative 8 at the Clerkenwell Green Association, begins to celebrate the idea of capturing the wear and tracking of people walking across floors, deliberately considering the memory and ageing right from the initial design of the floor work. Above the swirls of a tearoom dance are captured as dancers move across the hall covered in a pattern made entirely of icing sugar loosely sprinkled through stencils straight onto the floor. Go check out more of her work..... Click Here

Does a Monocle Give a Narrow View? Date added 03.05.07 by David Lomax Publication Last week, with the joy of a 3 hour flight to look forward to, I thought I’d pick up a new magazine. ‘Monocle’ is of rather serious demeanour, claiming to offer a briefing on, well, the whole world, under the titles of Affairs, Business, Culture, Design and Edits. Yes, I thought edits sounded crap too, but it does start with an ‘E’ doesn’t it? If the graphics and typesetting are unsettlingly familiar, there’s a reason for that. A quick look inside the cover reveals that the editor is none other than Tyler Brûlé, erstwhile editor and creator of Wallpaper* magazine, when it was less naff. Whilst there are many fewer pretty pictures to look at, the content is far less obtuse than was often the case with Wallpaper* and the photography is intermittently just as sharp, but now seems comfortingly familiar rather than as fresh (or, it has to be admitted, homo-erotic) as it did ten years ago. A grown up magazine, but then maybe Tylers audience grew up too? Certainly got me through at least 2 and a half hours of my flight. The rest was occupied with my regular routine of seat gripping (take off) and nervous chat (landing). Worth a try. www.monoclemagazine.com