Climate Change - a media cover up?

A fascinating article by George MonBoit in the Guardian caught my eye.

Read article on the Guardian website

As Monboit points out, there is a worrying difference between what is going on in the world today, and what the media is choosing to report. Yesterday, 28th August, saw the biggest recorded melt of ice in the Arctic. Significant? You would think so. But, with a disturbing irony, national English newspapers chose to focus on the debate about where the next runway for Heathrow should be built, not if it should be built at all.

Yesterday also marked the beginning of the Republican tour of Florida, it had been previously delayed because of the unusual force of approaching hurricane Isaac. However, the majority of Republicans still deny global warming exists at all. Judging by recent events, they are not the only people who need to carefully rethink their priorities.

The future of 3D cinema

The end of annoying 3D glasses?!

With the Encounters Short Film Festival fast approaching I decided to take a look at the future of our cinemas. What will be on our screens? Or, more importantly, how will we be watching it?

3D video has been taken to a new level by teams of researchers at some of the world’s top universities. At Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute scientists have developed a programme which displays images in 3D, by projecting light to illuminate drops of water as they fall through the air. The water drops fall in three layers and a computer is carefully programmed to control which drop is lit up. So far they have created every child’s dream, 3D tetris, and successfully displayed images, text and videos. 

BBC news reported on a recent attempt by an international team of scientists to create 3D images on bubbles. Much like normal bubbles, the main ingredient is soap. Ultrasonic sound waves are played onto the film, altering its qualities and buckling the surface to create different effects, from the smooth shiny surface of a butterfly wing to the rough opaque texture of fabric. The mixture has been designed so that objects can pass through it without popping the bubble.

A team at Nokia has even come up with a touch screen made of ice.

These things may seem bit useless at the moment – who is going to install a waterfall in their home or replace their TV screen with a series of bubble membranes? However, the projects display the huge potential when science, specifically computer programming, and the creative industries join forces. Who knows, the moving pictures hung of the walls of Harry Potter’s castle may be closer than we think.

My predictions for the future:

- The poster adverts which line our streets and bus stops will become videos, moving images which change and react to you as you pass by.  Perhaps they will even take basic information about you, e.g. your gender and age, to make the advert’s content specific the person walking by.

- Film and theatre-makers will join forces to create interactive ‘experiences’, where 3D projections mean you can view the action in the film from every angle.

- The touch screen made of ice might receive a ‘chilly’ reception, but its successor will mean touch screens can be created on every possible surface.

Two short films, one common theme

I saw these two short films at a screening last week. School Portrait racked up 1 million views in a matter of days. Directed by Nick Scott, the enjoyably aloof, sarcastic character of the school photographer has happily given up trying to make children smile, but can the much discussed woes of our 'broken' modern society (the congestion charge, the fact that 60% of marriages end in divorce) really dampen the spirit of childhood. One ginger girl is refusing to go down with the ship...


Watch School Portrait on Vimeo now


Another film which cut right to the quick of life in 2012 British society was Connect. Directed by Samuel Abrahams and nominated for a BAFTA for Best Short Film in 2011, Connect encapsulates the moment two strangers 'meet' on a London bus. Much like the messages section aimed at love-struck young Londoners in the Metro, Abrahams' story tells of the anonymity of London, he evokes the moment when the stony-walled reserve so peculiar to commuters is momentarily broken down. Dark, strangely powerful with the bitter-sweet tinge of familiarity.


Watch the trailer for Connect on Vimeo now 

Drawing Life...The Da Vinci Exhibition

500 years ago Leonardo Da Vinci used art as a means of examining the human body. A prolific artist who achieved fame within his lifetime, Da Vinci produced thousands of acutely observed scientific sketches; of bodies, bones and muscles stripped of skin. Yet he never achieved his aim of producing a grand treatise on what he had discovered. 

Now, all these years later, we can see ten of his best sketches, unveiled as part of a new exhibition at Bristol Museum. They are minute, ink and chalk on rough paper, two-tone and sometimes unfinished. A couple are designs for statues, others preparation for bigger paintings and one an example of his scientific sketches, which have resonated across so many generations. They burst from the page and throb with life, but why have they brought him fame which has lasted half a century? What is special about these small scraps of drawings, which represent only a tiny selection of his huge catalogue? 

Perhaps it is the delicacy of his work, which captures so clearly the life and energy of whatever he is depicting. Da Vinci uses tiny lines to indicate shading, they arch and weave across the page and create an image full of depth and vigour. The lightness of his hand seems at odds with the grim reality of his subject matter. We know Da Vinci requisitioned dead bodies for his drawings, and it feels like he has attempted to breathe life into them once again. 

The age of the pictures means that they begin to decompose in contact with the light, thus the exhibition offers a unique opportunity to see what is decaying, and what one day will simply fade away. Da Vinci is a true master of his craft, he sought the truth of the object, and went to any means to find it. It is this accuracy of observation, this skill in bringing what was before him to the page, that has made him one of the most renowned names in art today.

Building Bridges

                   

Despite the proliferation of Bansky paintings that adorn its walls and grimy street corners, Bristol's most impressive pieces of design for me are the ones which have stayed the test of time.

Most impressive of all is Brunel's imposing Suspension Bridge, which spans the Avon Gorge. At only 24, Brunel dreamt up a bridge which easily meets the demands of twenty-first century traffic, at a time when cars and lorries hadn't even been invented. Built for another era, the Clifton Suspension Bridge has become an essential part of the fabric of Bristol city life, taking locals out of the city and attracting tourists in.

Vertigo-inducing view from the side.

Railings cast a shadow in the morning sun.

The shard 'hacked' by urban explorer

I couldn't help but post these astonishing pictures of 'urban explorer' Bradley Garrett perched on top of the Shard in London. 

Whether you think he is incredibly stupid or fantastically brave, he certainly got a stunning panoramic view of London from what is now Europe's tallest building.                                                                 

                                                                                                                            Garrett claimed to have swung onto the building from London Bridge, easily evading the solitary security guard who patrols the building's perimeter at night. Scaling right to the top, he described how it swayed unsteadily in the wind. The top floors of the Shard will be open for the public to explore once it is complete, and the more daring among us will be able to get a similar, if slightly safer, peek at the city.                                                                                                               

Professional panoramic photographer Will Pearson also offers a glimpse of the view from the top with this - legally - taken 360 degree interactive panorama. According to Pearson's blog, the shot was taken on the night of the student protests and, if you look closely enough, you can see police helicopters circling, and even the last remnants of snow on the hills behind Canary Wharf.  

Baroque chapel transformed into a virtual musical instrument

Prague-based project mapping collective 'Macula' have created an innovative interactive musical instrument in the basement of a baroque chapel. 

They have mapped a virtual surface onto the chapel's interior, making it possible for members of the public to literally 'play' different parts of the decoration by pointing lasers at them. So, for example, point a laser at the small cherub in the eaves and a heavenly note rings out, run the laser across the windows and a drum beat starts up. 
Up to ten people at a time can play the church, which opened in December 2011, and experience a strange reality in which usually silent concrete objects begin to light up, make sounds and react to the actions of the visitors.                                

                                                                                                                                 It has all been made possible by advances in computer coding; a fantastic example of how, when the technological and creative worlds collide, the boundaries of both can be broken down.


Archifon 1 - interactive musical instrument video

The ten best flower paintings

As featured in the Observer...                                                                                                          

Once again the Observer art critics have picked a common topic and found something unusual to say about it. In this article they tackled the well-worn topic of floral paintings and found a range of examples, all inspirationally different. A great source of ideas for those of us who love to paint nature.

Hokusai
Bullfinch on Weeping Cherry (c 1840)
British Library, London

Andy Warhol
Flowers (1970)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh

Ten best flower paintings, as featured in the observer 

Here is a link to some flower photos I took in April last year, when it was a scorching 22 degrees. 

Dramatic scenes at the Putney Boat Race

A swimmer in the river, broken blades, Alexander Woods collapsing with exhaustion and a race which had to be restarted half way through.                                                                                   

The 2012 Putney boat race, which struggled to a finish a few hours ago, was beset with problems from the very start. First a man’s head was spotted in the path of the boats, causing the crews to stop rowing seconds before they would have hit him. Perhaps as a result, when the race was restarted the boats clashed, hit oars, and Oxford lost a blade, which allowed Cambridge a hollow victory. Even after the race had finished the drama continued, when Oxford rower Alexander Woods collapsed in his boat and had to be carried away by paramedics.

It ended with a sombre meeting of the Cambridge winners, a cancelled award ceremony and no one being thrown in the river, only the mystery swimmer being dragged out. All in all a gloomy non-occasion; the defeated, exhausted looks in the rower’s faces told the story only two well.

See footage of the swimmer's disruption on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17644260

From mundanity to brilliance, in one skilfully drawn swoop

Supermundane is the cunning alias of unprepossessing East Londoner Rob Lowe. Cunning, because he is actually a super-brilliant artist, designer, illustrator, art director, typographer, writer and any of the other myriad of titles which can be squeezed under the ‘creative’ umbrella. I stumbled upon his designs hovering silently in a corner of the world wide web and was immediately intrigued.

Solid curving lines emerge from white backgrounds, sweeping across pages with a lightness that can only be hand drawn. The simplicity of the designs (often two-toned un-textured colours) belies their impact. The Big Chill has already adopted his faux-innocent doodles as its illustrations of choice, Design Week featured them on its front cover and Rough Trade printed them onto the front of its t-shirts. As you have probably guessed by now, I am a little behind the times in my ‘discovery’. However, that did not put me off delving deeper into his multi-faceted portfolio. 

This led to the discovery that he has turned his hands to magazine publishing, specifically, to art directing quirky little food magazine Fire and Knives.* My joy was complete. Released into the market place four times a year it provides a perfectly formed introduction into the world of alternative food writing. See a taster below.  

*Here I will add a disclaimer that an entire era of crap-chat gossip ‘mags’ have completely passed me by, their seemingly mass appeal is lost on me, along with the idea that marmite is a tasty thing to put on toast and MacDonald's provide (notice I don’t say ‘cook’) food which is actually edible (I might make exception to this if it is the middle of the night and you are stranded by a night bus, but only if the person behind the counter looks relatively hygienic). Hence my unashamed excitement at the discovery of Fire and Knives.

 

The surreal imaginings of Tang Yau Hoong

I spotted these designs by visual artist and graphic designer Tang Yau Hoong on the fantastic design blog Design M.ag, and immediately loved his surreal use of  negative space.

In his illustrations clouds become windows to a tropical vista, puffs of smoke become a solar landscape and tall trees are transformed into a cluster of sky scrapers. Truly inspiring!

Taan Yau Hoong Website

Seasonal fabric design

A look at Liberty's fabulous spring collection.                                                                                       

It was minus 9 degrees in some parts of England last week, and just to confirm the point the Daily Mail featured an image of a waterfall which had, rather stunningly, frozen solid in the Brecon Beacons. The trend for hand-knitted hats topped with a colourful bobble was displayed in abundance on the streets of London (or so I hoped having knitted myself one) and it was generally overcast, dull and grey.

Yet this week it feels like spring has arrived. The temperature has risen ten degrees and the Daily Mail website is now featuring pictures of women in bikinis (it's not that hot). 

The change in season has had an impact on the design world too, which has dutifully launched its spring collections upon us.                                                                                   
The new fabric designs at the Liberty store in London in particular caught my eye. Zandra Rhodes and Martin Miller are just two of the well-known artists who contributed to the collection, which features a selection of old designs reinvigorated by young designers amongst completely new patterns. 


Here are some of the best:

Visit Liberty's excellent website for a look behind the scenes at their deign studios. Click here for the video.

Claire’s Accessories unashamedly rips off small, ethical business...and then ignores the fallout

I was astounded to read that Claire’s Accessories have released a range of jewellery that replicates, perfectly, several necklaces by Tatty Devine. The multi-million pound retailer has not even attempted to alter the designs of this independent British business, and has simply reproduced them, correct to the last detail. 

In Claire’s, of course, they are far cheaper. Not only have Claire’s acted immorally by presenting another company's work as its own, it has benefited financially from stolen ideas and potentially damaged the reputation of an innovative, hard-working smaller business. In a time of recession, when we are in desperate need of new business start ups to boost the economy, this appears not only illegal but totally unethical.

Claire’s PR strategy is to completely ignore and immediately delete the thousands of complaints which are flooding its facebook page, although it has little power over blogs, twitter and other social networking platforms. Tatty Devine has stated on its website that that it will be taking legal advice. However, in the murky world of intellectual copyright, it is sadly unlikely that any case they bring will succeed. 

A recipe for success...Comptoir Libanais followed by a trip to the V&A

The lecture theatre in the V&A's Sackler centre (top picture) hangs beautifully above the corridors below. The architect has cleverly employed mirrors and lights to create the illusion of space in the narrow corridor, he transmutes a claustrophobic space into a work of art. I thought it was a great example of the interplay between design and the space it occupies. It also  provides a smooth transition for the viewer into the older, more austere galleries of the museum. A perfect collusion of modern and historic architecture. 

A stones throw from the V&A 'Comptoir Libanais' has just opened and become my new favourite restaurant. The food is affordable (at about £8 for a main) and the decor inviting, a jumbled fusion of cafe and street market (as unusual as it sounds). It's the perfect place to rest after a long day meandering the galleries, or to refuel before heading into London.


Comptoir Libanais: 1-5 Exhibition Road, South Kensigton, SW7 2HE.

Two Sisters - One Life

A review of  Toni and Rosi, film preview at BAFTA

Toni and Rosi is the latest documentary by director Will Wyatt, former controller of BBC One. It depicts the intense relationship between two Viennese sisters, Toni and Rosi, a piano duo who survived World War Two, family breakdown and life threatening-illness to achieve success on the classical music circuit.

The charm of the film lies with the sister’s themselves. In their eighties, they are characterful, exuberant and often make the audience laugh aloud. Wyatt carefully cuts footage of the sisters shot over the last ten years with archive footage of the events they describe. This skillful juxtaposition of two types of film add to its emotional intensity.

As Jews in 1930s Vienna, under the strict and vicious control of the Nazis, the girls explain how they were in fear for their lives; a fear brought vividly into focus with footage of Viennese citizens enthusiastically welcoming the invading German Army. ‘We could hear them through the window’ the sisters add.    
                                        Their story after the end of the war is carefully drawn out, painted with the acute awareness of a practiced director. Intimate family anecdotes are interwoven seamlessly with the historical events which formed a back drop to them.

The film is subtle and nuanced, and all the better for it, but viewers must pay attention to feel its full emotional force. At the end we learn of Toni’s death. The final shot lingers on Rosi’s solitary figure as she plays the piano, heartbreakingly alone after so many years of companionship.

I was lucky enough to attend the preview at BAFTA and speak to the editor, Jamie Hay, about his approach to this unusual subject.

Watch it at 11.00pm, BBC4, Sunday 29th January.