aspire to enquire

Russ Mills Byroglyphics

What a weird pleasure to discover the work of Russ Mills through Booooooom. He's called it Byroglyphics, which is lucky as I don't think there's any other single genre his work would fit into. 

The show must go on an app

This is interesting - the Royal Opera House have commissioned Hide&Seek studio to create a new app thing which has turned out to be a fun iPhone game.

It acts as a new digital revenue stream and potential audience-grower for the institution, which is doubtless dealing with all kinds of cuts and strains like the rest of the UK public culture sector.

Apart from being fiendishly hard, it's a really fun and surprisingly engaging way to explore behind the scenes of an opera production, and the payoffs from working through the levels can be quite funny, especially if you're as bad as me.

I'll be really interested to see if this does help ROH financially - the app is reasonably pricey, but I imagine their brake-even point will still require quite a few sales - but I'm even more interested to see what its effect on audiences and young career starters is.

Many years ago in biology class I almost decided I wanted to be an ecologist when I grew up, because of a fun worksheet we had to do where we had to find the best place to re-house some newts. We had to think about water flow, tree cover, sewage, other predators, all kinds of things. As a 13 year-old that was just about the level of encouragement I needed to plan my future. I wonder if moving sets around and working lighting rigs in The Show Must Go On will inspire more young people to get involved behind and in front of the stage, even if it is only 3.5 inches wide for the time being.

Download it!

Phone Room

Photograph by Shawn Bush, from his book The Process of Meaning and Worth

I like old telephones. We have an old creamy yellow bakelite one from Bolton (Bolton 22875 to be exact) that I got when we had to get a phone line to have internet. If we didn't only ever use it to deal with touch-tone call centres it would be awesome.

Anyway I liked this photograph seen on Feature Shoot. 

 

The Dø

Too Insistent by The Dø

An intriguing band with mix of folk/hip hop/beats, they almost sit somewhere on the unlikely line between Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and M.I.A. But that probably doesn't hint to enough of the genres split into each song. 

I've only just really found out about them just now but I think they've been around a few years. They're playing in Hoxton Bar and Grill on November 23rd, if you fancy it?

Look what happens when you give a group of young offenders some expensive camera kit:

This is awesome

Via Lizzy King

Recent finds at e minor

There have been some inspiring artists posted on Lost at E Minor recently - I've been meaning to post about each one, but then another one comes into my feed before I get to it. So I'm going to put three pieces into one post.

Simon Birch

A similar appeal for me to that of Joshua Petker and Chloe Early - there's a violence/beauty captured through amazing colour that is very hard to resolve as I look at the work. 

Kareena Zerefos

Not usually a style I get so excited about but I love how the muted tones are still incredibly expressive against the paper. A lot of the work seems to be interested with the relationship between people and animals, and despite the stillness of the images, there is a real sense of personality for me that I found captivating. 

Joshua Durrant

I think Anna Gwenllian would like these ones.

New York Love Story

I didn't think that the magical New York portrayed in Karsten Staiger's New York Love Story existed before I spent time there in 2008. The steamy manhole covers, the breeze up from the subway grates, the water towers; I thought it was all film sets.

The New York Love Story series captures my fascination with the odd tranquility of the industrial landscape. The buildings are like old and tired giants resting while New Yorkers busy themselves around them. For me it's a combination of the viewpoints, the haunting skies and the light of the city carrying on below.

It must be quite boring watching films as an American. Think for us Brits how different a film set in the contemporary UK feels to a more conventional hollywood film. Switch it around and wouldn't people in the US get that for nearly every film they ever watch?

To that end I wonder how much Hollywood's scripted witticisms and passionate dialogues have influenced national mannerisms. If  'regular Joe' in the film behaves in that style, I should too, right? When it's one film it's probably hard to draw a line, but when it's every film...

Anyway. These images are beautiful. Extra bonus that lots of them are taken around my temporary stomping ground at 23rd Street and 8th Ave. There are a lot more in higher quality and size over on the project website: New York Love Story.

Thanks to Feature Shoot for the tip.

Fleet Foxes write my current life story

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station, oh, just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you
Or bow down and be grateful and say "sure, take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing, it's that everything that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak
Yeah I'm tongue-tied and dizzy and I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues, why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf
I'll come back to you someday soon myself

If I had an orchard, I'd work till I'm raw
If I had an orchard, I'd work till I'm sore
And you would wait tables and soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight, my light in the dawn
If I had an orchard, I'd work till I'm sore
If I had an orchard, I'd work till I'm sore
Someday I'll be like the man on the screen

 

Picture borrowed from thisbonustrack.com

A Fifties mentality

This.

via WWD 

Dear Photograph

While we're on the subject...

This is another set that's been doing the rounds recently.

I found the set of pictures on Dear Photograph incredibly moving - the link to actual memories captured by real humans has a beautiful poignancy to it.

Thanks to the chaps at Sell Sell for reminding me about it.