Sunday, 30 October 2011
Light calligraphy by Kaalam...
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Exploring the gestures and movements of calligraphy, nantes-based artist kaalam (aka julien breton) has created a body of work that uses hand-held light and long-exposure photographic techniques to capture the transient form within a real setting. Often utilizing urban or historical sites as his three-dimensional canvas, the self-taught artist creates his own latin-based alphabet that heavily draws from traditional arabic and eastern calligraphy. Arresting and provocative, the floating light forms are not mere superimposed subjects but display a direct engagement with the surroundings.
The capturing process, which can take as long as ten minutes, requires a choreographed movement which kaalam practices before hand in heavy repetition. different colours of 'ink' is achieved through pigmented gelatin which is applied directly onto the lamps. None of the photographs are retouched or edited, illustrating the laborious process in a single shot.
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Postmodernism...At the V&A
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| Postmodernism Exhibition at the V&A Museum |
This is the first in-depth survey of art, design and architecture of the 1970s and 1980s, examining one of the most controversial phenomena in recent art and design history: postmodernism. It shows how postmodernism evolved from a provocative architectural movement in the early 1970s and rapidly went on to influence all areas of popular culture including design, art, music, film, performance and fashion. By the 1980s consumerism and excess were the trademarks of the postmodern.
The exhibition explores the radical ideas that challenged Modernism; overthrowing purity and simplicity in favour of exuberant colour, bold patterns, artificial looking surfaces, historical quotation, parody and wit and above all, a newfound freedom in design. See over 250 objects across all areas of art and design and revisit a time when style was not just a ‘look’ but became an attitude.
Terence Conran-The Way We Live Now....
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| The Man Himself-Terence Conran |
16 November – 04 March 2012
The Design Museum marks Sir Terence Conran’s 80th birthday with a major exhibition that explores his unique impact on contemporary life in Britain. Through his own design work, and also through his entrepreneurial flair, Conran has transformed the British way of life. As well as this, his design studio and architectural practice have a world wide reach. The Way We Live Now explores Conran’s impact and legacy, whilst also showing his design approach and inspirations. The exhibition traces his career from post-war austerity through to the new sensibility of the Festival of Britain in the 1950s, the birth of the Independent Group and the Pop Culture of the 1960s, to the design boom of the 1980s and on to the present day.
Ping Pong Parlour...
The Ping Pong Parlour is a one-of-a-kind table tennis social club, located just off Carnaby Street. As well as being able to play ping pong for free (although unfortunately not on regulation size tables), The Ping Pong Parlour offers up table tennis lessons (with an English Table Tennis Association coach!), Ping Pong parties (DJs, round the table tournaments and a robot which shoots out 170 balls a minute) and a Ping Pong Quiz Show.
The Ping Pong Parlour was conceived by Meera Sodha, Ping Pong enthusiast, and realised in association with design practise, The Klassnik Corporation www.klassnik.com an interdisciplinary design practice focused on communication of ideas through architectural research.
The Ping Pong Parlour is part of a wider initiative called Ping! which plans to put 100 ping pong tables on the streets of London for one month this summer. Situated in landmarks, squares, shopping centres, airports, parks and train stations; bringing ping pong to the people!
Bompass and Barr...
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| Bompass Barr - A City Of Jelly |
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| Visionary Feast - London Design Festival |
Visionary Feast - London Design Festival 20 September 2011
On 20th September Bompas & Parr and Martin Scholz (head chef of Catch) are hosting a Visionary Feast and screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky's cult film Holy Mountain. This is one of the Secret Sensory Suppers curated by Franklin Till within the Masonic Temple of the Andaz hotel. The film includes tarot, alchemists, limbless dwarves, a cemetery party and frogs dressed as mayan princes.The food for the Visionary Feast is inspired by the film and grand hotel cookery of the 1970's. Guests drink from a specially commissioned loving cup by jeweller Maud Traon before the presentation of a processional phallus made of ice. The menu incorporates figurative food drawn directly from the film and architectural space and includes hand reared frogs.
Masonic Temple at Andaz Liverpool Street Hotel, London
Parliamentary Waffle House...
A slightly more quirky take on our previous ‘Pop Up Politics’ post is Bompas and Parr’s ‘Parliamentary Waffle House’. A pop-up eatery, come political forum which puts waffles at the heart of the political debate!
If still undecided on who to vote for, why not ponder at the same time as selecting your preferred waffle! Each item on the menu is orderable in a variation corresponding to one of the three major political parties. Orders feed directly into a live action swing ‘o’ meter that gauges the mood of the country as people vote with their mouths.
For the final election showdown they will be providing all-night food, politics, Election night coverage live on a big screen, Live three way gladiatorial battle, Ballot box manicure and much more besides.
Idea Books...
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| Pop Up Shops All over the World |
The IDEA Books Pop-Up Bookstore at St Martins Lane London. Stock is arriving every day and currently includes Raf Simon’s Isolated Heroes, many beautiful 1970′s issues of Interview Magazine, the punk book 100 Nights At The Roxy, and Charlotte Rampling.
Cineroleum Pop Up...
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| The Cineroleum |
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| Original Petrol Station Facade |
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| Beautiful Vintage Chairs |
One of the most exhilarating elements of Pop Up events, is their ability to take a conventional activity and transform it, by placing it in a unique environment. This is typified by the recent Pop Up Cinema, Cineroleum, that has been entertaining film lovers in an abandoned petrol station in Clerkenwell. The location and venue are certainly unconventional, as is the idea of street side cinema for the average audience, but it’s a spectacular experience that takes the concept of cinema to a new level.
Cineroleum has primarily been constructed using donated and found materials. Popcorn, paper tickets, elaborate signage and flip-down seats, have been recreated to provide the excitement of a familiar experience. Enclosed by an ornate curtain strung from the forecourt garage roof, The Cineroleum has hosted screenings from sundown for four nights a week. With a programme of off-beat classics to celebrate the social experience of watching the big screen, stars from Buster Keaton to Barbarella have flickered, danced and shot their way across The Cineroleum screen as life passes by as normal on the Clerkenwell Road just a few feet away.
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