Normal 0 Tonight Kinetica Museum, the UK's only museum dedicated to moving art, opens its Art Fair featuring 150 exhibiting artists working in kinetic, electronic and new media art. On view is a pole dancing robot, carnivorous lampshades, man-animal-machine hybrids, mechanical writing machines, subliminal and sensitive installations, mesmerising light sculptures and cybernetics, all for sale to collectors and the general public.
The fair aims to popularise artists and organisations working in these specialized genres and to provide a new platform for the commercial enterprise of this field. Alongside the fair there will be special events, screenings, tours, talks, workshops and performances. These events will involve some of the world's most prominent artists working in these fields including: Daniel Chadwick, Sam Buxton, Jason Bruges, Martin Richman, and Tim Lewis.
Kinetica Art Fair, developed by Kinetica Museum in partnership with P3 with the support of the Contemporary Art Society, runs through the weekend and day passes are £5.
Dancing with robots tonight,
-Lisa
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London Fashion Week means that visiting fashion industry models, designers, photographers, buyers and other professionals are looking for the best places to stay as well as what parties and shows to attend, but finding the hidden gems is always best discovered by word-of-mouth.
Word is just now getting out among the fashionistas about newly opened 40 Winks, a boutique lodging in London’s East End that has long been a favourite location for photographic shoots. Proprietor David Carter, an interior designer, is opening his home to people from the creative industries and hoping that 40 Winks becomes a connection hub for its guests as well as a delightful place to stay.
The magic happens when you step through the door of the 1717 townhouse in Stepney Green and discover a sumptuous environment of cozy rooms and décor with personality. Enter the lush Green Room lounge and be greeted by carefully selected objects of art that are reminiscent of when Victorian travellers brought back items of curiosity for display as conversation pieces. Unwind with a drink from the small 40 Winks bar and hear about who has visited this special place over the years. The vibrant rooms have greeted Orlando Bloom, Helen Mirren, Billie Piper, Nigella Lawson and a long list of other celebrities who have done photo shoots on the premises. The townhouse has also been the photographic location of choice for Harrods, Marks & Spencer, Tattler, Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and other big names in advertising and media.
“The house is like when Alice walks through the looking glass and presents visitors with a theatrical moment that is juxtaposition between being on Mile End Road, crossing the threshold from the grey reality of London, to entering into a dreamy landscape,” said Carter.
He bought the place in 1996, when the building was a vacant derelict site with no roof, no flooring, no running water and had never been heated. Transforming the building, Carter was one of the early artists who fell in love with the East End, and he is now surrounded by many highbrow neighbours from the creative world.
“The house was a completely blank canvas and it was inspiring to be able to bring back an old building to life and now to open it as an antidote to sterile hotels and cliché boutique hotels,” he said.
With just two rooms available at affordable prices, bookings should be made in advance. Likely to become a top choice of visiting creative industry types, Carter is looking forward to seeing how the concept of 40 Winks appeals to people, and has ambition toward opening other cosmopolitan locations in the future.
I know where I’m suggesting London visitors to stay,
Normal 0 ArtCore is reported to be the world's first auction of British club culture based art, and will be on view at Selfridges' Ultralounge in London until wed 25 of February 2009 before being auctioned at Selfridges at 5.30pm on 26th February.
Apart from the music, one of the most significant aspects of Acid House and the ensuing dance culture was its visuals. The flyers and posters for the raves and clubs were an integral part of their identity and brought a new form of street art in to the public domain.
ArtCore, a joint venture between Mary McCarthy of Dreweatts Auction House and Ernesto Leal from our history, a historical exhibition celebrating the visual side of 21 years of dance culture and will feature a host of artwork from the most iconic clubs and raves over that period.
ArtCore Print: 50 limited edition prints by the London based artist Chu & Back to Basics. Exclusive to Selfridges for £150 each, it will launch on 12th February at the ArtCore private view and then will be on sale throughout the exhibition.
Limited Edition Book: A stunning collection of 30 limited edition prints celebrating club culture, bound in a cardboard cover. Exclusive to Selfridges it will also be launched on the 12 Feb at the ArtCore private view and will be on sale throughout the exhibition. There will only be 300 copies, retailing at £150 each.
Dreweatts is the largest auctioneer outside of London specializing in fine art and antiques. They held their inaugural Urban Art auction in June 2008 at the Village Underground, previewed at Selfridges. This was a tremendous success, raising over £800,000 with several artists' sales records being broken and a lot of attention created for a number of artists that hadn't auctioned before.
To purchase any item from the ArtCore collection register with Dreweatts Auction House at http://www.dnfa.com/artcore/ or in person at the Ultralounge in Selfridges, London. The full collection will go under the hammer at 5.30pm on 26 February, pre-registration is essential, and then the following methods of bidding are possible: Live online (www.the-saleroom.com), over the phone, in person or by commission bid. Please visit the website or call 0203 2912832 for more details on how to purchase. If attending the auction please arrive early to ensure a seat.
For more info on how to bid in the auction download the info form from Dreweatts website, left click on the GENERAL INFORMATION section:
http://www.dnfa.com/artcore
To view a pdf of the full auction catalogue visit:
http://www.dnfa.com/catalogues/13077.pdf
Auction items include: the Hacienda, The End, *** Nation, Spectrum, Beyond Therapy, Raindance, Atlantic Jaxx, Tribal Gathering, Circus Warp, Trade, DiY Soundsystem, Back to Basics, Sign of the Times, RiP, Altern 8, Trade, Dream Odyssey, DreamZone, Helter Skelter, The Gallery, Love Ranch, Blue Note, Underworld, Full Cycle, Massive Attack, Shoom, Fungle Junk, Africa Centre (series 1/3), SiN, Flesh, Dance Paradise, Mutoid Waste and many more. It will also feature work on canvas, paper and metal by the movement's original artists and designers such as Goldie, Basement Jaxx, Derek Yates, Spectrum, Kaborn, Wayne Anthony, Nick Walker, Rogan Jeans, Trevor Johnston, B-art, Chu, Tom Hingston studio, Ryka, Jason Kedgley (tomato), (photos from Labirynth-Dalston), Ollie Trimmings, Inkie, Steve Perry (Pez) and Dave Little.
Thanks to Ernesto Leal, Director of Our Cultural History http://www.ourculturalhistory.com for this information.
Wish I was there for British club culture history,
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Normal 0 East London filmmaker Laura Hypponen has captured a slice of the after party in her short Shoreditch Sonata, lending an insider’s eye view to what happens when the night clubs shut and the fashionable clubbers tumble out onto the streets.
She made the 11-minute film drawing from her own experience of life in London, and the interactions she’s had with people, passing through the scene that is East London’s trendy world. Originally from Finland, Shoreditch Sonata is her first independently produced narrative short film as director, which she plans to submit to film festivals and distribute with an online grassroots approach.
“I've been living in and around Shoreditch for the past five years, and I guess the area has been an inspiration in itself: run-down neighbourhoods with a lot of creatives and crazy characters, dressing up and endless parties,” she said. “More generally, the story of a girl meeting a guy and things going into an interesting direction until, well, you find out that the guy has a girlfriend already – it's happened to so many people I know, including yours truly, it's so frustrating yet so common, and I thought many people might be able to sympathise with the story.”
Hypponen studied filmmaking in Denmark, as well as getting a business degree in Birmingham, UK, and later completing her Masters in Film Business at London's Film Business Academy. In addition to developing narrative film projects, she has worked extensively as a VJ under the pseudonym Belle de Nuit, shooting, editing and performing live visuals with cult artists such as The Irrepressibles and Bishi at events in Dubai, London, Paris and Helsinki. Hypponen is also a published author of Creative Clusters and Governance: the dominance of the Hollywood film cluster, with L de Propris, in Creative Cities, and Cultural Clusters and Local Economic Development, by Philip Cooke & Luciana Lazzeretti, eds, 2008, Edward Elgar Publishing.
Shoreditch Sonata was produced with Hypponen’s own budget, as a first step into the film world to showcase her talents. She’s got more in the works, such as Kir Royal, a 20-minute thriller about a Russian escort in London who ends up killing most of her clients to break free from the scene. Kir Royal features Jeff Fahey (Lost, Grindhouse, Lawnmower Man) and Olga Fedori (of Mum & Dad horror feature fame). She’s writing a feature film with the working title of Live East, a music and drug-fuelled multi-character story about ambition, friendship and betrayal among the East London party scene, and is developing more experimental, multidisciplinary work within a collective called "Le Fourneau Cosmique.” Also in works is Hello Helsinki, a half-hour, boozy "road-movie by foot" set in Helsinki that is a elegiac and dreamy story of two twenty-something girls who have grown apart and are reunited during a winter night.
“Film is my favourite form of art, the most hypnotising, magical, and providing such a great escape – both for me, when I make films, and hopefully, for the audience when they see my work. And I love how films can work both at intellectual and emotional and subliminal levels, be about serious questions yet also work as entertainment, It's a great challenge,” she said.
She takes inspiration from the directors Bunuel, Bergman, Fellini and Almodovar and is a big fan of Jean-Pierre Melville, finding his films to have a coolness combined with deep sadness. Among favourites is Woody Allen's films and she suggests Aki Kaurismaki's "La Vie Boheme" to check out a Finnish film.
Good luck Laura,
Shoreditch Sonata:
New voices are emerging from the universe of Twitter, and just like YouTube and MySpace have spawned their own celebrities, the micro-blogging service may be breeding fame for some. Unlike the real celebrities that Twitter, these are quirky talents that have mastered the new medium.
Crass, littered with profanity and kind of like getting obscene updates from someone’s angry evil inner-self, Twitter’s yelling_bird has 3,500+ followers. Yelling_bird follows no one, and takes no criticism for insulting followers. Delivered in SCREAMING all capital letters, you’ll enjoy the updates if you can stomach it.
But be forewarned, as yelling_bird says: THANKS FOR FOLLOWING ME, YOU PATHETIC, GULLIBLE, EASILY-LED SIMPLETONS: YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES
Another favourite is DarthVader, with 39,000+ followers. Got to love someone that writes: Come to the Dark Side: We have Cake
Appreciating the Twitter stars,
Sanford Meisner taught that “the seed to the craft of acting is the reality of doing” and his simple truths and approaches to the field have inspired generations of actors, including Diane Keaton, Jeff Goldblum and Sydney Pollack.
This week I found that the teachings of Meisner live on in the UK, when I went along to learn the basics of Meisner’s approach at The Actors Temple, to take a class taught by Mark Wakeling, a co-director at this theatre school. The session was organized by the group Artists Anonymous, offering bargain rates for theatre classes and networking events in London.
Wakeling led the class of 20 through the early thought processes of Meisner’s teachings, that aims to teach you how to use the tool that is your emotional and intellectual mind to get to the point of realization where, as Meisner said, you are “living truthfully under the given imaginary circumstances.” Wakeling helped participants work toward being in the moment and concentrating on that moment to reveal the truth of how you, and the person you are interacting with on stage, really are.
The process involved an exercise in repetition with a performance partner, with each person stating a truth about the other and then parroting the statement back to the other. The set-up, sometimes adversarial in nature, produced banter that heard participants proclaiming, “you’re defensive, you’re nervous, you’re embarrassed!”
Uncomfortable in some instances, the exercises proved that living in the truth is harsh to face and, as Wakeling pointed out, if everyone lived in full truth there would be anarchy.
The class gave me new respect for the difficult job that is the craft of acting. If you are interested in coming along to one of Artists Anonymous happenings, join their group on Facebook, or visit the website. Next week’s class is Page to Stage, a script development program, being held Wednesday, February 18.
Learned some new tricks,
Famous Meisner Quotes
"Acting is the ability to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances."
"The foundation of acting is the reality of doing."
"You know it's all right to be wrong, but it's not all right not to try."
"There's no such thing as nothing."
"Less is more!"
"An ounce of behaviour is worth more than a pound of words."
"Silence has a myriad of meanings. In the theatre, silence is an absence of words, but never an absence of meaning."
"May I say as the world's oldest living teacher, '*** Polite!'"
"Acting can be fun. Don't let it get around."
It seems everyone has gone glitter for Twitter these days and the media can’t give the micro-blogging service enough love and attention. Brand Republic’s editor Gordon Macmillan lists all the media frenzy in a blog post, and has been building up in excess of 1,000 followers for the magazine – a great way to extend readership and interact with people.
I Twitter (@lisadevaney) but have fallen off the wagon with it, and lately feel a bit strange about sharing mini-updates of the mostly mundane happenings in my life. Not long ago, however, I took Twitter to the extreme in a weekend binge of twittering that ended with more than 100 messages shared.
On my Twitter binge, I told all my followers about every little thing that was happening – from playing with my cat to watching TV to removing nail polish – all typical updates I find people writing about with Twitter. The result was that a friend in New York City got very concerned and thought there was an emergency happening, as her phone kept beeping at her with my constant updates.
Twitter gives you about 250 message updates per month, and I tried to use all of my allocation in one weekend. I didn’t reach my own goal of excess, and, to the relief of my followers, never went on a Twitter binge again.
The binge was a blast, and if no one else, it cracked me up to think in tiny little bursts of information. Following the binge, I wrote a detailed blog post about the experience that was featured on Vox.com’s homepage. Read all about my Twitter binge here.
Off the Twitter wagon for now,
Among London’s creative class, this year its members are busy making things and documenting the creative spirit of those around them, including going to far away lands, getting candid with celebrities and paying attention to interesting happenings in their backyards.
At photographer Iain McKell’s Creative Salon this past weekend, artists and photographer’s gathered to show their recent projects among peers. His casual event held at his West London home attracted about 40 guests who got to peek at the work of photographers and view a screening of a short film about East London. The friendly environment offered opportunity for constructive feedback from the audience.
On view was Alice Hawkin’s “American Safari” collection of portraits of eccentric characters from the Las Vegas area, including Alice Cooper draped in snakes. She captured the sequined and feathered set alongside some of their favourite pets, including lizards, parrots, lions, tigers and snakes. The work was featured in a 34-page spread in Grand's magazine, Pop.
Alice Hawkins:
Daniel Stier made guests wince with his images of scientific experiments being conducted on humans at a research laboratory. Creepy in context, his images of people strapped in odd equipment for observation of behaviour elicited plenty of curiosity and questions from the onlookers.
McKell showed his seven year project of photographing a group of neo-gypsy travellers edgy lifestyle. McKell, a fashion photographer for I-D, the Face and Vogue Italia, has plans to publish a book of his collection, and this spring will be photographing Kate Moss along with the travellers.
McKell has spent much of his career documenting subcultures, including skinheads, the new romantics, Thailand psychedelic-trance jungle parties and more. This keen eye to the underground inspired him to photograph Madonna prior to her reaching international fame. His picture was featured in No. 1 Magazine, and was her first cover shoot for a magazine.
Iain McKell's Madonna:
Sami Knight amused guests with his showing of self-portraits of him and friend eating messy food and Georgina White-Aldworth shared photos of her university graduation project, demonstrating her talent for set design.
Sami Knight:
Photos by Georgina White-Aldworth:
Many guests showed off their portfolios of work, including Andrew Hobbs who has photographed pop stars from Eminem to Moby to Missy Elliot. Hobbs is also the publisher of Centrefold photography magazine.
Photo of Kylie Minogue by Andrew Hobbs:
Among the guests, I enjoyed meeting a Russian architect and her friend Anna Bonareva, a Russian actress and model living in London.
Looking forward to the next Creative Salon,
Normal 0 Jazz artist Tessa Souter is back in town tonight for a gig at Pizza Express in London’s Soho. She’s a singer with a velvet voice that will warm you up on a cold winter’s eve. Check her out here:
www.tessasouter.com
www.myspace.com/tessasouter
tessasouter.blogspot.com
Based in New York City’s Harlem, she gets across the pond from time-to-time and is a treat not to be missed. Details for her gig are:
WHEN: Friday, February 6, and Saturday, February 7, 2009, Two sets: Doors open 7.30pm
WHERE: Pizza Express, Soho, 10 Dean Street, London W1, Reservations: 0845 6027 017
WHO: Tessa Souter (voice), Nikki Iles (piano), Stuart Hall (bass and violin), Winston Clifford (drums), Roger (Friday only) Beaujolais
(vibes)
COVER: £17
Enjoy,
This winter’s social gatherings, at least in my life, seem to centre around a creative happening of conversation toward inventing something or making something.
Thanks to an invitation from Georgina White-Aldworth, I'll be headed to photographer Iain McKell's Creative Salon at his flat this Friday night to join others for what promises to be “a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring host.”
In the meantime, far away California friend Julie Gengo is also hosting her own Vision Salon, described as a progressive creative collective that is “a community collective to share ideas about creativity, sustainability and innovation.” Her salon also promises to deliver fun networking and art everywhere.
Back in London, Lucy Wills is hosting her Live to Create workshops, kicking off sometime this month. And a recent friend’s birthday celebration included an afternoon of making fabric flower corsages along with tea and cake.
Is this a creative trend happening? As the recession bites harder are people looking for more productive and fulfilling ways to spend their social time? Have we brought back to life the French tradition of salon gatherings of intellectuals and artists?
I’m curious to see how Creative Salon goes this Friday and may report back about the happening.
Saloning,
Normal 0 With redundancies creeping up on people during this recession, many may turn to freelancing as a new option of employment. The Unlimited Freelancer, a new book by Mason Hipp and James Chartrand, strikes a timely chord in the current economic mindset.
The book offers insider tips about working as a freelancer and how to approach the business side of this lifestyle as much as the creative. It aims to teach you how to make more money and win more personal time. There is a comprehensive review of the book by Mark McGuiness on his Wishful Thinking blog, and you can purchase the book off of his blog, or get a copy of the 200 page PDF from Freelance Folder.
Reading the book may help new freelancers avoid pitfalls and will steer existing freelancers toward greener pastures in working for themselves.
Could always use great freelancing advice,
During World War II, the comforting motto “Keep Calm, Carry On” kept people moving forward in the face of adversity. This week with snowstorms, and the ever tightening grip of the recession, the verse again offers solace and has been featured in a new viral video produced by Skill Pill, a mobile learning company.
Visit www.skill-pill.com to view the new video, which can also be played on your mobile by pointing your browser to http://www.skill-pill.com/keepcalm/.
Carrying on,
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Lisa Devaney
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Member since: 14 Jun 2008
Last login: 04 Nov 2009
Total Posts: 94
