Yawn

Paul Mutant, 2010

Acrylic on canvas

12" x 10"

The familiar face of being banned from creative products on the internet, just because you are not in the right country never seemed like the best way to deal with the situation/bureaucracy/borderline censorship. Paul Mutant touched upon something very personal to all of us who have once been banned from ABC or BBC videos, but I must say, in a rather unoriginal format. He raises the mundane image to high art status. Do I hear 'urinal'?

Outrageous

I love writing about outrage. The passion of anger rivals any other sensation. Ripples surge through us. In the case of Takashi Murakami's latest body of work, a great rift in time has been created. Murakami's distinctive manga-like sculptures and patterns have invaded the spaces of Versaille Palace. A space that has been placed on the pedestal of high art traditions and worshipped daily by the constant stream of tourists.

So is Louis the XIV turning in his grave? Some people are outraged, saying that it is a mockery of the French culture impregnated within those Baroque walls. But as the BBC reporter sneakily added, Louis the XIV had a thing for extravagance, and as much as Murakami's art is a total alienesque culture, it is over-adorn elaborateness.

The reactions from this situation are humorous if nothing else. But it is perplexing how we have come to put art in such a high regard, and history as the set stone of standards.

Dark

DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.

Abandons

With mankind exploring deep into the subterranean opportunities of our planet, there are a lot of cave-like networks that have been made over the course of building out cities and whatnot. And undoubtedly, where ever mankind dwells, waste can be found. One example is the London Underground, and with the adventurous spirit of Urban Ghosts Media, we are allowed a peek into these forbidden and haphazardly preserved environments.

Capturing time through the graphic design of the various posters in the tunnel, we get a sense of how far we have come in that practice of creative advertising. Much of a departure from the glowing billboards and LCDs of today's underground environments, it is uncanny to have such cultural artefacts made redundant so instantly.

For more, visit the Urban Ghosts Media post.

Meat

Haven't done a book review since... April. So it's about time for another!

My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki

When a writer holds the task of writing a full blown novel in their hands, it is within their control to create whatever world they want. Whether it be a Tolkien forest, or a futuristic Westerfeld, their creativity is the mould in which the concept is formed. In Ruth L. Ozeki's award winning novel My Year of Meats, she has taken the hidden secrets of America (which is a rather banal sort of palette these days) and has given it a multidisciplinary twist.

The plot involves two women of Japanese ancestry, polarised so as to create sheer opposites in terms of character. When I read this book many years ago, I found the story weave itself in a fine interlacing sort of way until by the end of it, you have a fine fabric to ponder. One of the characters, being a documentary maker, goes about her project involving a controversial aspect of the American meat industry. At the same time, Ozeki is the documentary maker, only instead of filming it directly, she writes a much more emotional and feminist novel. At some stage, everything starts to reveal itself, and you see the character reach a mellow climax - a revelation. Fortunately, it doesn't take the form of a Dan Brown surprise. It would definitely be something to read again. If you haven't read it, I suggest it for an eye opening holiday read!

CC note: hopefully there will be more reviews in the future, all to do with different forms of interdisciplinary creative energy.

Fame1

To kick off the collection of famous people snapshots I plan on posting here on the blog, I present Pablo Picasso. Why post the pictures of these creative practitioners? Too often we know the creative product without actually connecting with the actual person. You read a series of books by the same author but you might not even know what the person looks like. Linking the voice to the face, or the body to the painter, adds another layer of significance to the piece. There will be more to come.

Bounce

'Sound sculptures' seems like a bit a dramatic tag for this project, but it is kind of great. It reminds me of some twisted experiment with 3D modelling and, at first, I was about to cast it aside. But, it's not digital! Yay!

So through this analogue but rather high tech process, little droplets of cyan, yellow, magenta were placed on top of a membrane on top of a small speaker. Then, filmed with a fancy rig in macro, these little droplets of paint get to bounce! The difference between this project and the numerous digital projects playing with these parameters is the level of analysis in the process. There is no 'data'. It is of the real world, with physics that we understand in our environment and the sounds that we can hear with our own ears. Over-analysis tends to stifle creative potential, or at least the natural, compatible feeling of it.

Not to endorse Canon (and the snob complex that appears to consume its fans) but check out the process and resulting ad of this creative playfulness. Painting with sound, made possible with cutting edge film technology.

Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.