Thursday 30 October 2008

Woooooogy: Short Experimental Film

Korean director Woooooogy surprised us with this delightfully disturbing debut piece simply entitled, Short Experimental Film. bluAngel is not entirely sure which character applies to the director's descriptions but this added sense of confusion and unpredictability makes for a very appealing film. Let us know what you think...



Further Info:
Short Experimental Film / Woooooogy on YouTube

Sunday 26 October 2008

Elephant Paints Self-Portrait

Not sure what to say about this yet, so will just let you watch...



From susty.tv on Vimeo

Monday 20 October 2008

From Catwalk To Congo - Rankin At The National Theatre

Fashion photographer Rankin's latest exhibition is a collaboration with Oxfam, sponsored by The Co-operative Bank, to raise awareness of the plight of people displaced from their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The temporary camps in Mugunga are now home to thousands as a result of the incredible violence taking place in the region.

Rankin's well-known portrait style, usually reserved for fashion industry celebrities, has been put to good use here, photographing these courageous people, suffering but not suppressed. Aptly representing the resilience of the Mugunga camp residents the name of the exhibition is Cheka Kidogo which means 'laugh a little' in Swahili.

Cheka Kidogo – A Rankin Exhibition - Photo Copyright: Andrew DaviesPhoto by Andrew Davies

From: Oxfam News Blog, 20oct08

"Rankin swaps fashion world for African war-zone
Famous for his portraits of Kate Moss, Kylie and the Queen, photographer Rankin has joined forces with Oxfam to bring the faces of those caught up in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo to London’s South Bank.

Opening tomorrow (21 October 2008), his exhibition – sponsored by the Cooperative Bank and hosted outside the National Theatre – sees Rankin’s celebrity portraiture being used with entirely different subjects – the residents of Mugunga camp, home to 17,000 people displaced by Congo’s harrowing violence."

Further Info:
Full Press Release / National Theatre

Friday 17 October 2008

Kounter Kulture, -19th Oct08, London

Wednesday 15th - Sunday 19th October 11am - 6pm
Truman Brewery - T3 and T4, 91 Brick Lane, London, E1 (Wilkes St) Map
Liverpool Street Station or Bethnal Green / Old Street tube
www.opus-art.com / www.opusunderground.com
0191 213 0295

"A refreshingly edgy and exciting art fair bursts onto London’s arts scene this October. Kounter Kulture, an Opus Art production, offers a launch pad for new and established international talent. Kounter Kulture is all about the art, the artists and a sense of discovery - bringing the essence of London’s arts week back to its roots.

For those reaching stalemate with the usual suspects at Frieze, the artistic offering at Kounter Kulture provides a welcome relief. The free art fair, spread across 11,500 square feet of the Truman Brewery offers a variety of artists to fit all tastes, with areas dedicated to Urban Art, Contemporary, Recent Graduates, Chinese Contemporary and the very best from the print world. Artists include Stuart Semple, Ju$t Another Rich Kid, Miss Bugs, Pure Evil, Hush, Wang Jie, Rob Carter, Josie McCoy, Justine Smith, Will Tuck and Dave White."

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Blog Action Day - Poverty & Human Rights

Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is poverty. Poverty is a result of inequality between people. It is a result of those with power allowing themselves more substantial rights than those without. Poverty comes about when we - the human race - forget that we are all part of the same being. It thrives when we strive only to satisfy our own needs and desires regardless of the negative consequences these desires heap upon others.
Blog Action Day 08 - PovertyWithout human rights there can be no end to poverty. We have the chance to make a difference to this status quo. There is no better time than now to start acting as responsible citizens of this planet and instead of continuing to squander it's resources and take advantage of our fellow inhabitants we can make a change.

We can insist that our governments act now to limit the negative effects of climate change. We can insist on equal rights for all regardless of differences. We can stop consuming more than we need and we can make valid efforts to support systems such as fair trade. Let's do it - today!

The video below is cool. It is well designed, attractive and inspiring. Watch it and then act to make it's message a reality. Let's put these cool thoughts and ideals into practice, everywhere, for everyone...


The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from Seth Brau on Vimeo.

Video Source: An Unreliable Witness

Creative Culture and Telephone Sheep

Image source: greenUPGRADERA few months ago, over at greenUPGRADER Doug was promoting discussion around the function of art and creativity in relation to the 'green' movement and perhaps questioning how important art and design are in our current culture. The wonderful example of Jean Luc Cornec’s Telephone Sheep (pictured left) exhibited at Frankfurt's Museum für Kommunikation, 2006 was used to examine the issues.

Of course, in our view, art, design & creativity are vital components of green and eco movements both current, past and undoubtedly in the future. An appreciation of art, particularly in nature, inspires the desire to protect and support one's environment whether that environment is viewed as immediate, nationally or global. The ability to design and create also emanates from this need to protect and support as well as incorporating the desire to improve one's surroundings or situation, to solve problems and, as in all the most pertinent art, to achieve an ideal.

Even art and design which may seem superfluous or purely aesthetic on many levels rather than coming from a positive functional or progressive angle; if it captures a sense of beauty, inspires an idea, or simply makes us think about bigger questions than what we will eat for dinner, it is serving an important and necessary purpose. It almost goes without saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that 'good' art is not defined by being framed ornately and hung in a large white room; 'good' design is not only that which is proudly displayed in a museum or shop window. Positive art, design and creativity is all around and within us all the time. We only need to open our eyes.

Image source: greenUPGRADER - Copyright: Hanneorla @ FlickrI heartily agree with Doug's assertion in his post: "Work like the Telephone Sheep force us to see new uses and value to otherwise expired products. The importance of art can stretch far beyond entertaining some web surfers or museum patrons. It can spawn in any of us the ability to think with a more malleable mind. Perhaps in even a simple way on a daily basis we can look at common refuse and see further life, another form, continuing function…less waste."

By placing the objects in a totally new environment, what once were out of date communication devices, deemed unusable and deficient, are in this exhibition cleverly revived by the artist. This act or reusing, replacing and re-seeing gives the subjects an entirely new life for us, the viewer, as our view of them shifts entirely.

"The ability to see materials outside of their traditional roles is key to reducing the mass of products our society currently consumes and reusing that which surrounds us everyday to its maximum potential."

Further info:
greenUPGRADER article / Museum für Kommunikation
Photograph source: Hanneorla via Flickr

Shutting up Shop, Museum of London

Image Copyright: John Londei / Museum of LondonFrom: Museum of London - Foyer exhibitions

Shutting up Shop
2 October - 23 November 2008


"Explore the demise of the traditional local shop with this insightful photographic display of old-style London shops from the 1970s and 1980s taken by John Londei. These beautiful and moving large-scale photographs, taken with a 10'x8' plate camera, will be accompanied by recordings of interviews with some of the former owners for whom these shops were much more than just a business"

Tuesday 14 October 2008

Our Eco Shop

Image Copyright: Lisa Harland, Organic FurnishingsLisa Harland of Organic Furnishings and Sarah Baulch of Revampit are offering eco designers an opportunity to display and sell your wares in their Eco Shop near Portobello Road, West London over Christmas. Apply before Friday 17th October:

"Calling all eco designers and makers..
Would you like to be involved in running an eco friendly shop in central London on Westbourne Grove, just off Portobello Rd for a flat fee/shared rent of £60.00 per week over the Christmas period?


Image Copyright: Sarah Baulch, RevampitThen look no further, Sarah Baulch and Lisa Harland are setting up Our Eco Shop for the second year running at 303 Westbourne Grove (opposite Paul Smith) over the next two weeks. We are looking for likeminded designer-makers to be involved in opening and manning the shop for 9 weeks leading up to christmas. Rent is shared equally between all involved and all monies on each sale goes to the individual designer."

More info here

We Can Go To Sweden, Okay

This is not strictly an eco piece but it is about the thing that makes us all want to do better, live better, be better - watch:



Thanks to An Unreliable Witness

Thursday 2 October 2008

I Met The Walrus by Josh Raskin

Discovered this gem at LADG - thanks guys!



From: I Met The Walrus, YouTube, Jun08
"In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message."

Further Info:
CTV.ca