Maya Deren
In recent years, Maya Deren is probably the artist who has influenced what I do the most and two DVDs — Experimental Films (above) and In the Mirror of Maya Deren — are the best window you can find into her world. Experimental Films is a collected body of work while In The Mirror is a great documentary on her life and art. She transfuses film with dance and myth to create a personal vision of poetry on film. She focuses on all the elements of film — light and shadow, rhythm of editing, and the architecture of the frame, to create a choreography of film which includes the camera as a dynamic element to lay out a mythological groundwork, the focus of the inner reality turned outward. Her films make me froth at the mouth.
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Julian Cope’s book Japrocksampler gives you a strangely clairvoyant view into Japanese rock n’ roll, something that had before remained a puzzling enigma to me. Reading this book made me envious of Julian Cope for having had to do all this research — it sounds like taking a bath in sweet wasabi. The book reads like cross between a fascinating history tome and a crazy story some drunk tells you in a bar. [see also Laura Veir's favorite book, The Motel Life]
My parents gave me the Madame Bolduc 3-disc set L’Anthologie for Christmas after having heard her singing by chance in a record shop in Canada. The many photos on the cover of a classy, strong lady are of Mary Roseanna Travers, or la Bolduc, who is considered to be Quebec’s first singer-songwriter. It’s hard to put your finger on this music, it has a rootsy American folk feel to it, it may be even slightly Irish, but it comes with beautiful French vocals and jaunty accordion playing. It makes me happy. [see also singer-songwriter Regina Spektor]
Magnus Mills’ Explorers of the New Century
I bought this book because of it’s cover featuring bearded adventurers on the icy polar caps waving their arms in fright. And I got what I asked for in multiples. It’s a windy novel, a classic adventure tale, with an undercurrent of black humor that morphs into a surreal ethically twisted fairytale. I can’t say too much, but I am happy to be able to judge a book by it’s cover, at least once in a while. [read also Toby Nathaniel's take on A Song Of Ice and Fire]
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Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal spent an entire month living in a Chicago art gallery where he had rigged a webcam and remote controlled paintball gun which visitors online or at the actual gallery could use to shoot at him. The piece highlighted the danger everyday Iraqi citizens face both in terms of actual violence and the vitriol generated by the controversial and geopolitically convoluted war. The experience re-triggered the post-traumatic stress disorder that Bilal had acquired in his home country. The installation as well as his life as an activist, artist, and refugee are documented in his book, Shoot An Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun.
I just came back from teaching a week-long illustration workshop in Venice, Italy. After finish up the class each evening, the students and I often ran to our favourite gelateria in town, Nico. Read more
If you’ve ever wanted to work your alter ego’s dark side without looking like a total emo, now’s your chance. New kid on the block Ben Pollitt is shaking things up with his label Friedrich Gray. And the best part about it? Pollitt’s androgynous range has a little something something for everyone. Read more
Harma Heikens makes disturbing, perverted mash-ups of children’s toys, dolls, and figurines — all life-sized for extra creepiness Read more
The sky is falling. The world is ending. How do we deal with it? Since we can’t nail the CEOs and bankers that got us into this mess (instead, we’re bailing them out), let’s make light of the misery of people who make a living abetting the broken system.
Heavy metal and hip-hop are perhaps the most popular forms of rebellion for kids the world over. In Malaysia, metal — particularly black metal — has taken such a strong hold that the Fatwa Council there banned it, fearing that the music would compel listeners to rebel against religion. Contrary to the council’s intentions, black metal is as popular as ever in Malaysia, and is a recognizable cultural touchstone there, as indicated by the above clip from the 2005 film Filem Rock.
The first album released by the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam, Dimanche a Bamako, bordered on exceptional, if not for its songwriting then for its sheer diversity. You’d be forgiven for approaching cautiously an album that draws its influences from Syria, Cuba, Egypt, India, and Colombia, as well as its own country – much like a restaurant that offers every cuisine on the planet: choose one and do it well, you’d argue. But the album is fantastic: so full of life, so catchy and so accessible. Read more
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Good thing Kris Kuksi channelled the trauma of growing up with an alcoholic stepfather, his disdain for ‘the typical American life and pop culture’, and his fascination with the macabre into obsessive, baroque assemblages, paintings, and drawings. Read more
Italian-born, New York City-based photographer Paolo Ventura creates fairy-tale like pictures out of amazingly constructed, miniature dioramas that almost trick the eye into thinking he’s a tilt-shift photographer. Read more
Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.
There is not a medium that UK illustrator Lizzy Stewart cannot wrap around her little finger to make the most beautiful, whimsical images. Read more
Scanners’ new single Salvation
I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
Australian illustrator Moofus is just 11 years old. As he says, ‘my mum and dad won’t let me leave school to get a proper job, so I draw lots of pictures’. This limited edition print of Sydney’s Coogee Beach is printed on Epson heavyweight matt paper with archival inks and is just US$20 through the Lost At E Minor store. Read more
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