Alexis Mackenzie

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Finnish artist Riitta Ikonen makes some pretty impressive costumes for her subjects that incorporate them into their environments in playful and hilarious ways. The experiences of the people wearing Ikonen’s creations as they ride on subways, walk through parks, and stand on the street are as important as the resulting images. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

You may have already heard composer Nico Muhly this year on All Is Well, Samamidon’s lovely reimaginings of immigrant folk songs. (If you haven’t, you should). Mothertongue, Muhly’s second album and first for Brassland (run by members of the National), is divided into three acts. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

Obsessive, impossibly intricate art can sometimes veer off into self-congratulatory messes, overwhelming viewers while not having any real substance. Vasco Morao’s Escher-esque line drawings are rather simple, however, and have a gorgeous, meandering, and meditative quality about them. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

These twin sixty-story towers to be built in Malaysia feature a combination of ‘continuous, flowing, double-curved perforated surface with a flickering, crystalline, transparent single-curved surface that is triangulated on an enormous scale’. The design by New York-based architectural firm, Asymptote, includes a 400,000 square foot retail section and the Penang Performing Arts centre.

Set in a remote Chinese village in the 1920s during a cholera outbreak and with a revolution bubbling in the background, The Painted Veil is a wonderfully tortured love story which excels on all levels. Based on the W Somerset Maugham novel, it was a labour of love for stars Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, who also produced the film. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

Illustrator Hope Gangloff has a stack of her ‘election’ tees from the previous US election available for sale which she created with the talented New York-based artist (and her hubbie, no less!), Ben Degen. Even though they were done to mark Bush’s reappointment, they still kinda sum up her mood on the tussle between Obama and McCain. ‘If the election gets stolen’, she says. ‘What say we burn down the capital instead of blogging about it?’. Hmmm, now there’s an idea.

WE'RE READING

We have a bunch of new playlists up on our sister site, My Secret Playlist, a music discovery website and weekly email publication in which we invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. Over the past few weeks, acts such as The B52s, Team Genius, Pivot, Jukebox the Ghost, Moby, Katy Perry, and the Dandy Warhols, among many others, have written about the music that inspires them. To sign-up to receive the weekly My Secret Playlist publication, just enter your email address into the website’s subscription box.