Slow Furl

Byroglyphics’ abstract artworks

Russ Mills, known in urban art circles as Byroglyphics, is turning heads with his unique juxtaposing of loose, tagger-esque lashings of paint and traditional portraiture. The Brighton-based illustrator and animator studied and Leeds Met and has since been showing at galleries including Signal Gallery and Red Propeller Gallery. Inspired by the Harajuku phenomenon in popular culture, Mills says he loves ‘the way every piece of popular culture from the recent past is smashed together in a garish soup and regurgitated into real life with absolutely no boundaries’. Glimpses of realism in his work are obscured by loose abstraction, and his application of that inspiration is coming though loud and clear. Read more

Matt Taylor

I’ve been searching for the artist of the clever Day Of The Dead Presidents piece since it flashed past me somewhere last year. Luckily Brighton based Illustrator Matt Taylor has just contributed to Graniph, throwing his work back into the spotlight. Along with National Geographic Taylor is influenced by comic books. There’s a definite Paul Pope vibe in some of his more detailed pieces.

Exclusive interview with Fujiya and Miyagi

We love the coolly detached electro mash-up of Brighton group, Fujiya and Miyagi. So we checked in with vocalist-guitarist David Best to find out more about their latest album, Lightbulbs [out on Pod through Inertia], and the place it all started for them — their hometown of Brighton, England: ‘Brighton was just full of wanna-be mods with cravats dancing like they were in Quadrophenia’, he says. ‘It was awful. It seemed to be very unfashionable to be an electronic group back then. Now everybody combines synths with guitars. It makes me want to start a mod group’. Read more

Floating House

This house has many facets that make it an intriguing example. First of all, it is a very aesthetically pleasing project with the use of light horizontal timbers and a clean pitched roof. Designed by MOS, an interesting design collective based in America, the secret to the Floating House is that it floats on a structure of steel pontoons. The house rises and falls with the changing waters and is frozen in place depending on the season. The steel pontoons were constructed first and towed to the lake outside the contractor’s factory and then the house was built atop of it. When finished it was towed to its position, anchored and enjoyed in its unique position. Finally, it forms a bridge between the land and an island. Wonderful!

Torre Bicentenario

Dutch uber-firm OMA, headed by Rem Koolhaas, has created this concept in Mexico City to symbolize the coming two hundred years of Mexico’s independence. There are many layers of symbolism in this building, from Mayan pyramids to which part of the building controls the park and which part controls the city, to the fact that the bulge of the building is below the centre height, and that it all happens on a relatively small footprint. Most of all, in this building there is a barely contained energy that seems near to release and it may be that this is what Torre Bicentenario represents.

Danish Building Bridge

The Danes are renowned for their considered and subtle design. However, in these times of change, they must feel they need something with this selection of a bridge building as the winner of a recent architectural competition in Denmark. The American architect Steven Holl designed this building with a pedestrian bridge that links two sides of the harbour in the distinctly low-rise Copenhagen. Read more