July 28, 2009 | New Photography | by Francis Andrews |
Award-winning photojournalist James Mackay’s latest project comes at a time when the world’s eyes are fixed on Burma and the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi. By photographing former political prisoners displaying the names of their colleagues and friends who remain behind bars, Even Though I’m Free I Am Not exposes the enduring pain faced by Burma’s opposition movement. Over 2,100 activists, journalists, lawyers and politicians languish in prisons across the country, and on Friday Aung San Suu Kyi will likely join them. Read more
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June 27, 2009 | Cool Travel | by Francis Andrews |
The blind date of the food world has finally arrived, and it’s proving more palatable than the awkwardness of an evening spent in superficial conversation. Secret Supper clubs are springing up in the backstreets of London: what are attics and living rooms by day get converted into makeshift restaurants catering for an evening of surprise tastes and conversations. Read more
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June 3, 2009 | New Design | by Francis Andrews |
Young British designer Adam Farlie takes a leftfield approach to how people experience interaction with objects, often taking everyday items and toying with their potential to harbour deeper meaning and greater usage than first perceived. He transforms a bed into a ‘vessel that captures and contains the audio-memories of past occupiers through sound’, allowing those who lie on the bed to recall past intimcaties or conversations from years ago, while his take on a chest of drawers’ purpose of holding records of people is similarly intriguing.
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May 19, 2009 | New Products | by Francis Andrews 
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Interestingly, the idea for these headphones was inspired by the theory that dementia could be treated by music therapy. Designer Kirsten Black, whose grandma lived in a nursing home, said: ‘Nan had dementia and because music is recognised by a part of the brain that is so primal, it could give her a sense of familiarity and security in an increasingly unfamiliar and hostile environment. Looking at headphones available, none could be used in the nursing home environment’. Halo are small, soft, hi-fidelity speakers that fit inside a customised headband, surely soon to be every jogger-music fan’s dream accessory.
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May 19, 2009 | Video | 
by Francis Andrews |
Washington DC video artist Rob Parish spends his days rummaging through Archive.com, collecting together vintage film material and editing and overdubbing it to create these fantastic little shorts, posted weekly on his website, Next to Heaven. Some, such as Episode 49 — where a man reminisces about his macho sporting childhood while the video shows a timid boy putting on makeup — are deeply touching, while his other work flits between sharp humour and real poignancy.
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May 18, 2009 | New Music | 
by Francis Andrews |
There’s something quite attractively kitsch about the Lucky Dragons’ latest release, Dream Island Laughing Language. It’s undoubtedly unusual, and not too friendly on the ears, but something warm and fuzzy keeps creeping out of the broken drum rhythms and looped vocals. It’s a mish-mash of jangly folk licks, Squarepusher-style drum ‘n bass with a few Coco Rosie-esque experimental sound effects thrown in: intriguing, original, and fairly hard to describe!
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May 15, 2009 | New Illustration | by Francis Andrews |
Timelessness is surely one of the most sought-after characteristics that any artist, writer or musician can aim for in their work. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that what felt good a generation ago still holds true to this day; perhaps even better to know that what made one tick as a child still draws a smile years down the line. I often feel this with certain children’s illustration — they evoke an innolinecence every adult still retains somewhere deep inside. The work of UK illustrator Jenni Desmond does just this to me — there’s a real sense of adventure running through it and vision of the world being far, far larger than it really is.
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April 1, 2009 | New Art | by Francis Andrews |
Italian artist Guido Daniele creates the most surreally brilliant portraits of wild animals using little more than body paint and a hyper-realistic imagination. Read more
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February 12, 2009 | New Music | by Francis Andrews |
The frontman for Sydney trailblazers, Paper Scissors, has just dropped his first solo EP under the alias of Pork Pies, and it’s an absolute beaut. Like the Paper Scissors’ more low-key numbers, there’s a real feeling of raw nostalgia running through the record. Jai Pyne’s distinctive vocals linger on your eardrums for a while after they’ve ceased, anchored down by a poignancy and sense of longing.
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February 7, 2009 | New Eco | by Francis Andrews |
This striking design — still in the planning stages — aims to covert a desolate, disused sand mine into a thriving environmental preserve and eco-resort. The development lists an impressive array of green designs, including living walls and a five-acre green roof, and effortlessly succeeds in that all important eco-feature of blending in with its surrounding environment. Read more
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February 7, 2009 | Cool Websites | by Francis Andrews |
British photographer Rankin is kicking off the year by inviting people across the UK to participate in his project, Rankin Live!, attempting to document Britons ‘with a distinctive style, sense of British eccentricity and enthusiasm’. He will select the most original thousand applicants, through an open call process, and instantly print the portraits on site at his museum scale exhibition in August. Each portrait will cost £50 and all profits will go to Oxfam.
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February 4, 2009 | Video | by Francis Andrews |
This is such a fantastic piece of performance art, why there isn’t more of it around, I don’t know. The art form of Shadow Puppetry is known to have been around for 2000-odd years, originating during the Han Dynasty in China when court officers fashioned the shape of a dead emperor out of donkey leather and danced it in front of an oil lamp, bringing her back to life.
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February 3, 2009 | New Music | by Francis Andrews |
Hotly tipped by a handful of soothsayers to take 2009 by storm, Trembling Bells are an altogether different and refreshing musical experience to much of what seems to excite people at the moment. On first listen, it’s fairly easy to ignore — one could casually shrug it off as some limp take on Scottish baroque folk. Yet, there is something more to it. Rarely do you hear that high-pitched, warbling voice in mainstream music. Likewise the marching band cacophony going on in the background is both daring and highly intriguing.
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February 3, 2009 | New Trends | by Francis Andrews |
For some reason it’s rare that you see London in this light. Nightscapes of big cities are usually reserved for New York and Tokyo, for example. Perhaps the comparatively scarce skyscrapers makes the city less photogenic in that respect. So photographer Jason Hawkes’ work is long overdue — he has really brought the city to life, and given it that lick of golden light that a long-exposure is good for.
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February 2, 2009 | New Products | by Francis Andrews |
London design shop Hidden Art is stocking these seriously appetizing Jeeves and Wooster top-hat lampshades, surely the final lick of paint that any stereotypical bachelor pad needs. At £415 a pop though, you’re probably better off combining a Moss Bros special with a touch of asbestos.
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It must be in the jeans. The offspring of musical hedonists Richard and Linda Thompson, Teddy Thompson is one hell of a talented songwriter. Since his debut self-titled album came out in 2000, Thompson has been busy working on collaborative projects (including the ‘I’m Your Man’ tribute to Leonard Cohen) and solo recordings. His latest album, Up Front & Down Low, is a typically skittish and melodic collection of folk tinged melodrama. We spoke to him recently. Read more
Austin band The Low Lows are one of my most prized finds of the year so far. It’s introspective music — staggered harmonies delivered by a distant, agonised voice that filters through a wall of tranquil guitar distortion and measured drumming. Every instrument carries a powerful emotion, sometimes keeping their distance from one another, floating up and around the airwaves, and other times colliding and crashing back to earth.
Sculptor Richard Stipl creates disturbing, gothic, vaguely religious tableaus using hyper-realistic, resin casted figures that quite often are engaged in some bizarre behavior, covered in blood, leaking gore, or otherwise frozen in some horrific pose. A friend of mine said, ‘If you’re going to develop that level of skill, why would you use it to make such ugly things?’ I kind of like gross things, though, so it doesn’t bother me. Read more
Mexican architect Michel Rojkind was asked to design new spaces for the Nestle chocolate factory outside Paseo Tollocan. Read more
I ran a series of 80s nights in New York last year — showing cult 80s movies and playing classic cuts from that era of kitsch and spice — purely so I could spin After The Fire’s Der Kommissar over and over. Yessir, this was the future of music in 1983. Pity no one was listening.
Once upon a time there was a real connoisseur of jeans, Hidehiko Yamane, as expert and demanding as only certain Japanese ‘otaku’ can be. Read more
Woohoo! Another flash game that actually tests your cognitive abilities. LightBot is a difficult, but satisfying game in which you direct a little robot using a system of simple commands in order to light up various squares on a grid. The first few levels guide you through the seemingly easy process, but when there are multiple sets of directions requiring you to write what are essentially codes, it can get pretty hairy.
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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
Richmond-based graffiti artist Chip7 has a style that is at once urban and also vaguely tribal with their crude lines and rich patterns. Read more
Charlie Immer’s pastel-pallete sometimes obfuscates the gory violence in his surreal images. At other times, it heightens the gut-wrenching and visceral effect of his work. Read more
Illustrator Timothy Karpinski sews painted paper together to create his images, giving them a classic look. Read more
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
Wolfmother. Rock n roll. Mystical lyrics. Heavy riffs. They have a new album out, Cosmic Egg, and we have five copies to giveaway, along with their debut album. To enter, tell us your favorite Wolfmother song and the city you live in. Yo! Two fingered salute. Read more
From this artist selection of t-shirts comes this Christina Koustospirou illustration, silkscreened on a limited edition t-shirt, and distributed in a vinyl sleeve, with a biography of the artist on the back of the sleeve. Every t-shirt is numbered and signed by the artist, and comes in organic cotton. Read more
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