Devour is a great site offering expertly selected videos. I couldn’t say it better so here, in their own words: ‘Using a scientifically technologically artificially intelligently awesomely robotically humanly system (we hand-pick every video on the site), Devour sifts out the best videos and posts the well-curated collection every weekday. Fewer cute kittens, fewer skateboarding nutshots, fewer tween heart throbs, and lots more awesome.’
I am a loyal devotee of Vogue. It was the first glossy that I adopted as a teenager and I can’t recall ever missing out on a single issue. I don’t always think it gives great content, but I always insist on being informed. Love magazine, another from Condé Nasts stable, launched their iPad app a month or so again, so it’s timely that Vogue should do so now. So, as a woman in her mid thirties with a strong background in print publishing and an avid consumer of visual culture, the simple question is, how will I choose to continue my subscription to Vogue?
iPad app please. No question. That sexy light little tablet full of all my informational needs, and now with Vogue ‘extras’ can fit very neatly into my Céline bag thank you very much, and no more unnecessary paper in my life. Neat. (I’m a bit of paper Nazi these days. Only use paper if you need to, or if you’re making a meal of it, and if it’s fresh – see blog entry on NY Art Book Fair.) Paper and printing was the essential medium for Vogue and their sponsors to carry their monthly message, but these can now be supported digitally so why not? I don’t think we’ll loose anything to aesthetics here. My guess would be that much of Vogue’s market could afford an iPad right now, those who can’t it’s simply a matter of time, so how long before the print ‘edition’ becomes extinct? But with people wanting information immediately, how long before the concept of the ‘edition’ or the ‘periodical’ is done away with and the mag simply morphs into Vogue.com? This also begs the foggy question of the digital archive, how does / will that work? But of course going digital presents many opportunities for Vogue and the advertisers who I imagine are rubbing their immaculately manicured hands together as I write; imagine being able to flick though the magazine tap on a pair of shoes and ‘adding to basket’? Conspicuous consumption is hence immensely incorrigible and bound to give the economy a boost. Digitally the capitalists couldn’t be better placed; for the consumer blink and you’ve just dropped thousands on a bag after being mesmerised by an ad coming to life inviting you to join their gang. Careful now
Fashion Films are mostly naff from what I’ve seen, but we’re finally starting to see the emergence of some decent videos from the big fashion houses. The Show, a short to promote Lanvin for H&M and directed by Mike Figgis (below), is super cute and expertly captures the spirit of the luxury brand. But I’m here mainly in praise of Stefano Pilato.
The creative director of YSL is showing himself to be, not only an incredible designer, but a master of media; he knows exactly how to exploit it and deliver his vision. The Manifestos celebrate print and surface, even offering secret stickers of a jubilant Schiffer; and he has just released my current favourite of the fashion shorts, a super slick number directed by his close collaborators Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. You can view it here, but be warned if you’re female you’ll need a strong sense of self when confronting the nuclear vision of womanhood that strides down the stairs towards you and if you’re a man, please, for the benefit of all of us, remember it’s a fantasy and I doubt she’d be interested in you anyway
Fashion Films are mostly naff from what I’ve seen, but we’re finally starting to see the emergence of some decent videos from the big fashion houses. The Show, a short to promote Lanvin for H&M and directed by Mike Figgis (below), is super cute and expertly captures the spirit of the luxury brand. But I’m here mainly in praise of Stefano Pilato.
The creative director of YSL is showing himself to be, not only an incredible designer, but a master of media; he knows exactly how to exploit it and deliver his vision. The Manifestos celebrate print and surface, even offering secret stickers of a jubilant Schiffer; and he has just released my current favourite of the fashion shorts, a super slick number directed by his close collaborators Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. You can view it here, but be warned if you’re female you’ll need a strong sense of self when confronting the nuclear vision of womanhood that strides down the stairs towards you and if you’re a man, please, for the benefit of all of us, remember it’s a fantasy and I doubt she’d be interested in you anyway
If any further evidence was needed on the future of Print and Publishing and its popularity, simply pop over to New York today and visit the last day of the New York Art Book Fair. I’m pretty sure that by now we should all be in agreement that it’s not digital orprint, but that both can work alongside each other, and it’s more about what you’re publishing, and to what media.
In terms of periodical publishing, whilst I doubt the long term print future of magazines such as Vogue or Frieze – which I think can work just as beautifully as a iPad app whilst offering exciting digital ‘extras’ – it’s magazines such as my personal favourite, Kilimanjaro, that will no doubt have a long future in physical form. Kilimanjaro pays as much attention to its media as it does to its content. It encourages the eye to wallow in generous images saturating a surface that is immediately tactile and luxurious.
MAN-MADE: Frieze Art Fair: 16-19 October 2008
‘Objects are always signals to the imagination to begin its work. They are the furnishing of the mind’s eye.’
MAN-MADE is a commercial experiment that explores our relationship with commodities made by man. Things hold their intrinsic value by supplying the desires of the mind through their physical qualities and the personal associations we might bring to that thing. It is that want, and the why in want, that we are keen to explore.
MAN-MADE
MAN-MADE: Frieze Art Fair
16-19 October 2008
MAN-MADE was a commercial experiment that explored our relationship with commodities made by man. Things hold their intrinsic value by supplying the desires of the mind through their physical qualities and the personal associations we might bring to that thing. It is that want, and the why in want, that we are keen to explore.
"Things which are repeated are pleasing"
Based in the West End during the four days of Frieze, MAN-MADE will present and sell identical multiples of one object each day; MAN-MADE’s usp is that it removes the dilemma of choice – that great democratic idea that, if abused, can induce a sense of anxiety. The market is edited down and objects are chosen from hardware equipment to inflatable toys; the item is repeated to form an army of itself, provoking our customers’ imaginations and encouraging a sea of associations. The celebratoryand repetitive styling of the object will enforce its character upon the space and create a scene of colours, shapes and contours making a strong impression on the consumer (and hopefully) inducing them to buy.
Design historian Emily King has selected an item for sale; artist Oriana Fox responds to MAN-MADE with a performance titled Material Girl; and a site specific sound installation titled Consume from sound artist Shelley Parker will run for the four days. Bompas and Parr take us flavour tripping, and a free screening of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Why Does Herr R. Run Amok observes a measured man’s alienation in middle class conformity who one day can take no more. For further information please contact Charlotte Troy on man.made.pop.up@gmail.com or call on 07966 351 260.
Schedule
Thursday 16 October
Bloom’s Salami Chubs x 50: £3.50 each
Flavour Tripping with Bompas and Parr (tickets needed)
Friday 17 October
5ft inflatable Incredible Hulk x 10: £25.00
Saturday 18 October
File Magazine: General Idea, edited by Beatrix
Ruf, published by JRP Ringier x 10: £125.00 each
Material Girl, performance by Oriana Fox
Sunday 19 October
Emily King selects: Hultafors folding rule x 25: £5.00 each
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Mike Nelson, Coral Reef, 2000
Whilst at the Tate Britain I went to see Mike Nelson’s Coral Reef, a work made in 2000 and originally seen at Matt’s Gallery now re-commissioned for the Tate Britain. I knew nothing about the work, but was intrigued because I like Nelson’s art (not to mention he’s hot – we met once at a wedding and I’ve been charmed since!). Anyway, I digress...
You enter an unassuming door, just right off Fiona Banner’s planes, and within seconds I’d forgotten that I was in an art gallery on a Tuesday, mid afternoon. Rather, I was alone investigating a post apocalyptic Lynchian world. My heart quickened and as I tentatively passed from one vacant antechamber to another I was immersed in a foggy environment heavy with the suggestion of narcotics, religion and porn; where night watchmen, cab drivers and junkies had all vanished just before sun rise. Nature didn't know this place, even any trace of humanity was most certainly ill at ease. So convincing was his composition of objects, workmanship, lighting and use of space, the affect of the work left the air singed with a mix of anxiety and anaesthesia and clung to my skin long after I left this impious space.
Interview with Nelson about the work:
The Otolith Group hosted an extraordinary screening at the Tate the other day as part of their contribution to the Turner Prize; Henchman Glance by Chris Marker. Now I am a fan of Marker’s films, but this one has left me speechless. I’m still processing what I saw, so I’ll tell you the facts: In 1961 Nazi Officer Adolf Eichmann was put on trial in Jerusalem. As part of the trial the defendant was pulled into court during the darkness of the night, whilst only the officials were present and made to watch Nuit et Brouillard (below) the first documentary fiction of the Nazi concentration and extermination system. The director in change of documenting proceedings secretly kept the camera silently rolling on Eichmann’s face throughout the screening. Marker, then took this footage and inter-cut it with what Eichmann saw and heard. It’s not easy to watch, and I for one have never seen Holocaust footage like it. The work of course raises many questions, but for me I found that I measured my reaction to Eichmann’s, after all we were both watching. Where I flinched, Eichmann simply scratched; as my hands shot up to protect my vision from what I saw in Nuit et Brouillard, the counter-shot of Eichmann wiping sleep from his eyes disorientated me. Was this pure control hiding something deep below, or beyond cold. Where had Eichmann gone?
Nuit et Brouillard, Alain Resnais, 1956
The Otolith group talk about their work for the Turner Prize nomination, 2010
Right. This is brilliant. From my good friend’s label, Entr'acte where you’ll find some truly avant-garde sounds. Joke’s latest, The Charles Moneypenny Report over here is just completely out there. I read something recently that said that people don’t laugh on their own. Well I don’t find that to be true, and I dare you to not to laugh out aloud to this. “I wanna be anarchy”. Brilliant. Just brilliant.
