A while back, I found some illustrations that Alexandre Alexeiff had done for The Fall of the House of Usher. His grainy vision of Poe's tale exists within a nightmarish fog; Ram Rischmann's wood engravings for the 1947 French edition, on the other hand, portrays the story in sharper focus. It embodies a solemnity that anchors the story in the concrete. Whereas Alexeiff's illustrations transport us to a surreal abstraction of other worlds, Rischmann's keeps us firmly on our feet.

It's interesting to see how their interpretations of the story differ. It's also interesting to think about how powerful imagery can be - how the illustrations associated with a text can affect our own reading, and how drastically different those readings can be depending on the imagery we're presented with.

 

 

We had a picnic that evening on the hardwood floors of Cross St, Cypress Hill blaring inappropriately in the background. There was so much cheese. It was incredible.

 

Later, we made our way to The Teacups' album launch party. Katherine and I lay on a floral mattress at the front of the stage, where we had teapots of plum liqueur and miniature cupcakes under the fairy lights of hopetoun.

 

 

 

keywords: magical. lovely.

 

Guido Mocafico's photography has an impersonality to it; an emotional distance achieved through his straightforward, almost clinical depictions. Yet in doing this he impassionately highlights the complexity and beauty of nature and science and, perhaps most importantly, jellyfish.

From Movement (2006):

From Serpens (2003):

 

 From Medusa (2002):

 

 

My friend Ed made a piano sandwich today. He is a brilliant human.

Let me just say: of all the playwrights who have inspired me in the past decade, Anna Deavere Smith takes centre stage. My views on art are very much influenced by her work, and she inspires me to the point where I look at what she's done and want so desperately to drop everything and follow in her (docu-dramatic) footsteps.

Twilight: LA completely changed the way I thought about theatre. I have always been a firm believer that art, and especially theatre, is necessarily political, but there was always a twinge in the back of my mind that it could only have so much impact. Then I found her work, and I started to realise just how powerful theatre can be.

From her show On the Road: A Search for American Character:

Christophe Gilbert's aesthetic perfection is unsettling, evoking the sense that something sinister lurks beneath his calm surrealism.

He also explores the animalistic side of human nature, but in a way that glorifies rather than degrades.

You can see more of his work here.

Spencer Tunick:

 

Brugge (2005)

 

Buffalo - Central Terminal, Albright-Knox Art Gallery (2004)

France - Biennale de Lyon (2005)

Ireland - Dublin (2008)

Mexico City (2007)

Miami Beach - Sagamore (2007)

Netherlands - Dream Amsterdam Foundation (2007)

Ohio - Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2004)

Switzerland, Aletsch Glacier (2007)

Vanessa Beecroft:

Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf? - Performance (2007)

Christophe Gilbert:

Jonathan was death; I was a disaffected indie youth.

... I didn't say I did it well.

Scaring young children was our marketing plan this month.

Successful? You could say that. Smart? um. shut up.