Archive for the 'Arts' Category

This Dutch graffitti artist is taking the street art to a whole new level, using lasers.

The good news for the owner of the building is that they won’t have to spend thousands to remove the graffitti….!

***WARNING: This review of The Wrester contains spoilers.***

It’s late at night and outside the rain is falling. It seems an appropriate setting to reflect on the dark side of the American dream, or the dark side of following your passion. We are encouraged by so many self-help books and self-styled gurus and coaches “to follow your passion” with the promise of riches and happiness at the end of the hard work and tough choices. But what if that passion has you so much in its hold that there is no time or space, or even emotional or psychological resources, left for anything else?

We’ve just been watching The Wrestler, the movie that came out recently starring Mickey Rourke as a professional wrestler who was once at the top of his game but is now past his prime and just barely keeping his battered and tortured body in the ring. The opening act is relentlessly brutal showing the physical beatings he takes for the sake of his sport and for the adoration of the fans. Wrestling at this level is partly pre-determined in that the wrestlers agree the general flow of the match and the moves they are going to make but it’s very real in that they really do brutalise their bodies to some degree. It’s part of the show and showmanship that sends the fans into cheering hysteria. The climax of the first act is a match that involves barbed wire, a staple gun, broken glass and falling from a high ladder.

In the ring, the wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson moves with ease and in the locker room, he is the top dog, comfortable, confident, genial and a hero among the other wrestlers. But outside, in the real world, he lives in a trailer and is late with his rent payments. He is estranged from his daughter and the only human contact he has is with a stripper whom he pays 60 bucks to for a conversation and a lap dance. He takes casual work in a superstore, packing meat, to make ends meet but he’s gone the moment the next gig comes along. He is monosyllabic and uncomfortable in his bulking form and the people around him keep calling him by his real name Robin and he keeps having to correct them. “Randy,” he keeps saying, “It’s Randy”.

He gave up everything to follow his passion - his wife, his daughter, steady work, a house. And for a time, it is clear, he had the fame and the glory, those great prizes that we are promised for following our passion, all documented in faded press cuttings. But now, after a heart attack, he finds that he is left with nothing and no-one. On his doctor’s advice, he retires from the ring and for a little while, he tries to start a new life, re-connecting with his daughter, taking a permanent job at the deli counter at the superstore, tentatively building a real relationship with the stripper outside of the bar. But he seems smaller, emasculated, bumbling and ill-equipped for his role as father. He comes to be a pathetic figure, like a huge, pacing lion caged in a plastic cap and apron behind the deli counter.

The film is about a wrestler on the face of it but it might be about any artist, sports person or performer - or an entrepreneur or business person or anyone with a career - who has gives their all to their profession and who may achieve the heights of fame and glory in their endeavour. You might be like the wrestler in the movie with nothing to your name but your skill as a showman in the ring. Or you might be a rock star on endless tours or a golfing genius who works relentlessly to stay at the top of your game or a partner in a global accountancy firm with wealth and recognition within your industry. If the ring or arena that you have chosen for yourself is the only place you come alive then the rest of the time, you may one day find yourself in the same, dark, empty trailer where Randy lives all alone. If you do not take care of your life outside of your chosen ring, if you do not pay attention to those who love you beyond that arena or practice the skills it takes to live your life after the match, you may find that there is nothing and no-one waiting for you after your moment in the spotlight.

Did Randy become so unskilled in the real world and in the real relationships in his life because he spent too long in the world of wrestling and honing the skills that made him a star there? Or was it that in the final analysis, the only real skills he had were those that made him a success in the hard macho arena of a wrestler’s life and the world of the ring was where he found his place - and ultimately, the life where he belonged? Perhaps there are aspects of both those views that are true. Might it be that someone who is highly skilled in numbers and finance and spreadsheets might find themselves top dog in the world of multinational accountanting but have no real skills in building good relationships outside of that “ring”? And so they are celebrated as chief executive and a leader in their field, acclaimed and admired by business associates, colleagues and strangers within that industry - and they love their lives in that arena because their skills there make success so easy. In the meantime, they may be spending all their energy in that world to obscure the uncomfortable fact that they have no real skills with the wife (or husband) and children or in developing relationships that are not based on business or in bonding with friends who value them for who they are and not what they can do.

Following your passion is a great piece of advice because it can give you a sense of purpose and meaning as the many self-help books and success coaches tell us. But there is a dark side, especially if your passion becomes a replacement for the real relationships in your life - or perhaps a grandiose excuse to neglect them - because those relationships are too difficult or lacking the grand emotive drama of fandom or simply because you’re not very good at them. For someone like Randy, through the choices he makes, his passion becomes his real life because there is nothing else left. I found The Wrestler heart-wrenching, depressing, and poignant. Like all the classic tragic heroes, Randy is trapped by his fatal flow and you know from the beginning that there is only one way it’s going to end but you just watch on, helpless and crying out for him, as the inevitable conclusion rolls ever into sight. But what makes the film so powerful is that when the end comes, even while you despair at his choice, you also know that in some ways, it is a happy ending because it is in the ring that he comes alive so it seems apt that it is there that he chooses to embrace his death - and his only way out of the ring.

Poster photo: from Wikipedia, with thanks

Most major exhibitions offer visitors an audio- or multimedia- guide that can enhance your experience of their artworks or artefacts. As you take the tour of the gallery or exhibition, audioguide in hand, it’s like having your own private expert alongside who can point out the fascinating details of the exhibits.

Who are the creative artists behind these audio experiences? In this episode, I hope to find out as I talk to Steve Slack, the writer behind the audioguide for the Italian Renaissance Drawings exhibition, now on at the British Musuem (until 25 July 2010). Steve also shares tips on the business of being a freelance writer & the emerging field of multimedia writing.

You can subscribe to the Fusion View Mobile Podcast by clicking on the “Subscribe with iTunes” button - it’s free and new episodes will be downloaded automatically to your iTunes application.

What do you think about exhibition multimedia guides? A help or a distraction? Or do you have a comment about anything else in this podcast? You can send me - or Steve - an email or voicemail via my Contact Page

Photo: from Steve’s website, with permission

Can art make a practical difference to the world we live in? One man thinks so. His name is Neil Ellis and he is hoping that his performance piece for Anthony Gormley’s 4th Plinth project is going to make a real practical difference to Londoners.

I talk to Neil about his performance piece Pedal Power and how he hopes it will contribute to making London’s roads safer for cyclists.

You can subscribe to the Fusion View Mobile Podcast by clicking on the “Subscribe with iTunes” button - it’s free and new episodes will be downloaded automatically to your iTunes application.

Links:

You can join Neil’s Pedal Power Facebook Group to add your voice to his campaign.

GalleryFilm event at Dulwich Picture Gallery: The role of protest in art - Neil Ellis on Anthony Gormley’s 4th plinth creating a drama performance to drive home the issue of cycling safety. Come and see the sizzling short films by Riffy Ahmed, the visually stunning Illuminations Productions ‘Anthony Gormley and the 4th Plinth’ and discuss the issues with them.
Monday 10 May, 7.15pm at Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Tickets: 020 8299 8750 or online

CORRECTION: The video of Neil’s performance is not yet available online so I’m not able to show it here. As soon as it is available, I’ll add a link or embed it here. Apologies for the incorrect information in the podcast.

Do you have a comment about cycling safety? Or about anything else in this podcast? You can send me - or Neil - an email or voicemail via my Contact Page

Photos: thanks to Dulwich OnView, with permission

We got a text message this weekend from our fellow volunteer Ingrid Beazley who was at the international musuem conference in Denver, Colorado, USA to tell us that our volunteer blog Dulwich OnView has won the Best Small Museum Site 2010 at the Conference Archimuse International Best of the Web Awards this year. We are all thrilled that our hard work and collaborative effort over the last few years has been recognised on the international heritage sector stage. Thanks to everyone who voted for us at the conference site. Thanks also goes to our co-editors, contributors and readers!

The Best Small Musuem Site award is given “to explicitly recognise work from smaller institutions. [ie] These sites [which] have been:

• Created in-house or with volunteer effort
• Mounted by small institutions (with 5 for fewer professional staff)
• Created with very limited budgets (sometimes no budget)”

Congratulations also to the other winners in the other categories!

Photo: of the Dulwich OnView editorial team and regular contributors, from Dulwich OnView

Over on Sharon Bakar’s blog recently, she bemoaned the fact that Malaysians still did not seem to be reading. This has been a long-time issue for Malaysians as far back as I can remember. Many of us are good at business, finance, engineering, IT etc but not so many of us are world-class writers. The local publishing industry is small and focuses mainly on business and self-improvement books rather than fiction or literature. The market just isn’t there.

There appeared to be a glimmer of hope in the last few years with the rise of litbloggers in Malaysia - people who love books and reading and who blog about their passion. Many are also published as well as aspiring writers. They gather regularly in Kuala Lumpur (KL) at book events and also in writing groups, some hosted by book-lover extraordinaire herself, Sharon Bakar. But for all their literary and intellectual abilities, this seems to be a small group who, while well-respected, are not generally treated to events of pomp and circumstance with corporate sponsorship and the recognition of celebrity status - eg. in the same way that in the UK, there’s the Booker Prize dinner which is covered in the press as well as on TV.

In contrast, I’ve noticed in the last year or so that bloggers have been getting the star treatment in Malaysia in a way that seems to overshadow the book writers. Last year saw the launch of the regional Nuffnang Blog Awards to honour the best bloggers in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Australia . It was a glitzy, black tie affair held at a fancy hotel, apparently modelling itself on the Oscars and was even covered by the Malaysian terrestial TV channel NTV7.

Kenny Sia, who won Best Entertainment Blog, leads the Blog-Rat Pack, with his personal blog rated as the no. 1 blog in Malaysia by the global blog ranking service Technorati. He has become a celebrity through his blog which then launched him into other high-profile roles eg he was invited to be a panellist on the Malaysian X Factor like web TV show, Malaysian Dream Girls, alongside other A list celebrities. He has been named as one of the “Top 20 under 40” influential people in Malaysia by print magazine KLUE.

Nuffnang continues to play the role of star maker with its Project Alpha web TV series, which is “the first Online TV Show unveiling the real faces behind Malaysia’s Top Bloggers”. According to the blurb, “The show will take audience into various sneak peeks of bloggers’ lives, who they are, how they live, what makes them tick and where they derive their inspiration to capture the attention and interests of millions of online readers on a daily basis. The show will also try to uncover their darkest secrets which they keep hidden from their readers.” Kenny was one of the stars in Season One and the measure of the show’s success is that Season Two is now underway.

So Malaysians may not be reading books but they certainly seem to be reading blogs. My take on the rise of celebrity bloggers there is that bloggers connect with Malaysians as Malaysians. There’s no attempt to polish their English or to write in a literary way - they just write in their own voices, as Malaysians, and that is what gives them a strong connection with their readers. Their fans identify with the bloggers - their sense of humour which is typically Malaysian, their interests, their daily lives. In contrast, novels as we know them today are really a Western art form, dominated by native English speakers from the UK and US, with prizes created in the West catering to a Western taste. The West defines what literature should be. So for Malaysian writers trying to break in to that field, it is bound to be much more challenging than for writers who are comfortable working within those defined parameters. Similarly, for Malaysian readers, it can be challenging to sit down for hours on end reading about stories and people that do not speak to you or even have you in mind as an audience written by people who don’t have any real connection or feel for what your experiences might be. In my view, it’s not surprising then that bloggers have taken hold of the Malaysian imagination in such a big way.

The other thing is that there is Nuffnang taking a very active role in making the blogging stars. They are an ad/ PR agency matching blue chip global brands such as Sony, Adidas and the like with bloggers as a way of marketing those brands. There’s money in them thar blogs, so to speak. I’m not aware of any similar sort of business taking an interest in writers and in fact, the general refrain I hear (and not just from Malaysian publishers and writers but globally) is, there’s no money in books.

Here is a trailer for Project Alpha Season One:

So, is blogging becoming the new art form for Malaysians? Are the bloggerati the new literati? Should the rest of the world take the cue from Malaysian bloggers and start recognising and celebrating bloggers as the new influencers and new creatives for today’s generation?

What do you think? Have I missed something in my outline of Malaysian writers as the poor relations of Malaysian bloggers? Please let me know, especially if you have personal experience of the writing and/ or blogging scene in Malaysia.

Photos: Sharon Bakar, from her online page
Kenny Sia, thanks to KLUE

When I was younger, Doris Day’s music was always considered by the “cool” crowd, sickly sweet, sentimental and suitable only for mums and grannies. Her persona didn’t help - golden blonde, perky, wholesome and virginal even while playing opposite Rock Hudson in those risque and cheeky rom coms of the ’50s. You were not supposed to be a Doris Day fan if you were an aspiring intellectual back in the rough, tough ’80s.

But now that I’ve given up being pretentious, I can shout it out loud to the golden daffodils and whoever else might be listening: Once I had a secret love… and it was Doris Day.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one. The new musical about her life, Sentimental Journey, was packed the other night with Doris Day fans - mums and grannies, gay boys and us. The thing is, though, the mums are now women my age as opposed to women my mother’s age as they would have been back in my youth! It looked like they had all come for a girls’ night out, leaving hubby home with the kids - there were gaggles of them, singing and swaying along to the songs.

Like Mama Mia and other recent musicals created around pop songs, Doris’s songs were strung together like fairy lights along the narrative chain. They came every few minutes, taking us from her birth as Doris Kappelhoff in Cincinnatti, Ohio to her present day retirement in Carmel, California. While this “and then” form of narrative thrust did not make very good drama, there was hardly ever a pause between songs so you could just give in to the sway and caress of the songs. Sally Hughes, in the lead role, has Doris’s perky athletic build and approximates her crooning style of singing to a tee. The rest of the cast of four played all the other different characters with gusto and somehow managed to give the impression of a cast of hundreds! And they all did a variety of American accents pretty well. By the time Doris appeared in her Calamity Jane outfit and drove a wagon round the aisles, whip cracking away, the crowd was in heaven, gasping in delight at her outfit, clapping and yee-ha-ing away to the song…

I have to tell you about the theatre, too, which I think contributed to the lively, relaxed atmosphere. Usually, when you go to a show in London, you stick to the group or couple you’ve come with. But this evening, we found ourselves chatting to a number of people and got the sense that others were also making new friends. The Wilton Music Hall is the oldest music hall in the world. Built in the 1850s, it saw vaudeville style shows, classical music, opera and variety acts as well as the first can-can act in Victorian times. Over the years, it was a Methodist mission hall and a rag warehouse before being taken over by a charitable trust whose main objective is to restore it to its former glory. And it really does need restoring. The walls are peeling and decrepit and the decorative carvings are faded and chipped. There was a slightly Gothic air because of this in spite of the bright lights and cheerful crowd. And that was all part of the magical charm of the evening. Many people were here as much to experience the music hall as much as for the show itself!

Sentimental Journey is on at the Wilton Music Hall until Sunday 04 April 2010.

Photos:
Doris Day, thanks to Little Blog Too
Poster, thanks to Wilton Music Hall website
Wilton Music Hall, thanks to Tower Hamlets Archive, via NZorgan.com

These days, my hearing ain’t what it used to be - especially when it comes to lyrics of pop songs. This video illustrates hilariously what can become of beautifully crafted lyrics when misheard by an old biddy like me.

Take it away, Joe Cocker…

We went along to a private view of an art exhibition for the South London Women Artists (SLWA) at the Dulwich Library last week. It was a bit surprising at first when we arrived as we could not see any paintings or photographs - just a convivial party of people drinking wine and eating nibbles amongs the bookshelves. But, rather like a treasure hunt, after a bit of nosing around and asking around for clues, we found the artwork hung on the ends of bookcases and tucked in amongst some book racks. The artists were on hand, too, so it was interesting to chat with them and find out more about how and where they worked.

SLWA was formed about 18 months ago by Jenny Sweeney, to offer a meeting point for women artists in South London to help them promote their work and also as a space where they can come together with other artists. Many of the artists I spoke to that evening told me how much they enjoyed being part of the group, especially for the opportunities it gave to hook up with other artists. There are now 100 members and a waiting list.

The group is run on a volunteer basis with members chipping in their time and skills. One of the artists designed the flyer, another member worked on marketing the event and still others organised and curated this exhibiton at the library as well as the one now also running concurrently at the Cafe in Dulwich Park. The Dulwich exhibtion is on till 27 March.

Their next exhibition is at the Bankside Gallery from 28 April to 03 May.

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