More tricks with mirrors

Taken in Toulouse last year.

China Gorilla Intergalactic viral

Pic in the Guardian Magazine!

My pic of St Martin in the Fields made it into today's Guardian mag Your Pictures page, marvelous! Also online here: http://gu.com/p/2jt6e

Video interview: David Blandy on Lux

I interviewed artist David Blandy about his new exhibition Child of the Atom, a combination of video and installation exploring his family's historical ties to Hiroshima. See the results on the Lux website here:

http://www.lux.org.uk/blog/artist-david-blandy-his-new-film-child-atom

Child of the Atom
Seventeen Gallery, Kingsland Road, 2 September - 2 October 2010

Dazed Digital Interview: Hussein Chalayan at Lisson Gallery

(Originally published on Dazed Digital)

Constantly defying compartmentalisation, Hussein Chalayan is a true cross-disciplinary artist whose work is never hampered by fixed expectations of genre or discipline. Far from it, if the medium fits the philosophy then he runs with it, sparking an endlessly innovative convergence of fashion, performance, installation, technology, anthropology, and more into the trademarlk Chalayan cultural experience. From 8 September, London’s Lisson Gallery hosts one such experience with 'I Am Sad Leyla (Üzgünüm Leyla)', a multi-room installation deploying audio, video, sculpture and fashion in its deconstruction of Chalayan’s native Turkish musical tradition. Dazed Digital spoke to him about how this all came about.

Dazed Digital: What is the inspiration behind I Am Sad Leyla (Üzgünüm Leyla)?
Hussein Chalayan: The idea was to create a new context for this genre of Turkish music which, in itself an art form, has constantly shifted musical structure due to the amorphous nature of Turkish culture and history .The idea was to further extend this shift by putting it into an alien environment in London at the Lisson Gallery, and also to reframe it to reiterate its power.

DD: What attracted you to such a strong musical element?
Hussein Chalayan: Music and sound have always featured in my work. Visual people are ‘poorman’s musicians’, we all strive to achieve the same affect as music but are not sure that we ever get there.

DD: How did you begin?
Hussein Chalayan: We recorded the piece from scratch. Sertab Erener, a super well-known pop star in Turkey, is not known for this genre of music. Part of the thrill of approaching her, and I think for her accepting, was to create a momentary shift from her longstanding oeuvre. Her performance has the might of early chanteuses in the beginning of the 20 the century in Turkey. We are both more than delighted with it.

Little White Lies review: Perestroika

Watching Perestroika is like being privy to someone else’s lucid dream. Blending footage of two trips on the trans-Siberian express, one alongside her friend Sian Thomas, the other 20 years later after Thomas’s death, Sarah Turner negotiates the gulf between past and present, truth and construction, memory and experience as she tries to piece everything together in a state of retrograde amnesia... (read more)

From the vaults: Tell Us More

A one minute film from back in 2006 called Tell Us More. Made as footage of the plane crashing into the Penatgon in 2001 was released to the media, this is where my longstanding pixel fixation began.

Tell Us More was selected to screen as part of no.w.here's Archetypes Screening at Transit Space, E1, in May 2006. Although back then I didn't give things titles.

Installation: Murder Disco!

I made this pixel piece as an installation covering one wall of a dark room, the rest is self-explanatory...

Astriloquy video for China Gorilla Intergalactic

Some wall candy I made for China Gorilla Intergalactic: a 5 min silent video derived from clips of the film Alien (don't sue me 20th Century Fox), dealing with extra-terrestrial contact. Not for the epileptic amongst us.

Video showing at China Gorilla Intergalactic

I'm going to be exhibiting a video and making some virals for China Gorilla Intergalactic this Friday (see Facebook), more to follow...