The Whitest Boy Alive @ Digital.

The support band. Fellow Bergenians, The New Wine

They must have grown up together or are extreme fans of WBA, because they sounded pretty much the same minus Erlend.

They were cute too.











la la la la

The crowd leads the way

Getting mischievous...

Lets play!





Presents for everyone

Brighton Shores.

This would not be possible in London.


You can never have too much sauce.


Red shoes hanging out on the beach.


The ex- pier. Now a piece of contemporary sculpture.

8 BIT XXXCHANGE @ CATCH

The Coolness..

Its

Cool

to

be

uncool

Assistance Needed.

Waitrose finally hit Islington and positioned itself right in between two other big boys of the food chain game; Marks & Spencers and Sainsbury’s. (Approx. length from the start of M&S block to end of S.’s with W. in the middle – 100 metres.) A bit of supermarket O.T.T? That’s what I thought. It is quite a tight fit and a hint of competition is definitely present in the air. But lets not jump to conclusions just yet. In its slick campaigns, Waitrose promises difference. Quality. Exeptional Customer service. It is the luxury supermarket after all and as Wickipedia informs “has a Royal Warrant to supply groceries, wine and spirits to, her Majesty, the Queen.” Promising stuff.

From the outside I wanted to give the ex-Woolworths space the benefit of the doubt, starting with the location. Perhaps it is all part of the new order in urban planning, a breakthrough means in fascilitating the food hunt with customer in mind of course, inspired by the system from within, and titled something along the lines of “Supermarket within the Supermarket Scheme” in the Islington Council books. Three supermarkets lined up one after another – exactly like having all those different types of tropical juices in one aisle, which definitely makes it an easy find. Whether the selection process is just as easy is another question however... So now you know if you want food in Angel, you’ll find a wide selection between no.5 and no.31 Liverpool Road, catering for all kinds – from basics to the finest options. Plus, the newcomer promises to help solve the acute cattle crowding at rush hour, which was actually becoming quite serious. The madness would start just after 5:00 with the anxious post-work-to-tv-and-couch mob and go on for a good few hours. Not the best setting if you want to spend some quality time choosing the perfect carton of juice.

But no need to worry now, with Waitrose you can shop in peace and get some real quality stuff. Or so their advertising department says. Not particularly a diehard supporter of the supermarket system, I do use it of course, not too much realistically cost effective alternatives around. So I decided to swap my usual Sainsbury’s route a few weeks ago and pop into the new neighbour (rival?) for a peak and some quality food. And..

You will not believe it, but within 5 minutes I was out of there, seeking refuge in Sainsbury’s next door with a warmth in my heart and a newfound admiration for this store which has been faithful to me for quite some time now. It was not that satisfaction of being back in the comfort zone, on familiar terrains or anything like that. I find novelty extremely appealing. Here the problem lay not in what the store was, but what it wasn’t and it definitely wasn’t what the adverts promised!

It was dirty, chaotic and completely random, with maze like aisles too thin to fit two way basket carrying traffic (forget trolleys), no where near enough food selection to justify calling itself a supermarket (I mean real food, like carrots, potatoes – not the ready made pre-packed box dinners with fancy names which they have plenty of in fact) and undersupplied shelves. I mean I know that we are living through dark times with the recession and all, but when Waitrose staff cannot refill the shelves in time or clean the floors yet have the cheek to charge extortionate prices for ‘quality and customer service’, we know we have a problem. Like the winning hero, Sainsbury’s orange seemed to glow more orange in comparison.

Today, feeling good, I decided to give the newcomer another chance. I walked around, and round and round again to familiarise myself with the contents and felt the definite bias for quick cook, ready made box meals instantly. I did contemplate leaving my basket and running off to Sainsbury’s again, but considering the time – 7:00pm – prime time food shopper frenzy, I thought best get it over and done with quickly, and actually have the satisfaction of dealing with a real person at the cashier.

Yet, even then I was badly let down. After spending quite a long time trying to scan in my loose watermelon (one of those rare unpackaged food types, a.k.a without a bar code, a.k.a not in system, a.k.a should be weighed at counter but built in scales, now seem like defunct technology), the cashier dude eventually managed to type in a code. After his supervisor made a phone call. When payment time eventually came, I decided to use actual cash -- a rare action in transactions these days. The damage was £21.98. I handed over the exact in a variety of notes and coins and waited the polite few seconds for the cashier to approve my math skills. After a considerably longer time than normal of counting and recounting the case was still not closed. Instead, the cashier looked up at me blankly and said, “How much is this then?” Unbelievable. Perhaps those self-service checkout tills next door, periodically shrieking “assistance needed” are not so bad and three is a crowd after all.

Dear Darkness.

I take off my boots. And I wonder. Its so sunny outside. why am I inside? this darkness. maybe its cos pj harvey is on and its that time of day... but still. i wonder. the industrial sounds of building sites are reverbarating in my ear, along soothing synth notes. and its a monday, and WYS on a sunday just seems so wrong. because its a monday. and things are serious on mondays. stern faces on the tube. all those jackets. where are you going? why the rush.. can u stop and think, for a second..about where you are. in this crazy spaceship tinned beans space and going. where are you going? but who am i to say. mondays are the serious talk. the beginning of what society calls sobriety. when no one is kind. and those outside this vicious circle of mondays feel like intruders on the train. smiling. but guilty and wondering whether they should get into the monday thing. because everyone does. and its what you're supposed to do, right? can we function any other way? can monday be a sunday really. its hard to process. no matter how much u want it. it just feels wrong. and that voice of reason is scary actually, becauase it makes you realise just how encoded you are.

Slaves to Fashion: 'Vintage Rocks Macmillan' FashionShow@BBB

Little demons: Voodoo, Hoochie-Coochie and the Creative Spirit.

The Riflemaker is one of those few galleries that make you feel at home while simultaneously accommodating for a plethora of sensory stimulation all within its cosy Victorian layout. Ring ring, creak creak -- this time its little door opens up to the mystery land of voodoo.

Now, voodoo is not just about sticking pins into grimacing evil dolls. It is a universe of spirits, a creative act unleashing the fire and forces within primal man, and a religion practiced by over 30 million people. Packing psychedelic paintings, centuries of sacrificial practice from the deepest corners of the world, beeswax cauldrons, repetitive rhythms of beating drums, Adolf Hitler and more, the gallery becomes something of an educational centre, a chemical lab and your grandma’s attic in one.

On the ground floor I was greeted by an influx of information about the mystical practice; stories and histories written and displayed, slave trade routes mapped out, piles of diaries and books- a whole library of seductive knowledge and a very friendly gallery assistant ready to fill in the gaps. A true feast to my spell-starved curiosity. Ooooh. After a few big gulps of historical facts however, I noticed the ‘The Crucifixion’ triptych in the corner and all literary interest subsided. I stood entranced in front of this psychedelic tree of life filled with an overabundance of tangled bodies, like branches, recreating and sprouting, in all sorts of imaginable and unimaginable positions. Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ in comparison is children’s book illustration. Definitely a wise curatorial move to hang it by the assistant’s desk – there is enough action here to keep you entertained for days. But let the show go on.

I made a silent vow to my new loved one on the wall to return after exploring what the rest of the terrain had in store and made my way up the creaky darkened stairs into a darkened musky room. I wasn’t sure whether it was the dimmed lights, the gentle melodies of Chopin flowing from the gramophone or the peculiar silent inhabitants of this little room that got to me – perhaps a combination of all, but the effect was immediately sedative. I felt a warm calm inside, the sort you get when in a nursery, tucked away somewhere in the safe corner of the house.

The rosy serenity did not last long however as my eyes adjusted to the dim surroundings and I saw the two little children-dolls in the far corner of the room. There was something very eerie about this work -- their little bodies, dressed in innocent frilly nightgowns were turned away, facing the corner. What are they hiding? Are they afraid? Or have they been naughty little demons perhaps? A more aggressive sculpture, made out of babies’ heads confirmed the slightly chilling ambiance, which began to infiltrate the room, as I started to take note of the other presences; a rucksack made in the shape of the all seeing Masonic eye, a miniature coffin with a dead doll next to that, a dark figure playing with a marionette, and a life sized totem-like structure made out of hair. This was one twisted little nursery. I wanted to stay and play.

Two floors down, the basement, with its sterile white light was a completely different experience all together. Actually it didn’t offer much compared to the attic, only foul smells of bubbling beeswax, which seemed more like burning plastic and a few works on walls. Its not that they were bad; the works themselves can be appreciated in their genre, but rather it was the experience, or lack of it that I found dissatisfying. I did not want to stand back and look at pictures. Hooked on sensory stimulation, all I wanted to do was go back upstairs, to the warped womb of a room, and feel. There should definitely be more little rooms arousing the senses around.

Whether it is visual, mental or nasal stimulation that you seek, the show fulfils that role with sensory tricks and spooky twists along the way. You can even practice a bit of hoochie coochie in the communal wishing machine provided, without having to invest in one yourself like William Burroughs. Concerned with the mystery of the creative act, achieved through heightened states of consciousness (and unconsciousness) the rich variety of work on display encompasses the term art in all the senses of the word. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Jan 19th - April 4th 2009, Riflemaker, Beak Street.

After the party.

Do not despair, it won't come to get you. Axel Hütte: Out of Darkness

Waddington Galleries could not have timed this one better. Featuring endless inhospitable tundra and caverns with sharp icy fangs, “Out of Darkness” by Axel Hütte presents nature at its rawest at a time when London is being hit by a natural disaster firsthand. Let not the recent blizzards scare you away however. If you have survived, and bagged a day off work with that, you will appreciate Hütte’s travels into obscure corners of the Earth in search of the sublime in some of the most untameable environments, all neatly tamed within the gallery frames.

A graduate of the Hilla&Bernd Becher school of thought, and former studio mate of Andreas Gursky, Hütte definitely retains the emphasis on sobriety. Despite their monumental scale, his photographs are intensely meticulous in detail; each twig is defined in the tangled green cobweb of the forest floor, creating a state of endlessness and sheer proximity. (Nitihant-2, Canada 2007) It is frightening to think what would happen if the bus broke down here… Devoid of people and narrative, Hütte’s landscapes are like rare white tigers in the zoo-- best appreciated through the safety net of the fence.

Yet despite the aggressive realism, there is also something very romantic, and almost soothing about Hütte’s work. It is like the mild tranquilising effect you get from starting at a Caspar David Friedrich, and never wanting to look away. Is it the common German Geist that knows how to hit the melancholic buttons? Perhaps it is the combination of both; Hütte’s choice of traditional equipment as well as subject matter which emanate such an intense effect. It is rather refreshing to see such large images produced via analogue means, in which one man attempts to conquer the forces of nature single-handedly. Aesthetically, Capulin Fire-1 Diptych 2007 is particularly pleasing; the dancing fiery flames let loose accompanied by drifting smoke are immaculately preserved. This is thanks to the Ditone process, in which the image is developed onto natural paper, allowing the fibres to add texture and emphasise the organic structure of a fire.

From the murky depths of forest foliage to flaming hot fires, to piercingly cold tundra, Hütte’s landscapes surely do not lack in geographical abundance. I left the exhibition with a longing for more. Isolation has never felt so alluring. Finally, for a complete visual kick, try compare and contrast, and before embarking on the Hütte’s travels, check out the new National Geographic collection-cum-store next door on Regent street first – the traditional travel photography on offer there, in the conventional A3 size, seems like coffee table literature compared to Hütte’s mammoths.