andrewpickering

high chair

2008-05-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

my new obsession/hobby is buying cool stuff for eva.
there's a lot of good design for kids amongst the tat.

eva's new mozzee nest highchair

eurovision

2008-05-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

Caught a bit of eurovision and was confronted by usual mix of kitch (eastern europe0 and piss takes (irelands singing turkey)
however amongst the dross was the wonderful sebastien tellier (a real pop star abeit a rather strange leftfield one) performing divine from his excellent sexuality lp. how/why he was there is a mystery and make me think why didnt britain take up jarvis cocker's offer to represent us instead of a dustbinman/xfactor failure.
spains entry also deserves a mention for its bizarre cheecky girls/mike flowers pops number which was in the so bad its good category.

anyway here is the excellent sebastien at eurovision - love the golf cart.

You Dig the Tunnel, I'll Hide the Soil

2008-05-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

this is an excellent exhibition at the white cube hoxton and shoreditch town hall based on the writings of edgr alan poe (who seems to be in vogue at the moment with masque of the red death at the BAC) it is curated by the artist and writer Harland Miller, who has assembled an amazing cast of contemporary arts bit hitters ( it features the work of Fergus Bremner, Jake & Dinos Chapman, John Cooper Clarke, Liz Craft, Tracey Emin, Angus Fairhurst, Katharina Fritsch, Paul Fryer, Barnaby Furnas, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, Marcus Harvey, Anton Henning, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Abigail Lane, Christian Marclay, Kris Martin, Harland Miller, Polly Morgan, Mike Nelson, Magnus Plessen, Michele Howarth Rashman, Julian Schnabel, Gregor Schneider, Norbert Schoerner, George Shaw, Cindy Sherman, Jason Shulman, Dirk Skreber, Paul Steinitz, Fred Tomaselli, Jane & Louise Wilson and Cerith Wyn Evans)

it made by its location. most of the exhibition is in the basement of shoreditch town hall and is navigated in semi darkness along disused corridors and dank rooms. it is perfect for the gothic theme. my highlight was Christian Marclay brilliant The Watch, in one of the dark, dank spaces sits an antique timepiece, bathed in a tiny pool of light, in a crumbling chimney stack with a furious ticking sound filling the room.

noah

2008-05-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

started helping out with services at my church the bear on deptford high street as they have recently started having two services on a sunday.at the moment they are going through hebrews looking at heros of faith. today's service was about noah

Noah is a strange story that’s difficult to believe yet probably the most popular story in the bible judging by children’s books and toys. Not many wooden models of Isaiah are there?
yet he le was a man full of contradictions
he lived to 950 in an era of giants called nephalim
was the inventor of wine and first ever drunkard
he exposed himself to his children
was the first meat eater
was very good at collecting animals and building boats
A man who divides opinion either "the man in a fur coat," who ensured his own comfort while ignoring his neighbour. Or a deliberately slow builder who stretching the building of the ark over 120 years, in order to give sinners time to repent.
he was also a hero of faith and an heir of righteousness who was blameless and righteous.
quite a complex and difficlt character
So thought I would plan something about rainbows instead.

i wrote this medtation for the service

In rainbows

To scientists it is an optical and meteorological phenomena that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. a multicoloured arc; a continuous spectrum of colours from red to violet. a dispersion of sunlight as it goes through raindrops.
To Newton it is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
To the forgetful it is Richard Of it is a flag symbolizing a new era of hope and social change
To cooperatives it is their symbol of a democratic model of commerce
To protestors it is a symbol of peace in times of war
To gays it is a symbol of pride and an acceptance of difference
To hippies it is a naive fashion statement
To photographers it is an excuse to stop the car
To Greenpeace it is a symbol of environmentalism
To worship leaders it is the guitar strap of choice
To radiohead it is a revolution in music distribution
To corporations it is a signifier for innocence and playfulness
To children it is red and yellow and pink and green; orange and purple and blue
To thirty somethings it is Geoffrey, Bungle and George
To Greeks it is a path made by the messenger Iris between god and man
To the Chinese it is a slit in the sky that has been sealed by god
To Hindus it is the bow of the god Indra, the god of lightening and thunder
To Vikings it is a bridge between the gods and man
To the Irish it is the location of an unobtainable pot of gold
To Christians it is a divine promise never to destroy all earthly life again
To Noah it is the reward for his faith

It is all these things
It is a powerful and sublime image.
It means so much to so many.
Let us learn from the beliefs of others

we also used the sony bravia adverts as mini meditations

long time

2008-05-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

been a long time since i was on blogger
got my laptop stolen
had a baby
lost interest
was briefy distracted by facebook
but not im out less often and got more time to go online as babysitting is my main social activity
so here it is

hvarf/heim

2007-11-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

hvarf/heim - stunning new album from alternative worship's very own graham kendricks - sigur ros a double album -one side of new tracks and one side of acoustic versions of sigur ros back catalogue . its all good
not yet seen their dvd heima but caught some of the electric proms performance. as proven by planet earth sigur ros are best listened too soundtracking a breathtaking nature scene.

seduced

2007-11-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

went to see the barbicans survey of erotic art. most was pretty dull really - seeing endless sexual acts being repeated over and over makes pretty dull viewing. oh theres another one, this times is boy/girl/boy etc oh this ones in black and white etc etc the upstairs more contemporary section is more interesting - mablethorpes photos were compelling/disturbing but for me the best work was nan goldin's heartbeats slide show of various couples going about their daily lives and making love. it was soundtracked to a lovely bjork version of john tavener's "Prayer Of The Heart" where she sings Kyrie Eleison ("Lord Have Mercy") in English and Greek from 2004, which i hadn't heard before. its a beautiful haunting piece f music and the slideshow seemed to show love whereas most of the other works seemed to be only about lust.
it work a visit but there are better shows around at the moment.

wexley school for girls

2007-10-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

like this advertising agency cool website and some nice campaigns

eyebrowy

2007-10-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

eyebrowy.com short cartoons about pop stars kinda like south park meets rock profiles

weller weller huh

2007-10-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

paul weller has put out a couple of great 7"reccently
this old town with graham coxon on regal youtube playing on jonathon ross
are you trying to be lonely with andy lewis on acid jazz (thats a blast from the past) a great little northern soul thing here

he's also on the new robert wyatt album comicopera

new music

2007-10-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

radiohead's new album in rainbows is ok but people wouldnt be rating it so much if they paid £10 for it. its got some nice moments but didnt blow me away

much better is...

devendra banhart new album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon is more lovely folky strangeness you can listen to tracks here especially like the spanish tracks.

and some exciting female singers

bat for lashes is the amazingly talented Natasha Khan who i saw perform at latitude in the summer. she has got a great albumn fur and gold and a nice line in face paint and headband/feathers. her videos are pretty cool especially like whats a girl to do with its donnie darko rabbit headed cyclists.

cibelle a singer who has intrigued me foe a while since getting a matthew herbert remix of noite de carnaval a few months back. shes done a great video for london london with aforementioned devendra banhart and has a nice animated hand draw video for green grass

her album The Shine Of Dried Electric Leaves is amazing new brazillian music

camille is an interesting parisian singer with a beautiful voice who sings with nouvelle vague and also did one of the voices for ratatouille .she has an album called le fil

this summer she did a concert called god is sound which sounds pretty interesting

The chosen location is St. Eustache Church, an unusual venue perhaps, but fitting for a show centred on religion. "The news hasreally caught my attention this year. Why is there so much religiousconflict? I'm an atheist and grew up in a secular society, so it'sdifficult for me to understand the issues. That's why I wanted, inbetween albums, to explore the theme of religion through music in ajoyful and eclectic way: a selection of religious songs fromdifferent religions around the world are first up, followed byChristmas Carols arranged by Benjamin Britten. If God exists, then Godis sound".On Britten's composition entitled "A ceremony of Carols", Camille willbe accompanied by Julia Sarr, Indi kaur, Majiker and Sebastien Martel.Alongside the Britten, Camille is set to perform alone and a capellaa personal creation entitled "God is sound" (The 12 World Prayers).

roisin murphy whoes last album produced by herbert was fantastic. her new one is pretty good but takes her into goldfrapp/madonna teritorry which is ok. i guess its more like her stuff with moloko. you can listen here she also has the best outfits.

feist part of excellent canadian collective broken social scene and now heard everywhere due to ipod advert. more

also just seen david shrigley has got a unch of bands to record stuff for his album worried noodles

frieze and david shrigley

2007-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

spent saturday at the frieze art fair in regents park inside the biggest (and poshest) tent ive ever seen. work was mainly so so and because it was all about money and selling and there was no curation it was too random and cluttered. it gave a good overview of the current art scene but it was all surface look at me stuff competing for attention without really saying anything.

the best thing about it was a david shrigley animation in the film section called the door. watch it here made me think that one day id be in the position of the dad.
its in the style of his videos for bonnie prince billy's agnes and blur's good song (with shynola)
david shrigley has a great website full of his weird and wonderful drawings, photographs and animations and the bbc collective has his modern thought series in its archive

other shrigley animations can be seen on youtube
what happen after you re dead
who i am and what i want

kates new show

2007-10-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

pure balls

launa bacon, roisin byrne, tina hage, kate pickering & lisa slominski

Private View Friday October 5th 6-9pm

Open Oct 6th-8th, 12-5 pm or by appointment

222 Exhibition Space222 Borough High Street, London SE1Stations: London Bridge, Borough

http://www.launabacon.com/html/PureBalls.html

The Pure Balls assemblage of social fugitives are pleased to present themselves and an exhibition of their art work put together by once again, themselves, a group of five emerging artists: Launa Bacon, Roisin Byrne, Tina Hage, Kate Pickering and Lisa Slominski all met on the MFA Fine Art programme at Goldsmiths College, London. Pure Balls, both a title and an idea nicked and twisted from the writings of French theorist Pierre Bourdieu on the Pure Gaze, attempts to contextualize a group of art works that all address the individual contemporary concerns of constructed identity, sexuality and mass production in an increasingly intensified visual culture.

billy bowls

2007-10-04T15:05:00.001-07:00

the francis drake bowls club on hilly fields brockley (of which i am a proud member) gets a mention in this weeks time out. an interview with the ledgend that is billy jenkins. read it here

in rainbows

2007-10-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

radiohead are letting you download their new album in rainbows for as much as you want to pay here

flight of the conchords

2007-10-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

flight of the conchords my new favourite comedy - a great new new zeland comedy on bbc4 a kinda mighty boosh meets peep show. its the story of two musicians trying to make it in new york and it keeps breaking away into music videos - last night had a great pet shop boys style parody and my favourite so far she's so hot - boom a sort of reggae rap thing

magma and plates

2007-09-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

magma books have opened a new product shop on Earlham Street off seven dials just a few shops up from their bookshop. its full of desirable things especially like the acrylic broaches (as part of my ongoing quest to popularise the man broach) and the plates. loads of cool stuff for gifts, stationary, etc

new fad - decorative plates

top 5

1 Trellick Tower by the excellent people will always need plates

2 Todler on tricycle London Toile Coup Plate by Timorous Beasties who also do great wallpaper

3 plate is for pea by soop which is a game to play with your last pea

4 table storie small red plate by tord boontje who designed the lampshade for habitat

5 china crums plate - rich tea by scoop - they also have other biscuit plates

good stockists of interesting plates

2007-09-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

designsponge.blogspot.com great blog for all things design related

2007-09-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Can't Tell Me will oldham and zack galifianakis in a kayne west video - quite an unlikely combination but it works kinda. will oldham is so hip hop.

straight no chaser RIP

2007-09-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

end of an era - the best (only) magazine for new jazz/funk/soul has breathed its last. made me wish i had not thrown all my back issues when moving house

straight no chaser

black cab sessions

2007-09-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

a nice series of videos by justsofilms of people playing songs in the back of black cabs driving around london. artists include the great but ever depressing bill callaghan, vincent vincent and the villians, the charming emmy the great , daniel johnston shambolic/tragic as ever, reading from a lyric sheet, but still intriguing , and a cute st vincent plus others - they are on chapter 11 so far and well worth checking out if only for the intros by cabbies.

london design festival 2007

2007-09-18T14:55:00.000-07:00

loads of cool stuff to see this week at london design festival the most interesting things are usually around brick lane. tom dixon is giving away environmentally friendly lights in trafalgar square tomorrow but it will probably be a bit of a scrum like with the free chairs last year.

went to deptford design festival last weekend which is always good especially liked cockpit arts. bought some cool babygrows with prints of strongmen and pigeons on from thornback and peel and a monkey lightshade from lush designs looked round the amazing furniture at greenwich village with envious eyes.

there was also deptford x on last weekend kate and some of her friends from goldsmiths had a show at the bear and there were some artist interventions around deptford such as via dolarosa a stations of the cross made from images from big brother by bea denton at Ha’Penny Hatch Bridge who has done some interesting work about prayer.

Jesus is back, and this time he's fighting crime.

2007-09-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

2007-09-04T12:35:00.001-07:00

feuilleton

2007-09-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

this summers Serpentine Gallery Pavilion has finally opened. its designed by the Olafur Eliasson (of the weather project fame) and architect Kjetil Thorsen, of the architectural practice Snøhetta, its open till November 2007 and had stuff going on most fridays.