Tag Archives: London

Monday’s Tune: Acoustic Ladyland

Acoustic Ladyland – Cuts and Lies Get Adobe Flash player

Acoustic Ladyland - Skinny Grin

Acoustic Ladyland - Skinny Grin

Since I’ve heard about ‘A Melody for Saturday’ (Nigun Le’Shabat), a weekly email that Dina’s friend, Boris’ sends to his friends, I wanted to do something similar.

So for my first Monday’s Tune, I present “Cuts and Lies” by London based jazz band Acoustic Ladyland. Lead by Pete Wareham (Saxophones) and featuring vocals by Anne Booty, these tune is a combination of punk rhythms with jazz sensibilities.

About

I am a creative producer: a project manager, a web thinker, an information architect, a graphic designer, a filmmaker, an idealist, and a wannabe entrepreneur. I also play with type.

In 2006 I graduated from the BA Graphic Design degree at Central Saint Martins College in London. During my studies, my main areas of creation and visualization were design, photography and filmmaking.

As a person who doesn’t confine himself to specific creative guidelines – I open myself to the effect of wide range of genres and styles in every field. I love to combine together various arts and to create the fusion of the one whole, which is unique to me and to my perception of the world.

On Design: I like the basic and the simple. “Less is More” is a strong part of my work, and from time to time enhanced with Droog design‘s concept of “Less+More”, where I start with simplicity and gradually add to it. I love typography, soft colors and a lot of space. I prefer the clean to the dirty… the classic humanist approach.

Exploration is my constant guideline and one of the most important aspects of my work. I am always trying to learn about the abilities of the technical devices that I am using as well as to discover the new visual aspects of the things that I am looking at.

On Photography: The motto of my photography is to realize the magical beauty embedded in everyday objects and common situations. I prefer to present the subjects of my photography as they appear in the real life. I am trying to perceive the specific and the unique moments that embody both the simplicity and the complexity of people and the interactions between them. While looking at still objects, I prefer to capture them in distinctive mode and unique angle that would transform them from their original appearance.

Societal issues are very important to me. I take a great interest in ideas and subjects concerning the contemporary culture, mass behavior and social habits. My interest in these matters and their significance to me were expressed in several projects that I worked on.

On Filmmaking: Unlike my photography, my filmmaking allows me to give life to the universe of my imagination, to go beyond the limits of reality and to question the boundaries between the real and the surreal. Filmmaking embodies every possible sphere of art and creative thought. Photography, fashion, graphics, sound, architecture, interior decoration and of course drama – these are only a few representatives of the spheres that are involved in the creation of a film.

I like to try new things just for the sake of my love for experimentation and learning. In my eyes, the process of learning and gaining new experiences is the most important achievement and an endless source of spiritual growth.

The power of the web – in solidarity!

Anagram Map London

Anagram map of London Underground
Mirror of the original at Geofftech.co.uk

About a week ago Boing Boing posted on a map of the London Underground where the station names were anagramed.

Then came the sad post that Transport for London censored the map, as it breaches copyright. Instead of the original map the page now reads: “Content removed at the request of Healeys Solicitors acting on behalf of Transport for London and Transport Trading Ltd.”

And then came the solidarity movement…

It started with Robot Johnny who produced an inspired version that remixes the Toronto Transit Commission’s subway map with anagrammed station-names”.

Anagram Map Toronto

Toronto Transitt Anagram map (PDF Version)
Courtsey of RobotJohnny.com

Update: Since then the TTC cencored this map as well…

Then came remixed versions of the Amsterdam Metro and the Metra Map of Chicago.

The other day Boing Boing added a list of maps from around the world that influenced by the original censored version.

Anagram Map Oslo

Oslo Anagram Map
Courtsey of The Martin

The Precision Blogger decided to make a really unorthodox version of the Subway map of New York, and maps of Atlanta, Boston, and Oslo.
Then came the anagramed U-Bahn of Vienna, the “DC Metro map anagram mix“, Stockholm, Los-Angeles, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Baltimore.

Then the first and the second booms arrived and the remixes of Calgary, Vancouver, Philadelphia, buffalo, Hong Kong, Seattle, Minneapolis and Detroit, together with Miami, Dublin, Ontario, Dallas, Galsgow, Portland, OR, Ottawa amd Houston appeared online.

Anagram Map Sydney

Sidney Anagram Map
Courtsey of Leslie Nassar

The never ending story also brought the maps of Montreal, Helsinky, Monterrey and San Diego.
Last, but I’m sure that not for long time, joined the NY/NJ Path and Sidney.

Thus the story ends with 2 outlawed anagrams and over 30 different anagram-maps from different cities of the world. I reckon this is a marvellous demonstration of the power of solidarity on the web. I believe the ideals of copyright should change, especially when they concern art. No money making scheme was in any of these maps and the whole concept is made with humour. I think that the executives of TFL should learn something about humour as well as about creativity.

And now, the first manifestation of the change in the minds of executives. This is what Adam Livingstone, a producer of BBC’s Newsnight wrote yesterday:

First though, an apology. File sharing is not theft. It has never been theft. Anyone who says it is theft is wrong and has unthinkingly absorbed too many Recording Industry Association of America press releases. We know that script line was wrong. It was a mistake. We’re very, very sorry.

If copyright infringement was theft then I’d be in jail every time I accidentally used football pix on Newsnight without putting “Pictures from Sky Sport” in the top left corner of the screen. And I’m not. So it isn’t. So you can stop telling us if you like. We hear you.

Please stop with the ‘cease and desist’ orders and accusations of copyright infringement for they will not stop creativity but will harm the corporations more then they think.
Let us do our art in peace.

Update: The final cities have joined the party: Brisbane, Syracuse and Chicago.

Thank you guys for doing this and thank you BoingBoing for the networked platform to tell the world about it.

Inspired: Pleix Films

I‘m always on the search for sources of inspiration, but I have to say that it’s not happening a lot lately. They seem to drift away from finding me, and, heck, maybe there are no good sources any more.Last year I was intrigued by Nexus London (and especially Jonas Odell), but soon fed up with it and its style . Then I realized that I’m not the only one it inspires, and not for the better. I guess, one of the main aspects of being inspired is to find something original.

Today I received a link to Pleix Films from my brother. First, after getting to that page, I thought that it’s going to be another collection of some new advertising campaigns, and I chose to start with ‘Beauty Kit’.
True, it was an advertising campaign, but not in the normal sense. it’s a film made to criticise the idea of beauty in eyes of little girls, and how the media is trying to sell it to them.

After that I couldn’t stop and I had to watch all of them.
‘Futureshock: Pride’s Paranoia’, for instance, is a frightening look at the power of consumerism (with hints from King Kong, Transformers and John Carpenter’s They Live); ‘Birds’ (pictured) is a beautyfully shot and obscure film about flying (jumping?) dogs; and after watching ‘E-Baby’ I almost cried for the sad possibilities of virtual worlds. On the other hand, ‘Netlag’ made me reproach myself for not thinking about that idea myslef: loads of small video streams from different places of the world.

Now I feel like creating some artwork, and this feeling is, for sure, the best proof for a good source of inspiration.