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Truth or Fail

Wendy Cooper — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:24:01 +0000

Truth or Fail is the most awesome and addictive weekly entertainment to come out of YouTube. And you thought Fail Blog was epic. Find out how it’s so clever. Go on, I dare you.

Nocturnes

Wendy Cooper — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:18:00 +0000

When I think of Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go potently resonates like that rekindle of the smell of last night’s dinner as you wash the dishes. It forms through senses that enraptures me back to the place that once was and no longer exists. A film version by Mark Romanek, notably for his visionary experience in NIN’s Closer, with Alex Garland adapting the screenplay is currently in post production. My judgment will be reserved but it’s a mighty high bar they will have to meet and to achieve that it will have to deliver a visceral experience that the book cannot in its medium.

Not many books have made that impact on me and I am looking forward to plunging into his latest, Nocturnes. Faber & Faber has gone all out in marketing this book with a surprising, poetic video by a newcomer named George Wu.

The art of mating

Wendy Cooper — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:04:09 +0000

The footage of nematode mating is strangely mesmerising and surprisingly elegant.

The male presses the front side of his tail against the hermaphrodite, while he backs along and searches for the vulva. The tail, controlled by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, embraces the hermaphrodite, curling round in its quest for the vulva.

On finding it, the male inserts copulatory structures called spicules and mating commences. There are six steps involved in worm mating behaviour.

Source: BMC Biology, New Scientist

Mind fields

Wendy Cooper — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:23:01 +0000

The enveloping and violently red installation of Yayoi Kusama, Dots Obsession, immediately caught my eye to The Hayward Gallery’s newly opened exhibition, Walking in My Mind: Adventure into the artist imagination. As the naming aptly conceived, this collection reflects the artists’ conscious mind. But isn’t that the nature of art and this curation an overt statement of self-indulgence?

This international affair gathers Charles Avery (UK), Thomas Hirschhorn (Switzerland), Yayoi Kusama (Japan), Bo Christian Larsson (Sweden), Mark Manders (The Netherlands), Yoshitomo Nara (Japan), Jason Rhoades (USA), Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland), Chiharu Shiota (Japan) and Keith Tyson (UK). The installations appeared generally impressive at first sight but only a few was matured enough to eloquently convey recherché messages—not only in visual terms but spacial and psychological—leaving a last memory.

Source: Art Daily

Déjà vu

Wendy Cooper — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:17:43 +0000

Sometime words cannot describe the experience, so you just have to listen—Let the percussion and the organ/synth speak.

Yo La Tengo – Autumn Sweater

Low – Breaker

This video is still close to my heart. It poetically captures the greedy in American politics during the Bush era.

And today is Tetris’ 25th anniversary! Three cheers for Tetris and how you’ve saved my life during those experiences of bad inflight entertainment.

Album cover galore

Wendy Cooper — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 13:32:06 +0000

Time for a break, time for something totally mindless.

Sheena wasn’t a punk rocker after all

Wendy Cooper — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 08:01:16 +0000

Chris Cunningham is back with a punchy video starring Samantha Morton. Maybe my Roland Barthe hat is on but I do love the cult classic tributes in his composition to Nosferatu, Aliens and Videodrome, and that Cunningham’s touch—Go chicken skin! It is a fitting marriage of repetition and gimmick. The relentless riffs and the nightmare contrivance that Cunningham is a master of. It accurately delivers what you expect in a music video. The dimly lit, rough and ready style pertains to the music to a tee and the saving grace is its Ramones-esque curtness. He did once push the envelope but perhaps the plateau is a sign of his shifting interest into a different medium rather than complacency, of something bigger like feature length film… Only time will tell.

Music by The Horrors. The track Sheena is a Parasite is their debut single off the album, Strange House.

Rockin’ M. Ward does not degrade nor diverse

Wendy Cooper — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 06:16:26 +0000

I can’t talk passionately about M. Ward of late because his catchy pop tunes are melding into one. The peak of his career was Transfiguration of Vincent in 2003. His untuned, raw sound was refreshing and has now become his definitive style. It is comfortingly easier to rework and master your technique but it is a fine line between refining and following a template. My admiration awaits when he unties from this convention.

Directed by Joel Trussell & Eric Johnson. Animated by Gene Blakefield & Darin Bendall with additional art assistance from Chris Chua.
Music by M. Ward. The track Chinese Translation is taken from Post-War.

Monotonous drones with a brilliant video

Wendy Cooper — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 06:07:55 +0000

Directed by Dan Lowe.
Music by Field Music. The track In Context is from the album Tones of Town