Film-flam-flim

Showed a slide show of some of my seaside photos at Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery as part of RedEye’s Projection ’09 event. The theme of the event was climate change and it took a lot of carbon emissions to make my stuff fit the theme – also had to change the music, but the disc with the new ditty got lost in the post (doh!) so the assembled masses got treated to the original version. You however dear reader can see the new, deluxe, dubstyle, collectors edition, remix, by pointing your browser to it on here on youtube.
Can’t help feeling showing mine between two Magnum photographers was a bit humbling. You can see Paolo Pellegrin’s take on Wall Street The Downward Spiral here. Another standout was Garth Williams Hulbert’s Hope Dances which is here.

Bloody repeats

More repeats on the telly – well I’ve been visiting cctv control rooms again, well this time it’s the turn of Manchester City Council. Not a lot to say really, got a couple more photos for my cctv project, which is about to get edited down so I can start submitting it in the hope of an exhibition. So, if you’ve got a gallery handy – get in touch.

cctv/gmpte/cgi/pg/imho/etc+other abbreviations

 

Took a while, but thanks to their press office I got to take some photos of a bus station’s cctv system for my project. I think anyone who’s been on a bus in Manchester might welcome cameras to record the commotion (and probably tazers to deal with people playing music through the speaker of their mobile phone) so I was glad to get something to balance the ‘big brother’ photos which some of the series looks at. 

Spent the evening at a talk by Benedict Campbell – you’ll have seen his very slick CGI/advertising work – not my cup of PG – but impressive stuff. Oh and there was just time to go to Urbis and see Reality Hack by Andrew Brooks which features big photos of hidden parts of urban Manchester, nice idea, nicely done IMHO.

Lots of notice

Here’s a lot of notice for an exhibition of my architectural photographs which will get an airing at Manchester’s Central Library in October. Exhibitions can be a long time coming – there are lots of photographers and not many places to show work. Sometimes when work gets accepted it takes a long time for the exhibition to open (I first submitted this series nearly 2 years ago) – galleries can be booked up years in advance.  I’ll give you the gory details nearer the time. Oh yes – the picture shows the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Manchester gaff – which as a stakeholder in UK plc I now own part of.

Meanwhile it’s not all about me, me, me, you know… Talking of exhibitions, Artland is showing Iraq: The Space Between by Christoph Bangert. Christoph is also giving a talk about the work on 29 January at the Midland Hotel in Manchester (tickets £3, proceeds to the Stop the War Coalition) and will be holding a masterclass on 31 January – see RedEye’s website for details. P.S. Wait ’till the exhibition actually opens before trying to visit it. Ahem.

Polemic

POLEMIC |pəˈlemik|noun a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something.ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: via medieval Latin from Greek polemikos, frompolemos ‘war.’

DYSTOPIA |disˈtōpēə|noun an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. Opposite of Utopia. ORIGIN late 18th century.: from dys- [bad] + Utopia.

PANACEA |panəˈsēə|nouna solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases. ORIGIN mid 16th century.: via Latin from the Greek panakeia, from panakēs‘all-healing,’ from pan ‘all’ + akos ‘remedy.’

SOMA |ˈsoʊmə| |ˈsəʊmə|noun Hinduisman intoxicating drink prepared from a plant and used in Vedic ritual, believed to be the drink of the gods.• (also soma plant) the plant from which this drink is prepared. 
ORIGIN from Sanskrit sōma. In Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World, Soma is a popular dream-inducing drug. It provides an easy escape from the hassles of daily life and is employed by the government as a method of control through pleasure.

Everything must go

I’ve started collecting the ephemera (must have been meeting Martin Parr) of cctv and have some very nice signs and T-shirts thank you very much. Taking advantage of UK plc’s closing down sale, I relieved Woolworth’s of their stock of dummy cctv cameras (the fakeness appeals). Someone had beat me to it and bought the store’s actual cctv system.

I notice the shopping trolleys were still unsold at the time of writing – hmmn – I could always put one in my darkroom, the move to digital has left it having to earn its’ keep as a storeroom for VHS videos and exercise bikes. The ddtv flickrstream nears completion – your comments and brickbats are always welcome.