Gavin Watson grew up in a typical working class overspill town that surround London. Stumbling into photography aged 14, becoming a skinhead at 15, he inadvertently documented the real, social, interracial and musical scene behind the media’s right-wing portrayal of this demonised youth culture of the late 1970s and 1980s… Read More >
It was, in retrospect, what people call a “pivotal album.” The Colour of Spring, Talk Talk’s third full-length release, appeared initially to be a straightforward development from the band’s previous recordings – artfully crafted pop delivering global hits – and yet pointed bravely towards something unexpected, something decidedly un-pop. One could see the footprints the band had left along the… Read More >
The color blue; emotive, vivid, royal. In physical form it becomes highly powerful, and manifested in the form of a crown issued postage stamp it is literal royalty. The ‘Mauritius Blue’ is one of the world’s most (in)famous stamps. Colored by tale, colonialism and history, last at sale in 2007 it reached £1,053,090 and continues to be heralded as… Read More >
In March this year Peter Saville’s design for the Blue Monday sleeve celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of its release. Its many anecdotes are widely known; That its inspiration was a computer floppy disc, found in New Order’s recording studio as they embarked on ever more sophisticated computer-generated music. And that it was so expensive to produce each copy sold made a financial loss for Factory Records.The sleeve’s colourful edge design may initially have been presupposed as continuance of the floppy disc’s appropriation – assumed simply as techno-digital decoration necessary to complete a picture. Yet three months later when the band released their critically acclaimed second album, a colour chart on the back cover revealed to those who studied carefully; these eye-catching arrangements conveyed information. The transformation of Joy Division’s legacy into New Order’s electronic new sound could not have had a more appropriately enigmatic start. Read more >
Every two years since 2000, a small and sleepy English seaside town is vivified — hosting an art festival unlike any you may visit. Without the swarming and frenetic rubbernecking that turn such festivals in carnivals, Whitstable —celebrated locally for its oysters— has… More—
Ulysses is a series of collages by illustrator Miles Donovan. Inspired by an unexpected sequence of short broadcasts from a missing space probe, over a year after losing contact with Earth. Donovan’s blog post wryly claims — “The scrambled transmissions have been painstakingly pieced back together and are displayed here for the first time”. Ulysses was designed to study the Sun as a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency. The mission ended on More—
