In an age when digital technology is taking over the film industry and analogue film is slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past, one can trust always artists to still make extensive use of celluloid film. Rosalind Nashabishi is a video artist who works almost exclusively with 16mm film, yet rather than it be a simple artistic preference over digital film, she uses the technology to define her work in such a way that makes it part of the work itself.
At her current exhibition at the ICA, she presents several films which demonstrate a range of ideas that she explores in her work: in 'Eyeballin'', she anthropomorphises everyday objects around us showing the emotions they can have, juxtaposing them with images of the robotic and uniform New York City cops; in 'Jack Straw's Castle', a film commissioned especially by the ICA, she shows mixes the real and the theatrical by showing scenes of Hampstead Heath both in the day, capturing the natural environment around her, and at night, in which we see a film crew lighting a scene, producing a dream-like cinematic world.
Her most interesting piece is 'The Prisoner', a film indirectly inspired by Proust's homonymous fifth volume of his work 'In Search of Lost Time'. In the film, we follow a woman as she walks around the South Bank, accompanied by the suspenseful sounds of Rachmaninoff. Yet Nashabishi sets up two projectors side by side with the footage passing through one camera first and then the second, producing a 6-second time delay. The effect is not of mirroring or a feeling of repetition but rather creates a sense of unease; it seems as if the one woman is being followed by another. In a brilliantly simple Hitchcockian narrative, Nashabishi manages to produce a tense drama in which the viewer is omniscient but the character is entirely oblivious.
Perhaps it is this narrative quality that set 'The Prisoner' apart from her other films at the exhibition. This creation and manipulation of narrative from the simplest fragments of film desconstructs it and pushes storytelling to its boundaries, making us question what our conception of a story is: whether it needs a beginning, middle and end, or whether it can be even simpler than that, like 'The Prisoner' demonstrates.
The design world has taken over the streets of London this past week with the London Design Festival. You can find countless exhibitions around the capital as well as some installations such as this year's festival centrepiece The Tournament, a giant chessboard designed by Spaniard Jaime Hayón in the middle of Trafalgar Square. Unfortunately, the installation was only there for a few days and has now been removed.
Luckily, most of the exhibitions won't finish for some time. The V&A Museum is housing quite a few at the moment, one of which I went to at the beginning of the week, Telling Tales. The exhibition is comprised of pieces mostly by Dutch designers and are all inspired by fairy tales. Whilst much of it would be considered design art, designers such as Tord Boontje and Jurgen Bay comment on how they wish for their pieces to have functionality as well; part of the appeal of these objects is that they reflect the unfamiliar and mysterious atmosphere of the fairy tale world. There's also a very interesting section inspired by Heaven and Hell which includes a marble seat and lamp that is simply stunning.
Space: the final frontier. Most of us will never even set foot in a space shuttle much less visit the Great Beyond, so a trip to Planet Bestival will just have to do. For those 40,000 astronauts who made the trip two weekends ago, I think that's more than they could ever ask for as this year's space-themed Bestival, the last festival of the season, was by all accounts a hugely tremendous success and a well-deserved one too. After last year's torrential downpour over most of the festival reduced Robin Hill Country Park's beautiful green fields to mud-covered marshes and flooding several areas of the festival site (aptly so, perhaps, since the theme was 'Under the Sea'), 2009 saw three days of glorious sunshine over the Isle of Wight. I even managed to come back with a tan, something I haven't experienced in England in a long time. Equally, the skies were so clear that at night, one could stare up and look at the stars and all their constelallations, freed from the light pollution that makes such a spectacle impossible to behold in London.
Onto the festival: after a few cans of warm Carling and tucking into some home-made pasta that would last me the weekend, Friday began with Passion Pit on the main stage, a band from Massachusetts who play a dreamy and melodic electro-pop with high-pitched wails. I'd heard some songs of theirs before which I had enjoyed but I'd been told that live they weren't so spectacular. Thankfully at Bestival, that wasn't the case: they put on a great show with lots of energy, spurred on by the crowd and the sun beaming down above them. Whilst I may have no idea what the singer was singing about, it was without a doubt a great to start to the weekend. Following on from Passion Pit were Friendly Fires hailing from St. Albans. Whilst often lumped into the same category as much of the indie-electro out there, Friendly Fires do have more of a percussive edge to them than most bands. They make extensive use of percussion instruments in their recorded songs as well as their live performances and they even draw inspiration from Brazilian percussive music. It was a shame, then, the sound levels were completely off: the bass dominated every other sound, leaving the intricate rhythms of the high-pitched percussive instruments muddled and the synths completely non-existant, particularly in a song like Paris' whose shimmering chords in the chorus are as important as its pounding dance beat.
Next was Florence and the Machine, the Mercury Award Nominees. I'd seen them before and decided to go for a stroll instead to explore the site a bit more. What's great about Bestival is that while it remains a medium-sized festival that packs a wide variety of artists, it also houses lots of strange little wonders. Towards the far end of the site, I came across a large inflatable wedding chapel that was playing wedding classics (when I walked in, it was Hot Chocolate's 'You Sexy Thing') with the DJ dressed in a bride's gown and a woman dressed as a priest and singing over the top, karaoke style. More fun was to be had here later on. I quickly headed back to the main stage for Soulwax and their rock-tinged electro. As ever, they put on an excellent show, every sound as crisp as clear as it should be. The same could not be said for MGMT, or so I heard. Several friends went to see them and could only comment on how terrible the sound quality was and a lacklustre performance to go with it. I'd gone to see Pivot instead, an instrumental band from Perth, Australia. Musically, it was exceptional, but unfortunately the behemoth that is MGMT drew away most of the crowd, meaning that in a tent that can fit 10,000, there were 200 at most. Whilst Pivot delivered a great performance, they looked frustrated which they can't really be blamed for. It was somewhat odd that they were placed at the time-slot anyway, it would've made much more sense to give them an earlier one.
It was now back to the main stage for Massive Attack, a band I've seen many times before. Yet they turned out to be another band suffering from sound levels. My friends and I had to push our way right near to the front to be able to hear them over normal conversation volume. Once that problem was resolved, we were able to enjoy a set full of greatest hits amid a some new songs from the upcoming album. They finished the set with 'Unfinished Sympathy', signalling a massive (no pun intended) sing-a-long, or at least as large a sing-a-long as Massive Attack could draw.
It was over on the main stage for Friday but the night was still young; whilst some friends went to see Bat for Lashes in one tent, a few of us went for another stroll as I led them to the inflated wedding chapel. We got there and found the chapel was closed but next was a small tent named the White Wedding Disco, playing indie classics such as 'Take Me Out', 'Last Nite', 'Mr. Brightside'. What was only meant to be a curious peek inside turned into a half-hour boogie; every song that finished was followed by a song that was simply too good to say no to. I also came to the realisation that this faux wedding reception would soon become a reality: this is what it would be like at any of my friends' weddings. At least the music would be good.
Finally escaping from the Wedding Disco, most of my friends went over to catch 2manydjs and their genre-clashing, rule-breaking DJ sets. Recently, they've employed some visuals into their sets which consists of showing the album cover to the song they are playing and then mixing it visually into the album cover of the following song. Fantastically elaborate visualisations and yet, ultimately a very simple idea. In the meantime, I went to catch a DJ I'd been waiting to see for a long time: Fake Blood. Fake Blood aka DJ Touché aka Theo Keating first made his name as one half of The Wiseguys in the mid-to-late '90s and probably made his biggest hit with 'Ooh La La' which was used in a Budweiser ad. As Fake Blood, he makes bass-heavy remixes with chopped up vocals. As a personal stamp on his remixes, he always 'makes' the singer say the words 'Fake Blood', the most impressive being his remix of Little Boot's 'Stuck on Repeat' at 1:44. His DJ set was truly masterful, jumping seamlessly from a range of styles but always maintaining a direction throughout: lots and lots of bass. By the end of it, I was exhausted from dancing so much and wanted nothing more than to get some sleep to prepare me for the next day.
Saturday began much in the same way Friday did: warm Carling and cold spaghetti. I couldn’t wait to jump into my fancy dress costume, seeing everyone around me in their outfits already. Some of them were truly inspired, such as Han Solo in carbonite costume, probably my favourite. I went as Space Ghost this year, a cartoon character from the ’60s. I’ve got some photos that I’ll post on here later on. Off we went to see the first band of the day then, The Mummers, who sound like a more orchestral and poppier version of Bjork. Upon arriving there, we found that The Mummers had been replaced by Mercury Prize Winner Speech Debelle. I'd hadn’t heard much about her, despite all the surrounding critical acclaim. Personally, I wasn’t too impressed really; it had a very summery feel but just felt like a watered-down, repackaged pop with Debelle raping over it.
Much more entertaining was another pop sensation over on the main stage, the king of camp that is Mika. Now I’m certain that I’ll be crucified for saying this by my friends, but his set was a true delight to watch. With a number of great pop songs under his belt, Mika is exactly the kind of thing that fits in so well with a sunny, mid-afternoon slot at a festival: easy to process, uplifting and just pure fun. Perhaps it’s because the year away in Brazil has meant that his songs haven’t been played to death in the same way that I’m sure has happened here. Needless to say, I went to see his performance by myself.
Most of the rest of Saturday was spent in the Big Top tent, watching all the artists on the Mad Decent record label; these included DJs L-Vis 1990, Boy 8-Bit and label head honcho Diplo, plus live acts Major Lazer and Buraka Som Sistema. 5 hours of a lot bass and a lot dancing. There were highs and lows, highs being L-Vis 1990's bass-heavy house and Buraka Som Sistema's own brand of portuguese dance music called Kuduro, very similar sounding to dancehall. This of course did mean that I missed out on Kraftwerk and their pioneering electronic beats, whose set was unanimously called THE performance of the weekend. Still, I'd seen them before and Buraka's performance was blisteringly good so it's definitely not a regret.
To end the evening, I went to see Lindstrom and his balearic disco beats. An hour and half of 80s cosmic synths with a modern feel, he finished and left the crowd wanting much more. Lindstrom's released two hugely critically acclaimed albums with his partner in crime Prins Thomas recently, as well as his own solo work such as his last effort 'Leftovers', with songs such as 'The Magnificent'.
The last day was a much more chilled affair: on the main stage, the mood was folky with Fleet Foxes playing 2nd headliner, whilst Elbow would be closing the festival. Early on though, it was Music from the Penguin Café, an instrumental band who use lots of string instruments (cellos, violins, mandolins, etc.). You might've heard their songs before on various adverts. After that, it was over to the Red Bull tent for Introducing, a 10-piece band who play a live version of DJ Shadow's seminal album 'Endtroducing'. Whilst it is impressive to see them perform the album from start to finish using only live instrumentation when the album was made entirely from samples, there's a sense that you might just as well be listening to the album itself. Had they perhaps added a personal stamp to it, it would've added an extra element to the show. But nonetheless, their musicianship is something to admire.
As the sun began to set for the last time at Bestival, we headed to the Big Top tent again to catch The Big Pink with their noise pop à la My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. They were among the highlights of the festival, their highly-distorted, wailing guitars over programmed beats and lush synths, all held together by the driving basslines. This a truly a band to look out for in this next year. Following on from them was The Field, aka Swedish minimal techno producer Axel Willner. Unlike other techno that I've heard, The Field has a much more melodic and almost ambient quality to it. The songs slowly build but have a constant kick drum and hi-hat throughout this progression; it's like the perfect soundtrack for a long train journey, as you watch the landscapes go by. For their live show, it was a more intense performance, with a live drummer and an additional bassist. Songs that are normally low-key acquired the conventional loud-quiet-loud structure so common in music. I suppose he felt that for a festival crowd, a more energetic performance would be necessary, which would probably be the case for the uninitiated. Still, it's a shame since what makes his album so interesting is what he decided to avoid.
We then headed to the far end of the festival site for Blastival, an event that I’d seen on the lineup but which didn’t have much description to it. We got there a little late and found that it had already started: a short play about Michael Santos, a Spanish-sounding alien who’d come from outer space to explore Earth and who was going back to his home planet. Or something like that. It was really only a simple pretext for a large fireworks show. As the fireworks went off for about 20 minutes or so, we also watched as the large wooden platform on which the “play” had been performed was set alight and crumbled under the force of the towering flames. The fire was so big that even at the distance we were, about 200 metres or so, we could all feel the heat on our faces. This was all complemented by the soundtrack that accompanied the spectacle over the large speakers around us: John Paul Young’s ‘Love is in the Air’. One couldn’t have picked a more appropriate song to capture the atmosphere at that moment as well as over the whole festival. As the fire continued to burn, we slowly made our way back to our tents, wishing our bodies still had enough energy to get us back there, let alone dance anymore. And like that, it was over for another year: 3 blissful days in a field. That’s something that I definitely miss in Brazil, not only because of the atmosphere but also because of the lack of corporate branding that are omnipresent in Brazilian festivals. This feels like a festival genuinely set up and organised by and catered for festival-goers. It would be naïve, of course, to assume that profit isn’t an interest, especially since the festival has grown in size every year. But even so, it’s managed to retain its original feel, an intimate boutique festival. There’s always the fear that a festival like Bestival, become ever-more popular, will become too big for its own good and lose this quality about it. Perhaps it’s something inevitable which we just have to accept. In any case, until that day arrives, I’ll still be frequenting Planet Bestival for many years to come.
One final mention has to go to this man right here. Unlike every other spaceman costume at Bestival, this is no cartoon or film character. This is Sonic the Manipulator, an alien from Mars who went out for a spin one day and accidentally ended up on Earth. Without any means to get back, he assumed the alias of Claude Woodward and lived in Perth, making his own type of cosmic music. Nowadays, he tours the world, playing to those who care to listen and trying to rebuild his ship to make it back to his home planet.
When I left for Brazil last October, the idea was only supposed to be a year out, to get to know Brazil and specifically São Paulo, truly get to know what Brazilian life and culture is all about. 11 months later and it's now a very different story: having made numerous contacts in the film industry which I hope to build on, as well as falling in love with the city and the people (well, some of them at least), it looks like I'll be staying for a while longer. I guess in the end, 1 year just isn't enough. There are still many things I want to do and even more things I've yet to discover. What once felt foreign to me (despite being part of my cultural heritage) now feels like something I understand better, that I'm more connected with. There's such a rich, fascinating culture with such wide-ranging influences that it never ceases to surprise or amaze. I don't know how long I'll be staying, it won't be forever but from the looks of it, it won't be brief either. I'm writing this because to give a bit of context to the ironic situation that I now find myself in: having lived 21 years in England and gone to Brazil on holiday, I'm now doing the complete opposite. I never would've guessed, to be honest.
So I arrived back in London this afternoon. I wish I could say that the landing was as scenic as the picture above but in truth, it was pretty far from it. A little cloudy, a little windy, warmish; basically, your standard British summer day. In fact, I had a stop-over in Zurich which was even worse. There were near gale force winds there, it was so strong that it was practically raining sideways. On top of that, they decided that it would be a good idea to board the plane from the runway rather than go through that tunnel thing. Those pesky swiss. But now I'm back, and I'd be lying if I didn't say it's good to be back.
I'm staying for the whole month and will hopefully be doing as many cultural activies as possible, especially catching up on British films. And yet it seems that wherever I go, there's always a Brazilian film festival following me. I found out about 2 happening in September. One is the Cine Fest Brasil, taking place at Riverside Studios from 17-20 September. It's a small selection of films, ranging from documentaries to fiction feature-lengths. One particular film showing is 'Favela on Blast', a documentary about the origins of baile funk in Rio. I've already missed it twice in Brazil, so nothing's going to stop me this time.
The other is at the Barbican, starting next Tuesday on the 8th and carrying on until 8th October. Less a festival and more a selection of films, it will include various Qs & As with filmmakers and actors involved in the films and will also be showing a range of documentaries and features. The films range from new releases to slightly older offerings, among which is 'Basic Sanitation', a hilarious story that explores most basic essences of filmmaking, entirely centred around a broken sewage system in a small town. If you've ever wanted to make a film and had not even the slightest clue of where the 'record' button on the camera is, then is the film for you. Equally, if you've got a degree in Film from NYU or you're Martin Scorsese protegé (or Martin Scorsese himself), this film is also for you.
