Aesthetica Magazine Issue 36

August / September 2010

This issue examines the current state of play, and offers answers to this resonating question. In art, we look at the interplay between digital technologies, performance, and installation with Rafael Lozano-Hemmer in his exhibition, Recorders, which opens this September. Stuart Brisley is one of performance art’s instigators; with a prolific career spanning five decades, we review his seminal works from the 1970s. The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today is a new exhibition that surveys over 100 works and illustrates how our definitions of sculpture have been altered by the photograph. Finally, a look at multiplicity and the defiance of categorisation with photographer, Jannica Honey.

In film, Javier Fuentes-León’s Sundance winning film, Undertow, reaches our screens. Abandon Normal Devices: Festival of New Cinema and Dig­ital Culture opens in October, examining the intersection between art and cinema. In music, Canada’s Born Ruffians are back with their new album, while we chat with Rob Da Bank about the boutique festival experience. Writer, Maile Chapman, discusses her debut, Your Presence is Required at Suvanto, and Wesley Stace otherwise known as John Wesley Harding chats about his new book, Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer. Finally, a look at the crossover between immersive theatre and live action gaming in The Games of Nonchalance.

In this issue, we’re exploring several important topics of the day, as well as bringing you previews and reviews of this season’s latest exhibitions and releases. Enjoy.

Wesley Stace

In conversation with Wesley Stace.

A Gothic Novel with a Twist

In Your Presence is Required at Suvanto Maile Chapman presents an unnerving treatise on the effects of age on the body and isolation on the mind.

Silence

Wagner’s second novel to be translated into English is Silence: a genuinely gripping crime thriller with a psychological twist.

Death of an Unsigned Band

Death of an Unsigned Band is the new novel from Tim Thornton, offering a fly-on-the-wall insight into the trials and tribulations that face an unsigned band.

Super Sad True Love Story

Super Sad True Love Story is full of brilliantly inventive language and Shteyngart’s trademark humour, which belies a poignant message for society.

Martin Creed: Works

In an intimate introduction, Creed lets the readers know his insecurities: “I don’t think I want to make a book of my work. I am scared to look at what I have done.”

Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg

The Beat writers and artists defined a post-War era that was rife with youth rebellion, Cold War politics and the disillusion of the American Dream.

Shilpa Gupta

Having exhibited in the Serpentine Gallery’s Indian Highway, Shilpa Gupta has drawn interest from both public institutions and collectors alike.

High Frequency Bandwidth (HFB)

HFB is comprised of Dr. Alex Paterson of British electronic group, the Orb, and Dom Beken, who has worked with the likes of David Bowie and Placebo.

School of Seven Bells

School of Seven Bells’ follow up to debut album Alpinisms is a electro-pop gem of digitised beats and dream-like qualities.

Grasscut

Multi-layered, engaging, robotic-electro combined with rustic rhythms and wired visions are just a handful of adjectives to describe Grasscut’s debut.

Ólöf Arnalds

Ólöf Ar­nalds has a mesmer­ising voice. In her new album, this is given the perfect showcase with accompaniment consisting of harps, strings, and acoustic guitars.

Micah P Hinson

Cinematic in its grandeur, the album expertly arcs from prologue to epilogue through 12 songs, sweeping from a modest instrumental beginning to climax.

The Hundred In the Hands

Paying homage to early hip hop, disco, ska and dub, post-punk and girl pop from the 1960s through the 1980s, this album is a rich mix, choreographed to perfection.

Born Ruffians

You already know Born Ruffians. The track Hummingbird from their previous album, Red, Yellow and Blue (2008) is instantly recognisable.

Close Out The Summer

August and September are when more intimate festival experiences come out to play. Here’s what it takes to put them together – and why they’re worth going to.

Nigel Prince

Nigel Prince has been curator of Ikon in Birmingham since 2004, responsible for many exhibitions including Carmen Herrera, Ryan Gander and Martin Boyce.

The New Frontier of Cinema & Digital Culture

The digital landscape has altered how and when we experience cinema. In 2010 the Abandon Normal Devices Festival opened to explore these junctures in more detail.

Undertow

Undertow is Javier Fuentes-León’s first feature film. Having won the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2010, it opened in the UK in August 2010.

Stylised Realism & Coaxing Emotion

Finding beauty in the ordinary, Jannica Honey exposes images that rest somewhere between art and fashion.