Dan in Paris...

This week I had the great fortune to find myself in Paris for the final stage of the Tour De France. I took the opportunity to spend some time at the Pompidou Centre.

On show was an exhibition about the Czech photographer Miroslav Tichý. It’s the first of its kind in France. He’s 80 now and has taken a huge array of photographs that obsessively catalogue the world around him. A place it appears that is singularly made up of women either in their stockings or out and about in their bikinis.

Something of a marginal figure he steadfastly refused the social, political and personal values of the Communist period. Living alone, surrounded by his photographs, he’s practiced his art without, it seems, ever having much of a care that any of it be considered as art. His pictures were left to the ravages of time, either being damaged by dripping water or gnawed on by passing rats.

Tichý took up photography in the mid-1950s, reinventing it as it were from scratch and building his own cameras and enlargers from shoe-boxes, tin cans, recycled glass and other waste materials. His work has only recently been rescued from neglect by his neighbour, the film director Roman Buxbaum.

Often described as timeless, Tichý shoots instinctively or carelessly on his handmade cameras.. What comes out of it are these other worldly images that are often erotically charged. Here’s a link to his work
http://www.tichyocean.ch/Documentations/Works

Dan

Producer/Director, Sky Arts

Our producer/director Dan, at the Latitude Festival...

I spent the Weekend at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk. It’s the 3rd year for this most idiosyncratic of festivals, merging as it does dance, music, theatre, poetry and cinema. If I mention that The National Theatre, Blondie, Irvine Welsh, Crystal Castles, Radio 4’s Just a Minute, hip hop dancing, Franz Ferdinand, Bill Bailey and silent black and white 1920’s films were all on show then you’ll get some idea of the eclectic nature.

Sigur Ros were probably my highlight. They headlined the main Stage on Saturday. I listened to a couple of their albums before going and frankly didn’t really get it, but having seen them live I can now confirm them to be glorious. I think they’ve just announced a UK tour and would recommend anyone go and see them.

Singer and actress Soko was a nervous wreck but all the more beguiling for it. She’s 22, French and sings songs like this: http://www.myspace.com/mysoko

Metronomy were joyous, they played in the Sunrise Arena which was an idyllic venue situated amongst the flora and fauna of the Latitude forest. They are re-mixers par excellence having twisted a few knobs for Kate Nash, Franz Ferdinand and the Klaxons. They seem to get bracketed into the math rock sub, sub, sub, sub genre whatever that is, either way they are great fun and got everyone leaping about. Fans of mathematics and rock can enjoy this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock

An honourable mention for Crystal Castles a truly wonderful band from Toronto. Alice Glass is their mascara laced singer. Here’s a picture: http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/0/2/3/2/18412320-18412322-slarge.jpg
She was nearly hauled off the Glastonbury stage in June for clambering on a speaker stack. At Latitude she repeated her antics, this time jumping into the photographers pit and launching herself towards the crowd. She was repeatedly hauled out by security probably fearing that she was going to get swallowed up. One particular sortee saw her bash someone over the head with her microphone (I think they’d tried to tamper/grab her). Infantile hands aside, this was another triumph from Alice and friends. I do worry about her a bit though. It can’t be good for you all that shouting and jumping about. Here’s some shonky old footage of Crystal Castles playing Latitude that you can’t really see or hear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6uKTxaqXbE

Saddlers Wells layed on a series of splendid world class dance performances in particular the Boy Blue Entertainment hip hop group and Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance Company who jolted their way through what looked like a bone crunching 25 minutes of contemporary dance. All the dance events were layed out next to the Latitude lake, a beautiful setting which managed to attract huge swathes of enthusiastic audiences.

Finally, Joanna Newsome set just the right tone on Sunday afternoon plucking her way through highlights from her two albums and then treating the audience to a couple of new tracks. Here’s some dreadfully wonky footage of some cloud + a bit of Joanna playing the piano: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE-WUiCfKZY

Simon Armitage, one time Friday Night Hijacker also read from his book ‘Gig: the Life and Times of a Rock Star Fantasist book.’

Dan. (...enjoying spending his weekends in fields...)

What Dom's watching tonight...

Sky Arts' Backstory strand does it again! I can’t wait for the Jimmy Rosenberg: The Father, The Son & The Talent documentary tomorrow (Tuesday 22 July 21.00).

I saw a clip at our monthly highlights meeting and it looks like an amazing life story. Jimmy Rosenberg was a guitarist with the world at his feet, but his life, like those of so many musical geniuses, was haunted by drugs and psychiatric problems. Touted as the next Django Reinhardt, Jimmy's guitar skills were second to none and, at the age of just 15, he signed a million-dollar contract (Everyone’s dream… you must agree!). With the help of his ambitious father, Jimmy toured extensively, performing several concerts, culminating in a packed gig at the famous Carnegie Hall. But as life on the road and the intense pressure of stardom started to take their toll, Jimmy began to lose control of his life.

It’s an unbelievable true story… Tune in!!! Right back to my desk job, here’s hoping that I’ll find a million dollar contract in my inbox – I just wouldn’t want to end up like Jimmy!

Until next time, enjoy!
Dom (Programme Information and king of disguises)

Graffiti... it certainly gets your opinions going

We've been showing a great documentary presented by Goldie, Graffiti: From Tags To Riches on the channel and there's been quite a bit of activity on its programme page on the site. Scroll down that page see all the comments...

It's great 'cause we've got this amazing new series Concrete Canvas that has a lot of anamorphic street art in it so it'd great to know there's a really active, interested audience out there for it. The series presenter, Julian Beever, creates "trompe-l'oeil" chalk drawings which, when complete, create stunning optical illusions filled with depth, life and colour. He creates a projection in his works (the anamorphosis) which produces a very realistic 3-D effect when viewed at a certain angle. We follow him on his artistic mission around the world as he tries to find the best pavements, sidewalks and walls for his visually stunning art.

We've stuck up some really good clips from the series - my favourite is the one where he's in conversation with the council workers who usually spend their time washing street art off the streets!

Cast your eyes over a couple of the images here:

...now THAT's clever...

Don't miss the show - Concrete Canvas on Sky Arts or if you're interested in the graffiti end of things watch Graffiti: From Tags To Riches on Sky Arts

(Click on the programme names above to go through to their individual pages with all the updated transmission times)