Cinema Redux by Brendan Dawes

In this project, Dawes took eight of his favourite films and attempted to distill them down to a single image.

To do this he wrote a Java programme that, for each second of a film, took an 8 by 6 pixel image. The captured images were then laid out in rows, each row representing a minute in time.

The results create some startling images. This is Scorcese's 'Taxi Driver' from 1976.

Cinema Redux was exhibited at MoMA in New York last year but you can buy prints of the work here if you happen to have $300 going spare.

Gay Icons

Whenever I'm in London (which is admittedly rarely) I always seem to end up at the National Portrait Gallery. It's free, near Trafalgar Square and it's got some cracking stuff in it. On Saturday I went and had a look round the current 'Gay Icons' exhibition.

The premise: ten prominent gay figures of modern society each choose six people who is an icon to them. The exhibition comprised of photographs of the icons along with why they were chosen. The selectors included Ian McKellen, Sandy Toksvig and Elton John.

The selections brought up some fascinating figures – male, female, some gay, some not but all interesting.

Some were well known (like John Lennon and Nelson Mandella), some were not so (like 20th century novelist Ronald Firbank), some were clichéd (Village People, Quentin Crisp) and some were just bizarre (football manager Graham Taylor?).

Here's one of my favourites:

Peter Tatchell, a human rights and gay rights activist, made headlines in 1999 and again in 2001 when he attempted to put Robert Mugabe under citizen's arrest. I think that really does make him an icon.

The exhibition really was put together well, with it's stylish purple and grey backdrop. If I had a criticism, it would be that some of the photographs of the icons weren't fantastic (some were just taken from stock image libraries). However, the exhibition wasn't solely about that, it was about bringing the identities of some great figures to the fore, and it did that very well.

Banksy vs Bristol

This is Banksy's first ever exhibition in his home town and I think he's really stepped things up since his book 'Wall And Piece'. I love the moving figures, and pieces like the chimp parliament shows that he is a really talented painter. I really like Banksy for his satire and his sense of humour.

Revolutions Exhibition

Back in April, I went to see this exhibition about the album cover in The Civic Gallery in Barnsley. This is a subject that brings together my two greatest passions - graphic design and popular music - and I'm pretty sure this will be the subject of my dissertation.

The album covers were laid out in chronological order, starting with the first ever illustrated album cover designed by Alex Steinweiss in 1939, and going through to releases from 2009 such as Roots Manuva's 'Slime and Reason'. The show also covered four formats: vinyl, cassette tape, compact disc and digital releases.

The exhibition had some brilliant pieces of design on display. The Rolling Stone's 'Sticky Fingers' LP from 1969 designed by Craig Braun and Andy Warhol shows a crotch complete with real zip. 

I liked Peter Saville's design for New Order's 'Unknown Pleasures' - it often tops the Top 100 type lists.

My favourite piece of music packaging ever is for 'Ladies And Gentlemen We Floating In Space' by Spiritualized, designed by Mark Farrow's design house in 1997. My older brother was a big CD buyer in the 90s, and knowing he owned it, I raided his collection to take a closer look. 

I think the packaging is so brilliant because it takes the pill analogy and carries it through immaculately. From the silver foil blister pack containing the CD 'tablet', right down to the 'Patient Product Information' booklet.

The copy writing is superb. The musicians are 'active ingredients', the recommended dose is to 'play once, twice daily', and the possible side effects include 'delirium, a sense of intoxication and visual and auditory hallucinations'.

The exhibition was excellent, concise without missing anything important out, and who knew Barnsley had such a little gem of an art gallery? I could write about this subject all day, but I'll stop here. Hopefully I'll be able to write 10 000 words on the topic for my dissertation.

The School Of Athens

Time for another Rome-with-Professor-Hann-link blog post. The facts... The School Of Athens is a fresco painted by Raphael in 1510 and is located inside a chapel in Vatican City. It depicts a lot of well known Greek philosophers. Plato stands in the middle, pointing to the sky. Next to him Aristotle holds a copy of his book Ethics. Pythagoras can be seen on the left teaching his mathematical theories. On the right Euclid (the so-called father of geometry) is drawing with a pair of compasses. I think this is the reason that professor Hann used to show us this painting nearly every lecture. I especially like how Raphael has painted himself into the scene over on the far right, looking out at us wearing a black beret. Another point of interest is Raphael's sound use of perspective. All the lines of the building converge to a vanishing point - a technique that was largely absent from artists' work before the Renaissance.

I was inspired by this painting because for a start I knew a bit about it already and seeing it in real life really made an impression on me. The painting must be a sort of personal tribute to Raphael's heroes - he was apparently well versed on Greek philosophy. It's also interesting that it is Pagan subject matter in a Christian chapel. I also love portraiture and this was some of the best I've ever seen.