What I have been upto?
A lot since I last posted but no point dwelling over that.
The fiasco today was trying to find a cybercafe to send my university application form from. I telephoned one of them and asked them whether they had a fax machine and as they replied in the affirmative, I made my way downt. They did have a fax machine, but apparently it didn't give a confirmation receipt (it does work, but she hasn't had the time to set it up yet), and it would cost £1 per page (I had 6). But she was kind enough to show me the way to a competitor near Kings Cross, who even had a scanner. So I just scanned my form and emailed it, as the scanner use was free.
I then at a greasy breakfast for £4 at a place functionally named "The Station Sandwich and breakfast". She asked whether I would like tea or coffee, I asked for a coffee. I had completely forgotten that Nescafe could be served in a restaurant, especially dissolved in hot milk.
I popped into the "Ramayana" exhibition at the British Library which is definitely worth mentioning.
Other things worth mentioning are -
* Swimming in the Hampstead ponds
* The Chantal Ackerman exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre
* Two films: Arnaud Desplechin's Un Conte de Noël or "A Christmas Tale", and Ari Folman's animated film Waltz with Bachir
* Finally, both exhibitions at the Albion Centre near Battersea Park, were excellent. The first one was anti-utopic musings by the collective Atelier Van Leishout, on a society/city in a way dehumanized by rationality. There were factories to deconstitute corpses into bones, meat, blood etc., intestine inspired shopping malls, and so forth. all fleshed out through a series of sketches, diagrammes, models and sculptures.
The second one was a complete surprise - An artist called Mithu Sen had collages of human/animal skeletons with floral and plant patterns, gold and silk, and bunches of bananas with the occasional penis in the bunch. The brochure informs us that her work "explores notions of the body as a metaphoric space for the consideration of deeper existential concerns". While I'd leave the audience to contemplate on the validity of that statement, the overall effect is somewhat baroque and decadent in that macabre, Passolini sort of way.
* Finally I stopped in at the Catto Gallery to see paintings by Russian émigré Sergei Chepik. There were a series of religious themed paintings which were quite interesting, but other that that, the usual sort of stuff that these types of galleries represent.. paintings of Montmatre and what not.
The fiasco today was trying to find a cybercafe to send my university application form from. I telephoned one of them and asked them whether they had a fax machine and as they replied in the affirmative, I made my way downt. They did have a fax machine, but apparently it didn't give a confirmation receipt (it does work, but she hasn't had the time to set it up yet), and it would cost £1 per page (I had 6). But she was kind enough to show me the way to a competitor near Kings Cross, who even had a scanner. So I just scanned my form and emailed it, as the scanner use was free.
I then at a greasy breakfast for £4 at a place functionally named "The Station Sandwich and breakfast". She asked whether I would like tea or coffee, I asked for a coffee. I had completely forgotten that Nescafe could be served in a restaurant, especially dissolved in hot milk.
I popped into the "Ramayana" exhibition at the British Library which is definitely worth mentioning.
Other things worth mentioning are -
* Swimming in the Hampstead ponds
* The Chantal Ackerman exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre
* Two films: Arnaud Desplechin's Un Conte de Noël or "A Christmas Tale", and Ari Folman's animated film Waltz with Bachir
* Finally, both exhibitions at the Albion Centre near Battersea Park, were excellent. The first one was anti-utopic musings by the collective Atelier Van Leishout, on a society/city in a way dehumanized by rationality. There were factories to deconstitute corpses into bones, meat, blood etc., intestine inspired shopping malls, and so forth. all fleshed out through a series of sketches, diagrammes, models and sculptures.
The second one was a complete surprise - An artist called Mithu Sen had collages of human/animal skeletons with floral and plant patterns, gold and silk, and bunches of bananas with the occasional penis in the bunch. The brochure informs us that her work "explores notions of the body as a metaphoric space for the consideration of deeper existential concerns". While I'd leave the audience to contemplate on the validity of that statement, the overall effect is somewhat baroque and decadent in that macabre, Passolini sort of way.
* Finally I stopped in at the Catto Gallery to see paintings by Russian émigré Sergei Chepik. There were a series of religious themed paintings which were quite interesting, but other that that, the usual sort of stuff that these types of galleries represent.. paintings of Montmatre and what not.