Doorway in Nottingham

I passed by this amazing facade yesterday.

Interior of Circomedia, Bristol

Drawn during a performance of Vaugan Williams Fantastia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Circomedia is a training space for circus skills in the deconsecrated St Paul's church.

Giant Irish Deer skeleton

This was a drawing I did in the Bristol City Museum. Its a shame these deer are extinct - I bet they tasted good. You could make an amazing hat out of those antlers too.

“But it’s those Tron bastards I really hate..."

And now for some comic relief. Click here to read the Daily Mash's hilarious take on modern sci-fi fan culture.

“It would have been a massacre except a bunch of hobbits turned up and started twatting everyone with sticks"

Genius.

Image via

Giovanni Belzoni and the tomb of Seti I

While in Bristol last weekend I was lucky enough to catch an exhibition of watercolours by the early 19th century proto-archaeologist, explorer and strongman Giovanni Belzoni. A colourful character if ever there was one, 'The Great Belzoni' was one of the first Westerners of the Enlightenment to document with a degree of seriousness the ancient monuments of Egypt. The science of Archaeology had not yet been formulated at the time, and although the Occident had been fascinated by Classical and associated culture for a while, the physical exploration of sites was more akin to what we might call 'looting' today (I am looking at you, here, Lord Elgin).

In 1817 Belzoni discovered the tomb of Seti I and produced a series of watercolours documenting the murals within it. These wall paintings depicted the passage of the pharaoh through the afterlife and so give us a valuable insight into the death-cult of Ancient Egypt. Belzoni's delicate brushwork reproduces the hieroglyphs and frescoes with great clarity.

My favourite is the drawing below. I love the architectural/infographic nature of the piece and the way it represents the convoluted interior of the tomb. Indeed, the image below is a print. The original in the Bristol City Museum has more annotations, with certain reference numbers crossed out. It seems there was some confusion as to which of the rooms in the plan are those in the elevation. One can only imagine the excitement and fear of those early explorers as they clambered through the winding insides of these tombs, sealed and undisturbed for millennia.

The sarcophagus was removed in 1824 and is now in one of my favourite museums - the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn, London.

The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things

TUAoDT is the title of the latest show at the Nottingham Contemporary. Curated by Turner Prize winner Mark Leckey it is a disparate collection of objects loosely themed around technology. They have been chosen because of their ability to communicate and bring magic into the world. The artist feels that these objects signify an event horizon where technology will become sentient and, in so doing, inspire the kind of animism imbued into the natural world by our primitive ancestors. Cyberman masks rub shoulders with models of internal organs while Chris Cunningham's Windowlicker plays in the background.

Apologies for the offending black smudge - alas my ninja skills at clandestine photography failed me on this occasion.

David A. Smith's 'Born and Raised' artwork

Traditional etched glass craftsman David A. Smith shares his (really quite mindblowing) skills in the video below. He has recently designed album and single covers for John Mayer, and in this video he is seen making bespoke glass signs for the singer. What is really interesting is that, although Smith is clearly an extremely talented craftsman, he seems to have chosen to make the album cover digitally in Adobe Illustrator. He worked from very detailed pencil drawings, but I can't help but wonder what the cover might have looked like if it had been entirely analogue in its rendering.



The Making of John Mayer's 'Born & Raised' Artwork from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

 Via Juxtapoz Magazine