Empty London on Christmas morning (
full set).
A couple of years ago I had the idea that it might be fun to take photos of London without humans – yes, I was motivated by that scene in Westminster from 28 Days Later. Unfortunately, not being a film director I was not really in the position to have half of London sealed off for photos – but realised that on Xmas morning there could be an opportunity. Past photos
from 2010 and
from 2008.
[more inside]
posted by ersatz
on Dec 30, 2011 -
19 comments
"Piloting London’s distinctive black cabs (taxis to everyone else) is no easy feat. To earn the privilege, drivers have to pass an intense intellectual ordeal, known charmingly as
The Knowledge. Ever since 1865, they’ve had to memorise the location of every street within six miles of Charing Cross – all 25,000 of the capital’s arteries, veins and capillaries. They also need to know the locations of 20,000 landmarks – museums, police stations, theatres, clubs, and more – and 320 routes that connect everything up." Acquiring
The Knowledge changes the brains of those who acquire it.
posted by vidur
on Dec 8, 2011 -
73 comments
Ghost of Gone Birds. Over 100 artists were invited to choose an extinct bird and produce a piece of art inspired by that particular bird and celebrating its glory days. Birds celebrated in the show include the Dodo, the Matinique Amazon Parrot, the Black Mamo and the Great Auk.
posted by sweetkid
on Nov 4, 2011 -
5 comments
Joyce Carol Vincent, 38, died in her North London flat in 2003; her skeleton was found three years later, on the sofa; the television was still on, and a pile of unopened Christmas presents lay on the floor. The story was mentioned briefly in the press, but then forgotten. Now, filmmaker Carol Morley has tracked down and interviewed people who knew her before she retreated and
reconstructed her story, all the more tragic because of the deceptively promising life it showed.
[more inside]
posted by acb
on Oct 9, 2011 -
63 comments
Movie trivia: If someone were to ask you the name of a 1966 mystery/thriller that was shot in London, included a Redgrave sister in the cast, and had a soundtrack composed by a jazz giant, you would have
two choices for an answer.
[more inside]
posted by perhapses
on Sep 28, 2011 -
16 comments
"On Tuesday 21 June 2011 six photographers were assigned different areas of the City to photograph. Some used tripods, some went hand held, one set up a 5 x 4. All were instructed to keep to public land and photograph the area as they would on a normal day. The event aimed to test the policing of public and private space by private security firms and their reaction to photographers. All six photographers were stopped on at least one occasion. Three encounters led to police action.
This is what happened."
(The actual video starts at 1:14.)
posted by John Cohen
on Aug 8, 2011 -
57 comments
A-month-behind-the-times-filter:
Tubecrush is a website that lets people upload pictures of attractive men they've seen on the Tube (i.e., the
London Underground, for the benefit of nonUKians), along with varying degrees of lechery. It came to wider attention the middle of last month when the Evening Standard ran a
fairly lighthearted fluff piece on it, but there are
some who
believe that this is at least slightly unkosher not only for its instrusiveness, but also because they suggest its reception has been somewhat smoother than would be the case if it encouraged taking similar pictures of women on the tube. Others
offer the thought that ogling different genders is given different contexts by societal attitudes to gender, and that, therefore, its all a bit more OK than it seems. Others still prefer to
examine it through the lens of art history.
posted by Dim Siawns
on May 20, 2011 -
104 comments
The
Grant museum of zoology in London has
been called "A restored Victorian treasure-house crammed with specimens from a bottle of preserved moles to extinct zebras and (just identified) the legs of a dodo. And all this was put together by the man that taught zoology to Charles Darwin"
The entire collection has been closed for almost a year as all 67,000 specimens were moved from a tiny (
but charming) space to a new larger space.
The new Grant Museum and its reopening.
posted by vacapinta
on Mar 15, 2011 -
9 comments
The Hoxton Window Project: “I had no plan, I had no thought, I had a pen and decided to take it for a walk. My brain is a mess, my mind a ball of spaghetti charged with tiny electrical pulses being generated by a team of termites on a treadmill. I put it all up against the glass, I hope it will delight and intrigue and not leave anyone aghast” says window artist
Jon Burgerman.
Frame features the work of digital creative company
Unit 9 at a square in central London.
posted by honey-barbara
on Mar 2, 2011 -
4 comments
