Saskia Takens-Milne

Laura Horelli

2011-12-22T14:33:00.000Z

This looks interesting.

No One Will Ever Love You Until You Love Yourself – After Anderson, Myowa-Yamakoshi and Matsuzawa

2011-12-13T08:48:00.002Z

Watch my latest piece on Vimeo...

Klaus Pichler

2011-12-02T10:58:00.000Z

Liking this a lot.

Oliver Michaels

2011-11-24T16:07:00.001Z

This looks interesting. More information and images from the project here.

Anna Di Prospero

2011-11-07T07:58:00.002Z

Katya Ford

2011-11-06T14:03:00.000Z

Love Me - Zed Nelson

2011-10-31T12:59:00.000Z

It's always nice to be able to plug a very talented friend! Beautiful photography from Zed Nelson. I particularly enjoyed the beauty contest in the Brazilian jail.

Useful Photography

2011-10-30T11:15:00.000Z

I really like this magazine.

Laurence and Angela St.Leger

2011-10-19T19:01:00.009+01:00

My wonderful in-laws make exquisite miniature automata. I recently started taking photos of their vast (ever growing) collection, which I am currently uploading to their blog, so I thought it would just about fit in with the theme of this blog. Their blog is here.

Lars Laumann

2011-10-19T09:10:00.001+01:00

I keep thinking about Lars Laumann's work, specifically 'Shut up child, this ain't Bingo' (2009).
Sadly I can't find any snippets of his work online, but here is a review of the show at Maureen Paley in 2009.

Metropolis

2011-10-07T16:03:00.000+01:00

This is the dance, from Fritz Lang's Metropolis, that i was referring to in my previous post:

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

2011-10-07T16:00:00.000+01:00

I recently revisited the 'wicked' dance in Metropolis and was reminded of the dance at the end of this clip in F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Both films were released in 1927.

Yang Fudong & Prada

2011-09-30T17:54:00.000+01:00

I am conflicted about this. It looks and sounds like one of his art pieces but it's an advert for Prada. Does it being an advert preclude it from being a piece of art? Does the shallowness of its intention mean it is without depth? Is this a hollow simile of his art films and if so how would one intellectually differentiate between them?

Yang Fudong - One Half Of August

2011-09-30T08:47:00.004+01:00

Another show I enjoyed this week was Yang Fudong at Parasol Unit, although happily this one is on for another month or so.
The film that I was most struck by was Fifth Night. Fifth Night is a seven screen video-installation filmed in an interpretation of Shanghai's old town and shot in mesmerising 35mm B&W film (I am always suspicious when the medium is so seductive, yet on this occasion it seemed well-suited to the content) and accompanied by a bold and nostalgic film score, reminiscent of golden-age composers like Bernard Herrmann. In the square a stage has been erected and the central characters walk around as if in a daze while other characters are thrown out of a car with their suitcases; fix a tram; work as a blacksmith; sit static on a chair or sofa. The piece is enigmatic and intriguing. Several cameras film the characters from different angles, often seeming to be filming the same action simultaneously but on closer inspection the scenery or the supporting cast may be subtly different, creating a feeling of the uncanny.

Last Chance to See Chritstian Janlowski's 'Casting Jesus'

2011-09-29T19:17:00.002+01:00

Hurry and go see the Christian Janlowski exhibition at Lisson Gallery because it closes on Saturday.
I enjoyed the film immensely (although I'm not sure about the need for the accompanying captioned photos). The film depicts a day of auditions overseen by a jury of Vatican members to select an actor (from a possible 13 - the significance of which is the only thing about the piece that seems laboured) who best interprets the role of Jesus - the piece was also watched live via a video stream by an audience of 300. It is a dense exploration of the power of images and the relationship between art, religion and pop culture. The talent show format is not over-stated, but does give rise to some particularly fine moments, like the pettiness of the jurors towards the potential Jesus' and the weirdly sordid moment when the jurors, alone with the victorious Jesus, ask him to do private poses for them.

Laurel Nakadate

2011-09-27T11:28:00.003+01:00

I had the good fortune to discover Laurel Nakadate this Spring at PS1. I have extremely mixed feelings about her. She can come across as smug and pseudo, but occasionally she seems to cut through to something genuinely interesting. In any case I am definitely going to go and see her upcoming show at Zabludowicz Collection 29th Sept - 11 Dec 2011

Kris Verdonck, MOUSE (2010)

2011-09-23T11:29:00.009+01:00

'MOUSE shows - enormously magnified and in extreme slow-motion - a mouse walking into a trap.

The trap closes, the iron breaks the small body. A camera with super slow motion (10,000 images/sec) was used to unravel the mechanics of a movement, just like Muybridge did. The technique makes us experience an extremely upsetting emergency situation in the slowest possible way.'

Below is a link to the piece on You Tube.

Other related posts:

Que le Cheval Vive en Moi - 02-09-2011

Saskia Takens-Milne, 2011

2011-09-23T11:20:00.007+01:00

Que le Cheval Vive en Moi

2011-09-02T14:19:00.002+01:00

Que le cheval vive en moi by The French duo Art Orienté objet (Marion Laval-Jeantet & Benoît Mangin). I am intrigued by this. Not so much by the communication ritual, but definitely engaged by the 'transi-stasis'.

Other related posts:
Kris Verdonck MOUSE 2010 - 23-09-2011

More Yawning Chimps

2011-09-01T11:49:00.002+01:00

Such a good yawn! Another example of contagious yawning in chimps from Campbell & de Waal (2011) - Chimpanzee Contagious Yawning.

Other related posts:
Empathetic Chimp - 26-06-2011
A Joke About Evolutionary Psychology - 29-05-2011
Laughing Chimpanzees - 25-05-2011
Go Bonobos! - 24-05-2011

Catherine Hakim is Soundly (and deservedly) Whipped by Zoe Williams

2011-08-31T16:12:00.002+01:00

Only just saw this, but it has put a smile on my face. Zoe Williams, I salute you!

Other related posts:
Living Dolls the Return of Sexism - 21-08-2011
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - 02-06-2011
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine - 28-05-2011
Some Art/Thought Provoking Statistics - 25-05-2011

Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism

2011-08-21T21:21:00.002+01:00

Another excellent book debunking the sexist myths of evolutionary psychology (along with all sorts of other illuminating subjects regarding the resurgence of sexism and its apologists). Thank you Natasha Walter.

Other related posts:
Catherine Hakim is Soundly (and deservedly) Whipped by Zoe Williams - 31-08-2011
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - 02-06-2011
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine - 28-05-2011
Some Art/Thought Provoking Statistics - 25-05-2011

Love Other Cinema

2011-08-17T15:13:00.004+01:00

The Other Cinema website gives you advice on alternative ways to buy films from the independent film distributors who lost their DVD stocks in the Sony warehouse fire during the riots.

Other related posts:
Folly for a Flyover - 10-07-2011

Saskia Takens-Milne, 2007

2011-08-15T16:08:00.003+01:00

2011-08-15T14:29:00.004+01:00

2011-08-14T23:05:00.005+01:00

Other related posts:

Own Work - 02-12-2010

2011-08-14T23:03:00.004+01:00

Saskia Takens-Milne, 2006

2011-08-14T15:11:00.005+01:00

Other related posts:

Bas Princen - 12-07-2011

China Girl

2011-08-12T12:09:00.000+01:00

Restored by Karin Segal and Julie Buck.

From a time before racism and sexism existed. So many things wrong with this!

Battle in Heaven (2005) - Directed by Carlos Reygadas

2011-08-12T11:42:00.002+01:00

I highly recommend this film. I think that the last scene undoes much of the 'magic' by seeking to explain things, but otherwise it is a remarkable film. I also highly recommend Silent Light (directed by Carlos Reygadas).

Jokulsaron - The largest glacier lagoon in Iceland - LIVE

2011-07-30T13:47:00.000+01:00

Amazing

Saskia Takens-Milne, 2006

2011-07-27T08:48:00.005+01:00

Other related posts:

The Birds (draft) - 08-11-2009

Nan Goldin

2011-07-12T15:59:00.002+01:00

Looking forward to going to see Fireleap at Sprovieri Gallery

Julijonas Urbonas

2011-07-12T15:05:00.001+01:00

Domestic Earthquake Generator

Bas Princen

2011-07-12T14:05:00.002+01:00

Other related posts:

Own work - 14-08-2011

Folly For a Flyover

2011-07-10T18:16:00.003+01:00

Lovely pop-up cinema
Sadly, I am not entirely convinced by the programme. Last night's secret screening turned out to be Jurassic Park!

Other related posts:
Love Other Cinema - 17-08-2011

Saskia Takens-Milne, 2011

2011-07-07T15:35:00.003+01:00

2011-07-06T22:19:00.003+01:00

2011-06-29T19:01:00.007+01:00

2011-06-29T14:09:00.003+01:00

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

2011-06-29T14:02:00.002+01:00

Other related posts:

Go, Grandpa. You are Free Now. 27-06-2011

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber - 30-05-2011

Francesca Woodman

2011-06-29T09:04:00.001+01:00

Hans Bellmer

2011-06-29T09:02:00.002+01:00

Zeida Oenema

2011-06-29T09:00:00.003+01:00

Other related posts:

Own work - 04-11-2009

And When You Die I Will Follow You With A Broken Heart - 25-09-2011

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

2011-06-27T13:32:00.002+01:00

Halouminations

2011-06-26T13:09:00.004+01:00

This is still going apace.

Empathetic Chimp - research for my latest video piece

2011-06-26T13:06:00.002+01:00

Other related posts:

More Yawning Chimps - 01-09-2011

A Joke About Evolutionary Psychology - 29-05-2011
Laughing Chimpanzees - 25-05-2011
Go Bonobos! - 24-05-2011

Van Gogh's Back, Mona Hatoum

2011-06-25T20:31:00.003+01:00

French Impotency Trials

2011-06-25T16:25:00.002+01:00

Wow!

Taryn Simon (again)

2011-06-25T15:34:00.002+01:00

She is so amazing!

Other related posts:
Taryn Simon - 23-06-2011
Taryn Simon Exhibition - 23-05-2011

Leandro Erlich

2011-06-24T16:34:00.001+01:00

Leandro Erlich's website

Anna Di Prospero

2011-06-24T15:32:00.002+01:00

I like her new self-portraits, which you can see here

Taryn Simon

2011-06-23T16:41:00.005+01:00

Other related posts:

Taryn Simon TED Talk - 25-06-2011

Taryn Simon Exhibition - 23-05-2011

10 Storey Tree House

2011-06-23T15:07:00.002+01:00

The Minister’s House in Crossville, Tennessee (reposted from The Best Part)

Robbie Rowlands

2011-06-23T14:52:00.001+01:00

I like this as a stand-alone piece. It loses its impact when you discover that this technique is used ad finitum in his practice.

I am watching Hitchcock film trailers for a piece I am working on...

2011-06-22T11:06:00.001+01:00

...and thought this was too delightful not to share. I had forgotten he explained the birds' motivation as revenge! How oblique.

Other related posts:
The Birds (draft) - 08-11-2009

Saskia Takens-Milne, 2005

2011-06-16T18:49:00.004+01:00

Saskia Takens-Milne, 2007

2011-06-16T18:48:00.002+01:00

GSA Photography 2011

2011-06-14T10:10:00.001+01:00

Another year of graduates.

James Nizam

2011-06-07T12:58:00.001+01:00

Just happened upon James Nizam. I can't find a website for him, but that seems to be his gallery. Really like the Camera Obscura images.

Venice Biennale

2011-06-05T13:48:00.001+01:00

Very excited about the Venice Biennale! Here are my thoughts on the title!

Really Interesting Stuff from Adam Curtis

2011-06-02T13:52:00.001+01:00

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
Lots of food for thought, including the following statement, which I believe can be used to critique many areas of 'scientific' research:
"[The ecosystem] stopped being a metaphor and came to be, what seemed to be, a scientific description of reality"

Samuel St.Leger

2011-05-31T14:19:00.001+01:00

I love this painting. I pinched it off Sam's blog because I couldn't figure out how to link to it. His blog is well worth looking at. He is an extremely talented fella!

Love love love!

2011-05-30T15:00:00.001+01:00

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber and their former incarnation Royal Art Lodge

A joke about Evolutionary Psychology - Thank you Neal Brown

2011-05-29T17:42:00.001+01:00

From the March 2011 Edition of Art Review

fel latio Oral sex act performed upon a male. Also
known as a blow job (BJ). When performed upon a
female, oral sex is called cunnilingus, or a muff dive
(MD). The BJ/MD is claimed by certain theorists to
be a measurable unit of socioevolutionary obligation,
and of special interest in relation to determinant
values in cultural practice. Opinions differ as to how
best to apply the concept of the BJ/MD within a
proper disciplinary framework, although there is
now an increasingly precise understanding of what
typically makes up one BJ/MD unit. Proponents
argue that a consideration of cultural developments
from a BJ’s/MD’s-eye view – as if BJs/MDs
themselves respond to pressure to maximise their
own replication and survival – can lead to useful
insights and yield valuable predictions into how
culture develops over time.

Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine

2011-05-28T18:57:00.002+01:00

And on that subject I can't recommend
this book enough. And not least for the wonderful pun!

Other related posts:
Catherine Hakim is Soundly (and deservedly) Whipped by Zoe Williams - 31-08-2011
Living Dolls the Return of Sexism - 21-08-2011
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - 02-06-2011
Some Art/Thought Provoking Statistics - 25-05-2011

Unknown Knowns

2011-05-28T14:55:00.001+01:00

That's all really. Just thinking about Zizek's fourth catergory after Rumsfeld's three. Especially in relation to this
and a friend who is a Primary School teacher saying (as a joke) that he had stopped calling the children boys and girls. At the time it was something of a joke about PC gone mad in Stoke Newington, but the more I think about it the more I think it might be an interesting idea...

Art Review

2011-05-27T15:46:00.001+01:00

I just realised when I was downloading this month's edition that not everyone will know that the wonderfully generous folk at Art Review allow you to download the ENTIRE magazine for free! Just click here

This makes me nervous...

2011-05-27T15:26:00.001+01:00

I can't seem to read stories like this without anticipating the Orwellian endgame.

Some Art/Thought-Provoking Statistics on Laughing

2011-05-25T16:15:00.001+01:00

Robert Provine and colleagues collected observations on 1,200 instances of naturally occurring human laughter... and noted:

"The gender of the principals involved plays a large role in determining the amount of speaker laughter. Whether they are speakers or audiences (in mixed-sex groups), females laugh more often than males. Female speakers laugh 127 percent more than their male audience. In contrast, male speakers laugh about 7 percent less than their female audience. Neither males nor females laugh as much to female speakers as they do to male speakers.

The limited cross-cultural evidence suggests that males are the leading humor producers and that females are the leading laughers. These differences are already present by the time that joking first appears around six years of age."

Laughing Chimpanzees

2011-05-25T15:42:00.003+01:00

Still investigating laughter

This is also interesting:
"People laugh as we speak. If chimpanzees laugh as they speak, by producing one laugh sound per expiration and inspiration, we have identified an important and previously unrecognized constraint on the evolution of speech and language in chimpanzees and presumably other great apes. The close coupling of laughter to breathing in chimpanzees may be evidence of a more general limitation on these animals to speak. (In contrast to the success of teaching hundreds of signs to chimpanzees, efforts to teach them to speak English have produced meager results.) Indeed, the inability to modulate expiratory airflow may be at least as limiting to speech as the structure of the vocal tracts of nonhuman primates." Robert R. Provine. American Scientist 84. 1 (Jan-Feb, 1996): 38-47

Other related posts:
More Yawning Chimps - 01-09-2011
Empathetic Chimp - 26-06-2011
A Joke About Evolutionary Psychology - 29-05-2011
Go Bonobos! - 24-05-2011

Go Bonobos!

2011-05-24T17:12:00.001+01:00

Not especially scientific, but a witty overview of our friendly/sexy cousins, the Bonobos. I will be pondering the idea that 'Play is our adaptive wild card'.

Harvey Fineberg - Neo-Evolution

2011-05-24T10:51:00.002+01:00

Taryn Simon

2011-05-23T10:05:00.002+01:00

Definitely going to go and see this

Other related posts:
Taryn Simon TED Talk - 25-06-2011
Taryn Simon - 23-06-2011

Guy Ben-Ner

2011-05-22T16:02:00.002+01:00

and these

I'm not sure how much I like his work (especially his most recent work), but it's definitely thought-provoking.

'2 into 1' Gillian Wearing, 1997

2011-05-21T15:59:00.001+01:00

Just revisiting this after seeing Wearing's piece 'Bully' in NYC.

Richard Serra's Boomerang, 1974

2011-05-21T15:29:00.001+01:00

Photo by Saskia Takens-Milne

2011-05-21T15:17:00.000+01:00

Kerry Tribe

2011-05-17T18:06:00.000+01:00

Went to the Kerry Tribe exhibition at Camden Arts Centre and I would highly recommend it.

The Missing Five Ounces of the Female Brain

2011-02-09T20:09:00.000Z

Short extract from a (continuously looped) film by Saskia Takens-Milne

Photos by Saskia Takens-Milne

2010-12-02T18:22:00.000Z

2010-12-02T18:21:00.001Z

Other related posts:
Own Work - 14-08-2011

2010-12-02T18:16:00.001Z

2010-12-02T18:14:00.000Z

2010-10-16T13:35:00.000+01:00

And When You Die I Will Follow You With a Broken Heart

2010-09-25T16:48:00.000+01:00

Photo (and baking) by Saskia Takens-Milne

Photos by Saskia Takens-Milne

2010-09-25T16:45:00.000+01:00

2010-09-25T16:39:00.000+01:00

2010-09-24T17:40:00.000+01:00

2010-07-31T15:48:00.000+01:00

2010-07-31T15:05:00.000+01:00

2010-07-31T14:15:00.000+01:00

2010-07-31T14:12:00.000+01:00

2010-07-31T13:56:00.000+01:00

2010-04-08T19:26:00.000+01:00

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot

2010-04-08T19:24:00.003+01:00

Wonderful Exhibition at the Barbican

Candice Breitz: Factum

2010-03-19T14:52:00.001Z

http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/factum/

2010-03-02T19:47:00.001Z

http://www.artinavan.co.uk/

Some of my videos are being shown in this tiny cinema...

Saskia Takens-Milne

2010-02-19T10:22:00.000Z

Los Angeles Courthouse, 29th March 1971 is an adaptation of a photograph of Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie van Houten, members of the ‘Manson family’, taken at Los Angeles Courthouse on the 29th March, 1971 – the day of their sentencing to death for the murders of Sharon Tate, Voyteck Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Steven Parent and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. (Because of subsequent changes to Californian law, the sentences were commuted to life imprisonment). Atkins, Krenwinkel and Van Houten, all apparently in hopeless thrall to Manson’s cult of personality before and during the trial, attracted outrage and hatred in the media and wider society not only for the horrific quality of the killings themselves but for their hysterically cheerful conduct during proceedings. By replacing the faces of Atkins, Krenwinkel and Van Houten with my own face, I intend to provoke questions about the nature of moral culpability; the possibility of empathy with the perpetrators of terrible crimes; and the extent to which the suggestibility of the ‘Manson family’, which has been treated as showing the exceptional moral weakness of the ‘Family’s’ members, is actually often mirrored in the deliberations of individuals and societies arriving at judgements about the nature of justice.

Photos by Saskia Takens-Milne

2009-11-20T10:31:00.000Z