Patrick Hughes and the painting swap
Patrick is a remarkable and deeply fun artist: his works are hard to describe but I shall do my best. In fact, watch this wonderful three-minute film here and you’ll get the idea. They play with our eyes and minds and make us actively participate in the works. His pieces lunge out of the wall at you but you cannot tell as the perspective is painted in reverse… so that a bookcase or a line of Venice houses appears to recede into the distance but is in fact painted upon a trapezium that narrows as it approaches a vanishing point that is in fact struck right out in front of the picture. The effect is an image that appears to physically shift with you: when you pass it, it follows you. I have a few Hughes pieces in my flat: visitors can be seen stopping in their tracks before the first they encounter, swaying from side to side, bobbing up and down. Without exception they cannot tell how it works: they think they’re watching a clever projection until they step around to view the side of it and its three-dimensionality pops into apparentness and they all but drop their drink in disbelief.
Patrick is also a dear friend: his charisma and generosity strike everyone who has the delightful experience of meeting him. He’s seventy, handsome, impressively tall, dresses impeccably in bold, colourful suits and long scarves, and wraps his deep intelligence within a joyous playfulness that is reflected in the range of optical toys and jokes that fill his eccentric flat. He’s a lovely, lovely man, and a radiant example of how I and anyone should hope to be at his age.
I heard Patrick was applying his ‘reverspective’ approach to portraits. Some of you may be aware of the ‘reverse mask’ illusion where we look into the back of a mask and still think we are looking at a face pointing out at us. I have the Einstein head (as mentioned in The God Delusion) and other pieces that work on the same principle. Here’s a delightful old video of Richard Dawkins demonstrating the illusion:
The face variants of this sort of perspective trick work especially well on me. Whereas most people cannot see the ‘true’ nature of Patrick’s pieces and can flip back and forth with hollow faces, I am the exact opposite. So I was excited to hear that Patrick had cast his own face to make a ‘reverspective’ portrait of himself, and we spoke about making one of me. Patrick suggested a portrait swap: one of his of me for one of mine of him. This was hugely flattering and exciting.
It was my turn first: I headed over to Patrick’s studio in east London to be photographed and cast. The pictures tell the story:
Patrick’s studio – you can see his portrait between us in the background.
His colleagues cut a sheet of cardboard to accommodate my unusually chiselled features:
And I don a swimming cap which will stop my hair from getting plaster in it. I think this was the only expression I could make with the cap on:
Vaseline applied. At this point I’m starting to get aroused.
And I’m just going to presume those are drips from the plaster process.
I actually found this quite relaxing. Same way i quite enjoy the dentist: something about not being able to move or do anything, I switch off well and go to my happy place.
Patrick thought this would be funny. Had no idea he had done this until I looked back at the photos:
The removal begins. I gesture for a pen and paper and write the following plaintiff note:
It fucking did.
Gin and Tonic, I think. A look inside the cast, and the illusion is already working:
Time then passes. I photograph Patrick to do my own portrait. After a couple of weeks I receive news that the portrait is complete. I head over to see it, but first Patrick’s partner, the writer and equally gorgeous specimen of humanity Diane Atkinson, prepares an excellent supper. Patrick shows me some of his new toys, including a ‘true mirror’ which shows you as you actually, genuinely look (instead of in normal mirror-image as you can only ever see yourself). It’s a disturbing experience. I order one for myself that night: you can buy them here.
The finished, painted portrait is astonishing. Ironically, it does show me in mirror image: it’s a logical result of the casting-and-reversing process that the finished piece offers a flipped version of the subject.
It now sits in my library – it needs flat, soft light to work at its best. Whenever I walk past it, I see it pay close attention and watch my every move.
Video doesn’t quite capture the real-life effect. The movement is bigger, clearer, and so inextricably linked to one’s own movements that it’s a very eerie experience. But here’s a look at it:
And in a separate post – most likely tomorrow – I’ll set out how I painted my own portrait of Patrick. Ta-ta for now.
Confessions Of A Conjuror
If you haven’t heard, Derren has a new book out called “Confessions Of A Conjuror”. Here’s a recent review from the Sunday Times:
(Follow the link at the bottom to get a sneak peak inside the book).
“”What a trick! You might think from the title that Derren Brown — the goateed illusionist nobody wants to play at poker — had written a bog-standard celebrity memoir. But look closer. What do you see? Not an autobiography at all, but a weird, whimsical and, at times, uproarious deconstruction of the celebrity-memoir genre. Whether at his writing desk or in front of the camera, it seems Brown is happiest when leading his audience a merry dance.
Confessions of a Conjuror is a description of one night in a Bristol restaurant. Brown is in his twenties, a “jobbing magician…a few years before a lucky phone call brought me a TV break and a move away from that green city of artists and therapists and tramps to a grey metropolis of actors and wankers and hedge-fund traders”.
In the first chapter, he is looking for a group of diners to dazzle. By the end of the memoir he is still in that same room, having astonished a table of punters with a series of card tricks. During his account of one night’s work, Brown details how the cut of a man’s shirt, or a certain smell, set off a chain of thoughts. From these observations, he delves into his past life, future career, his methods, beliefs, sexuality, the wisdom of Aristophanes, and, for more than three pages, the perfect way to poach eggs.
So what do we learn about Brown from this jumble sale? For one thing, he is a self-confessed obsessive. Indeed, his tendencies manifest themselves in his overwrought, Victorian prose, which is laden with fetishistic detail. His description of why he prefers red-backed cards to blue-backed is an example. Having told us blue ones “contrast less satisfyingly with the green baize of a card table or the jet black of the suit I wore”, he tells us how red cards have a certain “new-world pizzazz”. Anyway, blue reminds him of school — it was the “prescribed ink colour…and I cannot use it to this day without feeling in my gut that I am again a student and should be handing in my work for marking”.
Much of the book freewheels in this way. One has to be on the look-out for biographical gems that might drift past on a two-page footnote. Occasionally, a moving nugget catches the eye. For instance, he offers two explanations for his interest in magic. The first involves a number of items with which he became fascinated as a child (a magic hat given to him at Christmas, a hidden compartment in an After Eight box), but the second, psychological explanation seems more convincing. Brown was an only child until he was nine; as a “precocious, sensitive” and un-sporty boy at school, he was teased for being part of the “poof gang”, but adapted, in his late teens, into a showman and comedian. Now, as a gay man who has confirmed that “for those still in any doubt that, given the choice, I was a stickler for man-on-man action”, he seems happy in his own skin. It was not always the case. His “lack of relationships during and after university (a means of avoiding the awkward confusion of whether I should happily accept the whoopsie within or wait for him to somehow pass) frees up huge amounts of creative energy to spend practicing card-sleights and developing tricks”.
Ah, magic. There is some method given away here, but not much. Mostly, Brown provides an insight into how malleable and suggestible the average punter is. The magician’s skill is to make the audience focus on unimportant things, to allow their brains to make connections that are not there. For that reason, he says, magic is all context. “In the best performances, the trick itself is often not the primary pleasure,” he writes. “The finest pieces soar not necessarily because they are the most bamboozling, but because they are performed by an utterly captivating character, or imbued with a theatrical sensibility…an experience of genuine drama, fun or enchantment.”
“Magic,” he also admits, “means nothing.” For Brown, this is not a cause for despondency. His punters experience “surprise and delight”, and the “trivial nature of the variables is irrelevant”. And that, it seems, is the message of this strange, postmodern book. Brown elevates seemingly insignificant moments in his life and imbues them with drama. “To really know someone,” he suggests, is to “gently trace their dreamy associations”. He may be right. In Confessions of a Conjuror, Brown takes us on a meandering pleasure cruise downriver. It is worth the journey.”"
You can get a sneak peak inside Confessions Of A Conjuror here. It’s also available for purchase it on Amazon in Hardback or Audio Book.
Pope says condoms OK to use in some cases
“VATICAN CITY—Pope Benedict XVI has opened the door on the previously taboo subject of condoms as a way to fight HIV, saying male prostitutes who use condoms may be beginning to act responsibly. It’s a stunning comment for a pontiff who has blamed condoms for making the AIDS crisis worse.
The pope made the comments in an interview with a German journalist published as a book entitled “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times,” which is being released Tuesday. The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano ran excerpts on Saturday.
Church teaching has long opposed condoms because they are a form of artificial contraception, although the Vatican has never released an explicit policy about condoms and HIV. The Vatican has been harshly criticized for its position.
Benedict said that condoms are not a moral solution to stopping AIDS. But he said in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, their use could represent a first step in assuming moral responsibility “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.”
Benedict made the comment in response to a general question about Africa, where heterosexual HIV spread is rampant.
He used as a specific example male prostitutes, for whom contraception is not usually an issue, but did not mention married couples where one spouse is infected. The Vatican has come under pressure from even church officials to condone condom use for such monogamous married couples to protect the uninfected spouse from transmission.
Benedict drew the wrath of the United Nations, European governments and AIDS activists when, en route to Africa in 2009, he told reporters that the AIDS problem on the continent couldn’t be resolved by distributing condoms. “On the contrary, it increases the problem,” he said then.”
Read more at The Star
Photographic Evidence Proves That Squid Can Fly
“Once, while boating off the coast of Jamaica in 2001, marine biologist Silvia Maciá and her husband caught a glimpse of an oddly familiar creature leaping from the waves, soaring with ease over the surface of the ocean. As the animal propelled itself for some 30 feet, Maciá realized she was witnessing the most unusual sight — a flying squid. So intrigued by what she saw that day, Maciá would go on to co-author a paper examining similar observations, though essential photographic evidence of the incredible phenomenon remained elusive. That is, until now.
Maciá’s study, featured in a 2004 issue of the Journal of Molluscan Studies, found that the gliding behavior of her squid wasn’t entirely uncommon, noting around six species known to leap from the water — occasionally winding up on the decks of boats. But from she witnessed that day near Jamaica, squids weren’t just exiting the water aimlessly. Rather, they appeared to be flying.
“From our observations it seemed like squid engaged in behaviors to prolong their flight,” she said. “One of our co-authors saw them actually flapping their fins. Some people have seen them jetting water while in flight. We felt that ‘flight’ is more appropriate because it implies something active.”
But unfortunately such eyewitness accounts were all that the scientific community had to go on. Soon, however, that would change.
According to Ferris Jabr, who wrote of the mystery surrounding flying squid in a piece for Scientific American, undeniable proof of the cephalopod’s airborne antics surfaced just recently. From the deck of a cruise ship along the coast of Brazil, a retiree named Bob Hulse snapped some high-resolution photographs of something unusual leaping from the sea: what appears to be dozens of squid propelling themselves through the air — quite possibly the first time the impressive display has been caught on film.”
Read more at Tree Hugger
If I were PM – Derren Brown Interview
What campaign stunt would you pull in an election?
The few proper ‘stunts’ I’ve done have been pretty gruelling and I have done them more out of obligation than any desire for mass attention. So I’d want to do something that drew no attention to myself, which is one reason why I’d be a useless politician and would hate every second of it.
Would you take part in a TV leaders debate?
Happily. I’d quite enjoy it. Though I’ve never managed to pull off the politicians’ trick of thinking that my view is the single, correct one, so I’d be pretty hopeless.
Who would write your speeches?
I’d have to write them myself. That would be one small personal pleasure I’d get from the job.
How would you redecorate No 10?
I’m thinking something like the Addams Family mansion. And I’d swap the policeman at the door for a guy with a hunchback.
Who would be your Alastair Campbell?
Don’t know. I’d have to have Stephen Fry in there somewhere.
Who would be your George Osborne?
Gordon Brown. I might as well have someone who knows what he’s doing. I’m hopeless with money. I’d spend it all on presents and dinners.
Who would be in your cabinet?
All of the X-Men.
Where would you hold cabinet meetings?
Patrick Stewart’s place – convenient.
How would you respond to being booed in public?
I’d respond by sobbing and getting very defensive.
How would you deal with a sex scandal in the cabinet?
With a huge party. It sounds very exciting.
What would you have as a new national anthem?
I think something instrumental. Or John Cage’s 4’33″.
How would you greet the Queen?
By grinning inanely and talking bollocks, which is generally what I do when meeting people of great authority.
Would you make Scotland independent?
It would be rude not to if that was what Scotland wanted.
What would keep you awake at night?
Half the country hating me.
What would you miss most while in No 10?
That level of fame would be miserable. So I’d miss the D-list status I currently enjoy.
Which pets would you get for No 10?
Lions and tigers. It would be amazing.
How would you see off a younger, better-looking political rival?
I’d make his head explode. Or if he was a lot younger and a lot better-looking, I might consistently flirt with him until he was forced to give up politics.
How would you increase participation in politics?
Nude dancing.
Who would succeed you as PM?
Someone who was the polar opposite of me. That seems to be the usual pattern – a swing from charismatic to boring and back again.
What legacy would you like to leave?
I think it would be best for everyone to forget about it as soon as possible.
From TotalPolitics
UK gov’t promises to allow telcos to hold Brits hostage on “two-speed” Internet
Boing Boing reports:
“So much for any hope that a Conservative-LibDem coalition would signal a beginning to sane network/information policy in Britain. Ed Vaizey, the new Minister of Culture, has given the go-ahead for a “two-speed,” non-neutral Internet, in which your capacity to access a website or service would depend on whether that service had bribed your ISP.
In this model, ISPs could slow down traffic from the sites you love if they don’t pay for “premium access” to you — essentially turning you into a hostage that gets traded around like a prisoner being swapped for a couple packs of cigarettes.
So, Vaizey, what next? I can call any takeaway restaurant I want, but unless they’ve given a backhander to my phone company, I’ll have to wait an extra 30 seconds to be connected, while an announcement offers to put me through to a competitor who’s paid the “premium” danegeld?”
Full article at Boing Boing
Girls severed arm grafted to her leg then reattached
Surgeons in China saved a little girl’s hand – by grafting it on to her leg for three months. Nine-year-old Ming Li lost her hand when she was run over by a tractor on her way to school in July.
But her arm was too badly damaged to reattach it to her wrist so doctors temporarily attached it to her right calf instead. Dr Hou Jianxi, spokesman for the hospital in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, said the hand had now been transplanted back on to her arm.
“When she came in, her left hand was completely severed from her body. It was very scary,” he told the Zhoukou Evening Post. ”But Ming Li can now move her wrist again and her left hand is a healthy pink colour proving that the blood is circulating well.”
Li will need two more operations over the next year. One to improve her hand functions and some plastic surgery to remove her scars. But Dr Hou said: “After surgery, and with plenty of physiotherapy, we are confident her left hand will be capable of doing most things.
“We can’t give a precise percentage of how much movement she will get back but she should be able to look after herself and even drive a car.”
Thanks Chris
UNESCO world heritage list: The weirdest of the weird from the new list
From Luxembourg’s hopping procession to Peruvian scissor dancing and Croatian ginger bread making, we examine the more bizarre entries on the UNESCO list. Here’s a few on the list:
Wrestlers covered in cooking oil grapple with each other at the annual Kirkpinar oil-wrestling festival, which dates back to the 14th century. Scissor-dancing in the Chanka region dates from the 16th century, when locals supposedly possessed by deities performed frenetic dances to express their resistance to Spanish conquest.
Full list with images at Telegraph.
Did giant pterosaurs vault aloft like vampire bats?
If giant pterosaurs – the dinosaur-era, giraffe-sized winged reptiles – tried to fly like birds, they could not have got off the ground. Yet why would flightless pterosaurs retain giant wings instead of evolving vestigial ones like the ostrich?
The answer, according to Mark Witton of the University of Portsmouth, UK, is that pterosaurs didn’t fly like birds. “We need to appreciate that pterosaurs had their own unique mechanisms of achieving flight,” he says.
Full Story at New Stories
Scientists propose one-way trips to Mars
It’s usually cheaper to fly one way, even to Mars. Two scientists are suggesting that colonization of the red planet could happen faster and more economically if astronauts behaved like the first settlers to come to North America — not expecting to go home.
“The main point is to get Mars exploration moving,” said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University professor who co-authored an article that seriously proposes what sounds like a preposterous idea.
At least one moon-walking astronaut was not impressed. ”This is premature,” Ed Mitchell of Apollo 14 wrote in an e-mail. “We aren’t ready for this yet.” Also cool to the idea was NASA. President Barack Obama has already outlined a plan to go to Mars by the mid-2030s, but he never suggested these space travelers wouldn’t come home.
Full story at Yahoo
