Friday 16 April 2010

Playlist #1: electro-hop new and brand new

Enough talking of indie and alternative from the cool kids, it's time to put on some baggy t-shirts and gold chains. Even with the success of Kanye West and Jay-Z, hip-hop hasn’t been able to make it into ‘in’ status since the 50 cent/ Eminem hungover from the less enlightened years in the early noughties. Almost feeling like proving a murder suspect’s innocence, this list includes (and also deliberately excludes) some of the best (but not widely known) names in underground hip-hop (Mos Def, Common) as well as glitch-hop (edIT, Nosaj Thing) and instrumental hop (Two Fingers, Hudson Mohawke) which are somewhat overshadowed by the blanket genre ‘electronic’. You might also find some delightful Jazz influence in Erykah Badu and Gil Scott-Heron, both have brought out exceptional albums earlier this spring. The club favourite Major Lazer and some borderline mainstream such as Kid Cudi and Amanda Blank.




To combat the indie and post-whatever overdose, enjoy this mix with some disco lights and old school gangster outfits. To finish it off check out one of the top new rapper of 2009- Pill, and his self-released album 4075 the refill available for free download.



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Friday 9 April 2010

Lu Chunsheng’s machine horror



The latest works exhibited in the Rivington Place in London consist of a curious piece by the Chinese contemporary artist Lu Chunsheng, who brought the film “The first man who bought a juicer bought it not for drinking juice” for the first time to Europe since it was produced in 2008.

Set on the farmland in Texas, there is nothing distinctively Chinese about this short film. It tells the story about a combine harvester from ‘birth’ to ‘work’ under the constant care of a mad-looking mechanic in a way that is both realistic and theatrical. Lu experimented with different sets of background noise and music to construct the phases of the ‘story’ and set the tunes of the scenes. The long-take footage of the machine components being assembled, tested and ran is set in sharp contrast to the surrounding crop field, the nearby road kills and most of all, the human hands and body. This inevitably points to the industrial and technology domination of modern life and the ‘enslavement’ of humans and nature as a result.

 












The combine harvester is the new Frankenstein in Lu’s vision. Modern technology and machinery not only unify our thoughts and movements, but also alienate ourselves from each other and grow to be the master that we all serve.


Lu, originally trained as a sculptor now lives and works in Shanghai. His past exhibitions include China Power Station: Part 1 (2006) at the Serpentine Gallery and various group exhibitions in Germany, the US and China.
  
The exhibition Counterpoints by Iniva at Rivington Place is on from 31 March to 15 May 2010. More info found here 
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