Relentless

Analysing the evolutionary changes that condition our perception of Art.

The Royal Institution of Great Britain offers an event that aims to shed light on cognitive neuroscience and the processes that allow our brains to create and appreciate art.

It does look a bit like The REV, but that's all in your mind. And that's a fact.

This is a microscopy (photo taken through a microscope) of what lies at the core of all art - a neuron. A more elaborated explanation of art and the developmental process that has shaped our minds to undersrtand and create art is provided by the Royal Institution of Great Britain in collaboration with the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. The event takes place on 17th March 2009 and is part of the Brain Awareness Week. More here and here.

Aronofsky’s The Wrestler is a multi-dimensional portrait of life, passion and Artistry.

It’s Randy ‘The Ram’ the character, rather than The Wrestler the film, that will be best remembered in years to come. Randy suffers from something you may know only too well, be it on the mountain, in the park - wherever: Obsession. He is a washed up old wrestler, perhaps in his fifties, his face weathered by blows, his body ripped by working out and life-threatening  doses of performance-enhancing steroids. Once he was a huge success, on top of the world, vanquishing foes with signature shapes at Madison Square Garden. Now, twenty years on, he still wrestles, but on a far less glamorous circuit. Still the passion burns bright, though. He remains consumed by his art. But is it for the right reasons? And, when a heart attack in the ring forces him into retirement, will he be able to stay away?

The film is a powerful but harrowing tale of ‘The Ram’s’ devotion to wrestling - but you wonder if that devotion is willing. In one of the most moving scenes of an intensely emotional film, the ‘Ram’ is seated in a small community building in a cold and unspectacular suburb. He’s given up wrestling on the doctor’s orders. Around him are other wrestlers whose prime years are well behind them. Each is sat at a table inside, a gathering of forgotten wrestlers assembled in this lifeless room for fans to come and say hello and get their old paraphernalia signed. You can hear the echo of rubber soles catching on the plastic floor; an occasional whisper between a fan and his mother reverberates around the empty hall. It’s pitifully sad, humiliating even. Slumped in his chair, ‘Ram’ looks around him. He surveys his fellow wrestlers, the felled heroes of yesteryear, one of them wheelchair-bound, all of them old. Though he has suspected it for many years, it’s in this moment, under the bright strip lights of the community centre, where no man can hide, that reality smacks him in the face and pins him to the canvas. He is broken, in mind and body. The reality of his own pathetic existence dawns.

Banks Violette provides a snapshot of the human psyche in situ.

In light of our own Rev recently going live, we wanted to share some points of reference of the project. The Rev is an abstraction of a complex idea, as much as it is a dynamic portrait of anybody's favourite music.

A forthcoming exhibition will reveal the brilliance of the Baroque.

The Baroque: an era of artistic excess and brilliance; an age of pornography, sex and violence, of Caravaggio, Bernini and Rubens. This April, the V&A in London launches its spring show, Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence, a no-holds-barred assault which should befit the complexity and grandeur of this great period in history.

It kicks off on April 4th and will run until July. For more information, follow the link below.

Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence

Ski Jumping is impressive, Ski Flying is something else altogether.

More dangerous, more beautiful, quicker, longer, bigger and better. How they maintain form for that amount of time amidst the buffering wind, baying crowd and break-neck speeds is beyond me.

But it’s the wait that must be the most terrifying thing. Shuffling their bums across the bar and staring down at the valley of ants and flags below. No push-off or launch allowed, just stand up and let the hill take your weight. Then, pure focus.