Black Swan Posters

These amazing art deco inspired posters for the forthcoming film Black Swan starring Natalie Portman have just been released. A round of applause for a film studio that allowed graphic design to speak for itself and not have to squeeze endless celebrity faces into a generic film poster.

It must be the first time I've wanted to put a modern film poster on my wall! I'm just wondering how to get my hands on them? May have to chat up a cinema worker over the next month...

Eco Gifts Under £50

1. I love Recycling by Peter Blake, £45 2. Christmas Tree Seed Bomb, £3.99 3. Charity T-Shirt by Luella for EJF, £30 4. Graphic Butterflies, £29 inc delivery 5. Leaf-it bookmark post-it notes by Ginkgo, £12 6. Protect Poster by Binary & The Brain for the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, £10

Eco Gift ideas for Christmas for my eco-warrior PHD biologist little sister Milly. The only problem I have now is which one to choose!

Jessica Harrison

I know what I want for Christmas this year! Love, love love these porcelain figures by Jessica Harrison, there's something of a Victorian macabre about this. Amazing stuff. Makes me feel a little depressed, she graduated at Edinburgh School of Art (our rival to Glasgow School of art!) the same year as me, damn you successful people! Best get on with my work then!

www.jessicaharrison.co.uk

hitRECord

As the sad news hit the papers today of the recent death of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt's older brother Dan, I'm taking a look at the brilliant website that these two collaborated together on.

hitRECord.org is an unusual website, it's more of a community, or even a jamming session between people all over the world. The principle is, you make some music, video or images upload then other members use it, remix, collaborate etc.. and re-post it. The idea is if hitRECord.org then manage to make some money out of any of this work they will split the profit 50:50 with each person who collaborated on it.

Spearheaded by Hollywood actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt or 'RegularJOE' as he calls himself, from such films as 500 Days of Summer, Brick and the long running show 3rd Rock From the Sun, hitRECord.org has a unique line into the industry which youtube up-loaders just don't have, combined with the talents of all the other people on the site helping in the production and remixing its sure to produce some amazing results.
My favorite is Morgan and Destiny's Eleventeeth Date (sic) an amazing animation and odd little story which is sure to tickle the cockles of anyone who loved 500 Days of Summer or something a little out of the ordinary.




Create a profile and get going! I know what I'll be doing on a chilly Thursday morning in Salford...

The Manchester Weekender

It's all too much! Sack the person that put on three festivals in one weekend in Manchester! We spend most of the year waiting for something great to come along and what do you know, like buses, three come along at once. The annual Manchester Food & Drink Festival is back with some of Manchester's top restaurants churning out excellent food in Albert Square, though I think I love the posters more than the idea of standing in the rain eating! See the full programme here.




At the exact same time Abandon Normal Devices (AND) festival is also on, with workshops, films and installation art all around Manchester. I'm looking forward to seeing Phil Collins' latest short film Marxism Today at the Cornerhouse. See the full programme here.

If that wasn't enough Un-convention is on this weekend with Bill Drummond, Jah Wobble, Jarvis Cocker, to name a few, are playing at a host of venues across Salford, namely the Salford Lad's Club where tonight Billy Bragg and Kid British are playing at the iconic venue. Great event, although I found it utterly confusing how you buy tickets, and frankly £50 for a festival pass for one weekend is pretty much most of a weeks salary for some of us Salfordians. Seems as though it's more for people to come to Salford, not for us to see things in our area, what a shame.

Finally the Manchester Weekender, which combines some of the above three but adds some more extra activities, just in case you couldn't find something to do! It rather handily divides the weekend into three choices, The Urban Weekender, The Classic Weekender and the Urban Playground, giving you a slice of what's on whether your preferred weekend includes your fixie bike or your three kids.

Nevertheless it's been a crazy two days in Manchester, but a bit of a shame these things weren't spread over the month as only those with the time to trawl the extensive festival listings packed in enough to get a flavour of what was to offer.

Shall try and catch some of the AND festival exhibitions as the continue over the next day or so. Shall report my findings!