The title on eBay said ‘Trash or Treasure’, and for £1 plus postage, I was willing to take a chance on a 30-year-old roll of undeveloped 35mm film. After all, I remember reading the 2009 story about eBay-er Morace Park who bought a battered old film tin for £3.20 – because “it had a...
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On a trip to Santa Cruz, California, in the summer of 2007 a 12-year-old girl from Texas dropped her digital camera off the pier. But where this story really begins is almost four years later and six miles away following two particularly stormy days in March. Peter Govaars and his daughter were beachcombing at...
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Oh, the irony. Graffiti icon Banksy has created a new piece in London – a tribute to the ubiquitous tagger and recently criminal damage-convicted, Tox. At Tox’s trial on June 6th, prosecutor Hugo Lodge told the jury: “He is no Banksy. He doesn’t have the artistic skills”, and he was subsequently found guilty on...
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There’s something about Orange Amps. They are as aurally as they are aesthetically pleasing; the logo typeface as iconic as the product itself. Over the years, Orange has provided amplification for artists as diverse as Fleetwood Mac, James Brown, the Beach Boys, Tina Turner, Johnny Cash, Madonna, Slipknot, Kid Rock, and countless other up-and-comers...
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Three men who were outcasts in their time are being honoured as the icons they are today. William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac – the leaders of the Beat Generation – are each the subject of a film recently, or soon to be, released. The Beat Generation was a group of friends...
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I jumped on a bandwagon recently – by which I mean I bought myself a vintage Polaroid 1000 land camera. It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that Polaroid has undergone something of a renaissance recently. The instant photography company, which formed in 1937, was a worldwide best-seller in its 60s and 70s heyday, but...
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It is acknowledged that Australian Aboriginal culture is heavily spiritual and symbolic, but a growing body of evidence suggests that the indigenous belief system represents a deep knowledge of the sky and the motion of the bodies within it. This knowledge was used not just as components in ceremonial events and stories, but for...
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Jonathan Safran Foer is an author whose creativity extends beyond the stringing together of words. The man behind ‘Everything Is Illuminated’ had an idea for a tome that was more abstract than the typical novel – a sculptural object and a story cut into and out of an existing text. In a process he...
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London indie foursome Stricken City announced recently that they were bowing out, with the swansong album ‘Losing Colour’. The band has issued a video to accompany the title single, and frankly, we think it’s quite special. The song itself is… okay. But the video – telling the tale of daily mundanity through the repeated...
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In the aftermath of an emotional funeral for her uncle, Paola Balla was visited by her indigenous ancestors through the shadow of her five-year-old son. As the sun edged the horizon in the small town of Heathcote in Victoria, Australia, a young Aboriginal warrior appeared next to a tree with the majestic stance of...
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