Photography: Marianne Engel

A selection of work by Swiss photographer Marianne Engel.

Films: Avatar/Legion

Well. These two films come out soon, and I'm not excited about either. A good way to start a post then. It's taken James Cameron a full four years of production to come out with 'The Wet Dream of JaJaBinks' (Avatar), developing a 3D epic that blurs the boundaries between real life and proposing marriage to the World of Warcraft girlfriend you've been hoping technology will materialise before you can no longer leave the chair. However, the sound editing in the trailer is pretty intense; a wall of noise with barely any diagetic sound... definitely worth watching.

Legion however, has no redeeming features. Many trailers don't breed anticipation for a single redeeming feature in the end product, but it's been a while since I've come across something this category of silly. The kind that actually makes you laugh and despair at the things talented people will do together. Paul Bettany used to carefully remove suits before torturing people, now he's being butchered like silly putty after making silly faces in studios. Silly.

Publication/Facebook Page

A quick note. Offworld Project will be producing a publication/manifesto (called The Offworld Projection) in the not too distant future, the first one will be free and include a poster and some original content. Anyone familiar with the aesthetic/concept of the site who would be interested to contribute get in touch with ideas...

Also, there is now a facebook page for offworld, which will be useful for feedback/promotion/contribution, so join if you want to participate etc...

Daily Image: True Blood

'The Light That Burns Twice As Bright' - Offworld Sculpture

Recently, whilst staying in a little French village (Pontlevoy), I talked my way into using a disused warehouse of a slowly deteriorating abbey; the neglected gold rolex of an American businessman.

I wanted to build an internally floodlit sculpture that commented on this, my current living situation, offworld project, and a nod to religion.

Every element of the installation was sourced from an abandoned part of the abbey.
I only ever intended it to be a photo series, ending in its eventual destruction, but the villagers took an interest, and on the final night turned up in a sort of impromptu gallery opening, and demanded it be left there.
The somewhat bewildered village vicar asked where the hope was.
I pointed out it was mostly white.

Full story and proper photos coming later on the main site, as soon as I can get back to rephotograph.

What is Skuro is Skuro?

All I can really gather from Skuro's skitzophrenic Myspace is that they're an Italian fashion brand with a penchant for vintage horror, doomsday cults and layers.

When I had their old page on my myspace (before it was banned), I would recieve multiple daily images of mutilation, symmetry and destruction; and to find the clothes you had to brave the page, not that it yeilds much information whatsoever.

(The black hood is a collaboration with scenesters' staple cotton manipulators 5Preview)

Fuck Buttons Solar Surfing Tarot Sports

Here's the thing about Fuck Buttons; the first album was pretty amazing; just a wall of noise that managed to somehow have melody, and even a hook... it filled a gap between the shoegaze revival and the electronic/lo-fi thing going on, and it did it well. But for all its virtues I couldn't help wondering where they would go after (other than around the world with Mogwai)...

It was definitely an album that could sit on its own and never need a follow up, and there was the worry that they might not strike that balance again that made the first work so well. However, the new album Tarot Sports is out in October, (here's the artwork) and over at Pitchfork you can hear the new track Surf Solar which shows no sign of them having burnt the sound out.
Fuck Forever then...

Zink/Distill: No Man's Land

Apparently macro photography doesn't have to be first year students taking pictures of each others eyes... it can be a team of professionals turning them into amazing abstract volcanic landscapes.

Photography: Thibault Breton
Make-up: Jacques Uzzardi

Despite originally starting life in Zink US, you can see it in Distill magazine, which is up to something interesting with its concept; they take what they think are the best editorials (not that I always agreed), and err, distill it into a magazine. There are also interviews with the people that worked on the shoots, going through the inspiration etc, and in cases like this it's definitely interesting, but I'll confess to not having my hair blown back by the inspiration behind a shoot of boys standing around on rocks.

Moon Running

So Moon, a film made by David Bowie's son and critically mentioned in the same breath as Blade Runner, is in (some) cinemas... Initially I was put off by Sam Rockwell... I never liked his name (it sounds like a 70s porn star), and he had a fist in Choke's pie (a rubbish Chuck Palahniuk adaptation)... but then what about that comparison?

Although it's not clear from the trailer what exactly it is, the Blade Runner connection is definitely there... along with slightly more unexpected ones like The Prestige. Without giving anything away that the trailer doesn't, it also poses a fundamental question; if you met yourself, would you get along? Definitely one to see at the cinema.

The Swinging 1760s

Back in 1766 this was scandalous. Painted by Jean-Honore Fragonard as a commission from a French nobleman, it depicts a girl on a swing, allowing a man in the bushes a look up her skirt. At the same time, she is throwing off a shoe to symbolise the loss of virginity, whilst a priest provides the inertia. Cheeky little madam then.

Like many of the best works, it was both vilified for its shocking subject matter, and praised for its technical brilliance... the use of light is cinematic, even by todays finely tuned standards of gloss and finish.

To transpose the technicality and social relevance to a more contemporary setting, it could be said both Gregory Crewdson and David Lachapelle reference aspects of the work... There are definitely echoes of the atmosphere Fragonard created in Crewdson's widescreen work, and both the colour and playfullness/
shock-factor Lachapelle has forged a career from seem to be evident in early form here...

Furthermore, there are even early elements of kitsch; by todays benchmarks at least... not only the shade of pink, but by the cherubs and the overall tone. In fact, Yinka Shonibare worked off this very notion in 2004, with his Turner Prize entry; reinventing the painting sculpturally...

So then, is the painting a pebble that's been creating ripples ever since, or simply an early example of pop-culture defining the boundaries of social taste?

We Covered It In Plastic Like Dexter

An
Out-take
From a shoot we did the other day.
In collaboration
With
Nick George.