Boring 2011

I spent Saturday at Boring 2011, which, for the uninitiated, is “a one-day event dedicated to the boring and the mundane, the obvious and the over-looked.”

Is it just me, or is the uneven pelmet *really* annoying?

My Top 5 Speakers

• Tim Steiner – Hand Dryers : A Beginners’ Guide
• Toby Dignum – The Square Root of Two
• Helen Keen – History of Nasa
• Dr Felicity Ford – Vending Machines of the British Isles
• Adam Curtis – BBC Continuity (the bits between the programmes)

Here are some delightful sketched notes by Eva-Lotta Lamm, which are both more beautiful and more interesting than any effort I could possibly muster.

The Swag

• 1 Boring 2011 grey notebook (standard school exercise book)
• 1 biro (Bic, obvs)
• 2 badges, 1 saying “boring”, 1 depicting a filing cabinet
• 4 postcards of London ATMs (honourable mention to Jess Burton for correctly identifying the Shaftesbury Avenue cash machine)
• 1 bag of Haribo
• 1 salacious Maoam
• As many cans of sparkling white wine as you could carry

BEST CONFERENCE EVER.

Boy with a Bomb

Another Banksy? Dalston Lane, opposite Hackney Downs station.

Boy with a Bomb

Art Terrorism for Beginners

New graffiti appeared on Andre Street, Hackney, this evening. I rather like it.

Art Terrorism for Beginners

Is it a Banksy? It wouldn’t be the first time one has popped up on my street overnight.

UPDATE: the text now reads “KNOW YOUR ENEMY”

IAB Social Media Event – How to Keep the Party Going!

The IAB held another thoroughly enjoyable social media event in the basement at LBi London.

What did we learn?

• Dave Coplin from Bing knows a lot about bees
• Never do a live Google search for the keywords “ass cam” during your presentation (we’re looking at you, Tom Ollerton)
• The word “malling” will be added to the OED if Amy Kean has anything to do with it

Favourite moment:
Watching the guys from Market Sentinel bring in a giant plush stuffed toy, courtesy of their friends at Squishable.

Snail Squishable

And the music?
Dog Is Dead rounded off the evening very nicely with their exuberant close-harmony loveliness. Impeccable live performance, and all round sound lads.

Dog Is Dead - image courtesy of the IAB Flickr stream

The Filmic Umbrella

As part of Cannt, the lovely people at Short & Sweet put on an evening of audiovisual delights in the basement of The Book Club.

Turning – Karni & Saul

Karni & Saul | Trailer ‘Turning’ from Rokkit on Vimeo.

Watch the full film on the BBC Film Network.

El Guincho “Bombay” – CANADA

El Guincho – Bombay from CANADA on Vimeo.

Love & Theft – Andreas Hykade

Watching – Max Myers

Watching Clip from Watching Clip on Vimeo.

Find out more here.

Copy Shop – Virgil Widrich

Family Portrait – Joseph Pierce

A Family Portrait from Joseph Pierce on Vimeo.

The Ear – Yi Zhou

Logorama – H5

Logorama from Marc Altshuler – Human Music on Vimeo.

For news of upcoming events, find Short & Sweet on Facebook. I’ll definitely be going again.

Thomas Truax’s Full Moon Sunday

The evening began with the delightful Polly Tones, a Swedish duo playing a selection of pleasingly harmonious acoustic songs, including a cover of God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.

Polly Tones

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Thomas Truax. What followed was an enthralling hour of storytelling, accompanied by ingenious Steampunkesque musical devices.

Mother Superior - a "motorized rhythm machine"

Thomas Truax and the Hornicator

The set list was a combination of old favourites and recent additions from the monthly music project:

Prove to my Daughter
A Notice of Eviction to a Closet Full of Skeletons
Inside the Internet
What’s the Matter with my Grey Matter?
Wowtown
March Wind
Fireflies
Beehive Heart
Why Dogs Howl at the Moon (Part One)
The Butterfly and the Entomologist
I Put a Spell on You

Thomas Truax

You can follow Thomas Truax on Twitter, or like the Facebook page for news of upcoming gigs and album releases. Many thanks to @pleonastic for evangelizing so enthusiastically – I’ll be sure to go again!

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2011

Coloring Book, Jeff Koons

A few highlights:

• Coloring Book, by Jeff Koons – because I like shiny things
• A couple of endearing cut-outs by Rob Ryan
• Out of the Dark, by Brigitte Williams – dense, swirling text, each line beginning “Zero is…”
• Keith Tyson’s Deep Impact – nebulous reds and oranges below a fluid glaze

My favourite thing was a burned-out tree trunk – Funnel, by David Nash. I’d like to climb inside.

Your Art Is My Frame

Emmy the Great In-Store at Rough Trade East

Emmy the Great at Rough Trade East

Emmy the Great played an in-store at Rough Trade East to promote her new album, Virtue.

A few highlights:

• Cassandra – ironically dedicated to “Jennifer Anniston, that everywoman”
• First Love and 24 (well, you have to give the crowd a few old favourites)
• The final song – I don’t know the name and only remember a snippet of the lyrics, but it was rather lovely.

The Guardian is live streaming the album through Soundcloud, along with a track-by-track commentary. You can also listen to Virtue on Spotify, if you so wish.

Charcoal Sketch

Courtesy of Instagram

Social Media Update

Delicious Rescued by YouTube Founders

Even before the leaked Yahoo presentation in which Delicious was earmarked for closure (or “sunset”), users have been worrying about its future. Lack of investment has allowed the popular social bookmarking service to atrophy, but news that Yahoo has finally sold the company to YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen gives cause for fresh optimism. Users will be asked for permission to transfer their data to the new company, AVOS, though the look and feel of Delicious should remain the same. Let’s hope its new owners give it the attention and development time it deserves.

Facebook Launches New Sponsored Stories

Building on the Sponsored Stories ad unit launched in January, Facebook has released a raft of new ad types. There are now seven kinds of sponsored story:

• Page like
• Page post
• Page post like
• App used or game played
• App shared
• Facebook Places check-in
• Domain or link shared

The sponsored stories will be displayed in the right hand side ad space, as and when friends engage in the above activities on Facebook. You can read all about it here (thanks to Matt Monahan for sharing the link).

Touch Wood Xylophone

Amazing video in which a giant xylophone plays “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” using only the power of gravity. It’s a lovely concept, well executed, which ends with a simple shot of the Touch Wood SH-08C phone. The video has racked up more than 3m views on YouTube in the past three weeks. Take a look.