DeDomenici Blog: April 2009

Japan hoped to draw a line under recent economic losses today, as the global rebranding of the nations largest automaker Toyota is rolled out globally

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The company's new name 'Atoyot' translates literally as 'One who chases after two hares won't catch even one', however analysts doubt whether such a superficial measure will fix the underlying economic malaise afflicting the Japanese manufacturing industry.
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Walking in the footsteps of JG Ballard

To commiserate the passing of JG Ballard, who died last week, I visited Sutton Road multi-storey car park in my hometown Watford:

(Click to Enlarge) In 1971 JG Ballard used the town’s then futuristic parking structures as a location for his short film CRASH! He referred to Watford as ‘the Mecca of the multi-storey car park’.

(Click to Enlarge) Shot for the BBC two years before his notorious novel of the same name was published, the film followed Ballard as he outlined some of the ideas that would later form the basis of the book (itself adapted for the screen by David Cronenberg in 1996). When I first saw the short film, specifically the moment I recognised Sutton Road multi-storey car park, it was the second nearest I've ever come to having a religious experience.

(Click to Enlarge) CRASH! no longer seems to exist on the internet, although I do have a copy on vhs somewhere, which I shall endeavour to locate, digitise, and upload. Ballard said of Watford's car parks: 'I was quite interested in the gauge of psychoarchitectonics.' And one can't say fairer than that. Further reading: http://www.ballardian.com/crash-full-tilt-autogeddon http://www.ballardian.com/iain-sinclair-when-in-doubt-quote-ballard UPDATE Grebmops uploaded CRASH! two days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT2eECKvdTc . .

WLTM

Is this the same woman?

If so, congrats!

Disappointed

I am having a disappointing visit to South Kensington.

First, the big spinning globe that you travel through on an escalator
in the Geological Museum, making you massively disoriented, was
switched off. On further inquiry I was told that it had been
permanently decommissioned.

The next best transcendental experience in the museum, the earthquake simulator, was also faulty, twitching intermittently instead of shaking violently and terrorising children as it should do.

Finally, in the Science Museum, I see this sign:

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(I shan't even go into the ridiculously cursory bag searching charade
that must take place before entry - that is a subject for an entire other post).

It's almost as if the museums are consciously trying to suck all the
joy out of the museum-going experience in order to actively deter
visitors.

Have you been disappointed in a museum recently? If so, feel free to
comment below.

Excess Visions of Visions of Excess

Judging by the large number of cameras flashing and chirping in a variously distracting/annoying/rude manner, I'm sure there is already an outpouring of documentation pertaining to yesterday's Visions of Excess live art all-nighter at Shunt Vaults, so instead I present a single image, taken betwixt scheduled performances, which I think neatly encapsulates the tone of the evening:

(The chocolate bar and the lipstick are analogous to the bodily functions and fluids displayed in much of the work, while the indistinct morass of human flesh in the background alludes to the visceral nature of the evening's programme.)

My brain is still struggling to interpret most of the things I witnessed, and indeed has erased some of the more extreme content, so it is impossible for me to offer a full review at this juncture.

Is it me, or is the top of the Hamburg television mast leaning slightly?

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Quignunc

As part my ongoing quest to remain seconds behind the zeitgeist, today I am listening to the eponymous debut album by Eoghan Quigg.

It comprises 39 minutes of poorly-produced auto-tuned cover-versions of mainly bad songs.

I have two further observations:

Track 4 is a high-energy reworking of Abba's Does Your Mother Know?, a song about a chap being pursued by a girl who is clearly far too young for him.

Surely Quigg, at 16, is himself far too young to sing such a song?

He'd have to be wooed by a toddler for it to make any sense.

In which case, why has he gone to the trouble in Track 8, a preposterous* cover of Busted's Year 3000, of changing the lyrics from:

'and your great great great grandaughter is pretty fine'

'and your great great great grandaughter is doing fine'?

Come on Quigg; why the inconsistency? Are you a nonce or not?

*Imagine a precocious Irish boy trying to do an impression of some obnoxious English boys trying to do an American accent. Hilarity ensues.

Update: The reason for the lyric change is that Year 3000 is not, in fact, a direct cover of the Busted original, but a cover of the Jonas Brothers' cover of the Busted original.