Hubble

Hubble is a space telescope 600km above the Earth named after Edwin Powell Hubble one of the great pioneers of  modern astronomy. It was launched in 1990 by ESA/NASA with the objective to capture very high resolution observations to open new windows onto planets stars and galaxies. Here are some of the amazing images -

Star forming

Pillars of creation

Galaxy cluster composed of thousands of individual galaxies.

Pillar of gas and dust

I think Hubble might be my favourite photographer... want more? heres more images and heres the telescope

stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born.

Defacing the Tate

On Sunday 7th October Vladimir Umanets a visitor to the Tate Modern calmly walked up to Black on Maroon,1958 one of  Mark Rothkos Seagram murals and 'tagged' the bottom right corner with black paint. He then vanished and the Tate closed immediately once it was spotted, he was arrested on Monday. Vladimir claims it is part of his Yellowism movement and thinks he has added value to the painting, I think he is right and that the publicity stunt he has pulled has been successful. I don't agree with it I think it is spiteful to damage an original painting that so many people enjoyed. But the painting will be restored Tate have the best experts and eventually in the future someone will want this painting particularly because of the scribble and England will be watching a futuristic Time Team-esk program with magical gizmo's uncovering it. Will Vladimir be renowned for his artwork in the future - I don't think so.

Black on Maroon before the incident at the Tate.

What do you think about it?

The Rain Room

A rather seasonal post today about rAndom international's social experiment the rain room. It almost seems like the opposite of a shower, the audience are invited to walk through the 100 square meter space in the rain where like a dream the clouds part and you feel like a superior being not getting a single drop on your body as you move around freely. 

This trio Florian Ortkrass, Stuart Wood and Hannes Koch who met at London Royal college of art have experimented with a lot of work that rely's on the participation of the audience to react with it like Temporary printing machine, 2011 which prints a picture of whatever objects in front of the piece and displays it until slowly fading to never be returned. 

RAndom international have also been responsible for an exhibition called Audience, 2009 a installation using sixty four mirrors that turn and follow the member of the audience that they find the most interesting until the mirrors become disenchanted and chose somebody else to stare at. Ahhhhh a fashionistas dream... 



The rain room is in the curve gallery at The Barbican centre in London until March 2013.