Curiosity #CKTK

Many older people in Russia remember seeing and hearing strange vinyl type discs when they were young. The discs had partial images of skeletons on them, were called 'Bones' or 'Ribs' and originated in the Cold War years of the Soviet Union. In an era when the recording industry was ruthlessly controlled by the State, music-mad bootleggers had found an incredible alternative means of making illegal copies of forbidden recordings - they repurposed used X Ray plates obtained from local hospitals. The X-Ray Audio Project is telling this amazing story of forbidden music, cold war culture, bootleg technology and human endeavour with an online archive, a book, an award winning documentary, live events and a travelling exhibition. The project is supported by Arts Council England and has received a large amount of PRESS and media coverage.

Working in collaboration with the conservation and collections departments of The Prado Museum, Madrid, The Louvre, Paris and The National Gallery, London, the artist scanned X-ray, infrared and ultra-violet renditions of Old Master paintings – including works by Uccello, van Dyck, Rubens, Delacroix, Goya and Velazquez amongst others. Monochromatic and energetic, the resulting photographs possess a graphic power strangely suggestive of the New York School artists, or a Gerhard Richter abstract. The title of the new series, LEAD, refers to the presence of the metal in 17th and 18th century paint. This is what the X-rays show, bouncing back off lead pigments and transforming the paintings from recognisable images into otherworldly scenes, as if the viewer is given access to a separate reality below the surface paint. Guijarro has taken a scientific process used to demystify the paintings, and in doing so made them more unknowable, blurring the divisions between science and art. ...

On December 9, 1964, saxophonist John Coltrane led a quartet that featured pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison into Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, where countless jazz recording sessions were held in the 1950s and ’60s. For photographer Chuck Stewart, Van Gelder’s was a short drive from his home in Teaneck. That day nearly 50 years ago the band recorded a Coltrane composition titled  A Love Supreme,  a profound expression of his spiritual awakening divided into four movements—“Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” “Psalm.” For its soaring ambition, flawless execution and raw power, it was hailed as a groundbreaking piece of music when it was released in February 1965, and it has endured as a seminal part of the jazz canon. The work and its composer will be highlighted anew this April during  Jazz Appreciation Month , an annual event launched in 2001 by the National Museum of American History, whose...

Jason de Caries Taylor is the artist and the diver behind the Musa Project in Mexico and Grenada Underwater Park, West Indies. He graduated from London Institute of Arts in 1998 with a BA Honours in Sculpture, and besides being a qualified diving instructor and underwater naturalist, Taylor is also an award winning underwater photographer. Tom’s photos where he captures the effects of the ocean on his evolving sculptures is what earned him the recognition. In 2006, Taylor founded the world’s first underwater sculpture park, in Grenada. This amazing monument is now listed as one of the Top 25 Wonders of the World by National Geographic. Later in 2009, Taylor Jaime Gonzalez Cano of The National Marine Park, Roberto Diaz of The Cancun Nautical Association created MUSA. The MUSA Project (Museo Subaquatico de Arte) is a monumental museum with a collection of over 450 public sculptural works, submerged off the coast of Cancun, Mexico, one of the world’s most unique travel destinat...

At its heart, BETWEEN THE FOLDS is a film about potential. The potential of an uncut paper square. The potential of a wild scientific idea. The potential to see things differently. For as long as I can remember, the driving impulses behind art, science, sculpture and math have seemed deeply connected to me—they are all means of interpreting our experiences in a universal language. When I first learned about the curious phenomenon of fine artists, scientists and mathematicians from all over the world working in the very same medium of origami, I knew there had to be something special about it: that in the simplicity of a square some untold potential for creativity and new ideas must be hiding. As a documentary project, this film has been less about telling a story and rather about finding an idea—layers of ideas. Everyone involved in this project has been incredibly energized by the challenge of making a documentary film about ideas. All along, we knew its central...

Sound City is a 2013 documentary film by Dave Grohl, at his directorial debut, about the history of Los Angeles recording studio Sound City Studios. Sound City Studios was located in the San Fernando Valley, amidst rows of dilapidated warehouses. The little-known recording studio housed a unique recording console and a reputation for recording drums. Artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Rick Springfield, Tom Petty, Kyuss, Slipknot and Nirvana recorded groundbreaking music at the studio. The film tells the story of the studio from its early days until its closing in 2011. It then follows Dave Grohl's purchase of the studio's custom analog console, which he moved to his personal studio, Studio 606. Famous musicians who recorded at Sound City reunite at Studio 606 to make an album of "all-new all-original songs, each one composed and recorded exclusively for the film within its own 24-hour session on that console.

Trained at the Valencia Art College Genovés was always an inquiring painter, concerned both with the need to renovate Spanish art and also with the function of art and the artist in society. His firm conviction that art was transforming, and his concern for his environment lead him to join several important movements in the post war Spanish art scene: Los Siete (The Seven) 1949, Parpallós (1956) and Hondo (1960). It was in this last group that presented a new approach to figurative painting opposing Informalism, that Genovés developed a style of painting that was expressionist and provocative. During the sixties Genovés had a creative crisis which he got over quickly. He became very involved in the opposition movements of the time against the Franco regime. He started to consider two subjects in his painting: the "individual" which he represented through collage and "the crowd" which he painted in flat colours and in a cinematographic style. The latter style, w...

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud  was a French comics artist , working in the French tradition of bandes dessinées . Giraud earned worldwide fame, predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius , and to a lesser extent Gir (used for the Blueberry series), the latter appearing mostly in the form of a boxed signature at the bottom of the artist's paintings. Esteemed by Federico Fellini , Stan Lee and Hayao Miyazaki among others, he received international acclaim.  He has been described as the most influential bandes dessinées artist after Hergé . His most famous works include the series Blueberry , created with writer Jean-Michel Charlier, featuring one of the first anti-heroes in Western comics. Under the pseudonym Moebius he created a wide range of science fiction and fantasy comics in a highly imaginative and surreal almost abstract style, the most famous of which are Arzach , the Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius , and The Incal . Blueberry was adapted for the screen in 200...