Cartooning

Although he became famous (to me at least) through the LOLcats cartoons - his alleged 'discovery' of a 1920s source for the internet meme - Adam Koford has provided a constant stream of surreal, self-deprecating, sideways humour on Twitter. Always a joy. But here he is in illustrating action, mesmerising with penstrokes on a series of YouTube videos. Takes me back to the days of Vision On...

And find him on Twitter here.

Projection

OM Ungers remixed in a simply jawdropping architectural projection. It's surely what pixellated cubic postmodernism was invented for.

(via)

Emptiness

Architectural representations of a particularly spare kind in the work of Khedoori, quoted in butdoesitfloat. Like Rossi's work, there is latent the invitation to populate the space, as though people will begin to give purpose to their chilly emptiness.

Infill

Jan Vormann has injected humour into the idea of urban infill in Berlin. The artist, colleagues and friends set about filling the shelled and pock-marked facades of the city using multicoloured Lego pieces. The result is mildly provocative, but mostly just fun, as far as I can see.

Long

From days visiting the Tate on Millbank in London come memories of the work of Richard Long. Enigmatic strings of words in Gill Sans, perhaps a photograph - all that remained of artworks that consisted of using his feet, and walking. Later work became more tangible, geometric and gallery-friendly.

Over at the Guardian is a fine introduction to Long's peripatetic work, recognised as being at once conceptual and unpretentious. This can be ascribed to (literally) grounding his work. However, it is more than this - it is his respectful uncovering of the Englishman's primitive connection to the land and the marks made on it, whether through labour or ritual.

An architectural inspiration.

Whitworth

I recently went to the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, and caught the 'Subversive Spaces' exhibition. It draws together disparate fields of artistic enquiry, including situationism, feminist art and psycho-geography to create stimulating reflections. All fall into the category of art from the margins. Artists such as Sarah Lucas, Dali, Lucy Gunning and Guy De Bord are featured.

Still Life

The Art School at MMU currently has some large format photos of scenes from its history on display. Amongst them is this photo of a still life class with a slightly surreal air. In the centre are (presumably) the objects set for them to work on, yet they are carefully posed facing away from the study. Furthermore, they are drawing childish outlines in chalk on their boards, which a colleague identified correctly as looking uncannily like the work of Michael Craig-Martin.

All in all, the scene has the signs of a dapper, very civilised protest perhaps against art - or the people teaching it.

Caro

The Chapel of Light in Bourbourg received little attention from the architectural press a few months back, and I've just been reminded of it after a talk for LICC in Manchester on the Theology of Architecture. Anthony Caro's work lies at the cusp of architecture and sculpture, and I remember a fine retrospective of his work in the fields of Yorkshire Sculpture Park a few years' ago.

In the neglected shell of a bombed French neo-gothic church he has inserted beautifully-crafted expressions of biblical themes. The three interventions use three materials - metal bas-reliefs in the niches of the apse, oak 'towers' like pulpits in the nave, and a stunning spiral of stone as a baptismal font in the chancel.

Welcome to Greendale

Not quite sure yet of the significance of this, but Neil Young's Greendale has a website of its own. Roll over the map, and on the coast just east of the harbour 'John Lee's Bar' can be found. And is there any connection with the Fairport Convention album 'John Babbacombe Lee'? Both albums featuring my namesake seem to be folk-rock concept albums - a rare breed indeed. I think I'm honoured.

Renny Tait

See the work of one of my school friends Renny Tait at the website of FlowersEast in London. He was at the British School in Rome, and the influence of the primary forms of Palladio are obvious, though filtered through a smooth ray-traced 20th century industrial aesthetic.