Last weekend I paid a visit to the rather gorgeous Dalston Rio Cinema, to watch It Always Rains On Sunday, which was showing as part of the East End Film Festival. It was one of their ‘Silver Screen’ matinees, which are free for the over 60s and include tea and cake in the ticket price. And let me tell you, the home-made victoria sponge was DELICIOUS, and not just because it was free.

Rio Cinema is very lovely inside, with a huge pale blue arching ceiling and a proper thick red velvet curtain across the screen. It has been a cinema for nearly a century, and there’s a detailed history page on their site, including pictures of it in some of its former incarnations, as the Kingsland Empire, the Dalston Classic, and the racy Tatler.

The film was ostensibly about a Bethnal Green housewife sheltering her escaped convict ex-lover, but actually the star of the film was Ealing Studios version of East London in the 1940s (including the line “Oh, I wish there was no such place as Bethnal Green!” which got a big laugh). There was a lot of detail about the daily life of the family, with their tin bath and their Anderson shelter and cheese ration. Plus a trio of Cockney crooks, a Jewish market wheeler-dealer and a philandering saxophonist. My favourite bit, however, was the switch to a film of a toy train set for the long-view action shot when the fugitive is escaping across a railway yard

The only thing that slightly spoiled it was the commentary coming from some of the more elderly members of the audience, along the lines of: “Ooh, what’s this? He knows, he knows! Ah, blackmail yes. Yes. Oh no, don’t run! He’s coming home!” etc… But hey, I was crashing their performance, so I can’t complain.

We visited one of those fantastic ‘attractions’ which consist of two or three entirely disparate items, plus a shop and a cafe. These places have a special place in my heart as they were everywhere in Cornwall when I was growing up and the king of the all is Flambards Theme Park near Helston, which has the following delights available in one place:

• Replica Victorian Village (in fairness, this is awesome)
• ‘Britain in the Blitz’ Experience
• Exploratorium Science Dome
• Aerodrome – plane and helicopter museum
• 3D Cinema
• Garden centre
• The Hornet rollercoaster and other rides
• Gus Honeybun exhibition (you will only know who he is if you were a child in Cornwall in the 80s)

There’s probably more stuff now, who knows. It’s also the only place I have ever seen to open a Santa’s Grotto in August.

Waiting for a train in the rabbit village

Anyway, we found a smaller specimen of this type in Llanbrynmair, Powys, in the form of Machinations which has a small collection of automata, a playbarn and a rabbit village. Yes, that’s tiny stone houses (and one castle!) with rabbits frolicking among them like giant disinterested furry Godzillas. It is utterly wonderful.

However, I dragged my companion all the way to Llanbrynmair from our base at Dolgellau *almost* as much for the automata as for the rabbits. Regular readers will know I am in love with the uncanny and have a thing for robots of all kinds. The kind of automata on display at Machinations were mostly contemporary rather than historical, and artistic and whimsical rather than rotted and creepy, which is my preferred type, but that’s where the interest comes from. Here’s a short video of some of the collection in action, with some fabulously grating creative commons piano roll music:

A Selection of Automata from Machinations Museum, Wales from Sarah Jackson on Vimeo.

There were a few examples from UK artists I was already familiar with, namely Paul Spooner and Keith Newstead of the smashing Cabaret Mechanical Theatre (which originated in Cornwall), but also some who were completely new to me and were very finely made. The silly music in the video doesn’t really suit the intelligence and wit that characterise these contraptions.

Some of them are gently uncanny, particularly the series of people absorbed in their work, I think – in the video there are clips of a potter at his wheel and a woman rolling out some dough. What I like best about these (apart from the carving and the detail in the clothes and settings) was the absolute absence of any sense of performance. The way that the figures are quietly getting on with their daily tasks and seem to be unaware of their audience creates a feeling of a private or intimate space and hints at the internal life of the figure. What is going through their mind as they perform these repetitive motions? The uncertainty of the presence of that internal life is at the heart of the uncanny.

Naturally I forgot to note down the name of the person who made them and now I can’t find it anywhere. If these are your creations, please claim them!

If you’d like to know more about automata here’s a brief history, and for the more robotty end I would recommend Gaby Wood’s book Living Dolls, which looks at the cultural and historical context of (mostly human-like) automata and takes in drawing room curiosities to scientific endeavours to create mechanical life. Spooky stuff.

The protagonist, a young woman called Fausta,  is ill with a disease contracted from her mother’s breast milk known as “the milk of sorrow”,  a condition that only affects those women in Peru who were abused or raped during the years of terrorist struggle.  This Grauniad review says “This Peruvian lament examining how distress passes down the generations is subtle and wonderfully moving.”

Here’s the trailer. Please go and support the screening of weird films at Stratford Picturehouse!*

* ‘Weird’ is intended to be entirely complimentary, btw

Inspired by the medieval mystery plays, this modern drama is rooted in the history of Bankside – London’s “outlaw borough” – mixing Bible stories with local folklore and contemporary humour.

Crossbones Graveyard Gates

It’s not Shakespeare (although he is in it, and Chaucer too – both had strong ties to the area) but it should be an entertaining performance.

The play stitches together symbols from across the centuries, from high art and street scurf, and it’s full of church spires and rags, goddesses, whores, history and magic.

It was inspired by the discovery of the Crossbones Graveyard in Borough. The play was written partly to restore a voice and a memory to the 15,000 nameless people buried there outside consecrated ground – prostitutes and criminals, the sick and the mad.

The whole project is an amazing example of modern myth-making, of a community of misfits and an urban space reclaimed for the non-specific spiritual. One day I’m going to tie a ribbon to the gate and commemorate one of the thousands of born-forgotten women who are buried there.

There were some really stunning pieces, beautiful and mesmerising, some were creepy, or witty, all intelligent. It was packed when we went, and the abundant duct tape, neon, chatter and clanking of machinery gave the impression of being jostled through some kind of intergalactic souk.

Given the subject matter and the crowd you might expect the show to attract, *everyone* was taking photographs, liveblogging, podcasting, or filming the artworks, so there’s lots for people who didn’t get to see it, this video by Rainycatz takes in a lot of the really eerie lovely stuff that was going on.

There’s also a ton of Kinetica pictures on Flickr which are well worth a browse. Here’s a short video I took on my phone of some serenely spinning solar-powered glassy blue discs, which made me think of an otherwordly orrery: Kinetica – Orrery

I will add the title of that piece and the artist when I can get their website to work – it is clearly not futuristic enough to handle my OS + browser combo (oh snap!) Ok, have tracked it down, it’s called ‘Multiple Organism’ by Daniel Chadwick.

Other favourites include ‘Tease’ by Kathy Taylor, which has really grown on me. It has more layers than might be apparent at first glance, and it’s gentle play with a political/social theme appealed to me. As well as the ‘oooh flying teabag!’ reaction, of course.  You can see the movement in the video above.

The Most Unsettling Work award goes to ‘Memory’ by Mital and Papadakis, which was eerie in the extreme. Plus I’m a sucker for neurological imagery in art from Keats onwards. From ‘Ode to Psyche’:

In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind

Wow, I am the culturedest!

Norns weaving destiny - Arthur Rackham (1912)

Another one of those “hooray for living in London! oh blast there’s all these other people that live here too” evenings. Turns out that fantastic free cultural events tend to be really popular.

Anyway, on Friday 30 October I ambled along to a hallowe’en-themed addition to the London museums LATES programme at the lovely Victoria & Albert Museum, but didn’t amble fast enough to sign up for anything. I also ambled into the middle of some performance art, which was a bit unfortunate, although I don’t think anyone noticed.

So I missed a few interesting things, including a talk on witchcraft by the curator of the wonderful Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle. It got utterly swept away in the flood a few years ago, so I’m very glad to see it’s back on its feet. There was a talk about Noh masks and Japanese demons that I caught snatches of through the gallery noise and the large crowd, but gave up after a while and went to a room upstairs to look at an exhibition of witch and fairy illustrations which was beautiful.

Highlights for me were some original sketches by Arthur Rackham, watercolours by Edmund Dulac, Brothers Grimm etchings by David Hockney, and Paula Rego’s black and white witch pictures. You can see Rego’s images online on the Tate website. They were  illustrations for Blake Morrison’s book of poems about Lancashire’s famous Pendle Witches.

It was worth going just for this little exhibition, and the chance to look around the gallery in the evening (no kids!) but the party atmosphere, high goth count and foyerDJ playing Joy Division, Tears for Fears and the Ghostbusters theme tune made it a lot of fun. The next V&A Friday Late is 27 November, called ‘Making A Scene’ – about gender identity, subversion and performativity, I’m told, although there’s no information up yet. Sounds right up my street.

Ginger Cat Teapot

The flat tops of bus stops also yielded a fascinating array of items (including the Shoreditch meteorites) but rather a lot of single shoes and empty vodka bottles. So while I am very pleased to hear that the Bus.tops project which plans to cover 64 bus stop roofs in LEDs to display digital artworks has got the go-ahead, there’s a little wistful nostalgia mixed in. Regular readers will know I have strong feelings about public art, and I like this idea a lot. It has the potential to brighten the grim journeys made by millions of Londoners every day, while getting art out of the gallery and clawing back some of our shrinking public space before advertisers get hold of it (although I wouldn’t be surprised if they cotton on soon). But I can’t help wondering if any of those bus stops are already decorated with bizarre discarded items, and whether some lonely passenger will miss the mystery. Anyway, here’s their short video introduction on the Bus.tops site. There’s some annoying ‘urban’ jazz, and one of the artists describes bus stops as ‘street furniture’ but don’t let that put you off the whole project.

Taking up a small space near the main entrance of the museum, the exhibition is divided into three sections – ‘The Forest Glade’, ‘The Enchanted Castle’, and ‘Heaven and Hell’, featuring intriguing, appealing, appalling and entertaining objects from a range of designers. Each apparently “tells a tale through their use of decorative devices, historical allusions or choice of materials, sharing common themes such as fantasy, parody and a concern with mortality.”

It’s difficult to pin down the thread running through the collection, but I loved it. It was gorgeous and grim and quite otherwordly, and UNCANNY in huge neon flashing letters, so right up my street. Perhaps the best I can do is link to a few of my favourite pieces to give you a flavour:

Linen Cupboard-House – I just wanted to climb inside!

‘Smoke’ Mirror – A mirror with a deliberately charred and blackened frame, which is surprisingly evocative.

‘Moulded Mole’ Slippers – I think the artistic merit / craft credentials of these are less clear, but I’m a sucker for taxidermy.

I’d also recommend taking a peek at the Princess Chair, the pig’s skull teapot, and the ‘Lover’s Rug’, which still makes me feel a bit queasy. There was a good mix of highly desirable objects, and thought-provoking items which were closer to art in the way it is normally understood, and clever things had been done with a very small exhibition space.

The themes seemed to break down a bit towards the end, but there was plenty to mull over. Here’s a video by the curator and others explaining some of the ideas behind the exhibition, and if you want to find out more about fairytales (and what sort of empty-souled person doesn’t?) you can hand over £45 for a study day linked to the exhibition on Sat 3 October.

Western genre motifs are transformed to the landscape of East London. Questioning and re-imagining the Western’s portrayal of the ‘Vanishing Frontier’, this film recreates the epic panoramas of the Western in Hackney Marshes, the Thames Gateway and Essex. Using landfills, wastelands and gravel pits linked to the construction of the 2012 Olympic Park, it questions volatile financial speculations, private interests and the spectre of the Olympic gold rush. Working with a large cast of actors and non-actors (many of whom are themselves residents of East London), the film explores the compromises of a population facing this new order.

Trail of the Spider Poster

As I was leaving the house a few mornings ago a woman walked past wearing my shoes. Not just the same style from the same shop – actually my shoes, which I bought from the Dalston Oxfam shop, customised (badly) and then gave away to another charity shop. I was stunned, and she looked at me a bit oddly, probably because I was following her and gaping. Nobody needs that at 8.30 in the morning.

It made me happy though, because I thought I’d made a real mess of them, but she clearly didn’t think so! They were Converse, with a comic book print and white toes. I decided they would look better with black toes, so I coloured them in with permanent marker, leaving a star shape on one toe and writing “Pow!” inside. “How witty I am!” I thought to myself, and then realised I’d just hashed up a perfectly good pair of sneakers. Sigh.

It’s not the first time something like that has happened either – my friend customised a t-shirt and later donated it to the Tottenham branch of Sense, then I found it in the Hackney branch. I not sure whether this ‘small world’ business is comforting or depressing. Maybe a little bit of both.

In other news: I saw a bumblebee! From the top deck of a bus. It made me realise how seldom I see the fluffy little dears these days, and I made a mental note to stop mocking The Independent for devoting its cover to “The plight of the bumblebee“. Surely there’s some good bee-PR to be had from Harry Potter? That’s where ‘dumbledore‘ comes from after all.