Hiya.

I'm back from Glastonbury after an hour and a half trek back to the car, a two hour drive to a service station, a 2 hour stay at a Harvester and another hour of driving, although I did get back at about half 10.
Here is something I'm looking to see at The Creator's Project in a couple of weeks - as I catch up with the real world.

I think I actually loved Glastonbury, despite the never ending dust - which I think is still in my system now - and the toilets that were piled high, if you get what I mean. I'll give you some photos tomorrow. I'd recommend it to anyone, it's something entirely different, if anything it's more like a theme park than a festival, it's big enough, but maybe a bit more expensive.
My musical highlights were Mumford & Sons (because they seemed genuinely touched) and Stevie Wonder (because he was plain amazing!), but I really didn't see anything I didn't enjoy.

:)

BRB, gone to Glastonbury.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

Ready Freddy.

I am all packed and ready for Glastonbury, only two more sleeps to go now, might be the last big photo post I do before then, hopefully someone from a job I've applied for will look me up in the time I am gone.
I am most proud of these.


I had a bit of fun playing around with my 35mm lens, on the 'Action' setting so I could get some good ones of my cat - iknorite, so original. You might be seeing a lot of 'depth of fielding' (a technical term), from now on as I'm in love with how this lens works. So, so in love.



Made my decision to definitely go and see Mumford and Sons on Friday ♥, lovely, wonderful men, even if it will be crazy-busy.
I've somehow managed to get roped into going to ChessingtonWOF with my sister tomorrow, so I will be asleep by like 9, meaning I will be able to be up for 4, as we are now leaving at 5 instead of 7 - eep.

Finally, lookers; my sister and I are some.

All images © Ruth Johnston 2010.

I hope you have a nice week!

Tent experimentation.

I guess I promised something, even if I forgot to show the scale of the tent when we did get it up.
Gawsh, this is going to much more labour-intensive than I thought, I am paying the price for wishing for luxury camping, I may actually have to help put up the tent...
It will be so comfy once it's up though, and I may even cry with happiness.

Although we did manage to get it away, the bag is straining, I'm hoping it doesnt burst all over the field and into some mud.

After Glastonbury.

I'm going to go see some pterosaurs at The Southbank Centre and hopefully get round to seeing a recording of The Cube in Wembley. Hahaha ♥

Marcus Mumford, your voice makes me melt!

I forgot how much I love this song, I can't believe I only just found the video for it, I might not get to see them at Glastonbury as I'd probably be on my own, but I may brave it just to hear this live again.

I remember seeing them a little over a year ago when they supported The Maccabees at Southampton University, now look at them, it's so wonderful to see something blossom like that, you couldn't even buy a proper single when I first saw them, it was in cardboard and everything. I judge musicians' real popularity on Mums, Moon's mum loves these guys, but I love them more. Wasn't expecting this video to be funny, they seem so deep, then again they do hold barn dances, which I would go to, if they weren't always in London when I am not.
Even if their music wasn't brilliant, I just like the way 'Mumford' 'rolls off the tongue'. ♥

Pixar VS Dreamworks.

I always thought that Pixar was somehow better than Dreamworks in terms of overall quality but I couldn't ever tell you why, I now know why, thanks to whoever did this. My mind was blown.

Goal for today; Pack.
Then update website some more.

Hoopla.

My O2 Wireless tickets arrived in the post today.

Along with an apt Vice Guide to Festivals booklet, which is almost no use whatsoever and incredibly against most festivals for some reason, thanks Vice, the photos are nice though, even if they are teeny tiny. That's right, that's me kind of dissing Vice, still haven't read this month's issue though..

I completely feel like this today;

I was so bored, everything on TV is going on about football, and I've still got World Cup fever, just because it's more exciting than watching Big Brother - who cares if it's the last ever series, total good riddance.

I've been loving seeing these billboards and adverts all over recently, I'll take a better photograph of my own when I'm next out and about, they have a massive one of everyone in Dorking at the moment. They're from a wonderful art project call 'Got, got, got, need!', for which artist Elliot Quince has created large 'football card' canvases of the stars of the World Cup 2010. The work is currently being exhibited at The Offside Gallery in Islington and all proceeds are going to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital.

© Elliot Quince via Got, Got, Got, Need

I also came across a neat series today which shows the World Cup stars as vegetables/fruit, it's just for absurd amusement really, but I do admire Park Pea-Sung, Frank Yam-pard is a joke though, there's something really awesome to be done with Wayne Rooney, but that's not for me to work out.

© Kyle Platts and Rupert Murphy at Yep via Viceland.

I have re-done my website but there's still stuff to be done, I'm quite proud of what's there at the moment, but I am starting to realise to limitations of Mr Site, despite singing it's praises when I started the site in January.

Oooh.

Very much want/deserve this from Tatty Devine. But I do already have a pretty crowded neck, this would make it much prettier though.

These things I must do.

There are only 6 days to go until Glastonbury now and I am looking forward to it very much, perhaps less so the long drive there and back, but I'm looking forward to it a lot more than I thought I would be by this stage. I'm pretty pleased that at this point the MetOffice has forecast clear warm weather but I'm not getting my hopes up because it's still pretty early, I know it will probably be muddy anyway so the weather doesn't really change too much, but I do hope for no rain anyway.

I'm pretty pleased with what I've managed to accomplish in the last few days of being home and the work for Village Voice has really boosted my confidence, I think I will keep looking in the meantime as well though. Moon rose a point that were I asked to work over the course of Malden Fortnight for another company, I may be unable to due to the commitment, however, most events for Malden Fortnight take place over the weekend so I don't think it should be too much of an issue.

Things I Need to Do;
Pack for Glastonbury; properly.
Have practice run with the tent; will post results.
Update website; it's looking tired and there's a lot that needs adding to it.
Update CV.
More job hunting/ chasing up.

Here are some illustration that provided me with some amusement yesterday evening, Marc Johns, he has a similar style to David Shrigley, very funny.

© Marc Johns via Recovering Lazyholic

Valerie Hallier; Immortals.

Immortals is a photographic project by Valerie Hallier that comments on both consumerism and wastefulness by documenting basically everything she has owned over the past 10 years. Because of the way it's presented, we relate a lot of the objects back to ourselves and are perhaps forced to asked whether we really need so much stuff.
I wish I could get to see this in real life at some point, it's so neat.

© Valerie Hallier via Recovering Lazyholic

Pink, yellow, blue and red.

I think this is the most disappointed that I've been with an OK Go video, but it's still great, even if it's a bit repetitive, the last 10-15 seconds of the video does make up for this though. I'd really like to know the story behind the geese, it really looks like their following them half the time. They're probably the only band that I can really think that I'd like to work with - apart from maybe The lovely Maccabees - not even because I particularly like their music, which is probably why I'm not a great fan of this video and much prefer 'This Too Shall Pass', but I just love the brilliance of their promo's visual style, and you can tell they have a lot of input as to what to goes into them. Even making the coffee on set would be so badass.

Dothadew.

I think once they start selling this more widely it will be very popular, particularly at the price they're offering it at currently. Maybe when it becomes popular we'll get the DewMocracy over here, fingers crossed.

Maybe they'll do something about that horrid bottle too.

Video Room, Digital Age.

This is a pretty interesting commentary on the recycled and distorted nature of the digital age. The post cards of the Mona Lisa would all end up like this if everything had been digital from then on in. He turns in to some kind of weird alien by the end of it, so much effort though, it must have taken him a very long time.

A Thousand YouTube Iterations via The Creators Project Blog

On a related note, I won myself tickets to The Creators Project in London, 5 of them to be exact, the only bummer is that it falls on the same day as the Grad Ball, which I have already bought my ticket for and want to go to anyway. However, if some of The Creators Project event is taking place during the day, I may go by myself (as most people I would want to take would be in Portsmouth) and fob off tickets on people that desperately wanted to go, not that I don't, but I'm not entirely sure I won the competition fairly.

The idea was that you would comment on The Creators Project Facebook fan page and the selected comments with the most 'likes' would win the tickets, I got two likes and one of them was me, some got hundreds, maybe I just got pity tickets, I don't care, a win is a win and if I don't win tickets to any of the iTunes Festival shows I will count this as Fate's consolation prize, even if I really wanted to go to both. But then again, winning iTunes tickets two years running would be one serious fluke, especially seeing as I already got who I wanted and had an amazing time last year.

Today has been a pretty hectic day for e-mails, I feel like I've been doing them non-stop all afternoon. I stayed up a bit later than I wanted to last night sending out emails asking for work experience and I've managed to grab a position covering 'Malden Fortnight' for a free local magazine called, 'Village Voice', they won't be paying me but I will obviously get full credit and it might be fun to take in some local New Malden entertainment, I've written down the dates I want to cover in my diary already. Despite lack of payment, I'm quite excited about doing it because it goes out to all the houses round here and everyone will get to see them.
I also got an email back from the editor for The Kingston/Epsom Guardian wanting dates that I would be available, I hope to hear back from him later or tomorrow. I knew it would be a good idea to try and start small, I sent out another email to Company as well but I think I'll be left with no response like the last time. My cousin Mark also emailed me a pretty good paragraph about the mild identity crisis' that mixed race people have to go through which I guess is how I initially felt but I've changed my perspective on it a bit since thinking more in depth about the project overall.

Ladj Ly, Kourtrajmé; The Creators Project.

Kourtrajmé is a group that were involved making a creepy film I watched last summer called, 'Sheitan', it was brilliant, they're a really interesting movement and I'm very excited that they're being featured in The Creators Project with Vice and Intel. Kourtrajmé were also involved with making the cult short, 'La Barbichette', starring Vince Cassel, who they have had quite a bit to do with.

Ladj Ly, a member of the movement is who is being interviewed for this video, he cites Mathieu Kassovitz - director of La Haine - as one of his main inspirations. There is also mention of working within the African film industry to bring it forward, I wonder how far it will be taken and in what part of Africa they are involved with. With Kassovitz's involvement with Johnny Mad Dog - a film shot in Liberia - as well as his and Vince Cassel's close involvement with Kourtrajmé I really hope it's there, not only is it something Liberia needs, but it would also be great for my dissertation. I can't wait for The Creators Project to come to London.

via Electric Sheep Magazine for The Creators Project

Jenson.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I thought this was too nice to go with the other photographs, I have another one but the G10 doesn't do so well indoors. I'm betting Jenson's going to be a right ladykiller when he grows up.

Bye then;

I'm kind of glad that I haven't stayed in Portsmouth throughout June like I did last year, I think I will have more fun this way and more of an opportunity to try and find some kind of job for the summer, in which case I'd better start looking, I need to make some skills for graduating next year.

EMPTY ROOM.

After getting home I practically went straight to a family party, these are always a little bit dull but, probably for the first time that I will be able to remember, I met one of my two half-Chinese cousins. He is 47 next week, and leaned towards agreeing to help me out with my project next term. I sure hope it comes through because he's quite an interesting character more than anything but I also, there's such a large gap between us and from the perspective of the work, it will be great to see how someone from a different generation views what I am talking about.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Here is me enjoying one of my cousin Kims' tasty cakes, it's her job now and she's quite good, I think she's going to get roped into making my birthday cake.

First, 'what do you want for your birthday' question of the year, I knew it was good to start thinking about it early.