PAINTERS ON PARADE
The internet has made it far easier for new artists to get their work into the public domain thanks to judiciously chosen blog links and online outlets provided by the likes of Juxtapoz.
This arts and culture magazine’s web presence has highlighted a huge and diverse range of work from Tessar Lo’s Shikishi art boards to the strange, symbolist paintings of Scotland’s Heather Nevay ( right). The Reader Art section is especially good for discovering new and interesting stuff, as anyone with talent can submit their work and have it displayed for all to see in hardly any time at all. www.juxtapoz.com
MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
Lists have become a highly useful, if sometimes irritating, way of getting a handle on all aspects of pop culture. If you love compiling your own judgments on movies, music and books, then Listal will enable you to share them with similarly opinionated arts lovers.
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You can list and review the things you enjoy and receive recommendations on the ratings you assign them. And, of course, you can connect with new people by joining and contributing to group threads on all manner of subjects, including Doctor Who, manga and Metallica. www.listal.com
PODCAST OF THE WEEK
The latest batch of Big Brother contestants will undoubtedly prove as forgettable as last year’s once the latest series has finished, but a select few contestants do remain in the public consciousness, such as nerd extraordinaire Jon Tickle, who has managed to parlay his fascination with science into a presenting job with the Sky television series Brainiac.
His “Tickle Army”, as well as anyone curious about such crucial questions as “How hard is custard?”, “Can you ride a bike on a treadmill?” and “Can you burn a candle at both ends?”, will find his podcast amusing and educational listening.
Thankfully, each episode is short and sweet: coming in at the very palatable length of exactly three minutes and 37 seconds. www.skyone.co.uk/ brainiac
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BLOG OF THE WEEK
Every music lover appreciates the aesthetically pleasing qualities of a beautifully designed record cover. Dismissing all talk of the end of physical music media, Hard Format claims that it is a “little place” where people can celebrate new, classic and historical music-related design.
The artworks are divided into compact disc, DVD and vinyl categories, and include such delights as Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand’s Camera Lucida, Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi and Martyn Bates’s Your Jewled Footsteps. All the works are accompanied by short, insightful notes on what makes them so special. www.hardformat.org