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This weekend, thanks to a tip-off from a friend I visited Kinetica Art Fair. Having been to last year’s event, I knew what to expect and so I came prepared with my camera.

Immediately, the art afficionados amongst you will have noted “camera” - Kinetica is a very informal event. Photography is allowed as long as it isn’t disruptive and many of the exhibits are interactive.

The artists are usually on hand to discuss their work and are typically very keen to do so. Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie gave me a very interesting walk-through the art/research project on computation models of creativity that he is involved with, for example. I also chatted briefly with Giles Walker who I met at last year’s event when he was exhibiting his pole dancing robots.

So, what did the art look like?

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This Friday I attended the Fashion In Motion catwalk show of clothing designed by Erdem at The Victoria and Albert Museum.

As you can see, I’m no fashion photographer! Unlike my friend Titus Powell, to whom thanks are due for obtaining the tickets to this event.

More pictures after the break.

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Despite having been there twice a week every week since January, I still managed to find a reason to go back to London City Airport for a third time this week: The London City Airport Funday 2009

Strangely, despite leaving my house, then going back for my umbrella because it was raining, at the airport we were in for the hottest afternoon that I’ve seen so far this year. Perfect day to see some aeroplanes, and I took plenty of pictures, including the one above, which I was especially pleased with.

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This is another “watching, not doing” blog entry. Can’t see myself doing this anytime soon:

I took this at the Thames Festival last week. It shows a member of the Free Running (aka Parkour) demonstration team performing a hand stand on the specially built stage. We were also treated to running, jumping and somersaulting from the rest of the team, all neatly dressed in their corporate sponsor’s logo. (Barclaycard - Who, incidentally, caused me a great deal of inconvenience this week, so I’m not feeling charitable enough to give them a free picture advert on my blog.)

Other highlights this week …

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I spent yesterday evening with James Randi & Friends - about 500 of them.

The event was this one, which promised “A rare opportunity to share an evening with James Randi and his associates in an evening of discussion about science, pseudoscience, scepticism and the paranormal.”

James Randi, in case you didn’t know is famous for being a skeptic and used to appear on TV shows debunking people like Uri Geller the spoon bender. James’ website his here and you can read more about him on wikipedia here.

So, am I now a fully converted Skeptic?

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I decided that since 35 is a kind of “special” birthday - well, it marks the traditional half-way point in one’s life - that I ought to do something to mark the occasion. Since Clare’s excellent Christmas Karaoke/Dinner party, I’ve been wanting to do karaoke again, so that’s what I decided to do for my birthday.

I realise that the picture just shows me, but that’s because I don’t like to post other people’s pictures on the internet without asking. I could happily do karaoke all on my own, but it is much more fun with other people. And, of course, I’d like to thank those delightful people for coming along to help me celebrate!

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Skate and Date is one of my friend Clare’s bright ideas for getting single people to meet up with each other. Predictably enough, it involves Skating (on ice) and Dating. It’s been a while since I last ice skated, so I thought I’d give it a go.

And after the break, there’s an “action shot” just to prove that I did actually take part in the Skating part of Skate and Date.

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Last night I went to see this - Jeff Wayne’s musical version of The War of the Worlds, based on the book by H.G.Wells.

You can read all about the original 1978 concept album here.

The show was a faithful rendition of the album with all live performers, many of them from the original album, band and full string orchestra. Even Richard Burton made an appearance as a computer generated animation lip-synched to his original recording.

So, how was my second trip to The O2 (to see Madness last week - fun, but they’re clearly getting a bit old) in just over a week?

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Select: A Night with Mark Titchner was part of this Friday’s Late at Tate Britain night. The theme of the presentation was “the psychology of excess, control and altered states.” - sounds like a pretty normal Friday night, then.

You can read about Mark Titchner here and here.

This is an example of his work:

I thoroughly enjoyed the films he’d gathered together, so for the benefit of those of you who missed the event, I’ve put together a list of all the video clips he used, with links to the actual video where possible. Enjoy

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It’s been a busy weekend. I’ve been out for each of the last four nights and each of those nights has involved loud music and staying out late.

This picture is from Friday’s Mobile Clubbing event which was held at Tate Modern.

Mobile Clubbing is a bizarre experience which involves turning up at a pre-arranged time and place (pre-arranged via the internet, of course!) and dancing to your personal stereo, along with a horde of strangers. The Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern was a perfect venue for this. Even the artwork currently on display conveniently allows plenty of room for people to dance around in the open space.

And speaking of the “artwork” … I guess it is pretty much obligatory for me to offer my comment. Being fair, the hall was very busy when I got there, so I couldn’t really take in the awesome wonder of a hole in the ground all at once. Being realistic, though, it is a hole in the ground. Neat idea with the name, though - Shibboleth. Only this time I think the Shibboleth is meant to flush out pretentious art critics and not the Ephraimites.

And that was just the start of the weekend clubbing experience …

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