Article Magazine Issue 8

Article Magazine Issue 8 Guidebooks Concrete Daniel von Sturmer Obama Bikes Vibegeist

Article Issue 8 October 2009

Article is a brochure, a guide to the space that you are in.

Connecting urbanism, pop culture, fashion, music and criticism; Article is driven by the desire to demonstrate that the normal and everyday is in fact fascinating and absorbing.

for infrequent articles, comment and criticism, or just to see old issues www.articlemagazine.co.uk contact@impursuit.com Edited and Produced: Alasdair Hiscock and Ben Dunmore Some more Design: Thomas ‘Heg’ Heginbotham Advertising: Ben Dunmore ben@impursuit.com Tom Banham tom@articlemagazine.com

Special thanks to: Ben Duong (Nrth Marketing) Ralph Razor and Louis Buck for the endorsements, Mike Forrest, Max Wadsworth and Richard Ledger for tolerance, Tom Bobbin, Tina, Alice, Darren Chouings, Hannah Trev, Darren Topliss, Sally at the Rude Shipyard for understanding, Daniel von Sturmer and Site Gallery, and the VDV for inspiration: chestij khvala!

Special Sorry to: Joe Sandys, we were just jealous really.

Proof Reading: Jason Slade and Tom Cubbin Printed by Juma 1000 copies 3

P R I S M AN EVENING OF CONTEMPORARY ART, EVENTS AND CONVERSATIONS

FRIDAY 23RD OCTOBER, 8PM ONWARDS, £2 ENTRY BANK ST ARTS, 32-40 BANK STREET, SHEFFIELD, S1 2DS WWW.PRISMSHEFFIELD.WORDPRESS.COM

6. Lycra, Lubes and Innertubes The uglier side of bike shop fraternity Jason Slade

8. Heart on Sleeve, Obama on Chest T-Shirts, the American moral barometer Ben Dunmore

11. Mixtapes for Strangers As if you needed to be told that arcane formats are cool Charlot Webster

12. The Article Clubbing Index How sub-prime blogging has lead to market collapse Tom Banham

15. Freshers Guide-ish & Map Vaguely patronising advice The Article Team

22. Whose Revolution?

Iran, Twitter and a possible Nobel Prize Thomas Heginbotham

24. Baedeker, Terry, Murray Why old travel guides are better Tom Cubbin

28. Critic!

And why all Art History students would rather be curators Lucy Dunn

32. Sheffield Concrete The definitive list Essay by Alasdair Hiscock Quips by Ben Dunmore

INTERVIEWS 39. Daniel von Sturmer

This summer I went on a family holiday to the continent. My father, formerly a professional tour guide, had a few travel tricks up his sleeve. One of these was to bring travel guides of various nations for different purposes. To find pubs and friendly hotels he used English language guide books.

When looking for restaurants the natural recourse was to look at French books. And to find parking for cars and other services the German guides were unbeatable. It always seemed whoever was writing about one place, the outcome is always different, reflective of the writer’s perspective, needs and values.

Alasdair Hiscock

42. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart Felix Kirsch

43. Prism in Dialouge

Darren Chouings, Jamie Crewe and Daniel Fogarty

44. Echoes of Blackburn Meadows

Alasdair Hiscock

47. Man About Town

Ben Dunmore and Jason Slade

For this issue we endeavoured to make practical freshers guide book. It did not prove as easy as we thought. Instead we ended up with a massive section about concrete, a nearly useless topographical map of Sheffield and an essay about the nature of guidebooks themselves. According to our own argument then, this is what we value: building materials, topography and needless intellectualisation. We are not sure which nation this makes us, but most likely it is French.

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LYCRA, LUBE AND INNER TUBES As a kid the bike shop in my town excited me, I would walk past often, peering through the windows, glimpsing shiny bikes and related paraphernalia. Venturing inside, however, was a different matter. I wanted to, to inspect the machines and initiate myself into the ways of the proprietor and patrons but I couldn’t. The bike shop was a forbidding place where grown men discussed the intricacies of serious cycling in a language I didn’t possess. Serious cycling was what I aspired to and having convinced my parents to buy me a Trek rather than a Halfords bike I’d hoped I might be halfway there, but I was still way off. Leaping into the unknown, entering the bike shop with its array of gadgets, alien lingo and Lycra clad leg shavers was too daunting an undertaking for this self-conscious teeny-bopper: both literally and metaphorically I didn’t have the bollocks.

Back in the present I’ve just bought a new (second hand) bike, so you can imagine my dismay on discovering that bike shops feel as intimidating after puberty as they did before. In an attempt to discover why I have set out to discuss their 6

politics, revealing why getting ‘inside’ seems so hard and in turn why I run to Decathlon to buy my inner-tubes and cycling shorts. To aid my analysis I’ve isolated two distinct types of bike shop: Velo and Harrison’s.

In Velo you will not ďŹ nd a bike for under ÂŁ1500, and really you should be looking to spend twice that. Its name, the French word for bicycle, suggests why: it is only for those who already speak and fully appreciate the distinctly continental language of cycling (read racing).

This means hiding one’s pain and gracefully pushing huge gears up Alpine cols, it means never dreaming of swinging past a tea-room on a 5 hour training ride. There are no racks of fully built bikes here, the displays of frames and components are an art installation, and Velo is a temple. Worthwhile shopping means distinguishing between hand built Italian frames, between carbon ďŹ bre Campagnolo groupsets and knowing how to glue tubular tyres to your Mavic wheels. If this wasn’t daunting enough Velo isn’t to be found on a high street near you, it’s in a trendy residential area. This weeds out browsers (people who don’t take cycling

seriously) and means that inevitably you are the only customer, naked in the face of the proprietor, a sneering Italian Adonis who can see through your slacks and tell that you don’t shave your legs: ‘Easton EA90 SLXs, sir?’ This, together with the forbidding prices and the belittling displays forces you to acknowledge your ignorance, and leaves you ruing the day you dared to step inside.

Harrison’s, by contrast, is not owned by an Italian, oh no. Geoff Harrison’s grandfather opened the shop in 1936, a fact he’ll remind you of frequently in a thick Sheffield accent as he repeatedly smoothes his greasy comb-over. Sadly, however, it’s no less forbidding than Velo. You might be more likely to stumble across it, located as it is in one of the city’s minor high streets, but the grimy windows are far from welcoming. If you manage to see past the dusty display of children’s cycles (circa 1984) and then follow the narrow path between rows of bikes to be fixed, already fixed and awaiting sale you might see Harrison himself, clad in overalls at his work bench, illuminated by a 40 watt bulb and scowling. The impenetrability of his shop relates to the secretive, almost tribal nature of British cycling clubs. For a long period of time it was illegal to race on British roads, thus secret time trials were arranged where people would use code names to refer to a meeting place where, inconspicuously dressed, they would race against the clock. As a result bike shops seem to have acquired an air of freemasonry or espionage that, in my uneducated opinion, they have never lost. The spooks that haunt them are wary of outsiders and as such perpetually scowling; like the Welsh they converse in a secret language when others are present, which makes being in their presence unbearably unpleasant.

It seems, then, that we should conclude that the cold aura that surrounds cycling shops stems from something inherent in cycling and in serious cyclists themselves. The shops don’t need to be welcoming because, like junkies to a dealer, their customers will turn up anyway. Velo probably doesn’t even need to sell a bike a week to make it profitable for Marco and Geoff Harrison’s business is so intimately linked to the city’s cycling clubs that, rather like a porn baron, he is guaranteed a steady stream of customers after lube and chains

and tight fitting shorts. To carry the analogy further serious cycling is a bit like bondage: for those involved it’s incredibly exciting but they have to keep it a bit quiet because other people, with their cars and hairy legs, don’t really get it. This is what makes their circles so difficult to penetrate and for some, myself perhaps included, so alluring.

I should end now, before I embarrass myself further, but before I go I should say that Velo and Harrison’s are based on real shops but I’ve renamed them. If you discover their counterparts in reality I beg you not be deterred from entering, I’ve never been inside either and they could be oases in the cycling wilderness. A

*Note that neither of the bike shops mentioned in this article actually exist. If you think that they are referring to specific shops you are mistaken. Do not, however, take this article to signify that we are printing fiction. This article is about cycling shops in a generic sense and everything in this magazine is rock hard science proven fact, or at least something not dissimilar.

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Walking into a Wal-Mart in small-town America is an entirely uniform, daunting experience. You approach across the parking-lot and heat radiates from the pavement, hitting the underside of your chin. Looking around you see people walking to and from their enormous cars; countless shopping bags are full of easy cheese, fishing line, televisions and cheap t-shirts. Upon reaching the entrance there is a whoosh as the automatic doors part. The cold hits you: penetrating refrigerated cold, exacerbated by the complete exclusion of any natural light and the hum of the deep freezers.

The ceiling reaches up, cathedral like, higher than conceivably necessary. Ornamentation adorns only the packaging of the products and nothing of the vast utilitarian selling space. This is Mecca. This is home. I visit my aunt and uncle in West Virginia every two years; we always come here.

It is hard to convey the degree to which WalMart is the moral-o-meter of American attitudes.

A truly ubiquitous shopping experience it sells anything and everything you can possibly need, at rock-bottom prices. Being a giant corporation Wal-Mart has its fair share of vocal opponents, but the cheapness and breadth of its stock mean that at some point or other almost everyone shops there.

As such it is only natural that Wal-Mart would seek to stock the most middle of the road products, things that the majority of the nation wants to buy.

Seen in this light Wal-Mart is the ultimate mean of the most average American consumer.

This summer I made my bi-annual pilgrimage. We parked the Toyota truck and crossed the oceanic tarmac. I was most excited to repeat a success from previous years: buying presents for a few friends back in England, namely semi-ironic tshirts emblazoned with American flags, eagles and inspiring patriotic slogans. Back in the good ole’ Bush II days of 2006 almost all of the t-shirts had conveyed unquestionably patriotic slogans of blind

HEART ON SLEEVE, OBAMA ON CHEST

support for the internationally despised leader. The countless racks of shirts in patriotic base colours (red, white and navy blue) showed soaring eagles, flags blown elegantly by wind, and unmistakably American slogans: ‘support our troops’, ‘the land of the brave’ and ‘the best things in life are free: America!’

So it was with mixed feelings that I found this year to be ‘different’. Initially I was annoyed to find only a single rack of patriotic shirts. Where are the damn shirts? It’s nearly the fourth of July!

What will people wear? After over-reacting, cursing to myself in the aisle, I realised I was feeling something else, relief. The lack of these worryingly patriotic shirts suggested that the America of Wal-Mart had moved on, the Bush days of unthinking militancy and Americocentrism were, if not over, more sober. Yes, America still thinks it is the centre of the world, and there are flags everywhere, it’s just that now they are not as big.

With a heavy-heart I managed to buy only one shirt worthy of trans-Atlantic export and helped my aunt back to the car with what can only be described as American sized quantities of food, to be deep frozen and eaten next time I return.

A week later and I was in the airport, ready to go home and mildly distraught at having failed to make the acquisitions many of my friends depended on. I sat in the departure gate reading, dejected. There was to be a wonderful surprise, however. A t-shirt stall selling one type of shirt: the Obama shirt. That toothy grin in all colours, shapes and sizes. I bought five.

To “wear your heart on your sleeve” is perhaps too subtle for folks across the pond. An American’s heart is most usually worn on his chest, on a grey fruit of the loom XXL crew neck, sometimes tucked in. For me it is really hard to gauge how my homeland feels about itself now (losing wars, a financial mess and what not), but it seems that something has changed. If Obama has done one thing he has replaced the adornment of many American t-shirts and inadvertently made them less aggressive and confrontational. Instead of the militant slogans and bald eagles that seem to put off the rest of the world I now get to wear shirts with cheesy smiles and presidential motifs. There is hope after all. A 9

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MIXTAPES FOR STRANGERS The process of making a mixtape is my favourite part of mixtape exchanges. A mixtape is not the same as a compilation or collection, and the making of one doesn’t involve only rearranging track listings by the click of a button on a computer. They take time and effort and a love of your own record collection. Very rarely do I allow myself the time to spend a whole evening just sitting and listening to my favourite records, but when you’re making a mixtape it is the perfect excuse to surround yourself by all your best music and listen to it from start to ďŹ nish. I love eagerly awaiting the end of the song and jumping in to press stop before the next one plays, then cutting in the next chosen track at just the right moment.

These are the perks of mixtapes on cassette as opposed to digital formats. Sure, digital mixes are great for swapping bulk music, but a mixtape is a reel-to-real experience.

cassette. It’s free apart from the postage costs, and international exchanges are welcome. You can send in as many tapes as you like, as often as you like. What songs you put on, whether you decorate the sleeve, write your contact details, how long you spend on it, or how long it runs is up to you! A visit charlotwebster.wordpress.com to see featured mixtapes

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When I was younger, my friends and I used to exchange tapes a lot. It’d be how you sifted out the good from the bad in your friends. I would spend hours thinking about what songs would suit what people, and how they would react to the track listing‌ No way would I put “I will always love youâ€? on a tape for a boy I only just started seeing (I only own the Dolly version, not Whitney - I promise). But the great thing about anonymous exchanges is that all of the mixtape politics are forgotten. You can put on whatever songs you like, whatever themes or mood you choose, and not fear whether the recipient will like it or not, because you have no way of guessing! It’s liberating and it’s fun. So that’s why I started the CFW tape exchange.

I have a little cardboard box of mixtapes made not only by me but by people from all over the world, and when I’m not bringing it to gigs it sits next to my letterbox awaiting a delivery. At gigs people can come and put their tapes in personally, taking somebody else’s out in return. Alternatively, people send their tapes and a stamped addressed envelope to me, I swap their tape for them and send them back a new one in the post. There are no rules except it has to be a mix you made on a 11

THE ARTICLE CLUBBING INDEX

V(Hm+Ms) $/£(F+Ej) V

Hm = Hype Machine Pages 1=0-1 2=2-3 3=4-5 4 = 6 - 10 5 = 11+

Capacity 1 = 1-100 2 = 101-501 3 = 501 - 4000 4 = 1001 - 2500 5 = 2501 +

£/$

CURRENCY DEVALUATION

£/$ = relative currency strength

COSTS

Hm Ms

SIZE

V = venue = Capacity + Age Age 1 = 0 - 1 years 2=2-3 3=3-5 4 = 5 - 10 5 = 10+

INTENDED EFFECT

Ms = Myspace friends 1 = 0 - 100 friends 2 = 101 - 1000 3 = 1001 - 10,000 4 = 10,001 - 50,000 5 = 50.001+

F Ej

F = Fee 1 = 0 - 100 2 = 101 - 500 3 = 501 - 2000 4 = 2001 - 10,000 5 = 10,001+

EXAGGERATED BY

HYPE

INFLATED BY

FEES

Ej = Easy Jet flight + Beer + Hooker/rent boys + Coke = Costs 1 = 0 - 20 2 = 21 - 50 3 = 51 - 200 4 = 201 - 1000 5 = 1001+ ERGO: DUBFIRE IN DUBLIN X

COSTS SHOULD BE AS NEAR TO EFFECT AS POSSIBLE, SO 1 IS THE IDEAL RESULT.

SIRIUSMO IN SWINDON X BENGA IN BELGRADE ✓

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FAKE BLOOD IN FLORENCE ✓ VILLALOBOS IN VENICE X TIESTO IN TRIPOLI ✓

´$NQIIGTU CTG VJG UWD RTKOG NGPFGTU QH VJG GNGEVTQ YQTNF JCPFKPI QWV OCUUKXG DQZGU QH J[RG VQ RGQRNG YJQ ECP¡V RC[ KV DCEM YKVJ VCNGPV¾ Stuff always goes round in circles. Something underground gets big, becomes expensive and attracts a lot of wankers before losing popularity.

In the world of dance music, such market dynamics are nothing new. The commercial explosion of dance music at the end of the 90s sent clubland mainstream, which inevitably led to an astronomical hike in DJ fees and ticket prices. It was the era of big money clubbing, folks happy to travel the length of the country and pay crazy dollar for the privilege of seeing Paul van Dyk at Gatecrasher or Ministry of Sound. The rapidity with which clubland had moved from illegal M25 raves to lasers, furry boots and ÂŁ6 bottles of water was staggering, and in the absence of any viable alternatives the trance behemoths embraced the rock star lifestyle, raising their fees further and further. Eventually everything moved so far out of touch with reality that people cottoned on and the whole thing imploded, in the UK at least. Just glance at the utter twattery of events like Sensation White (a 20,000 person, 8 hour Tiesto wankathon of white-clad trance addicts ‘reaching for the laser’) to see that some people can’t get over the mixture of chemical euphoria and major chords.

DIY clubbing suddenly became the hot ticket, and people began to realise that the drugs and music could happen at a house party, or a garage, or in a park, and they didn’t have to hand over £30 for the privilege.

Coupled with the rise of nu-rave and the explosion of French electro, legions of kids with glow-sticks who’d been told by the NME to go and create a ‘summer of love’ went and pissed off proper clubbers by moshing to Waters of Nazareth then hugging each other. Cheap software and MySpace suddenly meant that anyone could be a producer, so suddenly everyone was. And anyone who wasn’t was a promoter. Scenes sprung up where you’d see the same DJs at every club night, all playing the same records, but it didn’t matter because it was all about the vibe, man, and we were living it, yeah? Then once in a while you’d go see Erol Alkan or 2ManyDjs and they’d be

playing the same records, so you knew that one day that’d be you up there. Yeah?

But eventually, as with any scene, things got over-saturated. Suddenly, kids who had set up their blog to share music that made them feel funky were being offered advertising dollar and sent free music. It became a mad scramble to be the ďŹ rst to post exclusives, which meant that any old shit they were sent got posted for the world to see. Since no one wanted to be left behind the other online morons stuck it on their sites too, and because hype is preferable to music people that should really stay in their bedrooms were suddenly being offered gigs up and down the country.

The above equation comes here. These bloggers are the sub-prime lenders of the electro world, handing out massive boxes of hype to people who can’t pay it back with talent. Thus, they inate their fees, people get excited and pay £7 to see them and then when they’re god-awful people stop attending nights.

The problem is compounded by the uselessness of the pound in Europe. For the price of a cafÊ noir and a Gauloise any French promoter can now book The Drum and Bass Lineup (the same one that’s been at every d&b event for the past 15 years) and put them up in a chateau. Compare this with Richie Hawtin’s upcoming gig at the Brixton Academy; he is being paid in corn because by the time he gets sterling back to Berlin it has lost half its value.

The Article Clubbing Index is designed to aid you in working out the optimal balance of purchasing power and local crowd expectation, so that you can make your money go further. Do you want to put on Benga in Belgrade? Tiesto in Tripoli?

Rather than having to gamble on costly DJ fees, just input your data and out will come stone cold information that will help you exploit the credit crunch and milk clubland dry. A

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Threads. every saturday @ DQ. 10.30-4.00am

Sheffields legendary Genre-less Clubnight.

Guests..

Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, Joe Carnell & The Bookclub, Howard Marks, Pilooski, The Metros, Raf Daddy, The Wombats, Pipes, James Endicott, 1965 Records, Violet May, Bromheads Jacket, Lords of Flatbush, Backhanded Compliments, Rossman Frister, Neil Sarjeant, Deluka!, Pete McKee, The Sugars, The Whip, Mark Ross, Andy George, Matt Helders, Louis Carnel, Toddla T, Martelo, The Heebie Jeebies, Skint & Demoralised, Stomp(live!), Andy H, Boy 8-Bit, Tronik Youth, High Rankin, Doves, Little Ze, (Sir) Alan Smyth, Arctic Monkeys, Milburn, The Reverend, Harrisons, Ed Maker, Andy Nicholson, Jon McClure, Richard Colburn (Belle & Sebastian),Terry Hall (The Specials), Filthy Few, Modern Romance, Chapman Family, Pygmy Globetrotters, Robert E Baker, The Stills, Parka, Adam Beard, The Teenagers, These new Puritains, Crystal Castles, Mumdance, Filthy Dukes, Ralph Razor, The Rascals, Gash DJs (Ibiza Rocks), Opus, Robot Rox, Dan Norris, The Suzukis, The Maybes, The Hosts, Dead World Leaders, Black Light Theatre, Dan Norris, Little Lost David, Alexander Groves, Pierre Hall & the Lead Balloons, Black Cherry, Neon Plastix, The Hair, Letters & Colours, Exit Calm, The Guild, Vegas Child, Mojo & The Beatnics, DJ Bri, Gas Club, Kelham Crisis, Cafe Racer, The Spires, Robot Disaster, Downfall of Paris, last but no means least Parrot & T-Bone (Made In Sheffield)...

"pre-bars every saturday at The Bowery & The Lescar" Threads LIVE events last wednesday of every month @ The Harley.

Search "Threads" on facebook.

WELCOME FRESHERS

This This is is aa token token gesture, gesture, or or something something like like that that anyway. anyway. This This section section is is for for you, you, FRESHERS. FRESHERS. I’m I’m sure sure that that you you are are all all sick sick and and tired tired of of being being patronized patronized about about how how great great itit is is to to be be at at uni, uni, how how you you need need to to wear wear condoms, condoms, how how mad mad halls halls are, are, how how crazy crazy being being in in first first year year is is and and all all the the unprotected unprotected sex sex you you are are expected expected to to have. have. So, So, we we will will spare spare you you more more of of that that trite trite drivel. drivel. Instead, Instead, we we have have taken taken itit upon upon ourselves ourselves to to tell tell you you only only the the truth. truth.

After After you’ve you’ve said said hello, hello, asked asked what what course course they’re they’re studying studying and and where where they’re they’re from, from, you’ll you’ll be be staring staring another another human human being being in in the the face. face. That’s That’s when when your your very very own own social social skills skills have have to to take take over. over. If If you you haven’t haven’t got got any, any, don’t don’t worry. worry.

Our Our advice advice is is to to look look at at what’s what’s on on their their t-shirt t-shirt –– aa band, band, aa gig gig they’ve they’ve been been to, to, aa cool cool illustration illustration -- and and talk talk to to them them about about that. that. If If they they are are wearing wearing aa white white shirt shirt doused doused in in aftershave, aftershave, you you probably probably don’t don’t want want to to know know them them anyway, anyway, so so feel feel free free to to walk walk away away there there and and then. then. No No niceties. niceties.

You You can’t can’t afford afford to to waste waste time time on on deaddeadends ends –– you’ve you’ve gotta gotta keep keep your your fingers fingers in in as as many many pies pies as as possible. possible. If If you you don’t don’t have have aa mobile mobile phone phone number number to to give give out out in in week week one, one, prepare prepare yourself yourself for for three three years years (plus) (plus) of of loneliness loneliness and and misery. misery.

MEETING MEETING PEOPLE PEOPLE

Almost Almost everything everything labelled labelled “FRESHER” “FRESHER” is is just just part part of of an an attempt attempt to to systematically systematically destroy destroy your your soul soul and and prepare prepare you you for for aa life life in in middle middle management. management.

The The following following section section is is intended intended to to advise advise more more than than guide. guide. There There are are some some general general tips tips for for getting getting along along at at uni, uni, as as well well as asArticle’s Article’s unique unique guide guide to to the the best best of of Sheffield.

Sheffield. The The thing thing is, is, ifif we we told told you you everything everything itit would would just just take take the the fun fun out out of of it! it! Feel Feel free free to to disregard disregard the the information information we we bestow bestow upon upon you. you.

PSEUDO PSEUDO VS VS POMO POMO

During During your your time time at at uni, uni, it’s it’s likely likely you’ll you’ll engage engage in in the the odd odd intellectual intellectual conversation. conversation. This This phenomenon phenomenon may may well well take take place place in in aa seminar seminar room, room, but but is is much much more more likely likely to to happen happen while while sat sat on on grotty grotty sofa sofa at at aa house-party house-party after after aa bottle bottle and and aa half half of of frosty frosty jacks. jacks. In In aa situation situation like like this, this, you’ll you’ll need need to to be be able able to to distinguish distinguish between between two two types types of of cock: cock: the the postmodernist postmodernist and and the the pseudo-philosopher. pseudo-philosopher. The The pomo pomo ‘stopped ‘stopped believing believing in in truth truth when when they they dropped dropped itit on on Hiroshima’ Hiroshima’and and ifif pushed, pushed, he’ll he’ll probably probably quote quote you you something something he’s he’s actually actually read read by

by Jean-Francois Jean-Francois Lyotard.

Lyotard. The The pseudo, pseudo, on on the the other other hand, hand, will will start start spouting spouting shit shit whether whether he he has has an an audience audience or or not. not. He He will will claim claim that that the the ‘Gulf ‘Gulf war war never never happened’ happened’and and have have no no idea idea what what he he means means by by it. it. And And after after reading reading the the Wikipedia Wikipedia page page on on Nietzsche, Nietzsche, he’ll he’ll lecture lecture you you vehemently vehemently on on how how he he believes believes in in absolutely absolutely nothing. nothing. The The former former can can be be interesting, interesting, but but the the latter latter is is intolerable. intolerable. Talk Talk about about the the football football and and he’ll he’ll probably probably go go away. away.

15

Your walls are the signifiers of your individuality. And after clothing, hair, choice of beverage and degree, it is your posters that you will be judged on. Of all the above, your wall decorations are the most simple to control, so choose carefully. Remember, the medium is the message. Or so says your pseudo friend. For example, it is a little known fact that English students are far more likely to sleep with you if you have a Smiths poster on your wall.

If you wish to bed one, take note.

It follows that in decorating your room you must take care to make it attractive to any prospective partners. Few people who want to sleep, much less fornicate, in a room with posters of beer and Homer J Simpson. To avoid shocking the sex of your choice, there is only one rule to follow; never attend a university poster sale. These exclusively sell the three most repugnant posters known to man: Scarface, Girl DJs kissing and Bob Marley. You may like these things, but having them on your wall is only surpassed by leaving an open tin of mackerel in your bin for two weeks.

POSTERS

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WATCH THREADS Threads is a light-hearted, mildly introspective comedy about what would happen to Sheffield in the case of nuclear holocaust. As an introduction to the city nothing surpasses. Produced in the eighties by the BBC, Threads is easily found online by searching google video. We recommend that for best effect, you watch it in a group of no more than four, in a dark room with a bottle of vodka stashed to blot out the film afterwards.

We take no responsibility for psychological or any other damage incurred as a result.

DJ-ING

Chances are you have arrived at uni and started going to clubs, possibly most nights of the week.

And chances also are that the DJs there have not been very good, both in terms of technique and musical selection. This has lead you to conclude: ‘Pssshht, I could do that!’ This is one of the most important steps in your adult life. Buy a pair of decks as soon as you have this thought. Do not delay. Within two weeks of still not being able to beat match you will be bored. But it is now out of your system, and it’s possible to focus on more important matters. Fortunately, there are plenty of others who will do the exact same thing, and you can now sell your decks to them. You are now an adult.

GAP YEAR STORIES Running Running out out of of conversational conversational topics topics is is surprisingly surprisingly problematic problematic in in the the first first weeks weeks of of university. university. You You may may have have just just met met someone someone and and after after the the usual usual rigmarole rigmarole described described in in our our meeting meeting people people section, section, you you will will have have realized realized you you have have nothing nothing to to say say to to them them any any more. more. This This is is where where an an ability ability to to lie lie becomes becomes helpful. helpful. Make Make things things up up to to make make yourself yourself interesting. interesting. For For those those of of you you that that find find lying lying difficult difficult we we have have intelligently intelligently devised devised the the Bullshit Bullshit gap gap year year story story generator. generator. Just Just roll roll the the four four dice dice and and get get aa combination combination of of factors factors that that provide provide you you with with the the necessary necessary raw raw materials materials to to construct construct aa plausible plausible yet yet stimulating stimulating gap gap year year story. story.

CIGARETTES AND COFFEE Whilst Whilst much much has has been been stated stated about about the the Titicaca Titicaca sized sized lake lake of of cheap cheap vodka vodka students students consume consume weekly weekly in in the the UK, UK, less less is is known known or or understood understood about about the the equivalent equivalent amounts amounts of of nicotine nicotine and and caffeine caffeine imbibed imbibed hourly hourly by by the the UK’s UK’s student student population. population.

Frequently, Frequently, five five Marlboro Marlboro golds golds and and aa large large black black Americano Americano constitute constitute aa nutritional nutritional meal. meal. The The fact fact is is that that smoking smoking makes makes you you look look cooler cooler and and more more French.

French.

Unfortunately Unfortunately itit also also remains remains that that smoking smoking whilst whilst drinking drinking coffee coffee creates creates aa powerful powerful laxative laxative effect. effect. Be Be warned. warned. Unless Unless you you are are aa French French Aristocrat, Aristocrat, the the coolness coolness attained attained by by smoking smoking whilst whilst drinking drinking aa café café au au lait lait is is not not sufficient sufficient enough enough to to cover cover up up soiling soiling yourself. yourself.

Lake Lake Windemere Windemere

Die Die 1: 1: Where Where

Thailand Thailand Uganda Uganda

Cuba Cuba

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Die Die 2: 2: Verb Verb

India India

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Die Die 3: 3: Who Who

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Trip Trip Supervisor Supervisor

Die Die 4: 4: Disease Disease or or Life Life threatening threatening condition condition

Leprosy Leprosy

Aids Aids

Malaria Malaria

Scurvy Scurvy

Dyslexia Dyslexia

Obesity Obesity

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There are several boutiques in Sheffield's city centre, most of which you will find in a single afternoon's walking.

There are, however, two other districts of note in Sheffield that are more than worthy of attention: Sharrowvale and London Road. London Road is well trodden territory for any self-respecting gastronome. For food, coffee, and even kebabs, this is the place to go. You can eat like a king, or an emperor, or Mao - there is food from basically any country you can imagine. Be warned, however, amongst so much choice there is also great danger for error. Choose your establishment carefully. Sharrowvale is less notable for food, despite boasting its own share of fine eateries.

Instead its Guardian middle class style boutiques are what make this neighborhood notable. Many of the shops in this area sell what can only be described as things, really nice things. More elaboration is difficult.

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Sheffield, Sheffield, thanks thanks to to its its system system of of roads roads and and footpaths, footpaths, can can proudly proudly claim claim to to be be as as metropolis metropolis like like as as other other great great English English cities, cities, such such as as Leeds Leeds and and Nottingham.

Nottingham. The The best best way way to to explore explore our our very very local local urban urban jungle jungle is is to to put put on on some some non-chafing non-chafing trousers trousers and and thick thick socks socks and and take take aa hike hike through through our our concrete concrete Eden.

Eden. Here, Here, article article curates curates walks walks of of three three cities cities which which all all happen happen to to be be in in Sheffield.

Sheffield.

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There There are are five five rivers rivers in in Sheffield, Sheffield, although although really really you you wouldn't wouldn't know know it. it.As As aa major major part part of of what what made made Sheffield Sheffield into into an an industrial industrial centre, centre, they're they're largely largely covered covered and and artificially artificially routed routed through through the the city city centre. centre. The The biggest biggest isis the the Don, Don, and and ifif you you follow follow itit eastward eastward from from the the city city towards towards Meadowhall Meadowhall you you can can experience experience the the strangely strangely placid placid industrial industrial landscape landscape that that surrounds surrounds the the city. city. It's It's aa nature nature walk walk that that passes passes alongside alongside weirs, weirs, odd odd business business park park landscapes landscapes full full of of brothels brothels and and some some of of the the biggest biggest buildings buildings you'll you'll ever ever see, see, as as well well as as factories factories with with fantastically fantastically evocative evocative names names and and strange strange products. products.

Of Of particular particular note note isis Kelham Kelham Island, Island, which which isis gaining gaining yuppie yuppie flats flats at at great great speed, speed, but but isis still still home home to to several several fine fine pubs, pubs, aa brewery brewery and and aa museum museum full full of of giant giant machines. machines.

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22 CULTURE CULTURE VULTURE VULTURE Sheffield's Sheffield's cultural cultural quarter quarter isis like like that that of of any any other other city; city; both both elusive elusive and and heavily heavily land-marked. land-marked. Its Its unquestionable unquestionable hub hub isis the the Showroom Showroom Cinema, Cinema, which which juts juts out out towards towards the the train train station station and and Park Park Hill, Hill, like like aa giant giant middle middle class class cruise-liner cruise-liner of of culture, culture, its its bar bar full full of of cappuccino, cappuccino, copies copies of ofArticle Article and and continental continental beer. beer. Many Many of of its its notable notable events events and and conferences conferences encourage encourage people people to to come come to to our our great great city city from from all all over over the the world. world.

However, However, whilst whilst the the Showroom Showroom may may be be the the landmark, landmark, itit isis by by no no means means the the only only part part of of the the elevated elevated industry. industry. Continue Continue down down down down Paternoster Paternoster Row, Row, and and you you will will see see that that many many of of the the old old workshops workshops have have now now been been converted converted into into art art galleries galleries and and studios studios for for all all kinds kinds of of creativity. creativity. Most Most notable, notable, and and consistently consistently open, open, isis perhaps perhaps the the Site Site Gallery, Gallery, (alas, (alas, itit isis not not in in aa converted converted factory!) factory!) Its Its free free exhibitions exhibitions of of contemporary contemporary artists artists make make itit perhaps perhaps the the best best gallery gallery in in the the city. city. Further Further down down one one encounters encounters other other studios studios like like the the Archipelago Archipelago Works, Works, Bloc Bloc Space Space and and Persistence Persistence Works.

Works.Although Although not not always always open open to to the the public, public, these these places places are are comforting. comforting. They They let let us us know know that that something something isis happening, happening, that that someone someone isis still still making making things. things.

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Get this – speaking to Fox news last month, Mark Pfeifle, a former Deputy National Security Advisor to George W. Bush stated that “If there’s anybody that should possibly get a Nobel Peace Prize the next time around, it should be the founders of Twitter.” That’s right, a Nobel Prize for the founders of Twitter! You might as well give a Nobel Prize to the inventor of the pen, because after all, Twitter is really but a medium – it’s what people do with it that counts.

But this praise comes after the chaps over at Twitter did a particularly noble thing indeed. They delayed site maintenance by two weeks in order for its users – Iranian or otherwise – to voice their views following the Iranian election and report on the protests that ensued. So, let me get this straight – they’re should get Nobel prize for taking a twoweek holiday?

Other commentators joined Pfeifle, heralding “a new stage in the evolution of social media,” in the form of Iranian twitter use and expressed amazement at the amount of information that was supposedly “flooding out of the country.” But considering that only a third of Iranians even have internet access, let alone an active Twitter account, just how substantial a flood was it?

According to Pfeifle, “221,000 tweets about Iran were sent on June 17th alone,” giving a voice to those who have previously been silent. Well, that sure does sound impressive, but ‘tweets about Iran’ are not ‘tweets from Iran.’ And herein lies the problem. Whose Twitter revolution was it?

In the height of the frenzy, you could receive up to 2,500 tweets a minute via the Twitter stream entitled #IranElection. That content, however, could come from just about anywhere in the 22

world, and with tweets like ‘The revolution will be tweeted’ and ‘My Twitter photo has gone GREEN in support of the freedom revolution of #IranElection’ being re-tweeted countless times each day, one has to question whose voice we were hearing, and whether the medium was really being used to its full political capacity.

As you may have expected, the majority of tweets which came through the #IranElection stream were from the States; again, tweets about Iran, not tweets from Iran. Many were quicker to thank Twitter for its supposedly ‘historical role in the #IranElection’, pointing out the ‘social media WIN – CNN FAIL’ we were supposedly witnessing, than they were

‘IRAN: CONFIRMING 10~15 dead at dorms last night! Floors are covered w/ blood!!!’

to comment on the actual issues themselves. In some bizarre, self-fulfilling prophecy, the more users congratulated Twitter about its supposed involvement in the election, the more it appeared to be involved! All of a sudden it appeared we’d had a revolution worthy of a Nobel Prize.

But the second, perhaps more pertinent issue at hand is one of reliability. Worryingly, one of the most common retweets seen during the protests was this: ‘RT From Iran: CONFIRMED!! Army moving into Tehran against protesters! PLZ RT! URGENT!’ In fact, there was no Army move against protesters, and the tweet was anything but useful; it was a harmful lie. Another frequently retweeted American tweet stated ‘IRAN: CONFIRMING 10~15 dead at dorms last night! Floors are covered w/ blood!!!’

Again, one hundred and forty characters of hysteric misinformation, designed specifically to antagonize.

This ‘American-generated Iranian Twitter revolution’ is a strange phenomenon which one commentator labeled ‘participant voyeurism’. It allows people to create the ‘news’ about Iran for Iranians themselves, apparently making it up as they go along. One tweet even encouraged users to ‘Help protect Iranian tweeters by changing your timezone to GMT+3:30 and location to Tehran’ thus further distorting both the stats and the events themselves.

One user described how they were ‘following #IranElection closely. Fascinating watching the protests unfold’, but in following such streams, you are not actually watching the protests – you are entertaining an illusion, observing a hyperreal event generated by the tweets themselves.

When a medium is placed solely into the hands of the people there is inevitably going to be a certain lack of quality control. Some tweets pleaded users not to ‘retweet anything until it’s confirmed, spreading rumors will do more harm than good #iranelection’ But from where is such confirmation likely to come? While propaganda journalism often gets unmasked, in Twitter, propaganda gets retweeted and thus remasked. What we get isn’t a Nobel-Prize-worthy collection of political dispatches, but an incredibly large volume of tweets, severely lacking in content and integrity.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely against the idea of Twitter’s founders receiving a Nobel Prize – as a democratic tool, it does have potential – but if they are going to get one, it certainly shouldn’t be for this. A

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“THE AVERAGE JAPANESE LIVES TEMPERATELY AND FRUGALLY, BUT EATS NOISILY AND RAPIDLY.” “THE POPULAR IDEA OF CLEANLINESS IN ITALY IS BEHIND THE AGE.” ACCORDING TO BAEDEKER, RUSSIANS HAVE THICK NECKS AND HAVE LITTLE CAPACITY FOR INDIVIDUAL THOUGHT.

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“Go, little book, God send thee good passage, And specially let this be thy prayere Unto them all that thee will read or hear, Where thou art wrong, after their help to call, Thee to correct in any part or all”

There are always inconveniences associated with travelling. For those who are interested in the various ethical issues you can worry about your carbon emissions, environmental damage and blah blah blah blah...we paid to offset our carbon, we hitched everywhere etc.. Other inconveniences include Australians, listening to Australians bonking in hostel dormitories, dealing with Australians telling you how pissed they got in every major European capital and Australians complaining how expensive Europe is. Pseudo-philosophers are another source of annoyance; a friend’s holiday was recently ruined by bumping into Alain de Botton at Heathrow Terminal 5 where he was researching his new book about head in the clouds travel philosophy bullshit-cum-nonsense.

Most inconvenient of all, are out of date guidebooks. I must admit, I belong among those who have a mortal fear of being spotted as a tourist and so my guidebook is always kept in my fanny-pack where it can’t be seen. There are occasions though, when guidebooks become indispensable which is also the time they generally fail. This is usually at about 10pm in the rain when I am trying to find a restaurant which has either closed down or never existed. This is why I thought to myself, if I know the guidebook will be out of date, then why not go to the extreme. On eBay I found a Baedeker guide to Northern Germany (including large areas of Poland) originating from 1983. I booked some flights, adorned my woollen underwear and set off (albeit by air) to Hamburg in order to experience the city as a Victorian would have done. The inside cover is reassuring; travel back then was scary and you could land in real trouble. There may be mistakes in the guide, but hey, God is on your side: the prayer above is presented on the inside cover.

Our little adventure was not incredibly successful. After arriving at the new bus station, we realised our maps were useless, and unable to use the metro we walked to the centre and sold on the promise of a large edifice with elevators and baths, we found the Hamburger Hof hotel staff to be pleasant, but they declined our offer of the 17 Marks as advertised in the guide book. We were met with further resistance when insisting upon free entry for the Church of St. Nicholas when a giant German moustache man shouted “NO, ZISS BOOK ISS VERY OLT.” Despite some problems caused by errrm, bombing, our tour was generally without incident and it was interesting to see how the city had changed. The sleazy Reeperbahn however, seemed to have retained much of its dubious reputation – though the guide describes it lightly as an area “principally frequented by sailors, for whose amusement booths and shows of every description abound”.

Even today, your choice of guide book may have a big effect on how you see a city. Use a French edition if you want to eat well, a German one for details of where to park your car and a Dorling Kindersley guide if you don’t like going out at night, don’t want to wander more than five meters from a main road and if you can’t imagine a building without the aid of a cartoon drawing with lots of little people.

The first practical travel guides, notably Baedeker’s, Terry’s and Murray’s guides are incredibly practical and surprisingly in depth, covering customs charges to topographical descriptions written by Oxford academics. They were targeted towards budget travel as the books came about with the rise of steam ships and a merchant class who were now able to travel. These were a breakthrough compared to the previously available travelogues written by aristocrats. A favourite of mine is “Lady Craven’s journey through the Crimea to Constantinople” who encountered many problems such as her carriage continually 25

THE JAPANESE CUSTOM IS TO TAKE NO NOTICE OF ONE’S BATHING COMPANIONS, BE THEY MEN OR WOMEN...A SURVEY OF ONE’S PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS IS APPARENTLY NEVER THOUGHT OF.

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overturning (shedding her toilette across the path) and being subjected to peasants’ dances in every “vile little village”. The new traveller was not likely to be invited to receptions with Catherine the great, so advice on how to make do with hoteliers and restaurants when you didn’t speak the language was vital.

The attractions they advise you to see are rather different when compared to modern day guides. Baedeker’s guide to England, aimed mainly at American tourists, contains much advice on how to contact mill-owners and industrialists as during the industrial revolution the newest technologies and fashions were of as much interest to the traveller as the ancient and the picturesque. In an age before mass media, libraries are often mentioned as an important stop on a tour.

The advice given to travellers ranges from the garrulously in depth to the incredibly succinct summing-up of entire cultures. We learn that “The average Japanese lives temperately and frugally, but eats noisily and rapidly.” And that “The popular idea of cleanliness in Italy is behind the age.” According to Baedeker; Russians have thick necks and have little capacity for individual thought.

Whilst travelling it is of course vital that one follows the latest fashions: “On transatlantic ships many people dress for dinner; fancy-dress balls and dances are features on both and experienced travellers usually provide themselves with some sort of bizarre outfit before starting.” This I assume, is in contrast to the more serious get up worn by a tourist in Germany; “For a short tour a couple of flannel shirts, a pair of worsted stockings, slippers, the articles of the toilette, a light waterproof, and a stout umbrella will generally be found to be sufficient equipment.” The description unfortunately fails to mention trousers.

My favourite advice is the kind given to travellers to avoid social faux-pas when abroad.

This was a particular danger for widows on a tour of Japan with large mosquito nets: “Ladies who find their nets too large had best complain of the matter in a guarded manner, since in certain districts of Japan for a widow to mention that her mosquito net is too large is equivalent to a disposition on her part to name the day.” Please tell me if you know what this means. Maybe she just has to say what day it is but can’t speak Japanese. What happens if she doesn’t? Thankfully Terry’s guide to Japan includes a small phrase book. Also mentioned is the propensity for the Japanese to climb into baths with you, but don’t be worried because “The Japanese custom is to take no notice of one’s bathing companions, be they men or women...a survey of one’s physical characteristics is apparently never thought of.”

I do often wish that modern guides could be a little livelier, which I must say is sometimes achieved in Lonely Planet guides and the open source(ish) InYourPocket guides, something missed entirely by the very dry and illogically arranged (with bad maps which rarely fit the streets) Rough Guides. However, I have nowhere read such a damning description as the following one of Sheffield published in the Thorough Guide to the Peaks from 1894: “Hitherto it has not been fashionable with guide-book writers to associate Sheffield in any way with the peak district....Words cannot well paint it blacker than it has painted itself, and any remarks upon the praiseworthy attempts which it has now been making for many years to assume an outward appearance more in accordance with its size and commercial importance would be out of place in a guidebook to the picturesque...The moment its smoke-vomiting chimneys and ugly red-brick streets are left behind, the tourist’s interest commences.”

These books are often quite cheap to find on eBay, and there is a great selection in the university library. Hopefully I’ve given you loads of enthusiasm. Unfortunately I’ve just lost mine, as I just spent ages reading loads of them. They’re quite interesting if you’re going somewhere but it’s bloody boring if you’re sitting at home trying to fill up space in an article about them. If you’re a geeky tourist like me you’ll enjoy the maps of galleries noticing that the DaVinci’s have been moved since a hundred years ago and pretend to be surprised. If not then piss of to Benidorm with a Danielle Steel novel. Weirdo. A 27

CR IT IC

I study art history, and the question I get asked most (apart from whether, three years down the line, I consider it a stupid choice) is whether I am planning to become a curator. Curating is a fashionable thing to do, and something most people in the art world have a bash at. It is the direction many people on my course are headed, rather than towards criticism. Contemporary art criticism is an odd thing, and often falls into one of two camps: blustering damnation, usually from the older generation like the Sunday Times critic, Waldemar Januszczak (his reviews of work this side of the 19 century are leaning more and more towards the ‘I don’t know anything about modern art but I know what I like’ position), or careful acceptance of everything the artist says the work is about, because it sounds new, fashionable, and complex..

Too many critics give the impression of trying to convince both us and themselves that they really do understand the work they are presented with.

As the authoritarian voice of the art critic has waned, it is curators who in today’s art world are the coordinators of taste, and it is not uncommon to 28

find a curator’s name billed higher than the artist’s at exhibitions.

The 1950s was perhaps the heyday of vibrant art criticism. Celebrity critics like Clement Greenberg would not only sort the good art from the bad, but regularly visit artists in their studios and advise them how to improve their work. This was not to increase its marketability, as most avant-garde art didn’t make much. Art was judged according to the principles of the critic, who had an ‘eye’ for art. The critic saw his job as a noble one, more aligned with the philosopher than the dealer.

Postmodernism encouraged suspicion of voices of authority and a perceived elite of avant-garde artists and critics. Popular art became art which referenced everyday life, familiar things people could relate to. By the 1980s and 90s art criticism was less influential, as quality and worth was determined by the art market. Artists became businessmen, and everyone knew that an artist was good because their work was being bought for millions. This method did create some strange situations. Peter Doig, while still a relatively young and untested artist, was elevated to a status worthy of a Tate retrospective, on the back of an unusually high sale at auction. And tricksters like Damien Hirst messed with the system, making artworks into automatic luxury good, with material like diamonds and gold . But generally, this was a time when criticism was less relied on because the market regulated all.

Of course, harsh art criticism outside Daily Mail vitriol is very uncool. The art world is a lot of fun these days, and artists and galleries like having a laugh. Why spoil that? Critics don’t see their role as the noble calling Greenberg and his circle did, a kind of ethics of aesthetics. But we need relatively impartial judgement in the art world, otherwise artists can get away with telling us that everything they do is absolutely fascinating. New art has a lot more going on than most of the YBAs’ work did; we are moving beyond outlandish gestures to artists talking about their practice in terms of ‘networks of ideas’, ‘platforms’, ‘creating possible worlds’.

Criticism needs to keep up. We don’t need the totalitarian voice of the modernist critics but we do need debate that gets us somewhere, and doesn’t just see the potential for discussion as an end in itself.

The Sun’s ‘white van man’ critic who happily poked fun at cows in formaldehyde will have trouble

with a lot of new art, as it tends to make fewer individual shock gestures. Of course the grand old themes of life, sex and death are still here, but there is more and more concern with the environment, new technologies, and travel. Fewer works are seen to be complete, but are part of ongoing and overlapping projects between the artist and various other institutions. Simon Starling sends plans of furniture designed by Francis Bacon via radio waves to another continent. Katie Peterson sets up telephone conversations with melting glaciers.

For this year’s Manchester festival, Punchdrunk and Damon Albarn created it Felt Like A Kiss, a performance/installation/house of horrors.

the quality of the work. There are many excellent artists who are not part of the core YBA group simply because they weren’t at Goldsmith’s in the late 1980s. With the curator in charge of taste, we end up with a series of artists which we are told are worth discovering simply because the curator has assembled them for us. It is like replacing book reviews with a list headed ‘people who bought this book also bought…’. it tells you nothing about he quality of any of them, only that someone, somewhere made a link between them.

“SO MANY CRITICS HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN HOW MUCH THEY UNDERSTAND”

Modern art was difficult to understand, and needed people to explain it to us. Postmodern art was easy to understand and needed people to sell it to us.

Today’s art is everywhere and interdisciplinary and needs people to navigate it for us. But we need decent criticism too. Otherwise we end up with exhibitions like boring bloody Belgian Jef Gey’s recent show for Venice, Quadra Medicinale. Photos of weeds he had seen on street corners, accompanied by botanical illustrations of these weeds, and maps of the streets where they were found. Accompanied by a catalogue of diary extracts from his travels while finding these plants. It may have ticked all the boxes for fashionable contemporary art, (travelling artist/maps/graphs/autobiography/nature) but the outcome was tedious.

Damien Hirst’s For the love of God (2007) The curator has become the figure to pull meanings from the tangle of new practices. The problem with allowing the task to fall to them is that we do not find out what is bad art. If a curator assembles a group around himself and declares they have an affinity or connection, one must be in the know to work out who might have been left out and why, which may not have anything to do with

We need arbiters who will notice which of the new generation of leading artists are doing something genuinely exciting worth watching out for, and which (and there are plenty) are involved in projects that are earnest and worthy but a bit dull. Curators have filled the role of taste makers because so many critics have lost confidence in how much they understand. Let’s have more analysis and a little less schmoozing in the art world. It’ll be healthier all round. A 29

charged

jumper sessions

Sheffield Concrete Sheffield’s concrete constructions are hard to avoid. Occupying whole areas of the city, these vast superstructures in rough cast stone are always apparent, but often underestimated. In order to show just what we mean, Article has curated a populist-list of Sheffield’s five best concrete mega-structures. A mega-stroika if you will. The only qualification for entry was that the concrete was cast on site.

is, home to the everyday world.

Let’s begin with an immediate reaction though. Certain concrete buildings have a ‘fuck’ factor.

They make you exclaim, as if they are unrealistic, beyond the level of comprehension. They are huge, with wide expanses of open surface - like Abstract Expressionist paintings, the sheer material expression means that you can never get far enough away. This leads to the design Brutalism at its best is something and appreciation of the most wonderfully banal details. Look that ought to be celebrated, if not for the miniature castle motifs only because when compared to the constructions of today, it offers that span the surface of Castle a huge insight into the thought that Market’s exterior, or the finely yes, the future could be built right crafted steps of an electricity subhere. It is the height of a primitive station.

British modernism, a cast So when you get close, you are concrete jolt of activity in which enveloped. Which is the point the multiple directions, multiple really. These are superstructures, speeds and multiple perspectives and their architectural significance of cubist-futurism are put to task lies importantly in something that in grey northern landscapes, is not always visually apparent anchored by thousands of tons - the programmatic, rather than the of structure. If that suspicious continental modernism expressed tectonic. Inside, you might notice the resolution of wildly varying the new world of the factory and machine, something already dated functions, to the almost parodic, in Britain, Brutalism was, and still SimCity-esque degree. You can

move in every possible direction, from space to space through fun palace like interiors, stepping between levels and interior and exterior. Castle Market and Park Hill in particular are extraordinary experiments in attempting to resolve - with minimal symbolism - an enormous project of many contradictory demands. It’s a mess, but it’s exciting.

As such, Sheffield’s concrete structures deal with landscape in a way that is otherwise ignored.

In a place so topographical as Sheffield, this becomes an amazing array of entrances, walkways and stairs. Park Hill has a uniform roof level as it snakes across the hill, in which you can enter at ground level and emerge at the top at the other end. Not only is this architecturally intuitive and clever, it’s a great articulation of landscape that allows you to appreciate the ground beneath you. It’s one part classical design, another part huge prehistoric ruin - it’s possible to seem both premodern and high-tech at the same time, in a huge, ugly building.

Of course, none of this suggests that any of these buildings are particularly likeable. Yet with the creeping redevelopment of the city, and the building of more visually appealing architecture it seems that there is a corresponding decline of imagination. The future just isn’t what it used to be.

3.

The ones that didn’t make it 1. This Church on Ecclesall Road looks more like a bunker, we love it.

2. Persistence Works is great.

Unfortunately the concrete for it was precast.

3. Lunging into the sky, St. Paul’s tower echoes the wonderful brutalism of the Barbican complex in London.

Shame they are just going to clad it in cheap tinted glass.

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Geography Department It could really be the Stasi head quarters in EisenhĂźttenstadt or the technical college in KarlMarxBaden. The concrete here feels closer to highly ďŹ nished, continental modernism than English brutalism; this sensation is compounded by the large panes of colourless glass and weird interior staircase.

4

The Ramp This is brutalism at its purist: entirely unintentional and in the way. The ramp of Atkinson’s car park lurches over pedestrians inventing its own scale. It might not be enormous when compared with Park Hill or Castle Market but its isolation on the Moor makes it one of the most daunting pieces of Concrete in the city.

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3

Park Hill

Perhaps Sheffield’s most infamous building, Park Hill has recently become a favourite of BBC2 prime-time documentaries that look at its idealism as emblematic of its age. Whilst most brutalist buildings that didn’t work have been demolished Park Hill is the first large scale one to undergo total re-development. Sheffield should be honoured that someone is bothered to undertake this experiment. Just be patient: if those Etonian lovies at English Heritage fuck it up you can always demolish it later.

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2

Castle Market

Built at nearly the same time as Park Hill, Castle Market seems to have fared slightly better. The experience of entering for the first time is hard to describe but highly recommended. It conveys Sheffield’s agelessness and consistency. This should really be a famous landmark like the great markets in London, Barcelona and Budapest. The fact that it still functions seems to prevent this. It seems you cannot invent nostalgia for a thing that is working. Still, it is number one on my list of things to show people in Sheffield now that the Arts Tower’s paternoster has been temporarily removed from commission.

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1

Moore Street Substation

I hear dubstep whenever I see this building: lurching over it seems to force me into the ground. Its only purpose is to keep people out and yet it succeeds in drawing me into it. It is amazing! What’s most fascinating about this building is how playful and detailed it is.

Concrete beams stick out like children’s linking logs. Even though the building is designed to keep you out, the beams stick out waist high at the bottom as if to invite you to try your luck at climbing. Yet no one talks about this building. No one wants to celebrate it, and no one wants to blow it up. It just sits on the Ecclesall Rd roundabout chillin’.

Perhaps why no one complains is because all the buildings on the roundabout are disgusting, hideously bland structures. Beside the identikit dullness of the recently built Velocity Tower that faces the substation raw concrete becomes sexy, fun and individual. A

article inter views

Set Piece, by Daniel Von Sturmer is currently showing at Site Gallery, Sheffield until October 31. Based in Melbourne, this is his first solo show in the UK, having represented Australia at the Venice Biennale and working internationally.

The exhibition is an installation of a series of small video screens and projections arranged in a space designed by Von Sturmer himself.

In the centre of the gallery, a large partition has been built, which narrows the space and creates strong perspectives towards either end. The works set in this space become inter-related as the viewer has to move between them - unexpected views between pieces occur as you move around the gallery.

Von Sturmer wants to investigate measurements, scales and the ubiquitous definitions of space that are around us. The backgrounds of some of his videos feature deformed grids and scales, in others small scale, hand made ‘modernist’ shapes are arranged into compositions. The measured, perspectival understanding of space is confronted by the flat picture plane. Article spoke to him at the opening of the exhibition.

To begin with, explain this exhibition in the context of your other works.

daniel von sturmer

I’m quite interested in looking at exhibition spaces, existing gallery architecture and trying to either work with it or intervene in how it’s working. In this show I had the idea of making a structure that sat in the middle of the space and changed the way that you move through it quite radically. It creates an impression of corridors or antechambers whereas before it was one open space. Part of the reason for that was to let you move through and provide long views of things that I put in it, so videos come out from the wall; the video space intervening into the real space of the gallery, an interface between pictorial space and real space.

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What’s distinctive or interesting about the Site Gallery space for you?

The main thing that I had to deal with was that there are two spaces and the main space is divided up by two large columns. I’d had a few ideas around the columns and a few ideas about floor based work, about making a kind of topography on the floor. I settled on this idea because I wanted to completely change it, almost like erasing the memory of these columns. I wanted to take that experience away and extend the viewer’s reading of the space over time.

It seems quite architecturally influenced, how do your experiences of architecture influence your work?

For me, I try not to think too much about architecture per se, it’s almost like it’s a different practice, but I do think about the creation of space and the nature of how the viewer is going to move through it. I like using existing architecture, so I like to see some existing way of how viewers might enter a space and then exit and then trying to relate something very simple within that. So it’s a very kind of elemental idea about architecture rather than thinking about specific feeling qualities of space.

You don’t deal with typology for instance?

No, definitely not. It has less to do with the idea of the site of the gallery but the general idea of a Site. It’s less about history and more about the immediate feeling the viewer has. In previous works I’ve worked in an artist run space in Melbourne called 1st Floor and one of the works I did there was removing a section of wall and replacing it with glass, creating a view both into and out of the space.

But it was integrated so fully that it was almost invisible to anyone who didn’t know the space that well. So it’s about setting up those interplays between the way that you interact with space and what you might be seeing.

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There’s a strong pictorial element to the work, and I wondered how you started with that and how it developed into video work.

I studied painting and my interests were always to do with perception and psychology. I was always trying to work with paint and find a language with it, but I was never really comfortable with where I could get to with it. I started integrating film and video in relation to image based things I was doing on the wall which were kind of more collagic or assemblage in nature. Gradually it just kept moving off the wall, and the space of the viewer became more and more important to me. At the same time I had this interest in image making and how you activate the space through images. It was quite organic in that sense.

“IT’S ABOUT SETTING UP THOSE INTERPLAYS BETWEEN THE WAY THAT YOU INTERACT WITH SPACE AND WHAT YOU MIGHT BE SEEING”

And what about materials, the blutak and the handmade elements?

It’s something that I only really thought about a few years ago was that a lot of the things I was interested in back then were to do with the material quality. They were things that sat between definition, they had utilitarian function, but when you examined them as objects and materials, they are quite strange - they are familiar, but they have this oddness and I like that sense that they slip between linguistic parameters.

That’s interesting in reference to scale and measurement in the works and it seems like you are trying to turn something that can be measured into something that can be appreciated as an image, an aesthetic.

It also that there’s a tension between something that’s nebulous and unformed and tenuous, like these videos are quite performative in nature. They’re not unstructured, but the camera is allowed to record all the actions that are there. It’s quite awkward, and could be perceived as mistakes. And it’s about that struggle to find form within an informal structure.

So do you start with an image that you want to create, are we watching you playing in these videos?

There is an element of that, definitely, but it’s deliberately open ended. I would do lots and lots of takes and then discover the work through that, so it’s quite analogous to painting, where you might find and reveal stuff as you go over it and then cover other stuff up. It’s a very similar studio based process to me and with this body of work it’s quite interesting to try and explore that quite palpably and make it very much a clear factor of the work.

With the performance element, even though you don’t see it, the hand in the work is deliberately left out, there’s a slightly gawky awkward quality. And hopefully there’s also an empathic moment in that as well, where it’s recognisably like doodling.

You work in Melbourne, how is that in relation to exhibiting internationally, and looking at Europe?

That’s an interesting perspective, it might be the perspective from here.

I think that anyone who perceives Australia and New Zealand to be away from what they perceive to be the centre will feel that distance. But

that’s a model of thinking that I’m not that interested in maintaining, and I think in lots of ways has fractured now. The condition of working is that there’s a sort of shared simultaneity of information, on the internet, in magazines - we all read the same magazines, at least in the western world. So the idea of a centre-periphery model is very questionable in the current climate.

But, having said that, there are always little differences and qualities that will come through in someone’s work. Part of the reason why I’ve chosen to maintain connections with that part of the world is that it’s the culture I’m familiar with and involved with, and there must be something in it that maintains me, if you like. If I was just to move from that space and move into a new space I’d have to start again. At first you’re an outsider, and then you slowly become involved in that culture.

Australia has a lot of similarities to here, but at the same time it’s definitely different.

In other forms of contemporary art that deal with the conditions of a specific location, there’s a lot

of emphasis put on the process, the journey, the recording. Do you consciously move away from that?

A little bit. I think that it can be more valid in some peoples’ practices than others. Some people have a very autobiographical relationship to their work and in that context it makes more sense. I’m quite clinical about the work, and the work in a sense is quite clinical, it’s about very specific conditions and testing things. I see art really as a mode of enquiry, a way of testing knowledge and testing our thinking, so I’m not really interested in imbuing it with a personal flavour. It’s inescapable, it’s like the trap of embodied experience - you can’t actually step outside of it, but you can maintain a wary critical perspective.

It’s always to a degree, there is no utter objective perspective because there’s going to be multiple perspectives from the viewer. A Daniel Von Sturmer, Set Piece installation, 2009. Images courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.

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the pains of being pure at heart

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, four mid-twenties indie-pop nostalgics from Brooklyn, started pricking ears with the release of their self titled EP around two years ago. Earlier this year, their self-titled debut album of shimmering, candysweet pop-timism has caused quite a stir among indie fans on both sides of the pond. Comparisons have been rolling in: early My Bloody Valentine, the Lemonheads, the Pastels, and Teenage Fan Club all get mentioned when discussing the Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s lo fi twee aesthetic. We chatted to the Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s guitarists Kip and Peggy to find out what they’re making of all the hyperbole.

You’re attracting a lot of attention because for your name alone, and a good name it is, but is it also a manifesto?

Kip: Yeah, it definitely kind of expresses who we are and what our music is about, and it feels really 42

good to have it because it stands for something. I actually had the name first, it’s the title of a novel of a friend of mine, and wrote the songs for the band afterwards - and it felt quite easy for me to write songs for a band called the pains of being pure at heart. That novel wasn’t even published, but its sentiment and message – that being young and having your friends around you are the most important things in your life and more important than ‘achievements’ – is a concept we see with the band… and bands that are made up of friends just sound better.

Peggy: As for me, the band is very much about re-embracing my youth again, being on tour for example, seeing new places, meeting new people all the time and it has been great so far. That novel ends with the line ‘and these are the pain of being pure at heart’, though nothing in the story was actually that painful and it might be similar with what this band…

So would you say that growing up, with a focus on the teenage years, is a major lyrical theme?

Kip: Growing up is definitely a key theme, or what it means to me- a process that still hasn’t ended, how you fail at things, get your heart broken, all the things you’re experiencing over time. I guess it is some sort of self discovery, which is not limited to a certain age, the way you’re becoming the person you are, and why- we could probably be fifty and would still write about ‘growing up’.

You often get compared to C 86 bands and early My Bloody Valentine, and you certainly don’t seem to mind wearing your influences on your sleeve. But do you ever feel it could get too pastiche-like?

Kip: We’re very proud to acknowledge the bands we like, and I really like the idea that kids could find out about bands we really like In a sense that you’re not always such as Rocketship, through us. And as precious and pure as the name it only seems like the intellectual suggests (their song Young adult honest thing to do, to cite your friction’, for example, is rather sources. But there’s no master-plan explicitly about a couple having sex behind it and we don’t try to sound in a library). like anyone in particular. We could do whatever we wanted to, if we’re Peggy: Yes, especially live we can playing it could sound different, and actually be pretty loud and the lyrics remind people of all kind of different are kind of dark at times- It is not bands. But besides all the things surprising but still kind of depressing we’re inspired by, our main goal is that we easily get pigeonholed to keep as little separation between into being only so very cutesy and our life and the music we make. So precious. it will always sound like us. A

prism Prism is it a bit like an art club night. It isn’t open when normal galleries are, they serve drinks and have loud music. Their bi-monthly ‘happenings’ feature the works of both established and up and coming artists, with the noble intention of fostering a dialogue around the pieces themselves.

A Prism event isn’t the same as passively going to an art gallery, but an experience in which you are directly confronted by and involved in the work itself. Playing with their intention to foster dialogue the founders Darren Chouings, Jamie Crewe and Daniel Fogarty have provided a conversation about their project. This is best read as either a Socratic dialogue or an Ibsen play.

The scene is set, three men sit in a candle lit room around a rough wooden table, a solitary wine bottle is accompanied by three glasses.

A prism splits a beam of light, expanding its scope and exposing the spectrum it contains. Why this name for an event?

JC

The aim of Prism is to showcase new work. So when we talk about exposing a spectrum it relates to ideas and content, introducing new or unrepresented works.

DC

dialogue with the Sheffield art scene that can further their careers.

It doesn’t rely on specific names or places. It’s an ongoing project which evolves alongside the work it shows, offering the chance to experiment with new techniques and venues for both curators and exhibiting artists. The proposal process is very open as well, as we try to engage with studying artists and the student community in the same way we would professionals.

There is no need for qualifications with PRISM: we try to keep the boundaries down on both sides of the working process, so that just as anyone can apply, the event itself could be anywhere, adapting to its environment.

DC

JC There seem to be two types of institution in Sheffield’s artistic community: those that aim towards a programme of established and professional work, and those, such as Unit 3B Artspace, that offer a platform for the other demographic, students and recent graduates. We would like to think of PRISM as being in-between, somewhere where the two areas can mix, in a space which is itself on the move.

It doesn’t want to be a closed-off event, or working as an extended crit group. It’s something that is neither this nor that.

DC

We encourage lesser-known artists to show, so it creates for them a degree of involvement and

DF

Sheffield is full of empty spaces as well, spaces with potential which need dialogue around and inside them. There are not many cities as fortunate with their misfortune.

Development in Sheffield is at a midway point: spaces need purpose and utilisation. PRISM has no home.

It has to roam around the city, to be adaptable in the same way.

DF

It relies on reputation and the ability to open a good dialogue. A publication will happen too this time around. To ground the event. And to be around in the ether afterwards.

DC

courtesy of Hondartza Fraga

courtesy of Linny Venables

PRISM as an event is there and gone, which is brilliant and part of how it works. A publication, however, will be sold at each event as a document of the preceding PRISM.

DF

It will be good to look back and see the previous work and the changes that have taken place.

I see it as a new development in how art is shown in Sheffield. The project is growing in participants, both exhibiting work and organising behind the scenes, but it works more and more in an unpredictable way.

DC

It lives off its proceeds as well, hand to mouth, with no funding or permanent base. The success of each event depends on people being interested and involved: it needs to survive every time.

DF

JC

It’s a nomadic thing.

DF

It works on self-propulsion.

JC We will be scheduling talks and screenings this time as well, which is part of the effort to make it something immediate.

We are interested in it as a social event also. Aside from the work we want somewhere for people to meet and converse. A few people in a corridor outside a show are just

DC

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as important in some ways as the work.

Bob and Roberta Smith takes an interesting approach on openings, where the private view becomes something more. As well as seeing the work that will be exhibited you see readings and performances, which takes his work to another place. I think in some ways it works best when that live, immediate element is put alongside the art objects.

DF

When you see something that’s in an exhibition, you can go and reevaluate it later, but with PRISM you can’t: it’s gone the next day.

DC

JC I like the idea that it just evaporates.

At any private view, you only realise what you’ve seen once you leave: it is only when you stand back that you come to realise what it is.

Like at the Venice Biennale, you see so much that you forget, but then the things you appreciate come back, which is a nice testament to the work.

DF

JC The publication is like a deferred reaction: when you go to the next one, the residue of the previous one emerges, which will hopefully be a strange and interesting interaction for the regular viewer. The past, ephemeral experience of the event will come back in the same place where it ended, still always on the move. A

The next PRISM will be taking place Friday 23rd October at Bank St Arts, 8pm onwards, entry is £2.

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echoes of blackburn meadows

Echoes of Blackburn Meadows is an sound project based on the history of, and situated at the site of the former Blackburn Meadows power station, home to the Cooling Towers. The project will eventually place radio transmitters across the site, allowing visitors to tune into a historical industrial soundscape of the site’s past. It’s an incredible idea, and one which we hope will add much to ideas that surround the changing Sheffield by avoiding empty symbolism and constructivel locating memories to form a greater, more critical understanding of place. We spoke to Jennifer Rich, one of the team behind the project.

How did the project begin, and who is involved?

The project began as a dissertation for my MA in Landscape and Culture at the University of Nottingham in 2006. I looked at Sheffield’s municipal electricity supply up until it was nationalised in 1948, focusing specifically on the machines and architectures of Blackburn Meadows power station.

Recently, geographers have begun to collaborate with artists under the title of ‘Public Geography,’ aiming for innovative and engaging methods of exhibiting research findings. As much of my research was based on oral histories with former workers of the power station, it seemed appropriate to explore sound as a medium and I teamed up with two sound artists, Lewis Heriz and Tom Dixon. It was really the demolition of the cooling towers in 2008 that gave the project the boost it needed. We were now able to look at the landscape as a whole and situate the towers within the wider and more dynamic landscapes of a power station. We put in an R&D bid to the Arts Council and here we are about to launch Echoes of Blackburn Meadows (EBM) phase I. What does Phase I involve?

EBM will eventually be made up

of around fifteen solar powered transmitters, hidden at points along the public footpaths surrounding the site. The transmitters broadcast sounds of the power station via an FM frequency. Arts Council funding has allowed to us construct the first of these transmitters as a prototype of the wider project, which we aim to launch next summer.

It’s slightly unusual to see a sound based project as a response to a site and its history. How did this come about as the medium, and what are its particular characteristics?

“ARCHITECTURES CAN BE REBUILT, RE-ANIMATED AND COMMEMORATED BUT IN A WAY THAT REMEMBERS HISTORY NOT AS A RELIC CONSIGNED TO HISTORY BUT AS A LIVING, WORKING LANDSCAPE.”

The use of sound is beneficial on a number of levels. The area of Blackburn Meadows has changed irrevocably over the past thirty years. Sound is there regardless of the flux and flow of the physical landscape beneath, even as it morphs into its next persona: a biomass power station. We turn to the propitious public spaces that encircle the site and enliven the landscape by weaving memories into the spaces in which they were originally formed. The idea of memory is at the heart of EBM. Memory is subjective and situational; it is performed in the context of both past, present (and futures). We combine the acts of walking and listening to galvanise new memories as people walk across the landscape. The result is a cacophony of emergent personal memories, spoken memories, of sounds of past and present.

What’s the importance of the site to you, and in the context of Sheffield?

The site to me has always been much greater than the sum all of its parts. Blackburn Meadows was the powerhouse to Sheffield’s development during the middle of the twentieth century and its architectures and machines were presented as icons to progress and prosperity in both homes and 45

industries across the city. It is the source of memories and identities of all those that worked there and who lived in the local area. To me it is a place; I dwell there and my understandings of this place are informed by my dwelling there. To others, the site has most recently been represented as an icon and gateway to the Sheffield but to me the cooling towers have always been simply hyperbolic structures; responsible for the disposal of the cooling water used to remove heat from steam in a power station.

That’s exactly where the project finds meaning; in the subjectivity of remembering and understanding our environment.

Talk about the oral history side of the project. Who is represented and what did they do? Who recorded these, and how have you edited them to fit in the work?

I began collecting oral histories with former workers of the power station back in January after a call-out for memories via local press. Spoken memories are the foundations of the artwork and have been edited, cut and layered alongside sounds of the power station to form the composition. For those who want to look at the subject in more detail, both the interview tapes and transcripts are being held at Sheffield Local Studies Library.

What hopes do you have for the future and the effects of this project, because as a way of creating an experience and understanding of a place it seems very powerful. Could this ambient history be the basis for architecture, or other artworks?

We definitely want to use this format 46

for future collaborative projects and have various sites of historical interest in the pipeline. The basis of our work will remain this method of situating individuals as artists and architects of memory, who - when working in situ - mould a sense of place. Architectures can be rebuilt, re-animated and commemorated but in a way that remembers history not as a relic consigned to history but as a living, working landscape. We aim to maximise participation from the research process through to engagement with the final artwork, which itself helps to garner a shared history and a shared sense of place. A www.sheffieldelectricity.com The location of the first transmitter will be revealed online a few days prior to the launch.

Transmission begins on Friday 25 September.

The team is holding workshops at the Sheffield Showcase office on Pinstone Street, for participants to build their own FM radio receivers with which to access the artwork. Drop in at any time between10am-4pm on either Friday 25th and Saturday 26th September. To access the artwork, participant toolkits, which include a map, FM radio receiver and a pair of headphones, will be available for hire free-ofcharge from Sheffield Central Library. Mobile phones with in-built radios can also tune in to the artwork. EBM is a FREE event.

Man About Town

by Lieutenant Geoffrey-Crispin Tiffin Hellier Economics, an extraordinarily dreary cul-de-sac of sociology, the preserve of four eyed misanthropes, has become the talk of the proverbial town.

For regulars and commoners summer is a time of celebration, relaxation and binge drinking on the Algarve. For Sheffield’s business and entertainment circles, however, summer means trial and tribulation, drastic measures a necessity in reducing even the most pedestrian of operations. As young, wealthy students depart for warmer climes competition for monetary resources becomes desperate and miscalculated. This year the globe’s financial worries seem to have made everything substantially worse. By the end of the summer recess, malaise and depression were entrenched, forcing many nights, bars and magazines into an uncomfortable hibernation.

are all... well I could list what they are doing, but this is not an advertising forum! It is, in fact, a place to see the vibe-geist. So what is new, you ask? All, I say, for it seems that in the optimism of autumn-spring much needed diversity permeates Sheffield’s sub-culture. The opening of a new bar, The Wick at Both Ends (although we wonder whether any wick is being burnt), indicates the possibility of an abundance of new nights. This, however, is yet be ascertained.

Now, as the summer that is winter rolls into the autumn that is spring, Sheffield rears its head once more, and it is hungry! As our allegorical spring showers the milieu with student loans I look forward to a fruitful winter that is early summer: Asparagus, strawberries anyone?

But most exciting on the cultural front, perhaps, is the current state of Sheffield’s art scene. There is a splendid exhibition at Site Gallery (we have featured an interview with artist Daniel von Sturmer). Then there is the Echoes of Blackburn Meadows Project, which will be broadcasting from the city of the cooling towers.

And, as if this were not enough, a new breed rears its mane: the gallery-come-club. Prism will be hosting an event not to be missed at the Bank Street Studios: 11 rooms of video installation and techno. Our prayers have been answered! Take that Prenzlauer Berg.

But enough looking backward; let us look forward!

This year the staple events continue at DeQuincy Hall, with Gentleman’s Club Pony being the ever pervasive centre of the scene.

In addition, Lord Barrington, Suckerpunch, Krooked and Wonk

Promising are the additions to our city’s cultural life that fall outside of the spectrum of ‘straight-up’ club nights. One such installation is Tuesday night’s Jumper Sessions on Sheffield Live radio service.

Playing obscure jazz and indie from 11pm, music loving hermits take note!