‘Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy. (The Books of Bokonon. I:5)’. Thus reads the epigraph of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novella Cat’s Cradle. Despite the fact that Cat’s Cradle was written at the height of the Cold War, I cannot help but feel the suggestion that life is based around foma, or ‘harmless untruths’, is as relevant today as it was in the apocalyptic paranoia of the 50s and 60s.

Cat’s Cradle is based around a fictional religion called Bokononism, which uses this strange type of foot sex as a form of worship. Foot fetishes aside, it’s a religion that knows it’s bollocks, but likes the fact that it’s bollocks. You tell yourself that everything is hunky-dory even though you know that it isn’t; all you have to do in order to achieve this state of ignorant bliss is follow the foma of The Books of Bokonon. All this is based on the handy visual metaphor of the cat’s cradle (the bridge-like construction children make between their hands with a loop of string). The network of string stands for the lies and conceits that we embroil ourselves in on a daily basis, despite the fact that we often know that these beliefs have no founding in reality whatsoever – they are merely held up by our own hands. Vonnegut was writing during the Cold War. Like many he’d seen the effect of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and had experienced the atmosphere of mirage and brinkmanship at play between the world’s superpowers. Cat’s Cradle is certainly a product of this era, an era that dubbed atomic weapons ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’. For Vonnegut these crass ‘untruths’ imbue the world with a sort of beautifully twisted humour

Admittedly the clear cut binary I have drawn between truth and untruth in the above synopsis is overly simplistic. The novella itself is not concerned with revealing ‘truths’ amidst a sea of corruption. It is, rather, based on a much more subtle sense of existential doubt than I have suggested. However, the idea that we, as humans, in our interactions with the world, choose to remain consciously ignorant of uncomfortable things (I won’t say ‘truths’) is nonetheless suggestive.

Yet, every now and again ‘Breaking News’ will burst this little cosy bubble for us. The issue is, however, that this ‘News’ is only new to the extent that it is the first time it has been forced into the public conscious by the mainstream media. Recent months have to have borne witness to a number of these revelations. It started with the MP’s expenses scandal; then we had WikiLeaks.  For about a month at the end of last year the whole world sparked into debate over the level of transparency with which official diplomacy should be treated, as thousands of sensitive documents were leaked into the public domain. Yet, the organization has been leaking documents on the internet since 2006 with very little public attention and the organization, or one similar, will probably continue operating long after WikiLeaks is such a hot media topic. Furthermore, we may consider the recent revolts across North Africa. The US and UK have been supporting Mubarak for the past 30 years; they told themselves foma in order to keep themselves happy. Only now are they changing this position, which will undoubtedly in turn lead to a new set of foma being formed. The thing is do we really need the media to reveal these things to us? Do we already know them or do we find it more convenient to ignore them whilst weaving our own utopian narratives?

In Vonnegut’s words ‘so it goes’. That’s the way the world works. The public constantly kid themselves and those in power are all too happy to keep the conceit rolling. Jump back to April 2010. Jump back to Westminster. A gaggle of Lib Dems are congregated around a table. ‘I just want power’ sulks a petulant Nick Clegg, ‘Tell me, you bunch of wet flannels, tell me what on earth can I do?’ An ambitious aide stands up, ‘I’ve got an idea’ he says, ‘It’s very clever, and really not that clever at all. Tell the nation’s students that we’ll give them free university education.’ ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’ whines Nick. ‘Ah!’ replies the cunning aide holding up his hands, palms facing, about six inches apart, ‘See the cat? See the cradle?’

“a tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, connected to an idea..a group need only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate”
Seth Godin – Tribes.

Taking their name from Seth Godin’s bestseller, Tribes have genuinely taken his words to heart. Dan – the guitarist – asserts that “the book just seemed to fit what we were doing and the words stuck” (added to the fact that they had to settle on a name by the end of the day, and the only other option they had come up with was ‘Jesus the Movie’ – “just think of the artwork and the t-shirts!”) They are indeed a tightly knit group, having grown up together: “we’ve been playing together for as long as we can”. And with thoughtful lyrics combined with 90s-esque chord progressions they seem to have hit on a successful method of ‘communication’, rapidly attracting a devoted fan base. “The 90s stuff, I know we get labelled with it, but we do like it” admits lead singer Johnny. Major influences include Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M. and Radiohead…. “We’re expecting Thom to walk in any minute… I’m sure he will, he must have got the memo”. I point out that he has been known to walk his dog in university parks… “reeeally?” “is there a bandstand?”

As hypothetical as this scenario sounds, stranger things have happened in Tribes’ short life (a year and a day long to be exact): their sixth ever gig was supporting their heroes the Pixies at Troxy, and out of the blue Mystery Jets asked to do a cover of Tribes’ song ‘We were children’, which resulted in the bands touring the U.K. together.
It is safe to say that Tribes have acquired a solid fan base, and the Camden boys’ Oxford debut went down a storm. As soon as they stepped on stage streams of headbanging devotees filled the Cellar’s monthly clubnight ‘Yoof Presents’, singing along like pros and begging for an encore. Anyone would have thought they’d been transported to a sold out comeback show of long absent rock legends. In front of me one enthusiast shouted in the ear of another “it’s just hit after hit after hit!”.

While not quite the ‘secret’ ‘underground’ ‘organic’ anti-Myspacers NME have them pegged as (“we don’t have an agenda against it, we just don’t want to put all our chickens into our Myspace” “as they say”) the band are still very proud that their fan base “just seems to be building…there’s no cheating, people are coming to see the shows and enjoying them and coming back, it’s just great”.

Not only do they have a gripped audience, refreshingly, they also have something interesting to say. Discussing ‘Sappho’ and the mellower ‘Nightdriving’, a tribute to childhood friend Charlie Haddon, Johnny states, “I think when bad things happen in your life you either go one way or the other, it’s like a complete catalyst for change. When you think somebody’s dead and gone to heaven it makes you feel better, but my opinion wasn’t that…it’s just the pointlessness of everything that’s what it’s about, and now we’re talking about it so that’s pointless as well”. Despite the obvious nihilism, his final comment is not delivered without a hint of self mockery, and is met by chuckles from the other three. This delicate balance between seriousness and conviviality pervades both the band’s music and their attitude towards it. They are wholeheartedly committed to what they do, recognising “going where we wanna go with it you’ve got to put everything you have into it, more than 100%”, “we’re in it for the long run definitely, we’re not going to sit here like Brother and say ‘we’re the best band in the world’ cos we’re not, but we aspire to be so in the future if we can”. Happily though these efforts go hand in hand with nights out on tour with the Mystery Jets “off the fucking scale”, “we were just egging each other on or something – ‘this is fucking great let’s go for it!'”
‘Work hard play hard’, a mantra familiar to many an Oxford undergrad, emerges as this band’s philosophy. And well it is serving them too. With lots of touring planned for the summer, if you’re lucky Tribes might be coming to a venue near you… or maybe even a self constructed bandstand in University Parks…y’hear Thom?

Any mention of Jamie xx in the more discerning electronic music circles will, as a rule, be met with a certain degree of disdain. Despite, or perhaps because of, his success with his band The xx, Jamie’s talents as a DJ are generally regarded rather sceptically by those more resistant to the Pitchfork-induced hype surrounding the artist.

But We’re New Here, an album of remixes of tracks from Gil Scott-Heron’s acclaimed I’m New Here and Jamie’s debut full-length strictly as a producer, is not without its promise. Throughout the record Jamie exhibits a deep understanding of vocal sampling; whether chopping Gil’s voice to rhythmic effect on ‘I’ll Take Care Of U’ or juxtaposing it against ghostly, pitch-shifted vocals on ‘I’m New Here’, Jamie’s keen ear for melody characterises much of the music on We’re New Here.

Jamie’s love of UK dance is epitomised by We’re New Here and the dark atmospheres of his post-dubstep productions are well suited to the deep throatiness of Gil’s spoken-word delivery. The problem is that whilst, on paper, We’re New Here ticks all the boxes, the whole record is constrained by Jamie’s less than accomplished production. Indeed, Jamie’s drum programming leaves a lot to be desired; the beats on We’re New Here are so laboured, almost clumsy, that even the strongest tracks find themselves robbed of any sort of groove.

It might seem unfair to be criticising Jamie xx’s music for a lack of technical prowess. After all, it was the appreciation of simplicity that got his Mercury Prize winning band, The xx, to where they are today. The uncluttered approach taken by The xx allows for a focus on the minutiae – the soulful textures of the vocals, the touch of reverb on the guitar – elevating their music far beyond the sum of its relatively few parts. In contrast, the technical deficiencies of We’re New Here feel more a like a restriction, indicative of the producer’s limitations, rather than a conscious decision. And, although Jamie’s heart is firmly in the right place, it’s difficult not to have sided with the doubters by the end of this record.

After its initial disastrous first performance, The Barber of Seville has proved to be one of our most enduring and well-loved operas, being the eighth most performed opera worldwide last year. Therefore the challenge of setting such a well-known opera in an original manner can be a little daunting, but the New Chamber Opera rose to the challenge to produce a performance that lived up to the comic, dramatic and musical legacy of the work.

From Almaviva’s opening aria the tone was set: Nick Pritchard’s voice carried well ensuring that the audience could appreciate the words. The decision to sing in English was, I think, a prudent one in a theatre that does not have the capacity for surtitles. In an opera with as many plot twists and humorous lines as Barber a performance in Italian would have diminished the comic effect somewhat. The chorus was well-received (complete with sousaphone, sunglasses and Red Bull) and my main criticism here would be of Rossini for not giving the chorus a more prominent role as they produced a magnificent sound in their brief appearance!

The performance continued in the high standard that it set itself from the start. It is a shame that all the orchestra were not quite as precise as the woodwind section and there were some balance issues in some of the solo arias (especially when characters were walking around the platform, which was unfortunately quite resonant) but overall the standard was high throughout, especially in the second half. Dominic Bowe’s Largo al factotum was balanced and moreover brilliantly acted; it is a great credit to all the cast that the characters remained believable and movement was not confined to the recitatives, even given the amount of vocal acrobatics involved. From this perspective Esther Brazil’s portrayal of Rosina was superb; well acted, technically secure and never self-indulgent, an impressive feat given the notoriously challenging role. Tom Bennett, in his sycophantic portrayal of Don Basilio, was the perfect basso buffa; articulate, entertaining and producing some very impressive bass notes. Ensembles were exceptionally good; the sextets and septets at the end of each half are worthy of particular merit.

The comic nature of Rossini’s opera was truly captured in this production and reflected in the audience’s unanimously positive reaction. A thoroughly entertaining evening doing full credit to the libretto and score.

What is De/Install?

A ‘de/install’ describes the set of activities taking place in an art gallery between major exhibitions. During a de/install, the current show is removed, the gallery is repainted, walls are smashed down, arguments take place, new walls and facades are erected, and the work for the next show is put up. They’re fast-paced.
Almost without exception, de/installs are shut off to the public, and galleries sometimes hide the process by frosting the gallery’s front windows.
In this show at Modern Art Oxford, artworks in video, sculpture, performance, painting, audio, text and digital media will interrogate this theme, some works focussing on the live de-install of Thomas Houseago’s sculptures happening in the upstairs galleries.

How long did this idea take to come to fruition?

This idea came to us, fully-formed, waiting in vain for James Blake to install himself at the Bullingdon on Cowley Road.

What does Sputnik’s curatorial input involve?

The role of the curator has changed drastically over the last twenty years or so. Traditionally acting as the person that looked after collections, the curator’s market interests and personal aesthetic now sit at the heart of decisions made in a de/install. This is both a good and a bad thing, as it redistributes artistic responsibility and authorship across the field of artistic practices that govern the art market today.  
We have chosen to play the role of co-curators, attempting to highlight our own involvement with the artists rather than hide it. The exhibition poses the following questions: Should galleries be more transparent with the decisions made in a de/install, and should all curators have as much say in this process as they currently do?

Where does this fit in to the temporally and geographically broader happenings of the ‘art world’?
Whereas it would have been laughable to suggest curating an exhibition with the title ‘New art from the Middle East’ a couple of decades ago in Britain, the Saatchi gallery continues to install shows on the basis of ethnographic generalisation, as international and freelance curators have legitimised ‘ethnicity’ as a ‘theme’ to play with. Today, opinions held by artists seem less important than those held by collectors or curators, and more often than not, artists on the international circuit can only become successful if they play up to the themes curators have dictated for that season. It may well be curators and collectors, not artists, who benefit financially from the current economic climate.
This all sounds negative, but the resulting contemporary art (often a response to these conditions) is infinitely more interesting than the dull, self-interested Brit Art of the 90s and early 00s. Artists and (good) galleries are working together already to form exciting projects: the first ever ‘exhibition artwork’ was purchased recently by three international galleries (one of them the Tate); each gallery currently contradicts the other, claiming they own the ‘legitimate’ exhibition. Artworks are pointing towards their installatory means more than ever; in 2009, the Tate purchased a queue as an artwork. It may well be that these artists and galleries will benefit from the economic climate, art-historically speaking.

And does this further relate to the cuts?

Yes, but it has less to do with artists, and more to do with the new relationships held between curator and artist: over the past decade, Curation departments across the major London art schools have gained their autonomy (including the Royal College and Goldsmiths). In the past, experience and social capability were the most useful commodities to hold as a curator. In the future, an extremely expensive degree in curation may be imperative to curating ‘successfully’.
Richard Wentworth, current head of Sculpture at the Royal College, remarked recently, ‘Since the art schools’ boom in the 60s, artists have always treated their education like a commodity’. This history is important to consider: if contemporary curation, a new and fast-growing discipline, begins to value curation-education more and more, the worry is that a rise in fees in this sector may cause the British Art Market to be lead by a very narrow band of curators from an exclusively affluent background.

Do you think exhibitions such as de/install could change how people see the exhibition process altogether? Or is their interpretation of this something that is built up so gradually that a single exhibition won’t change it significantly?

We don’t believe one exhibition can drastically change the opinions people hold on this subject, but it might prompt them to ask new questions. British audiences are still rarely encouraged to form opinions on a gallery’s inner workings: the most one is given are the suspiciously edited films that follow de/installs a long time after they have happened, (more often than not to promote the gallery or affiliate artists, rather than scrutinise its inner workings).
However, we are confident this exhibition encourages individuals to consider a useful proposition: Greater knowledge of gallery processes is necessary if the public is not to be blindly led by curators in the 21st century.

De/Install will take place in Modern Art Oxford’s Basement and Café from Tuesday 22 to Saturday 26 February. Free admission.

As we draw closer to the 2011 Oscars and all eyes turn towards what Natalie Portman’s wearing on the red carpet and whether co-hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco will be able to muster any convincing on-screen chemistry, we may well find ourselves wondering what the Oscars are really about and whether they truly deserve the hype. Film-makers covet the awards: they offer unrivalled prestige and publicity to the happy winners. But how much should we trust the Academy’s opinion? Looking back at some of the decisions it has made in the Best Picture category over the last 83 years suggests we should keep an eye out for the runners-up…

1944 – Going My Way v. Double Indemnity and Gaslight

Perhaps distracted by the largest scale war the world had ever seen, the Academy decided to give the Best Picture Oscar to the now largely forgotten Going My Way, in which Bing Crosby plays a young man entering the Roman Catholic clergy, as opposed to Billy Wilder’s unforgettable and utterly gripping film noir, Double Indemnity or the equally memorable mystery-thriller Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman.

1952 – The Greatest Show on Earth v. High Noon

High Noon, the renowned Western set in real time which featured Grace Kelly alongside Gary Cooper, may have lost out on the Oscar that year to circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth but it has since been deemed the 27th Best Film of All Time (American Film Institute 2007) as well as being named “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress, which has selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

1969 – Midnight Cowboy v. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Whilst Midnight Cowboy, the story of a naïve gigolo in New York, has not been forgotten and did gross over $40 million at the U.S. box office, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid grossed over twice that amount and brought us the unforgettable pairing of Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

1970 – Patton v. M*A*S*H

Best Picture was just one of 7 Oscars won by World War II film Patton but it remains debatable whether it truly won the battle of the 1970 war films as rival nominee M*A*S*H, the satirical comedy set in a field hospital during the Korean War, is much more popular today, having spawned the hugely successful television series of the same name which ran for eleven years.

1976 – Rocky v. All The President’s Men and Taxi Driver

It’s perhaps a little surprising that the Sylvester Stallone boxing film Rocky should have prevailed at the 1976 Oscars, motivational soundtrack and training montage aside, when this was also the year that brought us All The President’s Men, the ground-breaking political thriller based on the journalists who uncovered the Watergate scandal (played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman) and the hugely influential Martin Scorsese-directed Taxi Driver, the film which had Robert De Niro ask himself if he was talking to himself.

1982 – Gandhi v. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Tootsie

If it were a question of who you’d like to speak at your graduation, Gandhi might be more of a sensible choice than a wrinkly alien or a cross-dressing thesp, but when it comes to the films which depicted these unforgettable characters, it is less clear-cut: Richard Attenborough’s 8-Oscar film helped make a name for the formidable Ben Kingsley and was certainly the most serious and ‘worthy’ of the three…but has his Gandhi stood the test of time in the same way that Spielberg’s irresistible E.T. or Dustin Hoffman’s endearing ‘Dorothy Michaels’ (Tootsie) has?

1985 – Out of Africa v. Witness

Unlucky with Tootsie, director Sydney Pollack got his hands on the prize three years later with the colonial Kenyan love story played out between Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa but the captivating romantic thriller, Witness, in which Harrison Ford falls for an Amish girl is arguably much better-remembered, especially the scene featuring the Sam Cooke song ‘Wonderful World’ (where he doesn’t know much about history…).

1990 – Dances with Wolves v. Goodfellas

The ‘90s began with another questionable choice as director Martin Scorsese missed out once again with mobster film Goodfellas to 3-hour epic Western Dances with Wolves starring Kevin Costner. However, the Academy’s decision paralleled US Box Office figures, with Dances with Wolves grossing almost four times more than Goodfellas.

1994 – Forrest Gump v. Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction and Quiz Show

Tom Hanks’s Forrest Gump was undoubtedly a landmark event of ‘90s cinema but this was an especially hotly contested year and many would disagree with its choice over very popular rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral, much-lauded drama The Shawshank Redemption, greatly influential Tarantino creation Pulp Fiction and acclaimed historical drama Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford. I suppose films at the Oscars are like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates – you never know which one’s going to get picked…(and you often end up with the sticky, sickly one).

It’s as if TV series had finally shrugged off their inferiority complex. As if the fact that they could never match the big screen’s visual power no longer induced them to not even try. Boardwalk Empire‘s 80-minute pilot, which was directed by Martin Scorcese, is effectively a feature film in its own right. In recent years a spurt of “cinematic” TV series has suddenly emerged. Anyone who has seen, say, Boardwalk Empire or Mad Men will have been taken aback by their cinematic quality.

TV used to be the undisputed preserve of screenwriters (see Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing or J. J. Abrams’ Lost for instance). For a long time TV’s main advantage over cinema, namely its ability to show character development, was considered enough to redeem sloppy cinematography. Directors and other crew members were selected for their efficiency and ability to churn out around 20 episodes a year. Yet the next step seemed obvious: to take on its bigger brother at its own game.

It all started with The Sopranos, when the series’ creator, David Chase, brought on a bunch of people from independent cinema with absolutely no conception of how to make TV and set them loose on set. The result is a beautiful series which set a new benchmark for small-screen quality. Something that started on fee-paying cable television started to creep into mainstream channels once the business realized that there was a demand for a small number of high-quality TV series.

Within the confines of this niche, directors have come to be considered on par with screenwriters, and it shows. The executive producer of Mad Men, Scott Hornbacher, describes how he only enforces two rules on set: no hand-held camera and no steadycam. The result is an admirably shot product, which unashamedly exploits and constantly references classical Hollywood style.

For all this, it would be silly to ask whether TV will replace cinema. TV simply cannot match the amount of funds poured into each minute of cinema. For all its grandeur, Boardwalk Empire‘s pilot only cost $18 million. I say only because Shutter Island, Scorcese’s latest feature film, cost more than four times that amount. If you do the math, that’s about $36,000 extra per minute of film. And anyway, you don’t need to do the math to know that cinema and TV are fundamentally different media.

Still, though TV series will never match cinema in terms of cinematography, it is nice to see that the idea that they shouldn’t bother with it has been dispelled.