He was the working-class son of a circus performer; she was a rich man’s daughter from Moscow. The Bolshevik revolution threw them together in one the most dynamic cultural shifts of the twentieth-century.

Alexander Rodchenko and Liubov Popova were the original ‘odd couple’ of modern art, forming a breakaway group of artists who wanted to embody the ideology of the new age. While Bolshevik Communism sought to remodel Russian society and overhaul an outdated economy, Rodchenko and Popova were attempting their own revolution. Soon, Constructivism had succeeded in turning the art world on its head.

The Tate Modern’s celebration of the Constructivist movement commences with an exploration of Popova and Rodchenko’s early paintings. Many of the works have never been exhibited in the West before and are borrowed from museums hidden deep in the Russian hinterland.

Popova’s colored geometric compositions are prophetic in their similarity to the Cubist works which were to soon appear in Europe. Abandoning canvas in favour of industrial plywood, Popova was highly experimental, even mixing sawdust into her paint to give her work a tactile quality.

Meanwhile, Rodchenko had already predicted the death of painting and was producing futuristic sculptures based upon mechanical constructions. Russia’s artistic rebels wanted a new abstract art, free from the repression of Realism to explore the infinite possibilities of geometry.

While the early paintings and sculptures are mesmerizing in their modernity and complexity, they are merely a brief prelude to the commercial designs which embodied the tenets of Constructivism with extreme revolutionary zeal.
Rodchenko and Popova sought to ‘constructivise’ the human world. They transformed the theoretical compositions of their paintings into architecture, photography, typography, fashion, theatre and poetry. Popova even created hammer-and-sickle fabric designs for the state textile works in 1923. It is the very definition of kitsch.

‘All of Moscow was covered with our work,’ Rodchenko wrote. ‘We made about 50 posters, about 100 sign boards, wrappers, containers, illuminated advertisements, advertising columns, illustrations in magazines and newspapers.’ Constructivism became the new definition of high art.
The exhibition traces an astounding stretch of creativity. Rodchenko and Popova had designed the blueprint for a whole new Russia: aircraft hangers, chairs, teacups, chess sets, even workers’ uniforms. The Constructivist trajectory showed little sign of waning. The sheer volume of their output is testament to the misguided optimism of the Constructivist cause.

Political posters with slogans such as ‘Keep up the Revolutionary Pace’ combine letters of the Cyrillic alphabet with cut-out images of revolutionary figures. It brims with naivety. This is the beauty of the exhibition, the advantage of viewing an entire artistic movement in retrospect.

Perhaps an entire cultural shift is a bit too much to take in at one go. ‘Defining Constructivism’ can be a little exhausting. Ultimately, Constructivism became a dead end. Quirky utilitarian chess tables gave way to gulags and Stalinism.

The death of the Constructivist dream leaves us felling cold, rather than imbuing us with revolutionary fire.

4 out of 5 stars

Fifty years ago life was simple. You’d get old, and then you’d start to worry about your health, while the youth danced carefree amongst the roses. Now, anyone over 50 can barely contain their excitement at the coming retirement, whilst pre and post adolescents alike have become gradually obsessed with ‘trendy’ new ways of boosting their health to superhuman levels. Every week a new berry champions a payload of antioxidants and nutrients: There’s an implicit belief that, if we can just drink enough Strawberry and Banana smoothie, we can undo the effects of last nights Smirnoff (or Marlboro) Red. Self proclaimed leaders of the ‘enhanced water category’, Glacéau, have been paying attention. And so, six neon bottles have hit the cafés of Oxford, promising nothing less than freshly bottled magic to the customer. Vitamin Water strips away any pretence of a cute-sy love for organic manufacturing processes, selling itself purely on the strength of what it can do for you. Ever the sceptic, I called Glacéau on this, and put their drinks to the test to see if this flavour of the month is really worth your £1.95. First up is the gorgeous ‘Spark’. ‘Ever wanted to skateboard down a mountain? …Do a handstand on the wings of 747? …Race a greyhound?’ Man! I just wanted to fix my essay crisis! Thanks ‘Spark’!

The science is less than Romantic. ‘Spark’ is a lethal concoction of guarana (naturally occurring stimulant), Taurine (bull sperm) and caffeine, supposedly sending you straight into the ‘zone’ of higher thinking. I like to think it’s the stimulants, combined with the presumed levels of nutritional pixie dust, that give it the enticing, ‘come play with me’ yellow glow. What’s it like in practice? There’s an episode of Futurama where Fry drinks 100 cups of coffee. Over the episode, he gradually descends into a shaking, twitching, fast-talking train wreck. Eventually, the 100th cup pushes him over the edge, into a sort of zen state, so wired that reality moves like treacle in comparison. This is a fairly accurate reflection of the effects of Spark. Of all the drinks tested, this easily does best on fulfilling its promises.

Revive and Essential, or Purple and Orange to their friends, are designed as the ultimate student assistant; a hangover cure. This isn’t made explicit on the bottle itself, but reading between the lines the principle is pretty clear. Both designed to fully hydrate you, they’re loaded with a good dose of generic super-vitamins too. The application is simple. Drink the purple one as you come in from the usual heavy night with the Archers drinking soc. Pass out in a comfortable position, then drink the Orange one the next morning. In theory, sorted. In America, the craze amongst the (clearly money-rich-sense-poor) student population is to mix your drinks with these, giving you guilt free, healthy fun. I, being scientifically minded, decided to settle for merely getting extremely drunk. Interestingly enough, the drinks actually did something. Not what I was promised, but something.

The-Sunday-after. I was, that morning, still extremely drunk. Giggling, I downed my bottle of Essential, and set off to a morning full of merry, Sainsburys related, mistakes. You might think at this point, that this marked a failure for the centre for responsible hydration. In fact, as the day wore on, events took a most unexpected turn. Having been in this situation before, I know that the evening is typically characterised by the kind of headache and nausea that has me rolling around the floor of the JCR, sobbing for a glass of water, and massaging my temples like Magneto. Surprisingly, I felt fine. I’m not entirely convinced that this was direct result of whatever nutritional voodoo Glacéau are playing at, but it’s difficult still to argue with the results.
Last on the list is the exercise booster, Power-C, which is excitingly ‘dragonfruit flavoured’. The comparison given by Glacéau is with Popeye’s spinach, which seems a little bit of a stretch. In terms of scientific vagary, this is far and away the most fantastical. Promised is beating my granny in an arm-wrestling contest. I’ll settle for a quick rowing trial.

So. The goal is 7500 meters on an erg, in as fast a time as possible. We’ll leave it a day apart for recovery, and start at 8am sharp. Go!
First run, V-Water free. 29:55, a time that leaves me absolutely smashed. Red face, heavy breathing, coughing up scoops of tar…not a pretty sight.
Second run, ‘Power-ed’ up. Surprisngly…28:02! Very, very nearly 2 minutes off. What’s more, I could very nearly hold a conversation without throwing up. What crazed magic is this?!
Standard anomaly? Probably. I think it’s fair to claim it impossible that Vitamin water is going to actually, in the real world, make me a better rower. Or indeed a better friend, a better lover, better liked, happier, or whatever they might promise in the reams of preachy promotional material. The little fitness test highlights something interesting, however. In the same way that I probably didn’t have a religious experience because I drank some yellow squash, and that my hangovers was no worse that evening than any other, I could have exercised just as hard first time round.

You look at a bottle of Vitamin Water, and are confronted by an inner monologue something like this; ‘That just looks like brightly coloured water. They couldn’t be selling just brightly coloured water. The brightly coloured water says it will make me happy! It must actually make me happy! I’ll buy the brightly coloured water.’ And suddenly you’re £2 poorer.
On the other hand, at the heart of all this might be an amazing placebo effect. Exhausted on a Thursday morning, I was trying to write this so I could close my eyes without hearing a voice screaming deadline. Left over from my little experimental jaunt, I had a spare bottle of Spark, the ‘gets you high’ favourite. Downed it, and within about 10 minutes my writers block just disappeared.

The easiest way to get through life is just to trick yourself into things. We make little games when we revise to distract from the monotony, we set little goals of ‘just 100 more words’ when writing essays, or ‘one more chapter’ making notes so that we keep making progress. And maybe there are enough buzz words and optimistic images across the packaging here to convince you that ‘yeah, maybe this can do something to help me’. Which is why I currently feel pretty MDM-Azing right now.

So actually, that first intuition you might have isn’t too far from the truth. When you buy this rubbish, you’re physically just buying some neon coloured, 100 calorie-a-bottle water. But really, you’re also buying a dream. If it makes the morning-after that bit easier, so be it.

Rather than an exposition of catchy songs and animated talking crabs aimed at preteens, the original version of The Little Mermaid, written by Hans Christian Andersen, is a dark and tragic fairytale about division, separation and unrequited love.

In this version, the finned-princess is never reunited with her prince, rather she is forced to make the impossible decision between murdering her true love or succumbing to her own death. To make it even worse, our protagonist suffers constantly from a pain of walking comparable only to stepping on broken glass.

Director Eva Tausig’s adaptation can be described in one word – ambitious. Physical theatre, dance, poetry and a narrating chorus combine in what Tausig calls ‘self-conscious storytelling’, along with the regular ensemble of lighting and sound effects.

If that doesn’t sound challenging enough, this piece of drama also relies on a high level of audience participation throughout (gulp). The audience is divided into two-the ‘human world’ and the ‘sea world’-which are separated by a net. Simple enough so far. However, as the play progresses they are expected to become part of the cast, holding props, ringing bells and waving bits of fabric around to emulate whirlpools. Most people would associate this with slapstick comedy as opposed to romantic tragedy, but it is undeniably effective.

Symbolism and abstract representation are intrinsic throughout Tausig’s creation. Whether she will succeed in creating the intense, dark atmosphere she seems to strive for, or drown spectacularly in a sea of pretentiousness though, remains to be seen. Considering The Little Mermaid is ultimately a fairytale, a certain amount of cheesiness is acceptable, but unless the script’s delivery is perfect, Tausig’s adaptation may well border on the cringe-worthy and lose the poignancy of the original fairytale.

For those theatre-goers wanting a relaxed evening of viewing, this certainly is not a play for you. However, if audience participation is your kind of thing then no doubt an underwater adventure of giant nets, riotous noise-making and embarrassing costumes is sure to provide a entertaining evening.

3 star out of 5

A full hour before doors are due to open, a horde of fans are sat in wait, leaning against the grubby wall of the O2 Academy as they try to catch a glimpse of the band through the windows.

As someone who knows Fightstar as ‘that fit guy who used to be in Busted’s new band,’ I am bemused at this show of loyalty, but it’s no rare occurrence. ‘There are some people outside that have been to every show we’ve ever done’, bassist Dan tells us, himself looking rather incredulous, ‘I just don’t know how they do it.’

Fightstar have come a long way since their formation in 2003, but they still work hard to keep their fan base happy, or even to produce music at all. Their latest release, Be Human, required the bold step of creating their own label Search & Destroy. Even so, they aren’t naive about the increasing business difficulties of the music industry: ‘We’ve created a model which seems to be the way of the future for us smaller bands to be able to generate enough income to survive,’ they explain of their decision to self-fund the record.

I wonder if the band would consider a career change in accountancy as they explain their various money-making ventures, including most creatively their own iPhone application in which fans play ‘catch the milk’ as their album cover (which depicts a woman with the head of a cow next to a glass of milk) is brought to life. With the highest scorer eventually winning a guitar, you have to praise the boys’ originality in persuading fans to part with their cash.

There are also, however, creative advantages to self-releasing. Fightstar gained a lot of freedom by additionally deciding to coproduce Be Human themselves, alongside long-term friend Carl Bown, who plays guitar in support band Laruso. As Bown was able to offer them cheap rates, the group could afford to rack up seventy days in the studio, despite their low budget. ‘It was a shed. So we had creative freedom, but physical freedom…? Living so close to each other for all that time was crazy at times,’ jokes Dan.

But guitarist and vocalist Alex explains that this time spent working closely together was necessary: ‘because everything was done off our own back, there was no one there cracking the whip and it was up to us to self-motivate.’
The time spent perfecting tracks in the studio is audible on their new album, which sees the band diversifying more in their arrangements whilst maintaining their trademark dark atmosphere. ‘I think it’s just better, basically,’ says Dan, clearly proud of their latest achievement. ‘The ideas are more complex, but not just for the sake of complexity.’

This is particularly evident in the use of orchestral and choral layers on Be Human. Enlisting a sixteen piece string orchestra on such a low budget was no easy task, and the band confess to pulling a lot of favours to secure frequent Coldplay arranger Audrey Riley.

Their aim was to create a textured sound which has a cinematic feel, reflecting the four band members’ shared love of film, and they succeed in attaining this effect. It’s easy to imagine songs such as ‘The English Way’ providing the soundtrack to an angsty moment in an indie flick.

Achieving the same outcome live is less successful, despite their use of choral samples throughout the show. Instead they go back to their more conventional rock roots, striking poses and pulling faces as they hammer through an energy-fuelled set which has the crowd forming a mosh pit that fills almost the whole of the smaller Academy room.

While still incorporating the doom and gloom elements now expected from Fightstar, the lyrics on the new tracks performed also reveal a more uplifting tone, particularly in latest hit ‘Mercury Summer’. ‘We’ve all been in a happier situation than we have in the past’, Alex explains the inspiration for his brighter lyrics, ‘there are a few love songs poking about.’

Going by tonight’s show, Fightstar will only go on to get happier. The energy levels are high both on and off stage, and fans are clearly delighted at the band’s choice of an acoustic version of old favourite ‘Amethyst’ as an encore. After a brilliant first night performance, it’s highly probable they’ve added to their loyal fan base. Certainly my appreciation of them as a live band has grown, and not only because Charlie looks cute when his hair gets sweaty.