Mike Libby’s Insect Lab customises real bugs with electronic components and antique watch parts.

For that Burroughs / Cronenberg chic.

Infrared landscapes by Gary Robertshaw.   

More infrared photography by Andy Finney. (h/t, Dark Roasted Blend.) 

With the latest Turner Prize triumph still fresh in our minds, here’s the Fallon agency’s new ad for Sony’s Bravia TVs. Like its predecessors, this one hints at why the notion of art as something aloof from, and critical of, commercial culture now seems mannered, rather creaky and, perhaps, obsolete.

More, including the making of.

Update:

As requested, here’s the making of the ‘Play Doh’ ad.

And, to complete the set, here’s the making of ‘balls’ and ‘paint’.   

Nick Cohen casts an eye over Brian Haw’s “peace” protest and Mark Wallinger’s “bold” copy.

Like so many others, Haw can’t ask who is killing whom in Iraq. There are no slogans expressing his disgust at the death squads of the Baathists and Iranian-backed Shia militias, nor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who explained that he would murder Iraq’s Shias indiscriminately so that they would retaliate and “show the Sunnis their rabies and bare the teeth… and drag them into the arena of sectarian war.” The placards about Afghanistan continue the theme and don’t manage a word of criticism of the Taliban’s crimes and ideology. Western governments are responsible for the woes of humanity; no one else is worth mentioning…

Last week, Haw… became the darling of the art establishment. The Turner judges gave Mark Wallinger the 2007 prize for his recreation of Haw’s original line of banners denouncing “baby killers” and “B-liar”, displayed first at Tate Britain and now at Tate Liverpool. The judges praised Wallinger directly and Haw by implication for “the immediacy, visceral intensity and historic importance” of a work that “combines a bold political statement with art’s ability to articulate fundamental human truths.” Hyperbole at this intensity usually conceals insecurity. I wonder whether the Turner judges blustered because they knew in their hearts that in the current climate in liberal England Wallinger would have made a “bold political statement” if he had put a piece defending the government in the Tate.

Setting aside the issue of Haw’s right to protest, the nature of his protest – and its glib regurgitation – is what’s interesting. That a posture so inexcusably selective, deluded and drearily commonplace should be deemed admirable by Wallinger is almost funny. That Wallinger’s copy of it should in turn be hailed by the art establishment as “bold”, “visceral” and “intense” is practically tragicomic.

Related.

I toyed with the idea of writing something about the latest Turner Prize winner, Mark Wallinger, and his generic, vacuous gestures. But, frankly, it’s all too dreary and enough has already been said. 

This, however, cheered me up no end.

Illustrations by Tom Gauld. More. And. (Via The Roar of Comics.)