Yeah yeah; another day, another Kinect hack.

But to be honest this kind of remeinded us of the holodeck, and we can’t wait to see it adapted for first-person shooters in an arcade environment….

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Yeah that’s right, we’re talking about art –wanna fight about it? Sure it isn’t usually ES fare but what the hell, I wasted my Sunday wandering around London’s South Bank when I could have been eating toast and stealing porn off the net so I don’t see why you shouldn’t have to sit there and listen to me talk about it, you unenlightened simian.

Anyway, London’s lovely Tate Modern had it’s 10th birthday this weekend, and in celebration decided to invite a multicultural selection of  feckless layabouts international artists and independent hopefuls to fill up the turbine hall with their various ramshackle projects, displays and happenings, and because some of us have girlfriends of a distinctly arty persuasion(and it was free), we were there as well.

Now, the last time I went to TM was during their recent terrible Pop Art exhibition, where absolute shite from Warhol’s latter years abutted some godawful Jeff Koons statues while various NWA tracks played in the background. It was –NWA aside –uniformly awful. Fortunately they were also showcasing some of John Baldessari’s excellent, witty and erudite photographic work, so I approached this in reasonably hopeful mood.

And yes, I was wrong to do so.

Sadly we missed the Quicksilver display, but if any of the other events can be used as a guide, we were lucky. Firstly, the live displays. Several absolutely, wilfully bad musical presentations get things off to a bad start, from Skin Jobs to the terribly named Cosi Fanny Tutti (it’s not ‘dangerous’ people, it’s just very stupid), all of the acts represented the kind of idiotic nu-folk wanderings that the art world mistakenly thinks of as important or challenging currently. There’s nothing inherently artistic about being unable to string a tune together or work out how to use an amplifier properly. On Sunday, the live music is replaced by a short film where badly CGI’d helicopters crash in the sea, and some shit karaoke. Absolute crap.

No Soul For Sale was predictably terrible. The space was massively overcrowded, with the art on display either desperate to please or be considered as ‘groundbreaking’ at the expense of any true value. A huge swathe of space is taken by a project which seemed to primarily consist of a man in a smart blazer being driven about the country in a nice car, while other projects sported wince-inducing names (Hell Toupee…sigh…) or boasted secondary school artworks and ill-thought out concepts. An ‘idea machine’ produces random pieces of paper while its creators shout “Idea number 364 is…a good idea!” A modified midi keyboard being used to control imagery and some very bad D&B beats. A huge waste of money, and poorly presented, meaning the noisy, over-earnest competitors squeezed out any truly innovative, interesting or important participants.

Disappointed and slightly frazzled, we headed upstairs to check out the much lauded Level 2 displays.

Jannis Kounellis - untitled - 1979

Based largely on Avant-Garde and surrealist works, the ‘Poetry and Dream’ exhibition promises great things, but only delivers in terms of scale rather than substance. While certain pieces ( Julião Sarmento. Maya Deren) offer wit and individuality, the emphasis on extremely large pieces means the entire experience is decentralising for the viewer, diffusing impact and resonance. It’s telling that even Jackson Pollock struggles for recognition in these surroundings. Individually, considered in white space, several of these pieces are engaging and thought provoking, but crowded together we are left with a display that amounts to several coloured blobs and mad brush strokes. The problem –largely –isn’t with the art itself, but in the badly planned use of space. This said, there does seem to be a trend at Tate Modern to ignore or bury any and all emphasis on painting. While other techniques obviously have similar importance, it’s irresponsible of the gallery to suggest that figurative painting cannot be engaging or modern. More importantly, there is little here that can be called beautiful, dark, homogenous and amorphous forms push against each other, their grim scenes and colours resulting in a dark grey mass that only works to devalue it’s component pieces.

Overall, this is a massive disappointment. And while the sheer number of visitors will no doubt see the gallery qualify it as a success, the curators may do well to consider that they may be turning just as many people off art as on to it.

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When it comes to comic books, crossovers are old news – but we’ve never seen one as equally cute and terrifying as this…

Check out Pooh vs Alien here

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If you were as dorky as I was growing up, then you probably encountered at least one of those Ladybird ‘Outer Space’ books that predicted how we’d all be driving flying cars and using time-travelling shoes by now, pouring over the lush artwork and dreaming of your visits to the space hotel.

Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out that way, but US artist Robert McCall’s unique artwork probably fuelled quite a few fantasies about other worlds and supecool space stations, so it’s sad news that the man once descrobed by Isaac Asimov as “The nearest thing space has to an artist in residence” passed away earlier this week aged 90

McCall’s fantastic visions have graced everything from children’s books to NASA mission patches, so do yourself a favour and check out his full online gallery now.

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Obviously we’re all glued to Bioshock and eagerly awaiting Final Fantasy XIII right?

Well, you are if you know tuppence-ha’penny about actual gaming.

If however, you happen to be one of the airheaded majority that don’t complain about the Wii’s PS1-era graphics then chances are you’re getting your games fix elsewhere-like on FaceBook for example…

Yep, anyone with a lick of sense hates Mafia Wars and Farmville, the short, pointless and annoying games that all your FB contacts insist on messaging you about every three minutes, but for the man in the street they’re apparently great – as evidenced by the huge rash of fan art currently infecting the internet.

Ranging from the sublime…

through ridiculous…

and on into inevitable creepy-pervy territory…..
“I’m afraid we had to remove this pic due to OriginalKittens offended artistic sensibilities -for the record, it was a weirdly proportioned lady in a leather skirt -no doubt making you an offer you couldn’t refuse…(*it wasn’t great …)”

This crap is everywhere!

Try not to get too angry as you scroll through this gallery of shite – just remember that at least it isn’t slashfiction. Yet…

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Look at this! Amazing isn’t it? That ruddy great thing is hovering a mile above your head right now, allowing space-science types to fiddle with doohickeys and tinker with whatjamacallits in between updating their twitter accounts and looking down your chimney at you in the bath. This gorgeous image of the international space station was even enough to awe astronauts, according to astronaut Stephen Robinson:

‘To look up and see what humankind could really accomplish in space was just almost impossible to believe. It seemed like science fiction,’.

Anyway, there’s a ton more awesome imagery here, so check it out and help support your local interstellar journeyman!

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Since 1999, we’ve all been living in the future, and as such have all experienced that common problem: giant automatons crashing down the street, crushing hapless commuters under their atomic feet. Luckily, once we reach the tritanium office bunker, we’re safe…until now that is. Seems Willow Garage, a ‘non-military’ robotics company is intent on inviting tiny robots into the office –meaning hapless loafers like us can stay in bed! The Texas Alpha robot can dock itself, comes with obstacle-avoiding sensors, and has the added bonus of making your previously intimidating boss look like the bastard child of Max Headroom and a Segway.

Telepresence – all the benefit of being in the office with the extra sweetener of not needing to wear pants!

Check up on the frankly disturbing progress here!

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Now that’s a thing of beauty aint it? Microsoft may be parting company with Halo creators Bungie after this release, and game details are still sketchy, but these new screenshots that leaked out today show that if this is the last hurrah for the series, it’ll be amazing to watch!

Check out more images below – lock n’ load!

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Looking for a unique fixer-upper opportunity? How about a bloody great space station? You may not have considered the unique pleasure of owning five bio-domes (each full of easily hunt-and-kill-able alien species), a bar selling weird alien booze, and even an..erm..auctioneer…but with this gigantic trade and revival station you can have it all!

The only setback? The station doesn’t technically exist -amounting to little more than the set of tables shown above.  Not that this stopped MMO player “Buzz Erik Lightyear” from parting with his cash – $330,000 real, actual dollars in total – to own this Planet Calypso In-Game Hub.
Seems the Calypso developers were happy to offload the rusting space hulk for 3.3Million game dollars-paid for with real money. Giving Lightyear the chance to tax other gamers using his hub until they squeak.God bless interstellar capitalism!

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Everyone love retro gaming right? After all, Games innovation will never surpass the heights reached by Shaq-Fu, so why even bother? Which is exactly why we love First Person Tetris!

Yep, if there was a national survey of things you just don’t need, this would be way up there, but who would have thought pretending to be a brick for a half hour would recreate that ‘12 pints to the wind’ feeling so accurately?

Play it here and get ready to hurl!

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