Pipilotti Rist’s innovative video installations give audiences an “Eyeball Massage”

by Jessica Festa on

Don’t worry, nobody will physically be touching your eyeballs. However, you will be taken on a unique sensory journey through dazzling color, perceptible images, and hypnotic music.

Until January 8, 2012, the work of Swiss Artist Pipilotti Rist will be featured at the Hayward Gallery in London in “Eyeball Massage“. Through this exhibit, viewers can see Rita’s work from the 1980’s to the present, including videos, sculptures, and installations. Spectators will see a lot of experimental video work that plays around with color, noise, and bleeds. With sculpture, Rist combines everyday objects with video and gives them life as well as a chance to tell their stories. Moreover, her art installations are not just splashes of color and pictures to look at but instead a parallel dimension that visitors will become immersed in. According to the event page, “Rist wants the exhibition to provoke feelings of energy, serenity and enlightenment, and hopes that her work makes visitors smile”.

For a preview of what you can expect check out this video. While there’s something a bit eerie and overwhelming to it, you can also appreciate the creativity behind it:


Want to try 300 drinks from 5 different continents?

by Jessica Festa on

On December 1, 2011, ZaZa Bazaar will unveil its Wunder Bar. You will basically be able to go on a cocktail tour around the world without leaving Bristol, United Kingdom, as the bar will feature 300 drinks from five different continents.

Bar manager, Les Richards, and bar consultant, Ro Santus, have spent hours upon hours coming up with innovative and worldly drinks for all tastes and budgets. There will be 35 cocktails with European, Asian, American, and Arctic flare, as well as an extensive selection of spirits, wines, and champagnes. Beers will come from 10 different countries, some of which include China, Portugal, India, and Brazil. No matter what drink you choose, know that you are getting a high quality product that you can feel good about.

“We’ll use the freshest ingredients. Even the syrups and purees will have been made that day. All fruit and vegetables used in the bar will be sourced locally,” says Richards.

And, it’s not just drinks that will be international. There will also be an array of unique menus from around the globe, some of which include curries, sushi, Italian pasta, BBQ, Far East, Chinese, Indian, pizza, burgers, dosa, nacho bar, tex mex, and more.

For more information, visit their website.

Kids travel gift: Junior “crumpled” city maps

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Last year we reported on Italian designer Emanuele Pizzolorusso’s crumpled city maps, a delightful series of maps made out of tough waterproof material. Pizzolorusso’s maps can withstand crumpling and crushing. They fit in a little pouch and are easily transportable. They are a wonderfully fanciful yet solidly utilitarian tool for tourists.

Pizzolorusso, working with Berlin-based illustrator Alvvino, has just released a series of maps for children, colorful and vibrant objects containing main attractions as well as “not-to-be-missed” junior locations of particular interest to younger tourists. In addition to illustrating the maps, Alvvino is also responsible for their packaging. See the Berlin version of the Junior map above. (Note that the superimposed figures and monuments are not included.)

Thus far, junior maps to Amsterdam, Berlin, London, New York, and Paris have been released. Additional cities will follow.

Currently, Junior crumpled maps can be purchased online through the Palomar shop for €10 ($13.25) apiece.

London’s Temple of Mithras is moving back to its original location

by Sean McLachlan on


London got its start as the Roman city of Londinium in the first century AD. Back then the so-called “mystery religions” were very popular in the Roman Empire. These cults, with their personal connections to the divine and secret rites, gave believers a more personal experience than the giant temples to Jupiter, Mars, and the rest of the standard pantheon. One of the most popular mystery religions was that of Mithras, an eastern deity whose worship appears to have been open only to men, mainly soldiers.

Since Mithraic rites were secret, not much is known about their beliefs, but there are many similarities between Mithraism and Christianity, such as Mithras being born on December 25 to a virgin, and having died and been resurrected for the salvation of mankind. Both faiths practiced baptism and communal meals. The similarities were so numerous that early Christian writers claimed the older religion was invented by the Devil as a cheap imitation of Christianity before Jesus was even born!

Temples to Mithras, called mithraea, have been found all over the Roman Empire, including one in the heart of London. The mithraeum in Roman London was discovered in 1952 and moved 90 meters away and set up on Queen Victoria St. The restoration wasn’t a completely accurate one. One major problem was that it was put on a podium when mithraea were generally underground.

Now the site has been bought by Bloomberg LP, which plans to build its European headquarters there. Bloomberg LP is going to dismantle the temple and put it back in its original location, according to a press release from the Museum of London Archaeology. The temple will be dismantled starting on November 21 and the corporation says the new reconstruction will be much more accurate. There’s no word yet on when this whole project will be completed. Such a large and delicate process will probably take several years.

National Gallery in London opens Da Vinci exhibition today

by Sean McLachlan on

London’s National Gallery is hosting an exhibition of the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. The show, titled Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, focuses on the paintings of the famous genius rather than his many other projects. It brings together nine of the only 15 or 16 paintings known to be his. The gallery boasts that it’s the most complete collection of his paintings ever shown.

The Mona Lisa is not among them. Personally I consider it Da Vinci’s least compelling work. Perhaps that’s just because I’ve seen it too much, or maybe I was influenced by my art history teacher who, while giving us a slideshow on Renaissance art, got to the Mona Lisa and wearily said, “The Mona Lisa. Is she smiling or isn’t she? Who cares?” and then went on to the next slide. Maybe if she went into the theory that it shows Da Vinci in drag I would have been more interested.

One of the paintings on display is Christ as Salvator Mundi, which is the subject of a heated debate within art circles as to whether it’s by Da Vinci or one of his students. Hanging beside known works of Da Vinci, you’ll have the chance to judge for yourself.

Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan runs until 5 February 2012.

Photo of the Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani courtesy Web Gallery of Art.