"Art is Personal." But is this too much?

“Art is personal”; a statement taken a little too literally by artist Milo Moiré. The Swiss artist, whose new ordeal is to push eggs filled with paint up her vagina and wait for them to ‘hatch’ whilst standing over a blank canvas.

 The unique 31 year old expressionist exhibited her artwork, entitled ‘Plopegg’, during the Cologne art fair last week. While claiming she’s “Giving birth to a painting” and is only expressing herself through her art many people think it’s disgusting and odd, but it’s not like she doesn’t realise this, Moiré herself told Huffington Post UK that “I’m aware that my art, specifically my performances polarize and generate loud criticism.”

You may (Or not) have heard about the performance artist, Painter and Psychologist before. After her 2013 debut, “the script system” was alluring feminists everywhere. To which she made a short video where she herself commuted to work, naked. Covered in black typography, describing the clothing that’s, typically in place of her bare skin. Pause for effect. “When I perform I’m at one with myself, focused and calm. I feel strong, because I’m absolutely convinced about my work.”

Okay, so maybe it does sound weird... really weird. But with this modern society, I’m not at all surprised.

Social networks are screaming with strange posts, from what was once a status updating, life event happening sharing site, is now a global sharing machine. From vulgar videos to funny cat antics, sites such as Facebook are brimming to the edges with them.  So why can’t artists go to extreme lengths to get their stuff out there? It’s not like other performers don’t go to stomach twisting lengths to sell their art.

 For example; Stefani Germanotta... Aka: Lady Gaga. She has herself a whole new persona for her stage work, her creative (yet again, crazy strange) art has proved to be a selling point... However, having a woman vomit on her when she was on stage would be a little bit OTT. But it makes me question, would she be as successful if she wasn’t as different and ‘Out there’? Who knows, it’s the same with films. Would horror films such as French extremist masterpiece ‘Martyrs’ be as successful if it wasn’t so visually daring and full of gore? Or if didn’t appeal to the public’s interest in seeing the unusual and the strange?

But then I think that artists should be allowed to express themselves through their art as much as they like. People are allowed to express themselves freely with their words, so why can’t this be done through visuals? Moiré describes her art as “I’m interested in pushing boundaries through art, living and expressing my art with my body and mind while opening mental doors.”  But i suppose, a picture is worth a thousand words. I wonder how many words (Or £££s) a ‘Plopegg’ painting is worth... 

Malaysian plane mystery

It’s not uncommon to hear in the news about missing people. Unfortunate, yes... but true. However, never have I heard of 239 people going missing at one time. You hear of mass murders, mass robberies and mass shootings but mass missing persons? Doesn’t that sound a little ridiculous?

Not when put into perspective. When flight MH370 disappeared between its departure from Kuala Lumpur to its destination in Beijing Saturday morning. No distress signals or messages were sent from the plane, it simply vanished off the Malaysian airlines radar. Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane at 01:30am, just 49 minutes after its departure.

Sounds to me like a job for Sherlock Holmes.

With conspiracies and theories about the missing jet, flying all over social networking sites, the hunt is on for this missing aircraft. With twitter users hashtagging support to the families of the missing passengers, who were mainly of Chinese and Malaysian background.  Two children were on board the plane and all twelve of the crew members being of Malaysian descent. As well as being supportive, twitter users also use hashtags to gain new information, as well as big news paper corporations using twitter to post immediate links to stories including new and current information that would interest the audience. It’s sort of like a live update for information. This is similar to the guardian live blog. That posts the more recent information at the top of the page and the older information at the bottom. This however doesn’t mean that the most relevant information is at the top.

 On board were also two Iranian men who were travelling on stolen passports, with Interpol saying in a statement that ‘the men were believed to have been en route to Europe via Beijing’. The independent have highlighted these men in their headlines, stating “Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Terrorism explanation ‘cannot be ruled out’, says CIA. But this is only one conspiracy, with the media being hot on topics such as this, due to their being such media attention when terrorism attacks take place. People look to the media for information in cases such as the coverage of the 911 case. However, I think if the media were to jump to a conclusion like this straight away there may be some form of moral panic, due to most of the public being quick to believe the stories they hear in the media. Which is highlighted in the hypodermic needle theory implying that mass media has a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences.

Other theories include; sabotage, psychological problems among the passengers and crew and personal problems among the passengers and crew, as well as hijacking. There is no link to the weather conditions being bad or the pilot, who had been working for the airline since 1981 and had more than 18,000 flying hours behind him. 

So what has happened to the mysteriously missing plane? Is it #hijacked or maybe #psychoplane. who knows... only time will tell. 

Are vets barking up the wrong tree with deadly toxin antidote?

Are vets barking up the wrong tree with deadly toxin antidote?

 ‘People should not panic.’ Comforting words, from David Walker, head of medicine at Anderson Moores vets in Hursley. However, with another canine having its life brutally taken, I am not convinced by this. Later contradicting himself David Walker adds that, specialists are no closer to discovering the trigger of the disease.

So is he giving dog owners false hope? What are we to believe, that our faithful four legged companions are in safe hands. However the people we are putting our trust in are no closer to finding a way of demolishing these deadly toxins. Why isn’t there more being done about this? This is really starting to take the biscuit. Dog biscuit. 

“We want people to be aware but it is still small number of dogs” heartless way of looking at things don’t you think David walker? I’m sure if it was his dog infected with the toxin this would be on the top of his priorities. Headlines read “Another dog killed by mystery deadly toxin”, which makes 14 of man’s “best friends” being slaughtered by the deadly toxin. And what are people doing about it? Nothing but, sitting on their arses. 

However, more positively, (finally something optimistic to come from this story!) a campaign has been launched to protect dogs with warning signs erected in car parks in affected areas. Little will that do though, last I knew of dogs couldn’t actually read. 

But really, how long will it take for drastic action to be taken? Not petty signs. Since when do people read all the signs in the new forest anyway? And soon what if the toxins spread, it would be global before we knew it. So what, no dogs? Last I heard eliminating a race (Well, breed) was never a good idea.

Top Trumps

Belching their way into the news this weekend was 90 dairy cows in the town of Rasdorf in central Germany. After high levels of methane gas, from the cows was left to build up in a dairy shed, “a static electric charge caused the gas to explode” causing a blast within the cow’s building. 

Cows emit high levels of methane gas every day, up to 500 litres per day, which are leaving scientists questioning if to start researching into how to turn “Burp-power into fuel.” But could other animals flatulence could be converted into renewable energy? After all, don’t we all have dog that farts and leaves the room? Instead of blaming the nearest person, could we not be thinking about how to turn this gas into a way to power the TV?  

Or is my head full of air? Is farting our way into the future too extreme? Seems to me like one of Homer Simpson’s silly schemes.

 However, how different is it really to using animal waste for other things? After all, we have been using horse manure on our gardens for centuries, recycling animal waste into a different form and using it to our advantages. How different is using animal flatulence to power our oven to actually using animal bodies to cook in the oven? Surely this would be more kind and risk free for the animal, causing it no pain and not having it being raised for slaughter. 

Could we really gain all our resources from animals, with cow’s contributing more to the welfare of humans than actual humans? After all we already gain dairy products as well as meat from the animals, would it be wise to gain renewable energy from them as well?

However, methane is a potent greenhouse gas. This would lead to the contribution to global warming, changing climate changes, which could result in the habitat of the cows not being suitable in a matter of years. Therefore making the solution of “Burp-powered fuel” only a temporary solution, that is if it isn’t in fact more of a problem than a solution. 

Unfortunately one cow was injured in the making of this feature. 

British Grandmother Dreads Build Up To Christmas!

         After spending two weeks in the highest hotel in Europe, eager shopper Penelope, her daughter Mandy and her three and a half year old grandson, Jack, were starting the daunting task of Christmas shopping. A task many Brits dread every year. “It’s really difficult to buy something for everyone. Normally I end up receiving the same things every year, Soap, body wash, stuff like that, it’s like they don’t put much thought into it.” Described Penelope, 63, as her daughter and grandson tried on shoes. “This year, I brought a lot of the Christmas presents for relatives when we were on holiday in Switzerland.”

 Penelope explained how she and her family had stayed in the highest hotel in Europe, the “Riffelalo Resort” in Zermatt and that they had explored 150 tunnels in Europe as well as visited the highest town in Europe, Davos. She continued to explain how the town of Davos, which was built on a fort, is in the Swiss Alps, which she and her family also explored, describing it as a beautiful and breath-taking experience.  After shopping in Switzerland she compared it to shopping in Southampton, saying that Southampton shopping was more of a rush than when they were on vacation.

 “The last few weeks in the lead up to Christmas are the worst! Long queues and lots and lots of toys!” making a glance at her grandson, who was sat grinning at his grandmother. “I miss the peace and quiet of the Alps, Christmas away would be perfect!” she reminisced. Losing her concentration slightly in thoughts of the last few weeks she’d had away. Finally, leaving with saying that the one thing she dreaded more than Christmas shopping was her upcoming trip to the dentist!

Two pints of coke and a bowl of chips (more of a rant than anything else tbh)

Two pints of coke and a bowl of chips.

After a long evening of shopping with a friend, a glass of coke would go down a treat! Little did we know how much of a struggle it would be to quench out thirsts!

After deciding how to fill our stomachs, my friend and I headed towards the newly opened American diner. Planning on indulging in some unhealthy cuisine to supplement our unhealthy shopping addiction. (Which being a student is a serious challenge!) after being seated by a acne-infested waiter, we shrugged off his grumpy attitude and took it as he was having a rough day. After all student lock in is a really busy night!

After glancing over the menu, already knowing what we wanted to order, we tried to grab the attention of the waitress. After we had located her, with great difficulty! I guess however the clue is in the name, WAITress. After, what seemed like forever, the waitress showed up at our table to take our Order. Greeting us with no apology for the delay, and informing us that we couldn't have a glass of coke as the machine was broken. Typical. Orange juice and water it is. Healthy!

Gradually the diner filled with happy customers, leaving with full bellies. Everyone around us receiving their orders AND glasses of coke! After once again asking for a glass of coke from yet another waitress we thought that we were in luck, with everyone around us having coke, surely we would actually receive the glass we had ordered primarily this time...

Orange juice! Excuse me?

The waitress had just given us yet more orange juice! Gaining the attention of the staff yet again, was impossible. After several more attempts of asking the waiters to come to the table we had service, we explained the mysterious OJ situation, not that he was much help. The waiter simply just explained the machine was broken, even though clearly everyone around us has coke in glasses as well as tiny glass bottles, and then left.

After an hour or so of waiting our food arrived. Thankfully, both of our stomachs were starting to growl. (Embarrassing!). Again with no apology! Finally something good about this place though, food! Or maybe not, cold and soggy food doesn't go down too well when you have hungry grouchy students in your diner. If food takes that long to come out of a kitchen that's right in front of the customers, it has to be good. Not only was it lacking in taste, the chips weren't completely fluffy, still containing bits of raw potatoes! Yuck!

Again, having to wait around to pay... It's like they didn't want our money! (Just like we didn't want their food, with half of it still being left on out plates) we left the diner, and I for one, am not likely to be returning anytime soon!

What brought me to Solent!

After pondering around my room for hours, debating whether or not I was going to go to uni or not, looking into every possible option I had. I finally clicked that I wanted to be the first one in my family to attend uni. I’ve always had a passion for writing, and have wanted to be a journalist since I was little, and had gathered numerous newspaper articles and leaflets that had interested me over the years. Fascinated by the idea that the media can influence peoples views and decisions, I decided that I would further my opportunities and knowledge in media based subjects. After I achieved my media studies A level, my next step was to decide where I went from there. Do I go to uni? Do I try out gaining work experience and work for a year? Or even become an apprentice, and take a more practical approach? Or do I just sit on my arse and blog? And believe me, the last option after 13 years of education was really tempting!

After bumming around my house for almost three months doing pretty much nothing I decided that I would follow up the application I sent in the winter to look into the universities I had applied for, after all I had received offers from all 5 of my choices. Just had to pick now. After I had eliminated a few options, well, Bournemouth. After the interview I had there, there was no chance of me going back, it was far too big for me… with both my school and college being quite tiny, Bournemouth uni was a bit of a big jump. Unlike Solent, with its smaller, tighter community had a more welcoming approach. Making me feel comfortable as soon as I walked in.

 Greenwich University, my insurance, was where I was heading however, with other aspects of my decision-making leading me towards there. Although it was huge, I was still set on going there. However, after receiving my results and working out some of the finances, it was better and wiser for me to stay at home, and study at Solent. The course interested me more, allowing me to leave my options open in which part of the media I wanted to go into, and to give me all sorts of skills and new experiences. So finally settling with Solent, with its friendly atmosphere and exciting career opportunities.