Tricks and Treats at Bristol's Festival of Lunacy

"We invite you to step behind the looking glass, and into the rabbit warren of the mind. Come and cavort in our dreamscapes and frolic in our fantasies with a programme of performance, cabaret, burlesque, live music, DJs, visuals, and silent film"

Intrigued?

‘Yep, those are my boobs!’

Life Drawing with ArtSoc

‘Yep, those are my boobs!’ our model chirrups as she points over to my sketch. She proudly parades the art room eyeing up the fruits of her labour, a jumper dress pulled lazily over her previously exposed figure. ‘Do you mind if I take a picture of those?’ she whips out her phone, ‘I’m trying to prove to my friends that I actually do this’. I ask her if she finds it intimidating, subjecting her naked body to the eyes of 20 or more students scrupulously tracing her every line and curve. She answers unflinchingly, ‘No. I’m a pro’.

And Speaking of Poetry...

The English Society (Falstaff) are hosting a poetry reading this Thursday at 6.30pm in the very cosy White Bear pub. Open to all - whether you're an English student or not. Find out more here.

E.D.

Poem of the Week: 'The Phone-Fox' by Christopher Reid

'The Phone-Fox'
Christopher Reid

We were talking about Ted Hughes,
          when the corner of my eye
twitched to the fact of a fox
         on the flat, tar-papered roof
of the chapel-of-rest next door.
         What a moment to choose!
I watched it as it spelt itself out
        from shadows of the far-side garden
into clear sunlight,
        at which point I gave a shout
which must have sounded crazy.
        Then it trotted about,
inspecting different views.
        And then it did a quick jig
once around itself,
        lay down, extended its forepaws
And cocked its muzzle for a big,
       tasty, air-licking yawn.
Unbiddable, unbidden,
        this was a genuine fox
Of the Inner London variety,
        now enjoying its own society
on top of the squat brick box
        where they bring the newly dead.
Accident or sign,
       I was sorry nothing I said
could make it real for you
        at your end of the line.

Andy Rouse - Inspirational Wildlife Photography

Andy Rouse 2009

In our current, heavily enthusiast-weighted, 'arty' photographic society, it is increasingly easy to let slip from our minds the work of those more traditional photographers. By 'traditional' - and I may indeed be guilty of inappropriate use of the word - I mean the kind that travel to the far corners of the earth and spend weeks trekking through testing conditions just to get a shot. Andy Rouse has seen some incredible things; more importantly, he's also turned them into incredible photographs. His work needs little further introduction, but I think he sets a great aspirational target in the volume of fantastic images he's produced, and budding photographers of any genre should take a look for some inspiring stuff.

JM

Helicon's Haik-Who? Competition

  

Attention all competitive spirits and procrastinators! Helicon proudly presents this term's exciting competition opportunity: Haik-Who? (If Shakespeare loved the pun, so do we).

Trans-species Fancy Dress

To celebrate our new theme, DISGUISE, I went for the obvious: animals disguised as other animals. Genius.

Our new theme: DISGUISE

Attention all: as broadcast by the shiny poster above (created with the help of our surprisingly willing art editor Isaac) the theme for this term's issue is DISGUISE. Our hungry new editorial team is desperate to devour your art, photography, poetry, prose and features submissions, which can fulfill the theme as loosely or literally as you like. Light-hearted, serious or just plain ridiculous, please email them to helicon.magazine@gmail.com before the deadline of October 24th where they'll all be happily recieved and provided with full feedback.

Welcome to a new year of...

Helicon has been around for over ten years, yet not everyone knows exactly who we are or what we're about. So, for all the Fresher's joining us at Bristol Uni as well other newcomers who, by one means or another, have stumbled across us: here's a quick low-down of what goes down at Helicon Headquarters.

MEET: Marcel Veldman

Marcel Veldman is a skateboarder and photographer based in Rotterdam; he's been skating for 22 years but insists he only got into photography through a "detour": "basically, there were no good skate photographers in Holland taking photos of me and my friends". So he took matters into his own hands and started shooting his own photos. Travelling the world, capturing life on and off the board, Marcel has developed a vast portfolio, a living documentary of his and his friends' lives. Ten years on, he's earned his name as one of the most renowned photographers in the skate industry, and is the man behind Fluff, the Netherlands' leading skate magazine. I sat down with Marcel and, like the welcome guest entrusted with the family photo album, was given a guided tour of his life through the lens...

So you think your camera's a pimp?

Think again.

And another one:

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

CA

Just a couple of good videos:

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

&

Linotype: The Film Trailer from Linotype: The Film on Vimeo.

CA

Mash Up Sundays....

The Mash Up of September 26th, 2010

click click click

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Branded content: http://www.thisisrealart.com/ & http://vimeo.com/14454938
Sibling’s new comic knitwear collection pretty neatly promoted

Southern Exhibition: http://www.londonmiles.com/index.php
the London Miles gallery has got two exhibitions opening this September: Visual Splendor and Made in Britain - it’s a gallery well worth taking note of

Hay-on-Wye in the Autumn

Hay-on-Wye is a small Welsh market town that straddles the Welsh- Anglo border and sits huddled within the Brecon Beacons National Park (about an hour and a half’s drive from Bristol incidentally)- nothing out of the ordinary, except that it’s positively groaning with the weight of its many thousands of second- hand, specialist and collectors’ books. This is a town literally packed with words, and come June every year the bibliophiles arrive in their droves for the annual Literary Festival, booking up the quaint B&Bs and draining the tearooms of Earl Grey as they pore over the multitude of bookshops and gather to hear the greatest literary minds of the year speak.

Watch this space

Kind of irrelevant, but how sick is this? Kudos here for exposing me to this "visual crack" like a dealer in a playground.

TB

Just another church in Clifton?

Sometimes, when you wander into an abandoned church set for conversion into student apartments, you find an eccentric group of squatters building a bicycle carousel. The history of this building - of art and squatting... and bicycles - will unfortunately be swept to the side long before any new arrivals. Here is a collection documenting the final throws of a vastly under used and quite incredible building.

Mash Up Mondays...

The Mash Up of September 13th, 2010

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Branded content: http://bit.ly/aNdgp7
Converse’s coolest thing since plugging Avril Lavine

Northern Exhibition: http://bit.ly/a2kzu6
the man who brought you sprinter at the Tate

WANTED: Legitimate Graffiti Artist

Whilst flicking through the freebies section of Bristol Gumtree (anyone want a 6ft Albino python by the way?) I noticed this advert and couldn't help but think of you creative lot!

Basically the shop owner is sick of the usual rubbish that repeatedly appears overnight on his shop sign and has decided if you can't beat them, join them; but he's not just gonna give in, oh no, he's gonna beat them at their own game and get a real artist in on the action.

Gotta love that attitude, eh?

I would dearly love to see one of our Helicon readers getting some artistic exposure on this free canvas, so follow the link to the advert and apply if you have any ideas! Who knows, we could be fostering a new Banksy in our midst...


LE.

Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception at Tate Modern

Francis Alys in Collaboration with Ortega
Rehearsal I (El Ensayo) Tijuana, 1999-2001

I'm honestly not sure what to say about this exhibition. Whilst my friends were grunging out in Camden, I decided to dash across the city to Tate Modern; more for the sake of catching 'Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception' a few days before it ended than for want of actually seeing it. Overwhelmingly positive reviews from across the board had stirred some interest (it was "thought-provoking, funny and full of pathos" according to Adrian Searle at The Guardian and "Tate Modern's finest show to date by a living artist" according to Richard Dorment of The Telegraph), but, as Reception Theory dictates, the art experience is as reliant on the mental state of the viewer as on the physical state of the work. With other things on my mind, such as the fact that my fringe was plastered sweatily to my face, I forked out £8.50 to wander disorientatedly around the exhibition, pausing to watch the videos as gallery etiquette demands.