Japanese pop star shaves head in apology – for night with boyfriend

As pop star misdemeanours go, Minami Minegishi's was tame in the extreme – breaking her group's strict dating ban to spend a night with her boyfriend.

Yet hours after a magazine published photographs of her leaving his home last month, Minegishi, a member of the wildly popular girl band AKB48, went on to YouTube to issue a tearful apology.

"As a senior member of the group, it is my responsibility to be a role model for younger members," she said, before ending the four-minute mea culpa with a deep, lingering bow.

The most striking thing about her apology, however, was her appearance. She had shaved her head, a traditional act of contrition inJapan, but perhaps a step too far for a 20-year-old woman whose "crime" was to have found herself a boyfriend – 19-year-old Alan Shirahama, a dancer in a boyband.

Minegishi explained she had decided to cut off her long hair immediately after seeing her photograph, her face hidden behind a surgical mask and a baseball cap, in the weekly tabloid Shukan Bunshun on Thursday.

Her dramatic gesture underlined the strict rules to which Japan's young pop stars must adhere to project an image of unimpeachable morals.

In the YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 3m times, Minegishi said the assignation has been "thoughtless and immature".

"If it is possible, I wish from the bottom of my heart to stay in the band," she said. "Everything I did is entirely my fault. I am so sorry.

"I don't believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don't want to quit AKB48."

AKB48's management agency demoted her to "trainee level" starting on Friday, according to the band's official blog.

Full story here

Violence In Video Games

Re-posted from: screenagers.me

'Dark Knight Rises' - Graffiti Mural

The video was shot and edited by the London Vandal. The art work, by Graffiti Life artists, took four hours to complete and was on a 20ft X 9ft wall located in East London.

Ken Loach to visit King Edward VI College on 16/11/12

A once in lifetime opportunity to engage with Ken Loach, the high profile and socially aware filmmaker, has arisen and should be regarded as unique. I would, therefore, expect and urge you to research his filmmaking career in preparation for his arrival on 16th November and make sure he receives the respect that he undoubtedly deserves.

Ken Loach is a former student of King Edward VI Grammar School, a world renowned social realist filmmaker and he will be coming to Nuneaton on 16th November 2012 to revisit the college he attended in the 1950's. This is one of the first times he has returned to his hometown in recent years and it will be an excellent opportunity for current Film and Media students to gain inspiration from one of the most influential filmmakers that the UK has ever produced.

Loach's filmmaking career initially began in theatre and television, but he gained international fame in 1969 when he made Kes, the story of a troubled boy and his kestrel, based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. 

His most recent film The Angel's Share centres around a young Scottish troublemaker who is given one final opportunity to stay out of jail. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival where Loach won the Jury Prize.

Generation of children could lose vital cultural skills, says Nicholas Serota

An entire generation of children could lose the cultural skills both they and the UK need if the government goes ahead with its English Baccalaureate plans without the arts as a core subject, the Tate director,Nicholas Serota, said on Thursday.

Serota used the launch of his organisation's annual report to urge ministers to rethink their plans for the EBacc certificates, which will replace GCSEs.

He said the arts should be a fourth "R" alongside reading, writing and arithmetic. "The proposals do not provide for the arts as being one of the core subjects and the way in which the proposals have been formulated makes it very clear that art, design, music, drama and dance will be pushed to the margin with very little time in the curriculum for those subjects.

"We regard cultural learning as being more important than ever and we think that the arts have a primary role to play in a world that is dependent on literacy of all kinds, including visual."

Serota said it was a more important matter than even the debate about public cuts to arts spending because it affected every child in the country and "it is about the kind of society that we want to have in 20 years' time".

He added: "There is a real risk that fewer and fewer schools will provide learning opportunities in the arts. The UK's leading edge in creativity may be lost. We cannot deprive an entire generation of children of the cultural skills that they will need."

Serota is the latest of many to express concern at the proposals as they stand. Among the many voices Deborah Annetts, the chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, said: "It is as if the Olympics never happened. Design – gone, technology – gone, music – gone. This shortsighted, wholesale attack on secondary music education will emasculate not only our world class music education system but also our entire creative economy."

Earlier this year Darren Henley published a well received report into cultural learning after which the government said it would publish a national plan by early autumn.

That plan is still awaited. Serota said: "Everyone recognises there have been many things on the plate of the DCMS [Department for Culture, Media and Sport] over the summer of the Olympics, but we earnestly hope that the national plan will be published before Christmas."

Tate's annual report highlighted some of its 516 acquisitions to the collection over the past year. They include works gifted by artists, such as Martin Creed giving a neon work with the words "DON'T WORRY", and works purchased, such as nearly 10 cubic metres of Ai Weiwei's sunflower seeds and 58 photographs by Lewis Baltz, which make up a series called San Quentin Point 1982.

The chairman of trustees, Lord Browne, said Tate now got the majority of its funding, 61%, from private and not public sources. "Over the past five years Tate has increased its self-generated income by 15%, compared to the 5% increase in grant-in-aid."

It was also announced that it has raised three-quarters of the capital costs for its ongoing £215m extension while all the money was raised for the £45m Tate Britain redevelopment that will, among other things, allow the first floor to be opened to the public for the first time since 1928.

Guardian.co.uk

'Blade Runner' in Watercolours

Aquarelle is a French term for watercolor that refers specifically to paintings made with a transparent wash—meaning you can't fix an aquarelle by retouching or painting over a mistake. You have to get it right the first time. That's why aquarelles feel quick and spontaneous—even when they're recreating a classic movie that you've seen many times over.

That's the case with Anders Ramsell's remarkable Blade Runner: Aquarelle Edition, a project that consists of 3,285 paintings so far. Thousands more will be required to make the entire film—but Ramsell's dedication seems less crazy after watching the finished product to this point. The result has an ethereal, dreamy quality. 

Britain in a Day

On Saturday 12 November 2011, all across Britain, people filmed the everyday events of their lives. The resulting 750 hours of footage have been edited into a 90 minute film by director Morgan Matthews. It will be shown on BBC2 at 9.00pm on Monday 11th June. For more information go to the BBC website, where you can see clips of the film.

An 18th Century Transvestite

The National Portrait Gallery has bought, what is believed to be, it's first portrait of a man in woman's clothing; an 18th century transvestite called Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont. He was well known across all sections of society as a diplomat, soldier and spy. Read more about the portrait and it's subject on The Guardian website.

RETROMANIA: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past By Simon Reynolds

Dummy magazine's "The 10 Best Modern Music Books": #1. Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction To Its Own Past "There’s no doubting technology’s ability to reproduce and discover art and artists of the past has had an impact on the retrogressive eye of contemporary culture and music. Whether you agree with his polemical tract, Simon Reynolds’s era-defining book is as essential as it gets."

"The best book I read recently is Retromania by Simon Reynolds. It's fantastic. Reading Simon Reynolds is like getting in a warm bath"--Jason Schwartzman, GQ Style

Visit Simon Reynolds Blog

http://retromaniabysimonreynolds.blogspot.co.uk/

In the Best Possible Taste

Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry hosts a new series on Channel 4 called 'In the Best Possible Taste' which starts on June 5th at 10pm. He looks at how our family background and class shape the way we define ourselves through what we wear and buy and how we live. Each episode sees Grayson create a piece of artwork inspired by his experience. See more about the series here.

To read an interview with Grayson about his views on taste and class go to the Guardian website.

Plan B's iLL Manors: 'This is the true, dark reality'

The song inspired by last year's riots has now become a film. Plan B, aka Ben Drew, explains why he was driven to make it.

"A lot of people outside this environment don't believe it exists," he continues. "So in the film, rather than glamorise it, I'm trying to say to people this is the true, dark reality. This is what happens. It's not cool. No drug dealer really has the last laugh."

Dark reality is, if anything, an understatement. The film is an unapologetic and at times unnerving and uncomfortable drama, a depiction of life in the most unloved and unforgiving streets of east London, seen through the interwoven lives of its dysfunctional characters, linked and part-narrated by six new Plan B tracks. Starring established British actors such as Riz Ahmed (aka rapper Riz MC) and Natalie Press alongside unknowns such as Keith Coggins (Drew's godfather in real life) and Ryan De La Cruz, it shows the spirals of hopelessness and violence that vulnerable individuals can easily be sucked in to.

ILL Manors is not a manifesto or a direct polemic, but, like many of the best protest artforms, concentrates on capturing a mood – of desolation and anxiety. Rather than judging or preaching, it's more concerned with encouraging debate about the root of the problems it presents and demonstrating how they can have a domino effect on people's lives. It's also a surprisingly accomplished piece of work for a directorial debut and Drew, you could argue, is becoming a much-needed spokesman for an alienated sector of our society that feels it doesn't have a voice.

"I just wanted to say, 'They're not all scum,'" says Drew of his characters. "They act the way they do because of the shit that happened to them that wasn't their fault. It's not your fault if your parents abandon you and put you in a home. It's not your fault, but there comes a time when you have to take responsibility for your actions. But for a lot of them, there's no one there saying, 'All that shit that happened to you in the past is fucked up, man, and I feel really sorry for you, but you're just repeating that bad and negative energy through what you're doing and you can't keep blaming the past for the way you're acting now.'"

Read the full interview/article: The Guardian

Audio Visual Presentation: Sample Coursework

Here is a sample Audio Visual Presentation for AS Coursework that gained an A grade. Use it as a a guide for what is expected of in terms of language, content and theory for your 'Audio Visual Presentation'. 

Guardian Readers recommend: songs about teenagers – results

Youth is wasted on the young, as jealous old George Bernard Shaw once said. But that didn't seem true of the subjects of many songs you suggested last week. Anyway, with grownups hurling so many brickbats at them, who can blame teenagers for throwing the odd strop?

"It's only teenage wasteland." So sang the Who on Baba O'Riley. Though as RR commenter treefrogdemon says, "Why is it a teenage wasteland? Dunno." But incoherence is part of the teenager's lot, and anyone who's been 15 will feel the uncontained rage in the song, happily rescued from Pete Townshend's abandoned concept album Lifehouse (abandoned because only Townshend understood the concept).

Rock'n'roll began life as music for teenagers, and progenitor Eddie Cochran knew his audience. Teenage Heaven consists of a list of demands that will strike a chord with all disaffected teens: "I want to stay up all night … Just give me some time on my hands/ I want to make my own private plans."

Punk, like rock'n'roll, was to a large extent teenagers making music for teenagers. Hence Teenage Treats by the Wasps, east London youths whose musical career was on the skids before they were old enough to vote.

You've got to hand it to Atari Teenage Riot, whose eponymous debut single gleefully imbued the thrills of rave with the snottiest punk attitude. Rave plays a role too in the Killers' When You Were Young: it's half stadium rock anthem, with a Bruce Springsteen-esque nostalgia for mythical youth, and half house euphoria. And Dire Straits' Romeo and Juliet may be self-consciously "classic", but recasts the age-old tale of star-crossed teen lovers to the rock era in a way even Springsteen must have envied.

The Beach Boys' hymn to teenage solitude, In My Room, was an early attempt by Brian Wilson to create music he described as "teenage symphonies to God". The Beach Boys also recorded So Young, a cover of a 1958 hit by doowoppers the Students. The Ronettes' version is right up there, Ronnie Spector's voice full of not-quite-innocent heartbreak, Phil Spector's production all heavenly strings and choirs of angels.

The Teenagers' F*ck Nicole ("so teenage, so French" as RR regular Japanther says) is full of surprises: backwards verses, superfluous swearing and a Gallic Lou Reed detailing an adolescent career off the rails. But hang on. Japanese popstrels Scandal were nominated by Hoshino Sakura, who says Beauteen's about "being a teenager, pretty and love … the perfect antidote to all the teenage angst from the Smiths!"

No Smiths in this week's playist, but the Flamin' Groovies are in garage rock mode on Teenage Head, focusing on sexual frustration and aggression. First line: "I'm a monster!" And there's more cartoon parent-worrying from the Ramones in Teenage Lobotomy: "Now I guess I'll have to tell 'em/ that I got no cerebellum." A contender, surely, for the best lyric ever. And I loved RR commenter llamalpaca's description of adolescence as portrayed in the Regents' skinny-tie classic 7-Teen: "Knocking on the door of adulthood but not getting in."

Here's the playlist:

Baba O'Riley – The Who

Teenage Heaven – Eddie Cochran

Teenage Treats – The Wasps

ATR – Atari Teenage Riot

When You Were Young (Lindbergh Palace remix) – The Killers

Romeo and Juliet – Dire Straits

In My Room – The Beach Boys

So Young – The Ronettes

F*ck Nicole – The Teenagers

Beauteen – Scandal

Teenage Head – Flamin' Groovies

Teenage Lobotomy – Ramones

7-Teen – The Regents

* Listen to these songs on a YouTube playlist

* Read all the readers' recommendations on last week's blog, from which the songs above are selected

* Here's a Spotify playlist containing readers' recommendations on this theme

• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 April 2012

The Sociology of Culture: Everyday Life and the Construction of Meaning

Here are 2 chapters from 'The Sociology of Culture' which you will find useful for applying theory to your coursework and exam assignments. They are concerned with 'Everyday Life and the Construction of Meaning': specifically 'Music and Social Experience' and 'Consumer Culture'. Taking and using a few selective quotes from these sections will add a theoretical perspective to your individual studies and strengthen your critical analysis of cultural practices and products.

What role did brands play in last summer's riots?

'After the Riots' is the name of a report produced by the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel which was set up after last summer's riots. This is a very interesting article featured on the Guardian website that discusses the report's findings, the way big brands market themselves and the effects they have on young people.

The Mean World Syndrome

Mean World Syndrome is a phenomenon where the violence-related content of mass media convinces viewers that the world is more dangerous than it actually is, and prompts a desire for more protection than is warranted by any actual threat. Mean World Syndrome is one of the main conclusions of cultivation theory. The term "Mean World Syndrome" was coined by George Gerbner, a pioneer researcher on the effects of television on society, when he noted that people who watched a lot of TV tended to think of the world as an unforgiving and scary place.

Coursework Guidance: Essay Assignments

There are now 2 examples of student work available on the 'Student Work' page with key terms highlighted for guidance in your essay assignments. Use these, and the terms/guidelines below, as a minimum requirement for a satisfactory grade.

Key words

Section A:

Site A: Investigation

Key words
Section A:
Site B: Exploration

For each assignment:

The Codes of Gender

Written and directed by MEF Executive Director Sut Jhally, The Codes of Gender applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman's groundbreaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture's most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity.

Google Art Project Expands, Bringing 30,000 Works of Art from 151 Museums to the Web

Last February, Google launched Art Project, which lets users take a virtual tour of 1,000 works of art from 17 great museums — from the MoMA and Met in New York City, to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, to the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Now comes news that Art Project has greatly expanded its coverage, giving users access to 30,000 high-resolution artworks appearing in 151 museums across 40 countries. The virtual tour includes paintings but also sculpture, street art and photographs. And you can now explore collections (see all) from the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, the Museu De Arte Moderna De São Paulo in Brazil, and the Tokyo National Museum.

This is all part of Google’s effort to bring cultural artifacts to the broadest possible audience. Just last week, Googleplex helped launch the Nelson Mandela Digital Archive and, before that, a high resolution version of The Dead Sea Scrolls.

via Google Blog

Peter Blake's Cultural Icons

Sir Peter Blake, best known as the 'godfather' of British Pop Art and creator of the cover for the Beatles' Sgt Pepper Album, is celebrating his 80th birthday this year. He has been asked to recreate his most famous work, but this time fill it with British cultural figures that he most admires. People included are J.K. Rowling, Noel Gallagher, Grayson Perry, Amy Winehouse, Danny Boyle and David Attenborough. Paul McCartney and his daughter Stella are also there.
The new version has been created for a special birthday celebration of Blake's life at the Vintage Festival hosted by Wayne Hemmingway at Boughton House, Northamptonshire, in July. Go to their website to read more and see the full list of people included. The original artwork is pictured below.