 | Infecting the City is the rather charmless name for a public arts festival held in Cape Town each year. Last year’s event caused a bit of stir when the logo for the programme was unveiled – it featured an icon of Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, the “burning man” from the 2008 xenophobic attacks. ...read more |
Sick City
Friday, February 5th, 2010 by Sean O'Toole
Cubicle Hardcore
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 by Roger Young, images by Dylan Geldenhuys
 | There is something weird in the Cape Town Convention Center; and no, I’m not being disparaging toward all the tattoo and body modification artists. God knows they’ve had a life time of being called freaks, but the atmosphere itself is odd, off, a little incongruous. The white walls, the little booths, the neat sushi bar outside, the extremely clean Harleys, display cars, the squeaky clean looking Suicide Girls; all somehow clash with the earnest men in leather, bent over bleeding ...read more |
I Demand Your Attention
Friday, January 29th, 2010 by Sean O'Toole
 | The thing about language, fundamentally, is that it can’t imitate sounds. If I write Pfffffffft, does it really communicate the dismissive fart I heard come from the mouth of an elderly German man looking – casually, without conviction – at a photograph by Thomas Demand? Not really. Tom Wolfe made us believe it was possible, spectacularly possible, but at the end of the day… I don’t think so. ...read more |
Good reading for naïve optimists
Friday, January 22nd, 2010 by Sean O'Toole
 | We – that is you, me and a bunch of other people we don’t know – like to measure our mood in numbers. Percentages to be exact. At least that’s the view of political commentators and others who glean the approval ratings for ideas of how you, me and a bunch of other people behave mentally on any given day. For Americans, in particular, the numbers contained in presidential approval ratings are at once magical and scientific. Foolproof nonsense, in ...read more |
Manchester, so much to answer for
Friday, January 15th, 2010 by Sean O'Toole
 | I’ve never been to Manchester. Here are five reasons I should get there, sooner than later. One: Autechre (Have you heard the story about them being kicked off the decks at 330 in Durban?). Two: New Order (if only to look for that “ship in the harbor”). Three: A Certain Ratio (FAC 22 – genius!). Four: Carlos Alberto Tévez (Gimme a break, did you really think I would say Wayne Rooney?) And five: Alan Fletcher. ...read more |
Staring at a braai, thinking
Friday, January 8th, 2010 by Sean O'Toole
 | We’re standing around a burnt out fire laagered by 12 bits of brick and stone. We gaze at it forlornly. The fire offers no warmth. No matter, it’s summer, and it isn’t really a fire. It’s something else, a simulation: a bronze sculpture pretending to be a fire. The work is by London artist Gavin Turk. He is currently showing a group of self-described, “highly clichéd” works at the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town. The gallery has been specially wallpapered ...read more |
Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!
Friday, December 18th, 2009 by Sean O'Toole
 | It’s over. Finished. Klaar. Cancel your Kulula flights. Unhitch the caravan. Put away the boogie board. Bank that tollgate silver in your ashtray. Haven’t you heard? The N3 outta Joburg leads straight to hell. No not Heidelberg. That’s hell with a capital D. Derelict. Disgusting. Durban. ...read more |
The Unknown Salem Brownstone
Thursday, December 17th, 2009 by Niles Burns
 | The hottest graphic novel of 2009/2010 was written and illustrated by two South Africans (Ok one South African and one Venutian). John Dunning and Nikhil Singh. ...read more |
Hung and Drawn
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 by Andy Davis, images by JR Onyangunga
 | 2009 has been a bumpy ride down a rough road… We’ve had it tough and we’ve needed to cut loose. Looking back over the detritus of the year’s best parties, strewn like a galaxy of broken promises, stolen moments, empty bottles and cigarette stompies, tossed trestle tables and broken chairs, across your tequila damaged psyche, one party seems to stand out as a concept that worked. ...read more |
Da – da – da – da
Friday, December 11th, 2009 by Sean O'Toole
 | Music opened the book. It didn’t happen immediately, but when it did… the book, that book, in particular the noises it attempted to contain, exploded my suburban consciousness. I’m talking about Lipstick Traces. ...read more |
