Central Saint Martins Snapshot blog

Desire. Courtesy of BFI

From stolen pearls to a glove left at the scene of the crime, from an excess of red lipstick to the post-modern gangster silhouette, fashion and style are commonly utilized in film to glamorize and glorify criminal behaviour.

These images and more will be the focus of the third New York edition of the London-based Fashion in Film Festival to take place at Museum of the Moving Image from 4-13 May, 2012. If Looks Could Kill, the Festival explores the compelling links between cinema, television, fashion, crime, and violence.

Tackling themes such as disguise, desire, and the corruption of beauty, the festival features a string of underworld characters and their prosecutors whose highly effective costume, styling, and sartorial gestures helped define cinematic genres from detective to thriller, gangster, film noir, and horror.

If Looks Could Kill includes screenings of ten feature films, a talk by the noted film scholar Tom Gunning, and a panel discussion featuring costume designers Juliet Polcsa from the HBO series The Sopranos, Lisa Padovani from the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, and Shelley Fox, Professor of Fashion at Parsons The New School for Design.

Highlights of the feature films include an imported 35mm print of Asphalt, a 1929 German “Strassenfilm,” a pre-film noir tale about a lovely diamond thief, presented with live music by Makia Matsumara; an archival print of Frank Borzage’s Desire (1936), starring Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper; screenings of two versions of Mildred Pierce, the 1945 film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Joan Crawford, and Todd Haynes’s recent HBO miniseries, with Kate Winslet in the title role; and John M. Stahl’s luxurious Technicolor melodrama Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Also screening are Martin Scorsese’s Casino, Elio Petri’s The Tenth Victim, Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo, Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie.

The New York edition of Fashion in Film Festival: If Looks Could Kill is programmed by Marketa Uhlirova, Festival Director and Research Fellow in fashion history and theory at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design; David Schwartz, Chief Curator of Museum of the Moving Image; and Christel Tsilibaris, Associate Curator of If Looks Could Kill program.

Fashion in Film was founded in 2005 and stages a biennial festival and year-round conference and exhibition programs exploring how the moving image represents and interprets fashion as a concept, an industry, and a cultural form. Fashion in Film is based at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London.

Find out more:
- Museum of Moving Image website
- Fashion in Film website

CSM MA Textile Futures graduate, Berit Greinke, and her fellow PhD students from Queen Mary’s G.hack group, led a hands-on workshop at the College yesterday.

Students were invited to draw with conductive ink, paint with thermochromic ink, and stitch with silver conductive thread – in order to make a collaborative interactive artwork based on a London map.

The TEXmap Afternoon Tea project saw students produce a responsive table cloth that plays sounds from tea houses all over London. After inks and threads were added to the table cloth, to make a colourful and individual piece, a specially configured tea-pot and mugs were placed on the material. The ceramic tea-pot released constant heat, and when placed on the thermochromic ink, the ink became transparent revealing the colours underneath. The mugs released sound from the tablecloth when placed on the embroidery, with the help of copper bases, cables and the Arduino microcontroller.

Find out more:
- MA Textile Futures course page
- G.Hack blog on the QMUL website
- Berit Greinke’s website

The talk will bring together two of Italy’s most influential product designers to celebrate Italy’s unique values whilst discussing the future of Italian design

The evening will offer a unique insight into the personal reflections and anecdotes from collaborative design duo Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of FormaFantasma, focusing on their combined interest in Italian craftsmanship, whilst creating and encouraging an audience discussion and debate around the importance of Italian design, its values and heritage.

The two met during their BA in
 communication design and their interest in product design developed during their Masters degree at the design Academy Eindhoven. Their combined love for classic craftsmanship has lead them to analyse and re-evaluate the relationship between “local cultures and global contexts” – translating those crafts into industrial processes and pushing the boundaries by working with unique and unusual materials, including bread. More recently the duo has embarked on a project with Fendi, working specifically with leather and looking at the complex relationship between humans and nature as part of Design Miami.

Date: 26 April 2012
Time: 7-9pm
Location: RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London, W1B 1AD

Requests for tickets should be emailed to: Peronitalks@77pr.co.uk

Viewers can watch previous talks by visiting www.facebook.com/peroniuk. Those unable to attend the talk can post questions by using the twitter hash tag #PeroniTalks.

An exhibition of work by CSM alumnus Dave Pearson will be on show at the Bermondsey Art Space from 20 April to 13 May 2012.

After Pearson’s death in 2008, the discovery of his extensive artwork in his Lancashire terraced house hit the headlines due to it’s estimated value of £1million. Pearson’s reputation has steadily grown in the art world and he has been likened to L.S. Lowry as an artist largely undiscovered in his own lifetime.

Critic and writer Edward Lucie-Smith said of Pearson: “It’s not often nowadays that a really major artist slips through the net.”

He described the upcoming exhibition – the first of its kind in the capital, Pearson’s birthplace – as “one of the greatest composed by any 20th century British artist.”

Exhibition: Friday 20 April – Sunday 13 May 2012
Private View: Thursday 19 April 19th 2012 – 18:30
Opening Hours: Mon-Weds: by appointment only, Thurs-Sun: 1-6 pm
Address: Bermondsey Art Space, 46 Willow Walk, London SE1 5SF
Contact: Dave Pearson Trust: Bob Frith, hb@compnet.co.uk
or Margaret Mytton, margaret.mytton@btopenworld.com

Find out more:
- David Pearson Trust website

Featuring contributions from students, professional graphic designers including Dave Cuvelot, Fraser Muggeridge and Catherine Dixon, and consultancies such as GraphicDesign7, Container and Inventory Studio, The Silent Poster Sale will be held at St Bride Library on May 2 to raise funds for the library and the 2012 BA Graphic Design degree show.

60 A2 posters have already been submitted for sale, and organisers will continue to accept submissions from designers and students until April 23.

The Silent Poster Sale starts at 6.30 pm on May 2 at St Bride Library, 14 Bride Lane, London, EC4Y. For more information visit silentpostersale.tumblr.com

Find out more:
- BA Graphic Design course page
- St Bride Library

Every Thursday afternoon, MDL’s Creative Director, Yann Mathias, R&D Design manager Boris Thuery, and CSM’s Graduate Project Manager, Ismaril Wells invite you to share your ideas.

We’d love to chat with you and explore the commercial potential of your work.

Each conversation is different. It’s about you, your needs and where you are in the idea development process. We’re happy to answer any questions, help fine-tune your idea, identify the ideal target customer or even suggest routes to market such as licensing and other types of business models

Even if you’re not quite ready to commercialise your work, learning about ways to bring your ideas to life is a great first step. Thinking about design driven innovation and business strategy is our strength. With our assistance you’ll be better prepared to turn your ideas into reality.

To book your Innovation Surgery at the Enterprise & innovation Centre, CSM, King’s Cross, email: Yann@methoddesignlab.com

Hats off to CSM Foundation in Art and Design – they were awarded a  ’1′ by Ofsted in its recent inspection!

Visit the Foundation course page.

Last month we hosted own TED event at King’s Cross on the theme of ‘Emergence’.

Starting out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design, TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading”. TEDx events are self-organized, local conferences, bringing participants together to experience a TED-style event.

TEDxCSM was organised by a group of our MA Communication Design students and was introduced by legendary designer Michael Wolff. The entire event was streamed live and followed by a live Google + hangout chat with the participants. Videos of all the talks are available on the TEDxCSM website. This is CSM’s first TEDx event, following Senior Research Fellow Suzanne Lee’s TED talk “Grow Your Own Clothes” last year.

Find out more:
- TEDxCSM website
- MA Communication Design course page
- Watch Suzanne lEe’s talk on the TED website

Callum has won the ‘Best Student Film’ award at The European Independent Film Festival.

Telling the story of a school boy struggling to cope with feelings of guilt, grief and fear when his first love is killed at a local train station, Callum was also awarded ‘Best Drama’ at 2012 Screentest National Student Film Festival.

Find out more:
- The European Independent Film Festival website
- BA Directing course page

Top: 'Hadley TK-421' by Jonathan Reid Edwards, Bottom: 'Callum' by Michael van der Put

Short films by Drama Centre London alumni Jonathan and Michael have won awards at the 2012 Screentest National Student Film Festival.

Callum by Michael van der Put won Best Drama, whilst Hadley TK-421 by Jonathan Reid-Edwards picked up prizes for Best Script and Best Score.

Find out more:
- Screentest National Student Film Festival website
- BA Directing course page