Ben Aston | benaston.com

What an amazing story. Who’d have thought the buffalo would make such a good equid? It’s so versatile.

Buff.

Trying out the new facebook developer release September 2011, originally uploaded by benaston.

Probably the biggest news from Facebook’s f8 conference is a totally redesigned Facebook profile page based on telling ‘the story of your life’ over time, through something they’re calling Timelines; strangely reminiscent of Nokia’s Lifeblog app or HTC’s Footsteps app. There’s a fundamental shift; Facebook isn’t just about statuses any more, it’s about stories. According to Zuckerber, it’s ‘The story of your life.’

Responding to a lot of the criticism that Facebook is boring and un-engaging, they’ve tried to re-create some emotional engagement with Facebook by creating tools to enable people share their important ‘Life Events’ such as getting engaged, buying a home, getting a pet, or even breaking a bone. Interestingly, they’ve also given people more of a chance to express their personality with a bit of ‘MySpace-ing’ by allowing people customisation of the look of their profile page with a huge header banner.

Timelines haven’t been rolled out to hoi polloi, but if you’re keen to try them out, you can get a sneaky preview by following the instructions described here.

Bookylicious.

Going dancing with grupo corpo, originally uploaded by benaston.

In a bid to be cultured and that sort of thing, for the second time this month I trotted along to Sadler’s Wells, this time to watch Grupo Corpo; a Brazillian comapny who have been “reinventing classic ballet since the Seventies.” Not sure what that means but it certainly sounds like an awful lot of re-inventing.

I chose this show mainly because they looked like they did a lot of prancing about, combining ballet with a sprinkling of Riverdance; styles which I’m proud to say I’m quite good at too.

I’ve got no idea how to assess whether or not it was a good performance or not. I think it probably was. The sychonicity, flair and athleticism of the dancers was outstanding and I even had to concede that maybe they were better than me.

On the downside, there was a bit of confusion half way through when the show ended and the dancers started bowing, seemingly a bit prematurely. But after getting over the awkwardness of not really knowing whether or not it was time to leave, we were glad to find out that it was to be a tale of two halves; not just Ímã but Onqotô too.

It was only after the show that I realised just how much it was beyond me. Apparently, “Ímã is inspired by the scientific law of magnetism as particles either repel or attract one another”. Erm, right. Didn’t get that. Nice idea though.

And Onqotô tackles the origins of the universe through, a football match in Rio. Hmm, didn’t quite pick up that bit of the story either. Retrospectively of course, it kind of makes sense. It’s art. And it’s good to watch. Apart from the naked man bit.

Bonafide. 9/10.

Family portrait, originally uploaded by benaston.

This begins the first of what I hope will be a series of portraits.

What, at first glance, might be mistaken to be a poorly composed and exposed picture, is in fact, just that.

But you’ll see that Steepfun in the background holds up a green canvas which adds to the intensity of Claire’s ‘green-ness’. This is a metaphor for the role of the husband in affirming his wife and giving her a green light, to be the woman she is meant to be.

The cupcake reflects the couple’s love for food.

So there’s more to the picture than that.

Photogrart.

But what else? What layers of complex meaning in this rich tapestry do you see?

Harry Hippo and the House, originally uploaded by benaston.

After the rioting of the last few days, you’d be forgiven for wondering if your abode was loot-proof. To be honest, it probably isn’t. The looters are so small, they can get into big houses like yours in a jiffy. What’s more, if you’re not a Sikh, you probably haven’t got a sword to wave at them when they get in. So perhaps you’ll be interested in my loot-proof house?

The picture above brings the idea to life; combining a small but robust house with a large hippo (Harry, in this instance), lurking in the shadows, ready and willing to pounce on any potential looters. The benefit of the small house is obviously to make it difficult for looters to actually get in. The hippo, although giving the appearance of being menacing, is actually quite friendly, but should do the job at biting anyone that tries coming in through the rear jardinerie.

Admittedly, right now it’s just a concept, but it’s probably going to be massive when the meeja get hold of it. Maybe even Inspector Corbett will ask me about it: she still hasn’t got in touch about breaking my bike lock the other week.

But should they go to auction as single items, or as a pair?  Would anyone buy these pieces of art history?

L’arte comme L’argos.