When you step into the Musée Albert-Kahn, one of the most beautiful and extraordinary places in the whole of Paris, a notice on the wall speaks out to you in French and English: Je ne vous demande qu’une chose, c’est d’avoir les yeux grands ouverts I only ask one thing of you: keep your eyesRead More
Down a roadside divided by a canal in the Dutch town of Franeker, you come across a smart museum frontage close to to a traditional Dutch brick building bearing the word ‘Planetarium’. Having purchased your ticket, you pass down narrow corridors built long before domestic spaces were designed to host public attractions. You enter anRead More
To Antwerp for a few days, a city I had not visited before, and my first trip abroad in over three years. The place I found entrancing. It is the kind of city where every space seems best designed to catch the eye, where every side turning becomes a worthwhile adventure, an art statement inRead More
Thirty years or so ago, the Museum of the Moving Image opened on London’s South Bank. Funded privately then operated by the British Film Institute, the museum traced the history of motion pictures from ‘pre-cinema’ days to the blockbusters of 1988. It was notable for the many rare and unique objects on show, for theRead More
Currently running at the Bruce Castle Museum in Haringey, north London, from April to July 2019, is a small exhibition on local film pioneer Robert Paul (1869-1943). Entitled Animatograph! How cinema was born in Haringey it traces the one small corner of the achievements of a man who, looking back on his life might haveRead More
At the start of the current exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, you are told that 25% of the people on the planet play video games. I am one of the 75%. I do not play video games; indeed, I do not think I have played a video game of any kindRead More
I was in the town of Lund in southern Sweden last week, attending a seminar on newsreels, which I’ll write about in due course. Lund is a pleasant, quiet town of around 100,000, almost half of which are students. I had half a day in which to mooch around the town, and so it wasRead More
Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has long been distinguished for combining bold and stylish web design with a strong commitment to public access. The museum, which is famous for its works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and others from the golden age of Dutch art, has now excelled itself with its new Rijksstudio initiative. Rijksstudio makes available 125,000 high-resolutionRead More
But els in deep of night when drowsines Hath lockt up mortal sense, then listen I To the celestial Sirens harmony, That sit upon the nine enfolded Sphears … John Milton, ‘Arcades’ (1634) I spent a great three hours yesterday afternoon at the British Museum’s exhibition Shakespeare: Staging the World. It’s been their blockbuster CulturalRead More