IF Milton Keynes ...

metalwork
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

... THEN Art ...
Yesterday, via horrid traffic, to Milton Keynes International Festival, mostly for Le Manège Carré Sénart -- big square steampunk carousel by the people who did the Sultan's Elephant. The carousel was amazing -- incredible attention to detail, inventiveness, variety. And I loved the soundtrack -- French operetta, 60s TV themes, plenty of marches and overtures and carnival soundz. We probably enjoyed it more than most of the children riding ...

We also saw immersed ourselves in experienced Asleep at the Wheel, an installation by Janek Schaefer that involved abandoned cars (stereos each playing something different) in a disused Sainsbury's supermarket. Unsettling, weird, and switched on my critical faculties so that I enjoyed my second carousel ride considerably more than my first.

Photos and more appreciation over at Flickr.