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Bido Lito! April 2015
Bido Lito!
Issue Fifty Four / April 2015
bidolito.co.uk
Static Gallery
23 Roscoe Lane
Liverpool
L1 9JD
Editor
Christopher Torpey - [email protected]
Editor-In-Chief / Publisher
Craig G Pennington - [email protected]
Reviews Editor
Sam Turner - [email protected]
STIMULATION SATURATION
Editorial
What is the first thing you load up when you turn your computer on? For me it’s normally emails, with a quick browse through Facebook notifications
and Tweetdeck while the email client downloads the morning’s new messages. And this is after flicking through Instagram or the Tranmere website
on my phone while having my morning cuppa listening to the local news on the radio. It’s amazing – if also a little worrying – that my first thought
after waking up is to boot up my laptop or re-connect with the world through my 4G connection, to see if I’ve missed something important, as if that
somehow makes me more awake. I caught my cat giving me a withering look the other day, when I was about to press ‘SHARE’ on a status update
over my morning toast. For once I agreed with her.
I’m not usually in the habit of conversing silently with my cat (well, at least not to the level I’m willing to admit), but it did get me thinking that
I’d become a bit of a slave to news, second-hand information, gossip, images, stuff, and I don’t think I’m alone in it. Are we all, in some small way,
becoming de-sensitised to stimuli through constant updates and refreshing of feeds?
This minor existential flap didn’t last long – about the time it took me to make and consume another cup of coffee actually – but it gave me enough
time to read Jesse Armstrong’s article in the Guardian Weekend about his month-long abstention from news. His experience – from refraining from
using Twitter to hiding from free sheets on the train – ultimately led him to question what he was actually missing out on by staying resolutely out
of the loop. The whole process made him re-appraise what he was getting from his news consumption, and if our data-hungry lives really are craving
the information we take in, or just the feeling of being up to date and not missing out. And in his leader interview in Issue 17 of Delayed Gratification,
artist Adam Neate takes the whole thing a step further: “You cannot beat the first-hand experience of walking round a museum and seeing a painting
that gives you a close-to-religious experience… Sometimes we have to experience something ourselves in person to fully understand it.”
With that in mind, I thought I’d spend some time enjoying the art of creation around the wealth of material that went in to this month’s issue, and
switch off a bit from news (only a bit). In both the recording studio (The Motor Museum, with Circa Waves) and the rehearsal studio (Crash), that spirit
of creating was there in spades. There's a joy to be had in watching that process of refining, finding out, testing the rules and making up new ones on
the spot. Live performance is great, but sometimes it's good to savour the process of making rather than the polished final product, especially when
the humanness of the bumps, scratches and bum notes is left in.
The same can be said about the art of craft brewing, which we’ve looked at in a little more depth in this issue. I had the pleasure of watching one
of the team at the Liverpool Craft Beer Company brewing a new batch of their Quokka ale, and I geeked out on the process from a scientific point of
view, but also a creative one. Whether you're mixing hops and barley together or arranging notes on a page – or constructing a photograph, writing an
essay or doing anything else creative for that matter – there's a thrill to be had in the act of creation.
And that goes for all the artists and doers featured in this here issue, and the writers, photographers, illustrators, designers, sub-editors and
proofers who’ve helped bring you their stories this month. Thank you for doing.
So the next time you’re about to hit ‘refresh’, think about the other stories you’re missing out on, the news that only the world around you can tell.
There’s stimulation all around us, we’ve just got to open our eyes..
Christopher Torpey / @BidoLito
Editor
Designer
Luke Avery - [email protected]
Proofreading
Debra Williams - [email protected]
Sales And Partnerships Manager
Naters Philip - [email protected]
Digital Content Manager
Nata