Gymnastics

 Is this the creepiest job ever?

Conductors can gesticulate wildly when they conduct an orchestra. But have you ever wondered what exactly they are doing with their hands? And why do they use a baton?

Designer, singer, poet, stylist, Vava Dudu does pretty much everything. But having worked with Jean-Paul Gaultier and designed garments for Lady Gaga, why isn’t she more famous?

When did we start applauding? At the theatre, after speeches or at a football match, people all over the world clap to show their approval. What does this curious human behaviour mean?

Highly respected theatres are programming gory productions that have more in common with slash horror films than traditional theatre.

At the cinema you can make anything disappear, and for American television audiences that is exactly what Hollywood does. 

Patrick Bailly-Maître-Grand takes photos without a camera. By using techniques from the early days of photography the artist’s works are entirely analogue and highly poetic.

Before the computer age, Letraset typefaces allowed anyone to make professional-looking graphics on the cheap. It soon became central to punk and the DIY fanzine scene.

The humble accordion may not have a reputation as the coolest instrument on the block. But in the hands of Mario Batkovic it takes on another dimension.

Jan Vormann is an inventor, a sculptor and a dreamer. He wants us to bring colour into our lives by repairing our cities with Lego.

Ex-member of the Camorra, Davide Cerullo lives in La Scampia, a notoriously tough suburb of Naples. He fights the local culture of violence with the beauty of photography and poetry.

In 1973 choreographer and dancer Carolyn Carlson brought an breath of American fresh air into the Paris Opera. In true hippy style she brought barefoot dancing, improvisation and a relaxed attitude. Not everyone was ready for change.

A simple hut on the Côte d‘Azur shows all of Le Corbusier’s architectural genius.

In the 60s, influenced by science fiction, strange, curved homes started popping up in France

Ancient Greek statues are white, pure and classical, just like the marble they are carved from. False. These statues were painted in fabulous bright colours. Archaeologists and art academics have known this for centuries so why does the white myth endure?

“All your base are belong to us” was a baffling translation error in an early nineties video game which quickly became a long-running internet meme. But why share a meaningless sentence?

With one of his paintings, Gerhard Richter made an intervention into a long-running an passionate debate: Which way round should you put the toilet roll?

With its never-ending corridors, beautiful auditoria and recording studios with arguably the best acoustics in the world, the Berlin Funkhaus was the biggest and most advanced centre for radio broadcasting in the German Democratic Republic. Music publisher Elisabeth Heller, who worked there during its heyday, is our guide.

The influence of the Bauhaus movement can still be felt today, despite its time being cut short by the rise of the Nazis

Walt Disney: cartoonist, visionary... and urban planner?