I first encountered holograms as freebies on cereal packets. Tacky, disposable and often featuring cartoon characters, I didn't attach much value to them. But an exhibition at Glasgow's Glue Factory has radically changed my awareness of this medium.

'Holography Unit' explores the artistic heritage of holograms, focusing on art produced by an MA course started in 1985 at the Royal College of Art. It was the first ever fine art holography department and, over its ten years active, aimed to give students access to the industrial, laser technology and pioneer a new art form. 

The show features over forty holographic works produced at the RCA, including the following below. For more information, visit the Glue Factory's website. Read an interview with the exhibition's curator, Alastair Frazer, here. 

Photo: Caroline Palmer's Saktu Cluster, 1989.

Photo: Hologram of the Royal College of Art emblem, Jonathan Cope.

Photo: Martin Richardson, Mathematical Chef, 1988.

We had a splendid time at last Thursday’s launch of the Oh Comely Film Club at London’s Genesis cinema. Our main feature, Almost Famous, left its 70s soundtrack firmly stuck in our heads.Those who came along were treated to an excellent series of short films, put together by our film editor Jason, a souvenir poster-programme and celebrations in the bar that included a post-it note installation and cocktails (‘The Penny Lane’ was our favourite).

We also had a 1973 cover of Rolling Stone on hand, for those who fancied being Rod Stewart for a night.

We'll keep you posted on the next one.

The poster by Jes Hunt is available to buy as a fine art print.

Todd Selby. You’ll know the American photographer for his portraits of creative people at home, published via his eponymous website The Selby.

Todd’s photographs have a personal feel about them. His lens doesn’t discriminate between piles of mess or spic-and-span modernism. They do a good job of transporting you to the moment in front of his camera; places one is perhaps unlikely to encounter otherwise. Outside in the sun with Pharrell Williams, for instance, or looking at the dinosaur collection of Berlin artist Andy Hope. Partly, of course, this is the immersive medium of the Internet at play, since Todd very comfortably owns his website as a platform for photography. He uploads tens of photographs from each of his photographic sessions, putting shots of room corners right alongside a portrait of the homeowner.

And Todd's homely portraits are the perfect preparation for his latest project, Edible Selby. A book and website, it's a portrait of restaurant kitchens around the world, from Tokoyo to Sicily via London. In print, Edible Selby has a hand-made, tactile feel, with illustrations and hand-written, paper correspondence between Todd and the chefs. Curious to know more, I spoke to Todd about his second Selby. More on Edible Selby is over here. 

How did you experience being a photographer in a busy kitchen environment? You must have felt a little in the way at times.

I had no experience of being in a professional kitchen before; you are in the way so you learn kitchen etiquette. And, I don’t know how, but I never burned myself. You learn to watch yourself; watch where everyone else is; stay against walls out of their way; to not shuffle backwards, ever, and announce yourself when going around corners. When the food is done, people want it to go straight out so I had somewhere between one and three seconds to get out of the way.

After your work on The Selby, where creative people at home are the subject, why did you move to photograph kitchens?

My focus has always been on artists and creative people and there’s been more recognition of the many artists in the food and drink world: food artisans. I was catching up on that by starting Edible Selby.Photo: A spread from the Edible Selby book featuring Violet Cakes, a bakery and cake shop in east London.

Do you have a favourite junk food?

Ice cream. But I don’t eat it anymore because I’m trying to be healthier. Instead, what I’ve been eating is frozen bananas. If you put one in a food processor it comes out like frozen yoghurt. Think about it in the right way and it tastes like ice cream.

Are food and cookbooks something you remember from growing up?

I never really looked at cookbooks before. Today, I’d say that I like photo-based cookbooks, like Breakfast Lunch Dinner by the Rose Bakery. The photos are great and the design is great, but you also get a feeling of the people who visit and the vibe.

Do you cook at home?

I’ve actually started to cook more and more since working on Edible Selby. Mostly, though, my girlfriend is the head cook and I’m the assistant. I have a lot of enthusiasm but I can’t actually do that many things. When you travel a lot for work you eat out all the time. So at home you crave a nice home cooked meal. You crave a salad.

Photo: Todd Selby's feature on Towpath a cafe in Haggerston, London, beside Regent's Canal. 

Tomorrow night Oh Comely are taking to London's Genesis Cinema for a special screening of Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical tale of an aspiring teenage rock journalist in the 1970s. We've got some fun things planned, including a selection of short films, themed cocktails and festivities in the bar afterwards. Almost Famous had a big impact on me when I was growing up, and I'm so excited to see it again.

I spent my formative years devouring music magazines, zines and street press newspapers. I read them cover to cover and used their dissected remains to decorate school folders and bedroom walls. My hometown was fortunate to have a carelessly blended underground music scene that guaranteed at least one all-ages show every fortnight and, together with my sister and partner in crime, we made a habit of attending every one that we possibly could. However the real world of rock music - the one that didn't end at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon - was always just out of reach, and it was one that we desperately wanted to be a part of. We were too young and too small, and hopelessly accepted that we would just have to bide our time.

We were fifteen years old when Almost Famous was released, the same age as the film's protagonist, the bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed Rolling Stone journalist William Miller. In the dark of a suburban cinema, we watched with eyes wide as saucers. It instantly became the favourite movie of my adolescence (displacing Empire Records, of course). Almost Famous was more than an inspiration: it was an instruction manual in the art of winging it. If fifteen year-old William could do it, so could we.

So my sister and I started a fanzine. Armed with a free myownemail.com address and a rudimentary PR strategy that we'd cobbled together from a $5 guide called How To Get Into Concerts For Free, we started sending out emails and asking for interviews. And it worked. I remember the nervous giddiness of our first telephone interview with a popular punk band, or the self-righteous thrill of having our names ‘on the door', or receiving special tickets to the guest area of a festival that we were too young to even get into. Or the first time that we got to go backstage after a show, doe-eyed and dumbfounded, and feeling an awful lot like William Miller.

Our prized creation wasn't actually very good. The zine itself was poorly designed, the writing bland and derivative, and the whole mess was as cringingly overly-excitable as a teenage LiveJournal entry. Rolling Stone it wasn't. Not that it mattered though; at the time we believed that we were doing something worthwhile and dare I say cool, even if we weren't. It was no great loss then, that our zine folded after two years and three issues. We started university, discovered underground comics and with the same blind vigor, started publishing those instead.

"Be bold," says William's mother in a scene from the film, and more than the music or misadventures into rock's milieu, that's what we took away from it. Do what you love, and do it anyway, even if the odds are stacked against you, even if you don't know how to start. There are no laments to trying. The ones with passion will always be slightly uncool because they work hard to achieve the things they need to, and to hell with the rest.

It's a real pleasure to share this old favourite movie with you. Hope to see you there.

About Our Film Night

What: Almost Famous + a special selection of shorts
When: Thursday 20th September at 6.30 pm.
Where: The Genesis, Mile End, London.
How much: £7 (£5 for oh comely subscribers)

Any tickets bought online before tomorrow will automatically go into the running to win a year's subscription to Oh Comely (for you or a friend) and two cocktails to enjoy at the bar. Oh my!

You can order your tickets right here.

RSVP on Facebook here.

Or head over to our film page for more information and ticket-buying FAQ.

We're excited about issue twelve! It's arriving with UK subscribers already and will be hitting WHSmith and our independent stockists by Monday at the latest.

This issue, we all tracked down our namesakes. Our editor-in-chief, Derek 'Des' Tan, contacted every Derek Tan he could find on Facebook, for example. (Spoiler: it's a more common name than you'd think.) 

We also laughed and cried at Lisa Jarmin's interviews with people about artefacts left behind by their ex-lovers. Finally, we sent Max Knight off to the park to see if people looked like their dogs.

The cover is of Michelene Auguste, photographed by Agatha A Nitecka.

Don't forget that, to celebrate the issue, we'll be watching Almost Famous tomorrow night. We still have tickets left and, if you book today, you've got the chance to win a free subscription and two drinks at the bar.

Issue twelve is out very soon, and in it we've interviewed Faris Badwan of The Horrors about his art.

His bandmates have said that he's never without a pencil in his hand, and the alt rock star has a new exhibition of his sketchbooks on at the moment, Creatures in Colour at The Strand Gallery.

Here are a few of his sketches.

Badwan likes to keep his drawing intuitive and primitive: “I always appreciate the value of accidents in art: the way ink doesn't come out of the pen totally evenly, or when you slip and fall asleep while drawing, which happens more often than you'd think.”

He comments, "I guess exhibiting the sketchbooks is fairly intimate, but for me any worthwhile art is intimate in some way."

Creatures in Colour: Sketches from Faris Badwan will be on display at The Strand Gallery, 18th-30th September 2012. Sketches are © Faris Badwan.

It all begins here! We have had the 70s rock hits on repeat, and can hardly believe that the debut of the Oh Comely Film Club is less than a week away, on the 20th of September at The Genesis, Mile End.

We’re excited to announce that the special selection of shorts will include ones by Miranda July (The Future), Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost (Catfish) and Magnum photojournalist Martin Parr. There'll be a special illustrated programme before the main feature by Jes Hunt, and we can't wait meet you all over a signature cocktail afterwards.

Remember to skip the ticket queues on the big night and buy your tickets now for £7 (£5 for subscribers) and you will be in for a chance to win a year’s subscription to Oh Comely and two signature cocktails at the bar.

What: Almost Famous + a special selection of shorts
When: Thursday 20th September at 6.30 pm.
Where: The Genesis, Mile End, London.
How much: £7 (£5 for oh comely subscribers)

Order your tickets here.

RSVP here.

From the 20th to the 23rd September this year, The Brighton Art Fair returns to put some Britain’s lesser-known artists on the map. We have six pairs of free tickets to give away, which are for the private view on Thursday evening or all day Friday 21st.

To enter, we'd like to know the best (tackiest?) seaside souvenir you've ever bought. Tweet us @ohcomelymag @BrightonArtFair or drop a line to [email protected] to enter.

Here are a few of the artists who caught our eye.

John Dilnott uses real maps as a back drop for flocks of the tiniest birds to create beautiful, boxed visualisations of migration which seem to subtly evoke the vastness of the world and the fragility of existence within it. He also screenprints.

Similarly thought-provoking are Frances Bloomfield’s Dreamboxes. Using a variety of recycled or rediscovered materials, such as maps and old text books, she constructs a window into another world of inner or imagined realities. There is a sense of frailty and vulnerability to these little scenarios which we find captivating.

We’ve also been enchanted by the paper cuts of Sylvie Howitt. After a chance discovery of a collection of vintage maps in a dusty attic, she was motivated to follow in the footsteps of Rob Ryan to create her own paper based art pieces. We love the idea that the paper she uses has its own story which influences and adds meaning to the narratives she creates.

There is so much more to see at the South Coast’s largest and more importantly friendliest art exhibition, so make sure you get your map out; look up The Corn Exchange, Brighton and get down to this must-visit event in the arts calendar, it is sure to be well worth your while.

More information and tickets.