Win, Place or Show (clip) (1998, 1.6 MB, 47 sec.)
Two men are having a discussion in a small apartment. The scene,
lasting only six minutes, is filmed from twenty camera positions.
A computer program then produces some 200,000 possible combinations
of images and sounds, so the viewer always sees a different version of the story.
Win, Place or Show questions our conditioned viewing behaviour.
video installation by Stan Douglas.
from ZKM Videosammlung.
The Insomniac City Cycles Trailer (2004-2009, 60 MB, 1:56 min)
“A man wakes up with a bullet wound in an abandoned parking garage in Tel Aviv,
having lost his memory and a gun. As the man struggles to recall his recent past,
a woman wakes up in a Shanghai hotel from a similar dream.
A fragmented conversation with a stranger on the phone sets off a strange exploration
between the two.
Tel Aviv and Shanghai in a movie within a movie and a dream within a dream..
..In The Insomniac City Cycles Ran Slavin explores a world with internal logic built
on the axis of memory the real and the fantastic.
It is a travel through dream structures, events and un-foldings that inventively blend
mystery, neo-noir and science fiction genres with experimental film making techniques.”
Directed Written and Produced by Ran Slavin.
Private Charges ( 2010, 51MB, 9:59)
Another bit of pointed fun from the team who brought you
the original Dr Hairy movie.
Made me laugh a lot, especially the superb timing and the
gratuitous cruelty to toy animals.
Shouldn’t need saying, especially with this one, but, US
viewers, please see the disclaimer on the original post.
The Lost Shoe (2010, 16MB, 4:35 min)
Martha Deed, one of our favourite people, & co-founder with
the much missed Millie Niss of the fantastic Sporkworld Microblog,
which we’ve raved about before & which we can’t recommend too
highly, has a paper publication coming out, a book of poems, for which
she created this chilling and beautifully made video “trailer”.
Watch the trailer then
my dark horse is horny (2008, 18MB, 1:23 min.)
Disturbingly hilarious and weird video from Jaron Albertin.
London Hospital ( 2010, 49MB, 9:59)
Writer & artist Edward Picot doubles as an administrator
in the UK health service & lets his hair down with this
deeply odd but amusing bit of lo-fi puppetry made in
collaboration with Julian Le Saux & Dr David Hindmarsh.
Just in case there are any knuckleheads out there
(and of course this is unlikely as you have the good taste
to read DVblog) who imagine this is an attack of any sort on
socialised medicine, the authors have kindly provided the
following statement:
“The creators of this piece would like to point out that they all work in
the National Health Service and are completely devoted to it.”
Flowers (2010, 52 MB, 3:16 min)
I really hated this piece, a music video for Former Ghosts,
the first time I saw it, although I’d previously enjoyed work
by Paul Rodriguez and posted some here.
My first impressions were confirmed by a trawl through
the publicity material surrounding it:
“A naked dude gets peed on in this disturbing clip from the electro-goth
project led by Freddy Ruppert. Director: Paul Rodriguez….”
which seemed a tad..er..calculating
I was so bemused by how much I took against the piece
that I watched it several times over to try and analyse my reactions
and the more I looked at it the more the sheer deftness,
care and feel for the medium with which it is made began to
prevail over my dislike of the content.
Rodriguez confirms himself a filmmaker of real talent, with a great eye
and superb attention to detail.
I’m not sure someone possessed of his gifts needs to work so hard to
make us look his way but I remain very interested to see where he goes next.
Hats (2009, 123 MB, 10:54 min)
A first film from young UK actor Ed Day this made me laugh quite inordinately.
It was “was filmed over a few weeks in Jersey and Guernsey with the cast from
Oddsocks Theatre Company’s 2009 summer tour of Richard III”.
Apart from the humour what strikes home is the sheer technical ability,
wit and
Plane Days (Excerpt, 2009, 6 MB, 1:22 min)
“Old friends. Young friends. Lovers and loners.
They all wait, hoping, to see something they
The Commoners (Excerpt, 2009, 37 MB, 1:25 min)
“In 1890, one man had the idea to collect every bird ever mentioned in Shakespeare
and release them into Central Park. The only bird to survive in the New World was the European
Starling, now one of the commonest birds in America. Its introduction is now widely considered
a major environmental disaster.
The Commoners is a moving image essay about starlings, poetry, and the purist rhetoric used
to describe “invasive species.” It is also about the paths people forge through history, intentionally
or not, as they attempt to change the natural world.”
Written & directed by Jessica Bardsley & Penny Lane.
From video_dumbo 2009.
Night Impromptu (2009, 50.9 MB, 5:19 min)
Despite being a very fine still photographer there’s something
paradoxically counter-photographic about Robert Croma’s video work.
Of course, as one would expect from a photographer, he’s extremely
sensitive to finish and the care which is lavished on the working over
of each of his movies is humbling and astonishing but what struck me,
getting this post ready, is how difficult it is to extract a poster image from
these that really prepares us for the coming movie as movie.
(Believe me – mostly this is not so hard, so many people semaphore
from every frame)
Then it further struck me that this a mark of the most profound cinematic
thinking, that despite the pieces’ great visual beauties they are conceived
austerely, with the greatest economy & most of all holistically; that is, entirely
at the level of the final moving image.
Of course here, as so often with Croma, finally it’s also a very moving image.
Redmires to Hillsborough and Back (2008, 274MB 21:09 min)
I love this piece, partly for sentimental reasons in that it
features the town (and in fact at two points the street)
of my birth and upbringing, but it’s not simply that.
I like the formal device upon which Dave Milner hangs this austere
& accurate portrait of a greyish October Sheffield.
Austere, but not without warmth or humour: Milner’s tussle with his SatNav,
his under the breath impatience at the traffic & the various other small
en-route mishaps lend a three dimensionality and a narrative forward
motion to what could be easily have been either a dry exercise or simply
a bit of ,for want of a better word, internet folk art…
Milner’s site, with both contemporary and (slightly) historical photos
of Sheffield and other places is compelling too.
Again, I plead guilty to a personal interest in the places times and
themes but it’s the thoroughness devoted to an evocation of place
and time that is both effective and moving.
A Small Spork Lumiere (2009, 3MB, 9 sec silent loop)
Fireworks (2009, 2MB, 43 sec silent loop)
Two from the ever reliable, delightful, and in its quiet & unassuming
(but frequently deadly – it’s the Columbo of art blogs) way, mould-breaking
Sporkworld Microblog, which if you don’t follow religiously, you should.
Ironically, given the setting, A Small Spork Lumiere could constitute a kind
of ostensive definition of dryness.
I Can’t Deal With This Stupid Ringing Forever (2009, 56MB 2:29 min)
Donna Kuhn has joined the little pantheon (Sondheim’s another, as is Sam Renseiw)
of people whose work I’m just going
to post regularly because they are great.
No apology, no argument.
If you can’t see it, the problem is yours.
Great. Great. Great.
Scandal – trailer (1950, 7.7MB, 1:38 min)
The Idiot – trailer (1951, 6.3MB, 1:22 min)
Don’t know whether these are the original, or re-edited, trailers
but they’re wonderful, wonderful.
Watch and marvel.
I know neither of these films but I can’t wait to get my sweaty
palms on the DVDs from Eureka Cinema’s Masters of Cinema series.
Incident (2009, 44MB, 1:27 min)
DVblog’s Michael Szpakowski won the Jury Prize at the
Pocket Films Festival at the Forum des Images in Paris
last weekend for this short dream-documentary.
What Makes Me White? (2009, 9.4MB, 3:21)
New short film by award-winning director A.M. Sands
about race, privilege, memory, and experience.
What Makes Me White? official site.
The Split Mirror Syndrome (2008, 42MB, 6:22 min.)
“Murphy creates a polysemic experience in which visual and
temporal relationships progressively lapse, whereby the viewer is
challenged to willfully choose where to locate themself in relation
to the structure of the work.”
By Martin Murphy. Starring Theodore Bouloukos.
(more splendid acting work from Bouloukos, here)
Chapter 1 (2009, 27.3MB, 4:49 min)
Edward Picot has made an intelligent and generous contribution to
the creation of a serious critical tradition around web based literature,
(although his interests are wide and by no means limited to the written word).
A lot of people, me included, have cause to be grateful to him for his
acute, measured but sympathetic assessments of their work.
Apart from his invaluable critical writing he’s also a writer and maker
of work himself.
One of the engines driving his recent creative work has been his
relationship with his young daughter Rachel.
His fantasy story The Puzzle Box,written for Rachel, was one of last year’s
delights.
Here he turns his hand to video in a more active collaboration with Rachel.
This is work that has its roots in a particularly English form of lo-fi
moving image storytelling (I know the late Oliver Postgate is a figure Edward greatly admires.)
Does it work? – in truth, not 100% – I think we feel we are trespassing slightly
on a very personal world. ‘Slightly’, though, is the operative word – there’s
something here, no doubt, & old fashioned as it may be in some
respects there’s something about the kind of adult child collaboration rendered
possible by the digital which is unlike anything previously -a kind of levelling
of the playing field…
Anyway, we’ll post all three episodes over the next weeks and allow you to
make your own minds up.
“Senses and memories of motherhood evoked by visiting Birkenau
(Auschwitz II) in Poland July 2008.”
I wonder whether memorialising the Holocaust isn’t too important a job to be
left to artists.
Anders Weberg’s piece is as well made as one would expect from him
and I have no doubt it is a sincere response.
Does it tell us anything new, though?
Does it contribute to any understanding which will make
repetition less likely?
As we get further away in time isn’t it the facts we have
to insist upon & isn’t there a danger that art -especially well made
art -aestheticises and dilutes?
Read the Primo Levi book. It sets the bar very high.
Transformation (2009, 15.5MB, 1:18 min)
Representation of Memory (2006, 75.4MB, 2:22 min)
Clearly there is something in the water in Athens, Georgia giving us,
as it has, John Michael Boling & Javier Morales, John Crowe,
Dan Osborne, Brantley Jones and now Ash Sechler.
Hmm – The School of Athens, Georgia.
There’s no common style but there is a certain sensibility which,
curiously, pervades the quiet meditative stuff as well as the more
out-there and bizarre – it’s a species of wryness combined with an
eye for the casually arresting, odd and beautiful.
It’s exemplified here in both these rather good pieces, though I particularly
like Representation of Memory.
Movies with Grandma Joy (2008, 27.3MB, 5:39)
“Grandma is serious about going to the movies.
She hates to miss the previews and she watches all of the credits.”
From the absolutely charming vlog,
Movies with Grandma Joy
Mariah Carey/Boyz II Men(2009, 86MB, 4:49min)
Splendid bit of drôlerie from Dan Osborne, whose work
we’ve featured here before and certainly will again.
It’s funny, sure, but as with a good deal of Osborne’s work it
treads an interesting line between funny bone and heartstring.
Oh..alright..maybe heartstring is a bit strong but there’s a
certain, and a rather touching, melancholy lurking here.
Also – what is it about Mariah Carey and art video on the net?
Commercial Spots (2006, 8.4MB)
Archive sutff from the Sporkworld stable, this time from Millie Niss & it has
all the hallmarks that make Sporkworld work such an unalloyed pleasure.
Manifestly bullshit free, apparently straightforward but with onion like layers,
this one wonderfully highlights Niss
Assembled Cinema (2006, 28.9MB, 5:19 min.)
“You walk into a room and a film/video is projected on a wall.
The scenes played are not in any particular order yet they make sense.
What occurs is that a computer is picking sequences in a random order
and playing them. Your mind and your imagination fill in the story.”
From – G.H. Hovagimyan.
The Times I Have Smoked Pot (2005, 1.3 MB, 1:50 min.)
Horny (2005, 1.9MB, 1:21 min.)
A guy named Lev makes these great videos from his comics.
From Ingredient X Productions.
By Mica.
Must Read After My Death – Morgan Dews (2007, 23.9MB, 1:47)
When a Hartford couple turns to psychiatry for help
with their marriage in 1960, things quickly spiral out
of control. Couples counseling, individual and group
therapy and 24-hour marathon sessions ensue. Their
four children suffer and are given their own psychiatrists.
Pills are prescribed, people are institutionalized, shock-therapy
is administered. This is an intimate story in the family
moose and atv (2005, 2MB, 46 sec.)
springwater finale (2005, 6.5MB, 2:27 min.)
Final two pieces, chapters 7 & 8, from
At Times it Seems that I Awake (2003, 116.9, 8:55)
A philosophizing bulldog reflects about the
senselessness of his dog
Earth to Earth (2005, 23MB, 3:22 min.)
“This film was made according to the hardcore rules of Straight8, which gives
filmmakers a single roll of Super8, forcing them to edit in camera and shoot
every shot as a first take. You submit the exposed cartridge plus a separately
recorded soundtrack and hope that the two match up. Luckily ours turned out
OK and it was selected one of the straight8 Cannes finalists in 2005.
The idea came from having a crappy DVD player which kept skipping and I was
overcome by an incredible desire to drive a garden fork through the front of it –
you can see the result in the background.
We had great fun shooting the film, during which time it snowed heavily
Invisible People – Larry (2008, 48.6MB, 9:21)
Invisible People is a new project from Mark Horvath
that documents homelessness in Los Angeles. The
interviews are unedited, and it can honestly be hard
to watch some of them – but isn’t that the point?
The site comes with a warning:
Caution: some content may be offensive. Our hope is
you’ll get mad enough to do something.
This particular interview is one of my favorites, as Larry
is charismatic and Mark was able to capture that easily.
But I’d encourage you to go watch the others as well.
Mark himself is in a rough financial situation that might
soon land him back on the streets too.
Seems we are often our own best advocates.
La vitesse – Toma (2005, 7MB, 1 min.)
La Vitesse – Raphael (2005, 6.8 MB, 1 min.)
La telephon portable – Linda (2005, 5.6MB, 1 min.)
Another round of videos from Les Filmistes Associ
By Mica.
Flatness:145 (2006, 11.5MB, 2:25 min.)
Deftly made & somehow rather British quirkiness
from artist Rob James.
Basin Street Blues (2003, 11.3 MB)
Couple of collaborations between artist & film-maker
Monkmus and turntablist Kid Koala found on the
generously-stocked-with-goodies video page of the
Ninja Tune site, these tracks are pure aural & visual delight.
David Byrne – Report from L.A. (1986, 49MB, 4:30 min.)
Phillip Glass – Mad Rush (1986, 29MB, 3:17 min.)
Both of these pieces, although incredibly different in feel and nature, were
preformed for the “multidisciplinary event” which showcased “experimental
video, film, visual art, performance and music in a theatrical framework”.
Shot at New York City’s infamous Kitchen, and broadcast on television sets
across the states in 1986, the production “reflects a moment when art centers
were experimenting with new modes of presenting the arts for television.”
Read more and see more here.
“More fun than you can shake your stick at”
Will Luers – Commute (unnamed one of eight) (2001, 3.6MB, 1:00)
Will Luers – Commute (unnamed one of eight) (2001, 3.5MB, 1:00)
I set myself the task of recording the same route
to work (Brooklyn-Manhattan) eight different
mornings from winter through spring. Each
segment was edited to exactly 60 seconds.
The linear and cylical experience of the urban
commuter lends itself to the database structure.
Will Luers, also known as Taylor Street Studios and
various projects under the name SolubleFish, has a
great history of making web video. Sometimes artists
are a little miffed when we post their older work, but
I think respecting your own history is important.
Luers’s work is no different. This piece from 2001
might seem obvious in 2008, when taping your
commute seems pedestrian (hah) and obvious.
But these vignettes – eight in total – are a lovely
reflection on repetition, routine, and subtle change.
Investigations (2008, 40.1MB, 2:05 min)
Perfect piece of film making by Dan Osborne.
Interesting to compare it to the piece by him we posted
earlier this year.
There’s a lot in common, true, but what strikes me is both the
real elegance & the very precise focus of this new piece.
In contrast with the (admittedly very attractive) sprawl of
the earlier work there is not a second here that doesn’t feel
purposeful & controlled.
Interesting to see how this body of work develops.
10_10_07 (2007, 8MB, 1:16 min.)
From Astoria, Queens, it’s the whether|man.
More vids here..
Puppet Boy (clip) (2008, 5MB, 1:04 min.)
For more than a decade, the artist and music video director Johannes Nyholm
has been working on animated films about the little clay figure, Puppet Boy.
In a claustrophobic chamber drama, the frustrated puppet is engaged in an endless
battle against the agonies of everyday life. Nyholm
Lukas Blakk – Tough Enough (2006, 11.4MB, 3:41)
Lovely, poignant film from Lukas Blakk,
who always says such honest things,
even if she’s mostly too busy to post anymore.
Fell in Love with a Dead Boy (2008, 66.7MB, 11:01 min)
I was a little chary ,at first, of posting this, not because I don’t
think it’s good (I do) but because Isidore Bethel had me a little
worried that it might be someone’s autobiography fuelling it &
I wasn’t entirely sure I should post it before that person had
thought about whether that was a good thing…a lot.
Silly me, because Isidore cheerfully assures me it’s all fictional.
He’s good.
Not to be OTT but there’s something that smacks
of Citizen Kane about this, in both a good and a bad sense.
Good, in that there is such energy & skill deployed here
(not just artistic, the guy can clearly organise too).
Furthermore, it packs a real punch, as witness my confusion.
On the debit side there’s sometimes a sense of everything including
the kitchen sink being dug out and after the initial rush (happens with
Kane for me too folks – little too much obvious desire to be epic) you
begin to see the thing as held together to some degree by sheer willpower,
even where the occasional hole is visible…
I look forward to see where Isidore Bethel will go next -we’ll hear a good
deal more of him, I’m sure.
Also: nice score from David Nyman (like its use in the piece too: non-obvious)
& a careful, intelligent performance of the script from Megan Popkin.
(not sure I’m making out the credits properly -did she share the writing credit? –
the script: that’s a piece of work too.)
Thibaut Is Singing On Oberstein Road (2008, 15.5MB, 2:36 min)
Rules of Engagement (2008, 18.1MB, 2:15 min)
Tremendous work from Robert Croma.
The Iraq piece is harrowing but you should watch it nonetheless.
The Thibaut piece is simply exhilarating.
I was trying to figure out what exactly makes this work so outstanding.
I don’t think it’s just the fact that it is technically so good (although it is).
It’s to do with Croma’s taste, judgement & instinct, or at least how he
deploys these to tell us something, or rather to intuit-to-us something
about being a human being.
You couldn’t make a rule of it, for that would render it inert & mechanical,
but, loosely, in these two pieces, it seems to me to lie in a going-beyond
-the-expected – a process with its heart in the little codas which open
out the pieces in a quite extraordinary way.
So the Iraq piece, though supremely well done, is initially not a
million miles away from much other remix type work, but it is the final
calling-to-attention, the framing, of the gait of one of the people
whom we have just seen obliterated that re-doubles its horror
but also creates the tiniest ground for hope in the inescapable
(thanks to Croma) clear recognition of our common humanity.
A similar process occurs in the Thibaut piece
– its potency initially seems to reside in the simplicity of the
camera exploring the still, the conjunction of the new and old
imaging technology and the simple & moving fact of evocation
of time passed.
It’s beautiful; and many would have been tempted to leave it there.
The final section is a risk – it could have have the opposite effect
to what it actually does; it could have closed off, made pat.
Here perhaps the technical fluency does play a defining role but the
effect is the exact opposite of closure -we’re left, once again, in a very
different way, filled with a sense of the mystery & complexity & possibility
(& the fragility) of being human.
3 of 7(2002, 74.7MB, 4:00 min)
Two (from a series of seven) heartbreakingly beautiful, lump-in-the-throat-evocative
lyric poems about being young, disguised as music video/documentaries.
Dan Canyon is a natural filmmaker. He so is.
What more to say, except nice to see Blackheef pronounced correctly?
Hansel and Gretel Chapter 1 (2007, 15.9MB, 4:11 min)
More from Diluvio Gallery, this time from Crist
Kaboom (2005, 9 MB, 1:14 min.)
Fireworks (2004, 6.1 MB, 28 sec.)
PES is a New York based animator and movie maker. His work has been
commissioned by Bacardi and Diesel. His shorts, stop-motion animations
are known for their skill and brilliance.
Lucia (2007, 48.5MB, 4:01 min)
Exquisite stop motion work from Niles Atallah, Joaqu
Croque Quartet (2007, 29.5MB, 2:05 min)
I Didn’t Say That (2007, 45.8MB, 3:14 min)
Writer, musician, artist & general polymath Talan Memmott turns his attention
to film in this series of shorts made in collaboration with Sandy Florian.
They say
Nameless is a collaboration between Sandy Florian and Talan Memmott…
they make excessively short experimental narrative films, mostly in Paris…
Short they may be but Florian & Memmott’s works are assured, quirky,
evocative & entertaining.
You can see the whole series to date here .
Bob And The Neighbors (2008, 10 MB, 1:10 min.)
“Another lazy Sunday in Bob’s neighbourhood; while Bob works on
his yard, his nosy neighbor crosses the line, forcing Bob to take
matters into his own hands.”
From The AV Club.
Yogin (2008, 57 MB, 3:15 min.)
“Yogin is a 3 minute short animation I created for my MFA thesis.
I am responsible for everything but the musical score.
It is the story of a brash young yogi challenging an old master to
a yoga battle. The egotistical challenger thinks he has what is
necessary to take on the master however he fails to realize there
is more to yoga then physical postures.”
Wonderfulness from John Hanrahan.
David Yun – A Taste of Home (2007, 4.9MB, 2:19)
When David Yun went home to care for his terminally
ill mother, he found himself as disconnected and
alienated from his small hometown as he had always
been. Clip from Yun’s seven and a half minute video.
Beautiful footage and a voice-over that never becomes
too precious or pretentious.
Strangely (or perhaps not), I have family from
that exact small town, Livonia, Michigan, USA, a Detroit
suburb.
Sadie Benning – Me and Rubyfruit (1990, 24.9MB, 5:40)
Classically beautiful and poignant video-diary-esque
early work from the innovative Sadie Benning. Me
and Rubyfruit, a reinterpretation of Rita Mae Brown’s
Rubyfruit Jungle, finds Benning lamenting the limitations
of being a young lesbian woman in modern culture.
Roughly sixteen when she made this piece, it was shot
on a Fisher-Price Pixelvision 2000 camera, making the
intense grainy footage all the more raw.
Peace (2005, 19.7MB, 2:46 min)
This Borat performance at a country-western bar in Tucson, Arizona
provoked a sharp letter from the Anti-Defamation League.
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries at the New Museum (2008, 62.5MB, 2:48 min)
If you don’t know them, you should; Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
have been responsible for some of the most spine tingling & evocative work
on the net in the last ten years,
This documentary, lifted from the indispensable Rhizome, gives a good bares bones historical
account of them in the context of a show earlier this year at the New Museum.
I didn’t see the show & whilst I’m pleased they’re getting this wider exposure I wonder
if there isn’t something quite particular about the way their work presents in a browser
(preferably, in my view, with headphones on, ie. as submerged in these delicious
& fractured quasi narratives as only the net experience will allow).
Then, it is visceral and immediate.
On the evidence here, there seems to have been something
a little more diffuse about this multiple screen installation.
I don’t know; it’s a surmise; I’d be happy to be told I’m wrong.
It raises interesting questions, though, about the transplanting of work
from browser to gallery.
Terminally Ambivalent Over You (2002, 26.1MB, 3:19 min.)
Based on Stephen Coate‘s song from the album ‘When Psyche meets Cupid’,
this animation tells the story of a prisoner who works in a prison’s
gramophone factory and while assembling gramophones thinks of his girlfriend.
Neat stuff from Alex Budovsky, aka Aleksey Budovskiy.
Memory Loss (2008, 61.4MB, 2:13 min)
No Exit (2008, 38.2MB, 2:19 min)
Two pieces from Lee Sarter.
Memory Loss is an unequivocal success in my view,
evocative, very nicely constructed & haunting.
(Even manages to temporarily subdue my deeply felt &
longstanding antipathy to ambient sounding piano
soundtracks)
I don’t think No Exit works quite so well but it’s clear
in both that there’s a thinking & creative filmic intelligence at work here.
I look forward to more.
