Rick Silva – recap

Recap -trailer
Recap (trailer) (2006, 7.18MB, 1:12 min)

Says Rick Silva:
Recap is a remix of the cult classic graffiti movie
Wild Style (1982) where every piece of graffiti in
the original film has been digitally crossed out and tagged over
with the Recap tag.’

The full piece is available on DVD as an 82 minute video loop.

I find this piece intriguing. I’m pretty friendly to formalism –
it’s amazing what beauty & interest a good algorithm
(in the broadest sense) can deliver.
But here Rick Silva seems to have taken steps to eliminate
…perhaps too strong…rather…to render difficult
the emergence (partly because the original looks so great,
haven’t seen it, so even the trailer is, for me, quite irritating,
because by definition it covers up
[and maybe this
is the point – I think the setting & hence the mode of viewing
probably make a huge difference – I could see this working
brilliantly in a gallery where one takes in some of it & moves
on, digesting, but I think I would rather have extensive dental
work than sit & watch it as movie
] what
I long to see
.) of casual beauty.

Good though!
I don’t mean to be negative!
Better than bland of course, anytime!

Eyebeam: open city

opencity
Open City (2007, 26.2 MB, 4:27 min)

Open City: Tools for Public Action was an exhibition and series of public programs
at Eyebeam that focus on the ingenuity of graffiti writers, artists, protesters,
pranksters & hackers attempting to reclaim the public realm.
Here’s work from 11 of the artists featured in the exhibition.
From the Graffiti Research Lab.