Cutting Edge Cinema

Lunch
A Tough Dance (1902, 7.1MB, 47 sec.)

Lunch
Bicycle Trick Riding (1899, 5.5MB, 37 sec.)

Lunch
Three Acrobats (1899, 5.4MB, 36 sec.)

Three exhilarating chunks of early movie making from the
Library of Congress online collection of variety stage motion pictures.
I particularly love the deeply strange A ‘Tough’ Dance.
There’s also a great early animation collection on the LOC site.

Martin Archer live at The Grapes

Martin Archer
Martin Archer Live at The Grapes, Sheffield (2006, 85.8MB, 9:52 min)

Great vid made by Jonny Drury of Martin Archer, a unique
& towering figure in British (here I was going to interpolate experimental but that
doesn’t really do justice to the intensely personal soundworld Archer has
forged over the years – a combination of fierce poetry, a huge
intellectual range & hunger & a love affair with sound & how it
can be ordered & dis-ordered & where one now feels he knows
exactly where he’s going, so experimental feels in a way
like an impertinence) music of the past 25 years,
performing at The Grapes pub in his home town of Sheffield, UK.

If you like this do check out his site, where you can buy a
staggering diversity of recordings from over the years.

Super Dog

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Super Dog (2011, 20MB, 1:58 min)

You might remember that Pink Tall Bike brought
to you here previously by Mike Stoddart.
Now that gentle and slightly skewed sensibility*
brings you Super Dog.

*Not weird enough to qualify for surreal exactly,
but there is something about the way he makes them
that is, enough to notice (or to feel in one’s bones),
delightfully loopy & off kilter…

Some Very Sad News

November
November (2006, 80.1MB, 9:41 min)

Last week we heard the shocking & terrible news
of the untimely death of Patrick Simons, half, with
Kate Southworth, of the artistic (and life) partnership,
Glorious Ninth.
He was a smart, imaginative, funny and warm person.
As a memorial we’re re-posting here a performance piece
they made a few years back with Ruth Catlow and
Marc Garrett of Furtherfield.
Appropriately you can read a tribute to Patrick from Ruth
and Marc here.
We’d like to express our deepest condolences to Kate, Bella and Aphra.

Here’s the copy from the original post in June 2007:

An enchanting piece of networked performance from
Kate Southworth & Patrick Simons a.k.a Glorious Ninth
with Ruth Catlow & Marc Garrett from the indispensable
Furtherfield.org

I’ve admired Kate & Patrick’s work for a long time,
partly for its sheer visceral beauty, but there’s
an integrity, too, to what they do, a doggedness &
a willingness, recently in particular, to take risks -to
follow their instincts.
I think it pays off richly here.
Here’s a technical, blow by blow description.
Read it then forget it & just go with the strange &
compelling rhythms of the piece:

NOVEMBER
is a performance that utilises peer-to-peer instant messaging
technology, and the participants were able to see and hear each other on their
computers throughout. Working with their own pre-chosen texts, each
participant alternated between reading aloud and listening, amending and
improvising their performances in response to each other. At times a
cacophony of competing voices, the performance was a spontaneous and
unrehearsed encounter, exposing moments of vulnerability, intimacy, connection
and rhythm.

Celebrating Halloween and the changing of the season, four
participants met online to exchange collected data whilst eating prepared
garlic.
NOVEMBER is a networked performative encounter, recorded simultaneously
from Cornwall and London, UK.

Eddie Whelan/Ruby Kendrick Do Me Right

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Do Me Right (2011, 62MB, 2:25 min)

Gosh! this is lovely and Gosh! Eddie Whelan is talented & capable.
We’ve admired his data-moshing skills on a number of occasions
but the man clearly has range and whats the word? – yes –
application
. This vid for Ruby Kendrick looks so light and easy
and yet one jusy knows what it cost in time and effort
(and inspiration).
Oh -but worth it, so worth it.

Dr Hairy – Appraisal Parts 1 & 2

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Appraisal Part #1 (2011, 232MB, 10:14 min)

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Appraisal Part #2 (2011, 151MB, 9:40 min)

Edward Picot’s bizarre and wonderful Dr Hairy series, the adventures of a hirsute
UK general practitioner coping with NHS (the NHS we love, don’t misunderstand us)
bureaucracy, continues with these first two episodes of Appraisal.
Picot’s comic timing just gets better & better (& occasionally strays into some
almost Beckettian territory) – it’s fascinating to watch a long
project like this unfold. If you missed the preceding episodes they’re here (as are some other
gems, some equally amusing, some altogether different in style and mood)

Two from Marcin Rychlicki

C Point Video
C Point (2011, 32MB, 1:15 min)

cyberhero
Cyber Hero (2011, 43MB, 1:25 min)

My name is Marcin Rychlicki, , I’m 29 years old and
I live in Warsaw. For nearly three years I’ve been
creating videos for the Internet under the names
DJ Gacmaster and GacPax. An important element
of my movies is music. For some of them ,
for example, ‘Cyber Hero’, I composed it myself.
I’m trying to combine traditional music video with
the unconventionality of video art. From 2001
to 2006 I was a drummer in hardcore band C. Point.
I made this video for one of our songs: ‘Today’

*****************************************************

Both pieces great but C Point is a particular delight.
(My prejudice showing through of course, but I don’t
generally associate this musical genre with the kind
of gentle wit on display here.)
Not sure I completely understand Cyber Hero which is
apparently some sort of rejoinder to this (Huh?), but I
love the music.