Author Archives: michael

Rick Silva – Krummholz Formation

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krummholz formation
Krummholz Formation (2010, 112MB, 16:48 min)

It’s always a pleasure to post new work from Rick Silva here
and this piece is no exception.
His work has been heading somewhere strange, gripping
and utterly his own for some time now.
I find this loyalty to a very personal vision both admirable
and exemplary. I’m fascinated to see whether further development
along this path is possible or whether there will at some point be a sharp
change of direction.
(Once again with this piece I really want to see it
in a gallery -nobody is more adept or at home at work for the net than Silva
but I can’t help feeling that this work needs space and distance…)

Jasper Elings – From Xerox to Xerox

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first line
From Xerox to Xerox (2010, 20MB, 8 secs)

Copy of a copy using 133 different Xerox machines…
No idea whether it’s meant to be ravishing but it is.
Ravishing. Delicate, blink-and-you-miss-it & ravishing.
From Jasper Elings.

Nigel Ayers – War Criminal

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first line
War Criminal (2003 -2010, 22MB, 3:18 min)

When I first saw this piece from Nigel Ayers I assumed, quite wrongly, he
was involved with some heavy duty image manipulation in the cause of a
kind of conceptualist ‘activism’ (and I sat scratching my head at just how difficult it
must have been to get that image onto so many moving figures).

DOH! The facts are much weirder and much, much better…
Great stuff! Hats off! Not worthy, not worthy!

Let Nigel explain…

Eryk Salvaggio Unfinished Mpeg Haiku

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first line
First Line (2002, 165kb, 7 secs)

second line
Second Line (2002, 224kb, 10 secs)

If I remember rightly Eryk Salvaggio posted a link to this tiny piece
on the Rhizome list in 2002, at a time when the Rhizome Artbase was
still rejecting some embryonic video or video like works as ‘not net-idiomatic’.
The post was something of an epiphany for me and I suspect
when the history of online video comes to be written this work,
together with the Manovich Little Movies, will loom large
(As beginning to find a way towards precisely a ‘net-idiomatic’
video practice).
Also: I thought then (and I still think now) it is wonderful work.
Here’s what Salvaggio said about it at the time:

Mpeg Haikus
these are short films which work in their original digital formats
as 30 to 60 second mpeg files. The idea was to stay “egoless”
as in the nature of a haiku, and so there is no design – the films
and the files are presented by whatever defaults your browser
uses. The first, “Unfinished Mpeg Haiku,” is a short 30 seconds
of an airplane’s vapor trails across the sky, the second, a 30
second loop of a bird hopping on industrial machinery.
The third line is not represented, but is intended to be the
viewer’s response, ie. dismissal, understanding, happiness,
sadness- whatever meaning the viewer makes.

Christophe Gendre – Travelling

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Christophe Gendre: Travelling
Travelling (2004, 185 MB, 11:33 min)

Carefully made & delicious to watch travelogue
(although I think it conflates a number of different trips,
so in one sense it’s about travel itself as much as place)
from French artist Christophe Gendre.
More soon.

Millie Niss – Skyway

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skyway
Skyway (2009, 39 MB, 1:53 min)

A couple of months before her untimely death last year Millie Niss
sent me this video –

‘I have been working for a long time on and off (mostly off) these
days on a video showing industrial ruins on the outskirts of Buffalo,
shot from an elevated highway which is scheduled to be torn down…’

I remember thinking how beautiful and evocative it was and I assumed
Millie would publish it on the Sporkworld Blog in due course.
Sadly this never happened.
The other day I came across it & asked Millie’s mother and collaborator,
Martha Deed, for permission to post it here, which she gave,
so it’s a pleasure tinged with sadness to do so.

We’re going to take a summer break now.
We’ll be back on September 20th but in the meantime we’ll leave you
with this memorial to a fine artist & a fine human being.

The Idea of Karen Blisset

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The Idea of Karen Blisset
The Idea of Karen Blisset (2010, 77 MB, 1:13 min)

On the ever splendid Netbehaviour list there are all sorts of
interesting shenanigans as Karen Blisset, a fairly long time
contributor, offers to give her e mail log in to anyone who asks for it
in order to allow them to “be” her.
One of the interesting things about it is I’m not sure how
many people have actually taken up the offer ( and, of course, there’s
no way of telling)
(Go and join Netbehaviour to get the full works, it’s a warm and
welcoming place but one, nonetheless, with a tradition of robust
and interesting debate)
Anyway, one of this set of Karens contacts us
with a movie called ‘The Idea of Karen Blisset’.
I for one expected something quite fierce & in your
face but instead there’s this rather delicate & gentle &
lovely piece.
Very nice.
Interesting to see how it all unfolds…

PS 25th July
Since we posted this, another movie from ‘Karen Blisset’ appeared on the list:

The Idea of Karen Blisset
I am Karen Blisset (2010, 17 MB, 38 secs)

and, later the same day, yet more…

Jacky Sawatzky – Follow Me

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Follow Me (2009, 173 MB, 7:10 min)

The first section of this piece by Jacky Sawatzky, in the library,
is one of my favourite dance video moments ever,
but the whole thing buzzes with life & ideas &
there’s a winning willingness to take risks & lack of
cynicism to it all too.
More here.

Direct Language

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pink tall bike
Diect Language 5.0 (2010, 74 MB, 6:26 min)

Steven Ball has re-started his Direct Language project & this was the first piece
of the new sequence.
I think it is quite breathtaking.
It strikes me as very much in a relatively recent British experimental film tradition
where a quite austere formalism can engender the most extraordinary beauty.
There’s always the danger of a failure of nerve, the pill being quite needlessly sugared
and nothing such happens here.
Not only is it haunting & lovely, there’s food for thought here too,
the lack of glibness & the refusal to cuddle up to the viewer meaning
it sustains repeated viewing.

Pink Tall Bike

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pink tall bike
Pink Tall Bike (2010, 50 MB, 2:16 min)

One of those does-what-it-says-on-the-can movies.
Made by Mike Stoddard & Ryan Lynch who say:

”This is our latest creation made from free bikes and parts,
comprised of three womens’ frames, bed frame iron (front fork),
and an old ATV shock.
Filmed on the Woonsocket River Bikeway in Rhode Island. ‘

…not much to add except to say it’s very diverting &
WANT ONE!