Author Archives: michael

Nathaniel Stern – Sentimental Construction

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Sentimental Construction
Sentimental Construction (2007, 25.4MB, 6:31 min)

Nathaniel Stern took a bit of a hammering in various quarters for this piece,
made on a residency in Croatia.
I think there’s an probably an element of you-had-to-be-there about this
although, that said, I think the video is rather magical &
does as good a job of summoning the kind of ephemeral spell this stuff can weave
as any I’ve seen.
Lastly it has to be said the reason Nathaniel is great is because
(1) he has a frightening amount of energy, more indeed, really, than his fair share –
he starts 5 ‘isms’ before breakfast
(2) he is bold, unafraid to risk looking ridiculous & therefore quite often as an artist
he goes to much more interesting places than most…
In general I’ll take a Nathaniel “failure” over quite a lot of folks’ “success”.

K H Jeron – Röhrender Hirsch

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Röhrender Hirsch
Röhrender Hirsch (2007, 7.3MB, 9 sec)

Bracing & clever stuff from KH Jeron a.k.a Sim.
By the magic of programming he transmutes the result
of a Google image search ( presumably on Reindeer or some such)
into this video.
I originally wanted to post another vid crafted by similar means,
image searching on the contents of a text by dvblog favourite Alan Sondheim,
but the vid ,even with small picture size, is way too big for us.
Check that out here, though.

3 Beautiful Lumières

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Squirrel
Squirrel (2007, 6.8MB, 47 secs)

[ by Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen ]

bubbles
Bubble machine (2007, 8.93MB, 57 secs)

[ by Brittany Shoot ]

hubertus
the hubertus hunt 2007 (2007, 4.92MB, 41 secs)

[ by Sam Renseiw ]

Andreas & Brittany’s Lumièree project has been brilliant in so many respects.
Firstly, it has engaged a load of people in making stuff.
Secondly, it has been a huge kick in the arse in terms of reflecting on what one
is doing when one is making video. It has sharpened all our eyes.
(And, curiously, speaking personally, my ears too. I think a lot harder about what
I want sound to do having now forsworn it on 25 or so occasions)
Lastly, there’s been some really great work come out of it.
Here’s one each from Andreas and Brittany and one from the frontrunner
in the productivity stakes (but not simply that – what an eye!) Sam Renseiw.

Deaf Culture

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Deaf
Deaf (2006, 5.7MB, 56 sec.)

Volcano
Volcano (2006, 7.6MB, 54 sec.)

Two beautiful & expressive poems in sign language.

The first is in British sign language
& comes from the deaf arts forum in Edinburgh,
Scotland. There are subtitles for the hearing.

The second is in American Sign Language & is written &
performed by Ellie, a sixth grader at the Metro deaf school in St Paul.

No translation for this one, so non signers should bear
the title in mind & enjoy the volcanic performance.

Pepa Garcia – autorretrato / puesta de sol

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autoretrato
autoretrato; puesta de sol//self-portrait; sunset (2007, 5.16MB, 36 sec)

Hallado en una serie de vlogs (la navegación es un poco confusa,
y mi español rudimentario, así que espero haberlo pillado bien),
de la española residente en Chile Pepa García, este
vídeo es sencillamente perfecto: la mezcla justa entre
espontaneidad y cálculo; y hecho con arte,
conjurando una compleja atmósfera donde una especie
de deliciosa melancolía es la nota más predominante.
Simplemente genial.

Found on a series of vlogs (the navigation is a little confusing,
my Spanish is rudimentary, so I hope I’ve got the factual stuff right)
by Chile resident Spanish video maker Pepa Garcia, this piece is just perfect –
just the right mix of spontaneity and calculation, artfully made
and hence conjuring a rather complex atmosphere where a species
of delicious melancholy is the most predominant note.
Simply great.

Steven Ball – Snow Factory

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snowfactory1
Snow Factory (2006, 6.41MB, 53 secs)

Lyrical whimsy, which sounds lightweight, but isn’t.
It’s beautifully made by Steven Ball and has a strange
gravity not unreminiscent of the less dread-saturated
(I hesitate to say “more playful”) end of Kafka…or
Ben Marcus, perhaps…

Jaygo Bloom – O:.O:.O:.

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ooo
O:.O:.O:.(2007, 47.3MB, 59 sec loop)

Quite extraordinary dance video from Jaygo Bloom.
What I love about it is the wonderfully insouciant way
it both references and evokes early modernism
(Calder is cited as a source/inspiration by Bloom) but is also
(and could not be other than) utterly contemporary.
Great! So great it makes me totally jealous!

Camera: Patrick Jamieson and Anna Druka
Music: Hammerschmidt

Philip Thomas plays Morton Feldman’s Vertical Thoughts 4

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Vertical Thoughts 4
Vertical Thoughts 4 (2002, 7.7MB, 3:22 min.)

All we composers really have to work with is time and sound
– and sometimes I’m not even sure about sound.
Morton Feldman.

The pianist is Philip Thomas.
Found in Misha David’s excellent collection of
new music performance videos.
While you’re there check out the rest of his site -he has some
great photographic work archived there too.

Brian Gibson – Parabolic

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Parabolic
Parabolic (2007, 35.5MB, 4:50 min.)

This bit of intense gorgeousness was made from cell phone
video footage (funny how we still use that word, footage)
by Brian Gibson who sometimes posts here.
If it was simply lovely that would be enough, but it’s very
structured too – Brian has such a great feel for the intrinsic
qualities of the material but also a real editing eye…

The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema

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The Pervert
The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema -Trailer (2007, 8.97MB, 1:06 min.)

Slavoj Žižek, philosophy’s PT Barnum, struts his stuff
con shed-loads of brio in this Sophie Fiennes directed opus.
Doesn’t seem to be much genuinely new (the terrible fate of
the celebrity academic being to be lionised for what we already
know they’re going to do/say) but still vastly entertaining.