Baldessari Sings LeWitt (excerpt) (1972, 30.5MB, 3:38 min)
In which John Baldessari sings Sol LeWitt’s
sentences on conceptual art.
From the indispensible Ubuweb.
Author Archives: michael
Cutting Edge Cinema
A Tough Dance (1902, 7.1MB, 47 sec.)
Bicycle Trick Riding (1899, 5.5MB, 37 sec.)
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.
Park House
Park House (2011, 10MB, 1:55 min)
Poetry, visual and aural, from Simon Mclennan.
(And what a compelling speaking voice he has.
How nice to have such a fine instrument)
Quite, quite lovely.
More soon.
Martin Archer live at The Grapes
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
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…
Takashi Kawashima – Seasons
Seasons (2006, 60.4MB, 15:25 min)
Work of heart-stopping delicacy & beauty from
Takashi Kawashima.
Some Very Sad News
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
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
Appraisal Part #1 (2011, 232MB, 10:14 min)
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 (2011, 32MB, 1:15 min)
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.
Regina Célia Pinto –Andante Grazioso
Andante Grazioso (2011, 26MB, 3:47 min)
Gosto muito do trabalho de Regina Pinto, simples e elegante
na superfície, ele toca o coração (e acopla a mente) e,
aparentemente, é isso que nos prende.
Esta profundidade lúcida, a embalagem luminosa do diário,
não é conseguida sem trabalho, mas Regina é demasiado
cuidadosa e modesta (no comportamento, não na ambição)
mas, visivelmente, está fazendo algo difícil, e este fato é,
ele próprio, parte de sua arte. Encantador!
Like so much of Regina Célia Pinto’s work, simple and elegant
on the surface, this touches the heart (and engages the mind)
seemingly without effort.
Of course ‘seemingly’ is the catch. This lucid depth, the luminous
encapsulation of the everyday, is not achieved without labour,
but Regina is too careful and modest (in demeanour, not ambition) an
artist to make heavy weather of it, and this fact is itself part of her art.
Lovely!
Emily Murdoch – Before Honeymoon
Before Honeymoon (2011, 29MB, 1:39 min)
Another piece from a Writtle student, this from Emily Murdoch.
I think this is tremendous not only technically (I especially love the use of light)
but aesthetically too. It clearly owes a debt to Lewis Klahr but one can
see a very distinctive individual voice emerging too.
I do hope Emily continues to make art (and in particular moving image).
I find her work rich and moving.
Kid Acne – South Yorks
South Yorks (2011, 27MB, 2:40 min)
Possibly only amusing (or even intelligible) to those hailing
from the area, I’m going to post it because I do & it makes
me laugh a lot.
Bit of background on Kid Acne here.
Delpha Hudson – Out With Mother
Out With Mother (2011, 73MB, 1:32 min)
I’m oscillating between finding this piece by Delpha Hudson really rather
beautiful and rather chilling (or both).
It’s perhaps the ambguity which makes it so effective, difficult to get a
precise fix on.
There’s no doubting that it’s a smart piece of work. I love the dual tempo thing
with the scene in the background unfolding slowly behind the more anxious and
busier foreground.
I’m assuming the speech like sound *is* sampled from an actual child -again the ambiguity
arising from, on the one hand its near musicality and on the other the
inevitable and immediate visceral response (certainly from anyone who’s ever had kids)
it provokes is a point adding to the richness of the thing.
Great. More from Delpha soon.
Wikipedia Art in London
Wikipedia Art Intro (2011, 114MB, 2:29 min)
And, appropriately following on from yesterday’s post, a little intro
to the splendid Kildall/Stern Wikipedia Art project which is showing, as part
of a two person show at London’s Furtherfield gallery (formerly HTTP)
from this Friday.
(One individual piece by each artist too – promises to be a real treat)
Private view tonight 6:30 (Thurs.) – all welcome, maybe see you there.
This piece narrated in Stern’s breathless-puppy-dog-with-an-off-the-dial-IQ
trademark delivery with reassuringly measured interventions by the
no less smart & talented Kildall.
Edit by Foster Stilp, plus suitably keyed up and excited music by Stilp and
Kevin McGillivray, who together trade as Felixsofia
Drake Music Commission – Distant Interiors
Distant Interiors (2011, 87MB, 2:16 min)
Drake Music is an organisation initiating and enabling a whole spectrum
of activity around disability and the arts (particularly music
but other artforms too).
This could be worthy, condescending and dull. It is none of these.
In recent years, under the inspired leadership of Carien Meijer,
DM has ensured it is situated primarily as a very forward looking
arts organisation which happens to work closely with disabled artists
to enable new and fresh work to emerge.
It has encouraged collaborations between disabled and non-disabled artists
and, in a sense, works towards its own future disappearance not only
by using technology to level the playing field but also by aspiring not
to pity or the sideshow but to serious, top level, work.
This is their first online commission, a remote collaboration between
video artist Melanie Clifford, composer Ailís Ní Ríain and artist Rebecca Key.
I like the fact that it is so confident in its austere and beautiful
language and aims, not to charm us, but to engage us.
The spiky and beautiful music is particularly exhilarating.
Estella Cumberford – Friendsource14
Friendsource14 (2011, 21MB, 1:18 min)
This piece, by Estella Cumberford, is great on a whole number of fronts.
Firstly it’s really nicely made.
The images walk that difficult line between
telling us too much and too little, and the audio
(processed, apparently, in GarageBand) is well judged,
well executed and more than a little engaging.
You wouldn’t guess from the piece’s surface simplicity
(first impressions only of course, anyway. Examine it closely
and see how hand-made and un-algorithmic it is)
the layers of structuring and processing that went into
it but I can’t help feeling these do manifest in the sense of
its coherence, richness and general success as a work of art.
The text was sourced & assembled from status updates on F******* of
14 of the artist’s friends. This then read by her & processed as noted.
The images were then grown (organic metaphors seem somehow
particularly apposite) out of this text and rendered by a kind of
shadow screen technique.
It’s an exquisite piece of work.
Transparency dictates I tell you that I teach Estella
at Writtle. (I use the word teach loosely -as with most of
the students we have an absorbing and on-going dialogue.)
It’s work like this that makes that part of my life so rewarding.
Talking About DVblog
Electronic Village Galleries Talk 6th May 2011 (2011, 164MB, 32:14 min)
Gosh -where to start?
Awhile back we were approached to assemble a selection of
work from DVblog for screening at a gallery in the UK.
This reel then took on a bit of a life of its own, showing
at the museum of club culture in Hull, UK and at the Buffalo Literary Center, New York.
(of course ‘a life of its own’ is completely unfair – it got shown because real
human beings –Kerry Baldry and Martha Deed respectively – put work into making it happen.)
Then Kate Southworth, who is running a brilliant pilot project
involving showing digital work in village halls in Cornwall, in the extreme
south-west of the UK, asked if I’d be interested in curating something
and the reel immediately sprang to mind..
To cut a long story short it was shown at the second EVG event at
Zennor village hall on 7th May and I went down to talk (at some
length, I notice with a certain degree of horror)
about digital video on the net, DVblog in particular and about the
artists involved in this selection.
Here, for better or for worse, is my talk, filmed, heroically, given my
restless delivery style, by Delpha Hudson.
If you’d like to reconstruct the programme for yourself it’s below, with links to
the original DVblog posts.
And if you’d be interested in screening it, please get in touch!
(We also have a reel of silent work which has been screened with
musical accompaniment and is available for more such outings.)
Ruth Catlow – Landscape
Landscape (2011, 114MB, 3:12 min)
Ravishing piece of work from my friend and colleague Ruth Catlow
who is also co-director of the indispensible Furtherfield.org
We’ve been talking a lot amongst ourselves and with our students about
continuities across art history and about hybrid techniques which
meld both the ancient and the newest.
Filmed in the New Forest, this piece (apart from its great beauty)
is an exemplar of this approach and pathbreaking in its way.
(More so than much which, dull-eyed, shouts and waves the latest thing
from the rooftops.)
The oldest kind of mark making, delicately but robustly realised,
captured on a tiny portable video camera in a semi-performative
way and then networked…
Beautiful and nourishing both.
Jimi Bogdanov
Movie #4 (2006, 1.9MB, 44 sec)
Movie #14 (2006, 2.9MB, 1:12 min)
Interesting work from Canadian film maker Jimi Bogdanov.
Movie #4 , in particular, has a fragile & arresting beauty.
Roundabout
Roundabout (n/d, 5MB, 35 sec.)
Found in the inspiration section of VJ Forums.
William Wegman & Steve Martin
Martin on Wegman (1999, 3.75MB, 2:09 min.)
The introduction to the identity program from the PBS series
Art in the 21st Century in which host Steve Martin is featured
in this charming and quirky video by the artist William Wegman.
Alan Sondheim – Two Movies
After the Fall (2011, 44 MB, 1:01 min)
Antenna (2011, 65 MB, 57 secs)
Two very different and very beautiful movies from Alan Sondheim.
Love is a Wave
Love is a Wave (2010, 17MB, 1:59 min)
Another video for Crystal Stilts by the
difficult-to-discover-any-details-about armyofkids.
As with the first we posted (also, apparently, by aok)
stylish and dashing both.
Edward Picot –Things That Flow
Things That Flow (2011, 175 MB, 4:00 min)
Doing what it says on the can, and doing it elegantly
and with understatement and grace, a new pastoral (although
that’s not quite the word because the urban, or at least the mechanical,
usually intrudes into the idyll in some way) from Edward Picot.
‘Un Chien Andalou’ – Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
Un chien andalou (1929, 156MB, 15:40 min.)
This is just the source.
Can you imagine Cocteau, Deren, later Hitchcock & Cronenberg
without this?
Oh..more:- the whole of cinema would have a great gaping bloody gap
in it & what was left would be dull dull dull & Black Francis wouldn’t have been
able to write ‘Debaser’.
It simply prised open the language.
Afterwards, Bunuel went on to make some of the sharpest, most provocative
& disturbing films of the 20th century & Dali went on to
…well… be Dali.
Rick Silva – recap
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!
Josh Weinstein – “Cross Examination”
Cross Examination (2005, 11.4MB, 5:40 min)
Made in 2005, this is a really extraordinary piece for lots of reasons:
(1) It’s so carefully made ( & must have taken no little work)
(2) The chutzpah quotient is almost 100%
(3) There is more here than meets the eye
(4) The use of music (in its second appearance very reminiscent
of the school of Rifle/Hartley but spot on nonetheless)
(5) The warmth, genuine warmth; the real insight into people
As you see here Josh Weinstein, Brooklyn based film maker
does a lot of work for corporate clients. Hmmm.
Really, all you can think is, on the basis of this, they get way,
way more & better than they could possibly deserve.
Iban M. Selles – De Noche
I like the boldness of this, constructed by Iban M. Selles entirely
(and deftly) from stills taken on the set of , as I understand it,
a different film on which Iban Selles was working.
The sound, collaged from a number of movie soundtracks, is tremendous.
The piece as a whole has a slightly provisional feel to it -a study rather
than something definitive -but dull it’s not and I look forward to seeing
more work by Selles.
Bill Shackelford – 2 movies
Home Movies (2007, 11.9MB, 1:10 min)
Money at the Situation (2007, 6.5MB, 37 sec)
Assured & capable micro movie making from Bill Shackelford in 2007.
In the case of Home Movies, more: beautiful, poetic
& singular, using only the artefact laden footage around cuts in
his grandfather’s 8mm home movies from the 50s & 60s.
Bravo!