Category Archives: experimental

Rupert Howe – The Wicker Man Remade

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wickerman
The Wicker Man (2010, 12 MB, 1:09 min)

wickerman live
The Wicker Man Live (2010, 7 MB, 3:31 min)

Rupert Howe is always doing interesting things.
He’s also an early adopter of the sort of tech that in-my-old-age I
would cautiously leave a few months to see how it turns
out, so many of the interesting things he does mystify me
somewhat at first.
SO.. here he seems to have got given (?) lots of extras
(in what universe does this occur?) to remake a section of
cult British horror film The Wicker Man on Hampstead Heath.
The results are jaw dropping in two ways.
Jaw droppingly charmingly-funny.
And jaw droppingly odd.
Most of his work is essentially some combination of these
two axes. ( Plus serious skills)
As an added bonus there a kind of Making-Of-The-Wicker-Man-Remake
which apparently was originally streamed live from his mobile.
I didn’t even know you could do that.
If anything the ‘making-of’ piece surpasses the substantive one on the
Howe strangeness scale. Even his friends & colleagues seem touched too
by a species of benign insanity.
Long may he flourish.

Sun Capture – Julianne Swartz

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suncapture
Sun Capture (1999, 9.6 MB, 1:23 min.)

Transferring the reflection of a natural occurrence (the movement of the sun)
from outdoors to indoors, Brooklyn-based artist Julianne Swartz creates
her site-specific installation “Sun Capture” with existing architecture, metal pole,
mirror, sun, and wind.

Alan Sondheim: large tree-scan world images

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Treee
treee (2006, 2.28MB, 1:03 min)

treees 3
treees 3 (2006, 5.86MB, 38 sec)

treees 8
treees 8 (2006, 9.15MB, 58 sec)

“similar to a scanning electron microscope, two images of a moving tree
with enormous detail were stitched together, warped, merged, and
analyzed at every stage. the result is a planetary configuration; one can travel
for at least an hour or two through the detailing. at times threads or
tubes appear; at times there are planes, sharpened edges, odd holes and
gaps. a tetrahedral mapping was employed.

it is this acute exploration of acute angles of inner worlds that
fascinates me. the mp4 file is small and an enormous amount of detail
is lost, but you get the idea. there are videos as well of course.
here is the resurrection of encapsulated movement-into-landscape of a
five-story tree outside the virtual environments laboratory at west
virginia”

Alan Sondheim

Donna Kuhn – Please Don’t Look Like A Pear

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Applause
Please Don’t Look Like A Pear (2010, 10 MB, 3:22 min)

I love Donna Kuhn’s work.
I’ve rhapsodised about it here before, so I’ll just note, first,
that she continues to develop in the most thoughtful & interesting of ways
& second that this video is very funny, poetic
& scarier than most horror movies.
( Donna: ‘people don’t believe that these are completely unembellished
craigslist personals ads’)
To do all three – a coup!
More soon please Donna!

Max Moswitzer – Early Videos

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rambo1987
RAMBO (1987, 5.6 MB, 2:32 min)

killmydesire
ZERO ONE KILL MY DESIRE (1988, 7 MB, 3:12 min)

Early videos by Max Moswitzer using found footage material,
video collage, remix and animation.
More Max Moswitzer here.

Kerry Baldry – Applause

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Applause
Applause (2010, 104 MB, 1:02 min)

Last week we showed some of Kerry Baldry’s curatorial work,
now here’s one of her own pieces.

Says Kerry:

“Applause is a piece of work made on 16mm film.
Using superimposition and coloured gels Applause has been edited in camera …”

& its a smart & winning piece which punches above its weight.
It looks great & there’s something about the way the visuals work
that really illuminates the sound – the..er..um..applause-ness –
of the applause & this in turn directs us back, carefully, to the visuals.
(& both make us ponder it as a social phenomenon)
The piece made me listen attentively, mindfully, & then look &
listen & think & then do all three again.

Todd Polenberg – Monster/Identity Prosthetic

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Monster/Identity Prosthetic
Monster/Identity Prosthetic (2009, 54 MB, 1:13 min)

Documentation from last years Spark Festival of a rather splendid
installation by Todd Polenberg.

Max Moswitzer – early found footage and remixed videos

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zwischenlagerung
ZWlSCHENLAGERUNG EINER NULLOESUNG (1988, 10.5 MB, 4:47 min)

computergame
COMPUTER GAME (1987, 9 MB, 3:53 min)

Early videos by Max Moswitzer using found footage material, remix
and live performance.
ZWlSCHENLAGERUNG EINER NULLOESUNG was using documentary
films from 1938-1945 and was a live action performance at the
University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 1988.
COMPUTER GAME was exhibited at ARS Electronica in 1987.

More Max Moswitzer here.

One Minute, Volume 4

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Dinosaur
Martin Pickles – Dinosaur  (2010, 130 MB, 1:01 min)

1961 Revisited.
Nicki Rolls – 1961 Revisited  (2010, 114 MB, 58 secs)

Two pieces from a touring screening of one minute films,
the fourth such from British filmmaker Kerry Baldry.

It’s a really well put together and gripping hour
(transparency dictates I confess I have a piece in it
but I won’t foist that on you here), with a strike rate well above
most of this kind of compilatation.

Here are two of my favourite pieces; both, in different
ways, little gems of cinematic poetry.
Although Martin Pickle’s piece is amusing there’s
something enchanting about the changing seasonal
landscape & light of West London and how it manifests on screen,
which raises the work from anecdote to something more complicated
and lasting.

The Nicki Rolls piece had me in the palm of its hand within about a second.
(I’m a total sucker for near stillness and for the movement of light)
Then I started to think about what exactly I was watching.
You might like to give it some thought too.
Again, the twist breaks the confines of the one minute form
to resonate long after.

I haven’t see the other three compilations but I hope we could maybe
feature a couple of pieces from each in the not too distant future.

Next week we’ll have a piece by Kerry herself.

Three from Writtle

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Impossible Conversations
Ashleigh Smith – Impossible Conversations (2010, 75 MB, 2:30 min)

Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Emma Haggis – Out of Sight, Out of Mind (2010, 118 MB, 2:18 min)

Response
Lucy Mills – Response (2010, 108 MB, 2:02 min, silent)

So, first, I should say, Writtle is where I taught this year, but it cuts both ways:
I wouldn’t post these pieces by graduating students here on DVblog unless I
thought they were all great, which I do.
They’re also diverse, in a fascinating way.
There’s Ashleigh Smith’s haunting – stays with you long afterwards – game/real life hybrid,
Lucy Mills beauty industry critique – half mash-up, half rather brave performance,
(It’s interesting the way that all three pieces incorporate, to
some degree, elements of self performance) and Emma Haggis’s superbly made
and utterly captivating stop motion environmental piece.

In each case one can see a personal language well into its development.
(All these pieces or variants/derivatives thereof formed part of larger
installations; I’m impressed by the naturalness & lack of self consciousness
with with these three move between modes of working/presentation)

I hope they’re all still making work in ten years – given this
starting point then that would be a treat in store.