Errol Morris: Donald Trump on Citizen Kane

trump_kane
Donald Trump on Citizen Kane (2004, 40.2MB, 3:22 min.)

by Errol Morris.
‘The last thing one would imagine Donald Trump talking about is Citizen Kane,
what many believe to the greatest film ever made, but here he is talking about
in one of the aborted projects by Errol Morris — like he has lived it, like he is a
reincarnation of Charles Foster Kane. The beauty is not just in the Errol Morris
meditative style or even what Trump has to say about Citizen Kane but what we
want to see. Mainly, that Trump’s life mirrors that of Kane and that this real life
epic character sees his own tragedy.
Talking about wealth, he says ‘In real life, wealth does in fact isolate you from other
people…it is a protective mechanism’. That quote speaks volumes. The salesman is
poking holes into his much marketed life. Asked on what advice he would give
Charles Foster Kane, Trump says boldly: ‘Get yourself a different woman!’.

Clouds by John Murphy

c1
Clouds…Courts (2007, 10MB, 4:45 min.)

c2
Clouds…Words (2007, 7.85MB, 3:35 min.)

John Murphy is an Irish artist living and working in Madrid Spain.
Clouds…Courts shows us the late afternoon sky and we hear
Craig Murray formerly UK’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan
speaking about torture and England’s role in the Iraq war.

In Clouds…Words we hear about ways to die in Iraq, according
to a BBC journalist while watching the early spring sky in Madrid.

‘Erection’ by John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Erection John Lennon
Erection (1971, 180MB, 18:06 min.)

A nineteen-minute film by John and Yoko, which was made in London during
1970 and 1971. When John had heard that the London International Hotel was
to be built in Kensington, he sought permission to film its entire construction.
Once he’d obtained it he contacted the photographer Iain MacMillan and asked
him to take a series of photographs of the construction. MacMillan had a stills
camera and filmed the erection of the hotel from a fixed position for a period
of eighteen months.
The stills were presented in sequence in the film, which ended with a shot of the
completed hotel where all the lights were then turned off, leaving a black screen.
On the soundtrack Yoko sang two songs, ‘Airmale’ and ‘You’, using tapes of recordings
of Joe Jones Tone Deaf Music Co., which was, in fact, a number of toy percussion
instruments that played themselves, a squeaky style of sound devised by a former
associate of Yoke’s Fluxus days, Joe Jones. The hotel was situated at 147 Cromwell
Road and later became the London Swallow Hotel.

Douglas Fishbone

Towards a Common Understanding (excerpt)
Towards a Common Understanding (excerpt) (2007, 9.4MB, 6:50min)

Douglas Fishbone is one of my favorite video art jokesters.
He leaves no stone unturned in his search for a common
understanding, which takes him to the furthest reaches
of the world wide web and back.
I have been trying to find a video of his online to
include here for a while now, then I just asked him and
he graciously sent me this video for the faithful DVBlog viewers.
Beware, there are many disturbing images in this video but none
of them on screen for more than a few seconds and all quite spectacular.

By Mica

British Beach Hut Miscellany

British Beach Hut Miscellany
British Beach Hut Miscellany(2006, 5.2MB, 1:36 min)

Made by Giles Perkins. Shot on Super 8 & digitally edited.
English pastoral loveliness with a conceptual/formalist twist,
which resolves to… English pastoral loveliness.
Lovely!

Celia Cooley – Occupy DC Interviews 10/10/2011

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Occupy DC Interviews 10/10/2011 (2011, 73MB, 58 sec)

Demonstrating what we all might have said rhetorically, but really demonstrating it –
that a smart seven year old (with a little tech help from her parents)
can do a better job than any of the official media, Celia Cooley interviews
Occupy DC participants in a piece that both delights and makes one fiercely
proud to be one of the 99%.
Great job.

Lumière – La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière à Lyon

hangar
La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière à Lyon (1895, 2MB, 46 sec.)

The year is 1895. The “Hangar” was the first set in the history of Cinematography and
can be seen here in “La Sortie de l’usine Lumière”, Lumière’s first film.
from the fantastic site – Institut Lumière.

Harddisko – Noise & Disturbances Amplifier System

Harddisko
Harddisko (2007, 29MB, 1:29 min.)

Harddisko is an installation piece by Valentina Vuksic dealing with raw
computer sounds. Rhythmic noises are evoked from sixteen
hard drives, orchestrated through simple power circuits.
By cutting each disk’s power in varying sequences and amplifying its
particular sound characteristics, an unpredictable acoustic
and visual interplay emerges.

Edward Picot – Appraisal parts #3 & #4

appraisalpart1.jpg
Appraisal Part #3 (2011, 159MB, 9:47 min)

appraisalpart1.jpg
Appraisal Part #4 (2011, 143MB, 9:40 min)

Latest two in Edward Picot’s wonderful Dr Hairy series.

G.H. Hovagimyan – Boxing Rants

boxing_rants
Boxing Rants (2011, 28 MB, 3:11 min)

Documentation of an interactive video performance by
G.H. Hovagimyan that took place at Postmasters Gallery in NY,
from a series of performances titled ‘Being and Event’.

Charlie Roberts

band aid
Band-Aid (2007, 54.4MB, 21:53 min)

Temple To Aeolos
Temple To Aeolos (2003, 1.52MB, 43 sec)

Well executed & not a little disturbing work from Charlie Roberts,
a man whose CV features the interesting combination of
performance video & ..er.. inflatable sculpture.
Bit of both here, both a compelling watch…

Baldessari sings LeWitt


Baldessari Sings LeWitt

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.

The WhetherMan

Whetherman1
03.07.06 (2006, 5.3MB, 1:54 min.)

Whetherman2
03.12.06 (2006, 3.7MB, 1:08 min.)

Whetherman3
03.17.06 (2006, 3.8MB, 1:13 min.)

Back in 2006, when video blogging just started, Andrew Schneider
was the funniest person on the internet.
From Astoria, Queens, it’s the whether|man.

Super Dog

superdog.jpg
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.

Videoblogging

videoblogging
Experiment (2006, 3.3MB, 1:20 min.)

2006: Michael Verdi takes a stand and stakes out
some videoblogging territory.

Laser Tag – The Graffiti Research Lab

laser tag
laser tag (2006, 17.6MB, 4 min.)

The Graffiti Research Lab is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers,
artists and protestors with open source tools for urban communication.

Dr Hairy – Appraisal Parts 1 & 2

appraisalpart1.jpg
Appraisal Part #1 (2011, 232MB, 10:14 min)

appraisalpart2.jpg
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)

The Ice Cream Lift – Kristen Baumlier

Ice_Cream_Lift
Ice Cream Lift (2003, 6.3MB, 2:07 min)

“In 1996, I started working on a project idea to change the
aesthetics of exericise. I became a “fitness guru” and made my
own 55-minute workout video where all 12 workouts used food as
exercise equipment. The music in the video is from bands that I knew
in CA, or bands that I listened to while working in my studio.”

Kristen Baumlier from Buns of Butter.

Cory Arcangel – Phasing Dancing Stand Sculptures

modified_dancing_stands
Phasing Dancing Stand Sculptures (2010, 30 MB, 3:09 min)

“Sculpture made from 2 over the counter “Dancing Stands” (the tacky kinetic product
display stands you can often see in down market stores) which have been modified to
spin at slightly different speeds. When these modified stands are placed next to each
other they go in and out of phase about every 4 minutes. I first showed a version of
these sculptures in my show “Creative Pursuits” at the University of Michigan Museum
of Art. This is a video of a version of these sculptures in action at my show The Sharper
Image
at the Museum of Contemporary Art Miami (the music is Dj Icey, a nod to Miami)”
By Cory Arcangel.

Kid Acne – South Yorks

south_yorks.jpg
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.

Wikipedia Art in London

intro.jpg
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

Jimmy Wales – Wikipedia:Technologies of Cooperation

jimmywales
Wikipedia:Technologies of Cooperation (2005, 70 MB, 1:30 hr.)

Lecture at Stanford University on Wikipedia by founder Jimmy Wales.

Heath Bunting – Memorial Stone

memorial_stone
Memorial Stone (2011, 92 MB, 38:31 min)

“As technology moves forward.. all my work is falling apart.. I’d like to move
forward as well, into a more outside adventurous practice, so this video is an
attempt to document the ruins and the remains of my internet work”
– by Heath Bunting

Estella Cumberford – Friendsource14

Friendsource14.jpg
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

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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.)

JimPunk, 2010: T

Cory Arcangel – UMMA Projects: Creative Pursuits

creative_pursuits
Creative Pursuits (2010, 12 MB, 1:03 min)

Images from Cory Arcangel show – Creative Pursuits at
the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Can I get an Amen? – Nate Harrison

Can I Get An Amen
Can I Get An Amen? (2004, 34.3MB, 18:08 min.)

from Nate Harrison.
This documentation of an installation by Nate Harrison,
includes an in depth lecture on the history of a single breakbeat.
It follows this small fragment of a song from its origin in a 60’s soul
recording through the invention of house and contemporary hip-hop.
It also speaks very eloquently on the important issues of copyright in
remix culture. This is fascinating to listen to.

By Mica

William Wegman & Steve Martin

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.

Josh Weinstein – “Cross Examination”

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.