Kill the Artist

trailer
Kill the Artist Trailer (2008, 17MB, 2:37 min)

Mike Diana
Kill the Artist (excerpt) (2008, 12.7MB, 1:09 min)

Documentary from Andreas Troeger about ‘artists who got into trouble with the law
because of their art-works’.
Personally I don’t share what I understand to be the film’s implicit
libertarianism – I’m all in favour of shutting down, for example,
Holocaust deniers, or race hate merchants generally.
Niether did I see any work in the extracts sent that I gave a damn about artistically
but of course the point is that censorship operates salami style
& often by picking the most problematic, hard to defend, cases first,
so the discussion here matters.
Nonetheless when the definitive history of political censorship of/attacks upon art in the early
twenty first century is written I can’t help feeling the Steve Kurtz case
will figure more largely than the stuff on display here.
Interested what others think.

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

Baum
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries at the New Museum (2008, 62.5MB, 2:48 min)

If you don’t know them, you should; Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
have been responsible for some of the most spine tingling & evocative work
on the net in the last ten years,
This documentary, lifted from the indispensable Rhizome, gives a good bares bones historical
account of them in the context of a show earlier this year at the New Museum.
I didn’t see the show & whilst I’m pleased they’re getting this wider exposure I wonder
if there isn’t something quite particular about the way their work presents in a browser
(preferably, in my view, with headphones on, ie. as submerged in these delicious
& fractured quasi narratives as only the net experience will allow).
Then, it is visceral and immediate.
On the evidence here, there seems to have been something
a little more diffuse about this multiple screen installation.
I don’t know; it’s a surmise; I’d be happy to be told I’m wrong.
It raises interesting questions, though, about the transplanting of work
from browser to gallery.

A Series of Practical Performances in the Wilderness (2)

digging_for_chicory
digging for chicory (2005, 3.6MB, 1:15 min.)

doable
doable (2005, 8.1MB, 3:31 min.)

home_economics
home economics (2005, 6.8MB, 2:06 min.)

Chapter 4,5,6 from

‘Embedded’ – Alan Sondheim in Santa Monica

restart
restart (2006, 9KB, 4 min. loop)

shift
shift (2006, 5.1MB, 57 sec.)

jig
jig (2006, 2.8MB, 32 sec.)

We’re Alan Sondheim fans here at dvblog.
When so much work on the web is banal & lacking in ambition
he is an antidote, a tonic, a reason to hope.
His restless energy & intelligence transmute everything
he engages with into art (remember Picasso & those handlebars?)
Those living in the Santa Monica area might have seen his installation
‘embedded’ (also including work by filmmaker Leslie Thornton)
at the Track 16 gallery in 2006.

Broken Bones – House of Freaks

House of Freaks
Broken Bones (2006, 18.8MB, 3:11 min.)

After the murder of Bryan Harvey, half of the band House of Freaks,
I had wanted to make a music video for one of their songs as a small tribute,
but I was just too heartbroken to approach it.
I found the occasion on my last train ride home to Virginia.
I filmed this on the way down and edited it on my way back to New York.
While this talented duo had two legitimate pop hits in the 1980s
and an international fan base, their influence is far greater than
their current notoriety would suggest. I think so.

By Mica.

Thomas Mottl – Feeling like a Genie – QTVR work

thomas_motti
Feeling like a Genie (2005, 1.2MB, qtvr)

Life from the perspective of a 2-litre Volvic water bottle.
Thomas Mottl interactive photographs.
(Use mouse to click and drag. use shift & controll to zoom in and out)

Backstreet Boys by The Dormitory Boys – I want it that way

backstreetboys
I want it that way (2005, 20.3MB, 3:39 min.)

A super hit back in 2005 that started the Karaoke trend
on Utube. (3M hits)
from- The Dormitory Boys.

Monochrom

irark
‘Irark’ (2003, 5.7 MB, 5 min.)

Me
‘ME’ (2001, 18.5 MB, 2:45 min.)

Simply great stuff from Austrian Monochrom.

Bottomunion – The Endangered P-Money Bird

bottomunion1
The Endangered P-Money Bird (2005, 14.5MB, 2:23 min.)

Erik Nelson’s videos are always funny and poetic. He posts new work regularly
on his vlog – Bottomunion.
music by – dudley from – Autres Directions.

By Mica.

Rock History

goodjoke
Rock History (2006, 6.3 MB, 2:34 min.)

Ugly pictures and Man VS Magnet have created a short film play before
the Battle of the Ad Bands at Irving Plaza in New York. (The show is a
charity venue where advertising agency garage bands compete for the
best band and all the proceeds go to help the public schools of New York.)
The result is a funny and hilarious and violent animation about the recent
music history, and especially the design of the LPs.
from its art mag.