Petit d’Homme (2001, 42MB, 2 min.)
E.Mor –
Improvisation dans le noir // Improvisation in the dark
Musique/Music: Meredith Monk, ‘Engine Steps’
Petit d’Homme –
Etude du comportement humain en milieu naturel, avec Lloÿs Drouhin // A study in human beahaviour in a natural setting, with Lloÿs Drouhin
I Wasn’t always Dressed Like This [Trailer] (2013, 120MB, 1:42 min)
If the substantive piece (which I gather is about 33 minutes in length) is
anything like as good as this trailer promises it will be stunning.
This has all the hallmarks of the previous piece by Betty Martins – When the Souls Arrive – we posted here : beautifully made, scrupulously attentive to those being observed/interviewed but with its own quite particular gentle and steely authorial stamp.
(I usually hate anthropomorphising art – you know the thing, ‘this piece investigates’ &c. – except here
I am sorely tempted to say that Martin’s work ‘knows how to listen’. Of course what I mean is Martins knows how to listen, carefully and empathetically, and then to re-configure parts of that listening and looking and understanding too as moving image soaked with detail and feeling.)
In addition the subject matter could not be more timely: a broadside of delicate
beauty in the face of bigotry.
Mistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan (1981, 43MB, 6:01 min)
A six minute excerpt from the 45 min beaut.
The DVD comes with ‘Thursday Afternoon’ and your
option of playing either movie vertically or horizontally.
modern life (2005, 3.6MB, 3:13 min)
grass spider (2005, 6.1MB, 2:55 min)
2005 work from Lewis LaCook.
He seems to have dropped out of sight.
A shame, he made startling and splendid work in a number of media.
Update: I looked – he’s here and .
Good.
Christoph Brunner – schwarzenbergplatz (2005, 9.8MB, 0:46)
Christoph Brunner – schwarzenbergplatz 2 (2005, 13.5MB, 1:03)
Orte in Zeiten is a filmmaking process conceived
by Christoph Brunner that continuously re-exposes film
to make surreal loops of space and time.
These two clips were taken during the development
of OiZ, which roughly translates to “places in time”.
Emergence – Locusts (2008, 233.8MB, 11:19)
From celebrated MC Invincible, a docu-music-video
about the history of gentrification and capitalism’s
destruction of communities in Detroit.
Video features several local activists, including
Grace Lee Boggs and (full disclosure) my good friend
Ron Scott.
This intense collaboration gives me chills every
time I watch it.
I’ll let the rest speak for itself.
Ardvark (2001, 1.6MB, 15 sec.)
Scorpion (2001, 1.1MB, 10 sec.)
Tumbleweeds (2001, 1.2MB, 10 sec.)
Since 1988, Sam Easterton has been using tiny
‘helmet mounted’ cameras to create an archive of videos filmed
from the perspective of plants and animals.
By Mica
Body Magic (2007, 26MB, 2:25 min.)
From the old gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com
Music by Javier.
The Shock Doctrine (2007, 19.1MB, 6:47 min.)
Internet video version of Naomi Klein’s 2007 book, much more than an advertisement.
Heavy.
Hard to watch, as it should be.
‘America’s free market’ policies have come to dominate the world– through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries. {source}
Produced by Klein and Alfonso Cuarón, directed by Jonas Cuarón.
History of the Demonstrations (2012, 211MB, 15:53 min)
A Statement by Luaty Beirão (2012, 34MB, 7:05 min)
Three connected movies, which connect in a very direct way with the world about us.
For the last couple of years, simultaneously with the ‘Arab spring’ there have been
a number of similar movements around the world where ordinary folk have stood up for
the right to free speech and the right to a decent life, mostly both.
This happened on a small scale in the Southern African country of Angola where the inheritors
of the magnificent struggle against imperialism in the 70s seem to have forgotten their roots,
perhaps lulled by power and the good life it can bring to a few. A small but dogged and effective
campaign for democracy and against corruption, poverty and police state begaviour sprang up amongst
young people there.
The first video is a documentary relating the beginning, growth of this movement and subsequent
attempted government repression.
( You can find some more info , from Human Rights Watch, here)
Our second video is a track by the Angolan rapper Luaty Beirão, better known as Ikonoklasta
which is a tremendously entertaining bit of agit-prop against the regime.
It clearly struck home because the Angolan security forces have attempted to frame Beirão by
secreting a substantial amount of cocaine in a bicycle wheel in his possession on a flight
from Angola to Portugal.
The third video is Luaty Beirão’s statement upon and account of these events.
Watch the videos and draw you own conclusions – I do not for a moment believe Beirão is guilty
of anything except bravery and standing up to oppression.
We’ll leave you with these videos for the summer a reminder there’s art and there’s life and there’s
not a lot of space between.
We’re going to take a break until mid September-ish when we’ll be back with mostly
art videos but anything else that amuses, inspires or outrages us.
If you have stuff you think we’d like, send us links – we look at everything we’re sent.
It remains only to wish you all a nice and relaxing summer if you can manage it.
Cell Portraits (2005-7, 28.7MB, 4:18 min)
Beautifully assured piece of documentary film making from Richard Jochum in 2007,
a portrait of the scientist Jan Schmoranzer preparing microscopic images
of cells (& and eating lunch, drinking coffee &c.)
I particularly like the lighness of touch shown here, the gentle wit.
Jochum’s openness to the humanity, the quirkiness and individuality of the
participants ( the..um..dance), raises the level of the piece from
an interesting educational short to something much richer.
To be slightly controversial, it’s dully predictable someone left
a comment on Jochum’s site along the lines of ‘I’d like to get some of those
images for my wall’ The final slide images, laden with scientific interest as I’m
sure they are, are in my view the bit of the piece with the least artistic
interest (or at least such interest as they have derives from their place
in the process and the film’s account of it rather than their pretty-pattern-ness).
Vera Brunner-Sung – untitled (2006, 2.5MB, 1:10)
Vera Brunner-Sung – Longshore (2004, 9.9MB, 4:34)
Two short films from Vera Brunner-Sung, made respectively
on 16mm and super 8, both exploring boundaries of privacy
and community, the understanding of memory and place.
Arzu Ozkal Telhan – Unattended Body (2005, 56MB, 5:00)
Arzu Ozkal Telhan’s “Unattended Body” is a
spectacular meditation on public space,
observational video at perhaps its finest.
The artists also says:
“Unattended body mainly discusses how an
existence at it’s most banal (Heidegger) can
be simply perceived as a disturbance or a
potential threat if it does not act in its expected
way for the society.”
Normally three long segments, they’ve
been edited together here as a five minute
clip, all shown at once, which I actually prefer.
What is so painfully boring to others is ever
so exciting for the rest of us.
Serial Metaphysics #1 (1984-86, clip, 6.4MB, 1:08 min)
Serial Metaphysics #2 (1984-86, clip, 5.9MB, 1:08 min)
Wheeler Winston Dixon is now a professor of film studies
at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Before he did that he made
a lot of (on the evidence of these clips & others) really great short movies.
In particular these two clips from Serial Metaphysics, apparently almost
entirely constructed from TV ads, whet the appetite for a viewing
of the whole twenty minutes.
Dixon conjures fever dream magic from commercial banality.
Check in particular the end sequence of clip one:
David Lynch eat your heart out.
The World’s Largest TV Studio (1972, 17.2MB, 7:10 min.)
A historic piece of political video from
the 1972 Miami Democratic Convention, this excerpt featuring an interview
with Michael Shamberg, author of Guerilla Television & founder member of Top Value
Television. (Also founder of Raindance & subsequently big shot Hollywood Producer).
Found in the broadcasting section of the Southwest Museum of Engineering Communications
and Computation, which is actually stuffed with goodies.
Recreation, Re-Creation (2006, 9.6 MB, 4:27 min.)
“This video juxtaposes original 16 mm footage acquired from my Grandfather
with interview footage taken of my Mother and Grandparents. All but the
past-tenses of their speaking are left intact, while the film footage has been
aggressively manipulated.
The project seeks to question the language of constructing one’s identity through
negotiation with familial history, where the past has been constructed and reconstructed
in order to corroborate certain facades of culture which are wished to be left intact.”
Bitsy Knox from 312.
overland (2010, 131MB, 2:58 min)
And sadly, the last in our little season of movies by Ruth Catlow. This is another
train movie, no conceptual underpinnings to speak of this time, just a beautiful,
bleached out pastels, lo-fi ( mobile?) account of the Serbian section of a journey by train to Istanbul
last year when she was refusing ‘to fly for art’, something more people should do more often if
the results here are anything to go by.
More from Ruth, of course, as she produces it…
heima trailer (2007, 46.7 MB, 3:53 min.)
An exquisite trailer for the promising first film from Iceland’s Sigur Ròs.
Watch, and then tell me you did not add Iceland to your top 5 places
to see before you die.
2 a.m. in the subway (1905, 8 MB, 56 sec.)
A subway platform, a policeman and a conductor, a well-dressed man
with a cigar and two women dressed in long skirts and jackets.
One of the women causes a sensation by raising her skirt and
revealing her stocking. Artificial legs are displayed out the subway car window.
Hilarious. From – The Open Video Project.
New Media in the Marketplace (2011, 37 MB, 52 min)
“Over the years, we’ve found that a number of the artists we support in our Emerging Fields category have questions about how they can better market and exhibit their work. They have questions about pricing and editioning; changing formats; what it is that they are actually selling when they offer a work for sale; what their obligations to representatives and collectors are after a sale; and whether or not they should even participate in an art market that is, in their eyes, more sympathetic and better able to represent works in more conventional or established media.
On November 2, Creative Capital hosted a webinar for grantees to explore some of these issues and answer specific questions from artists working in new media. The panelists were Jason Salavon (2000 Visual Arts), Karolina Sobecka (2009 Emerging Fields), Stephen Vitiello (2006 Emerging Fields) and Marina Zurkow (2001 Visual Arts). Sean Elwood, Creative Capital’s Director of Programs & Initiatives, served as the facilitator.”
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST FROM THIS DISCUSSION
Podcast from The Lab.
Abbie Making Gefilte Fish (1973, 156.4MB, 21:04)
Footage of Abbie Hoffman making gefilte fish with Laura Cavestani
(who made the video) in his kitchen, 1973.
Like Abbie, I think art is in the everyday, and it sure is a fun
(and rather informative) twenty minutes if you’ve got it to spare.
Art for Abbie was education, constant revolution, evolution, and living for free.
Art and freedom were one in the same, inextricable from each other.
We miss you man.
Gov. Scott Walker gets checked, Mic Checked! (2011, 81MB, 3:45 min)
If you don’t feel inspired & cheered up by this tremendous video please do the checking
your pulse thing…
Stand Up Chicago
A Broad Way, Trailer (2007, 60.89 MB, 5:17 min)
Saul Goode worked with 400 filmmakers to
document every corner of New York’s most
famous street, Broadway.
By Mica
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!’.
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.
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.
The Cinema Effect (2011, 44 MB, 5:28 min)
An exhibition that reflects on the influence and impact of cinema in constructing
our visual culture, highlighting how cinematographic language has taken on various
artistic forms including video and installation art. The show features work by Julian Rosefeldt,
Isaac Julien, Runa Islam, Kerry Tribe, Paul Chan, Omer Fast, Mungo Thomson and Ian Charlesworth.
The show has been curated by Kerry Brougher, Anne Ellegood, Kelly Gordon, and Kristen Hileman.
from VernissageTV.
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
Wikipedia:Technologies of Cooperation (2005, 70 MB, 1:30 hr.)
Lecture at Stanford University on Wikipedia by founder Jimmy Wales.
15 Years (2011, 60 MB, 3:08 min)
Reverse aging transformation of a 15 year self-portrait sequence
of Dan Hanna, forming the basis for the movie “StartStop” (2009).
Edited in HD. Used is 32 channel split screen asynchrony to create the illusion of flow.
By Steven Hoskins.
