Paul Rodriguez – the Mean Reds

Mean Reds
Mean Reds (2007, 11.6MB, 1:48 min)

Artist & filmmaker Paul Rodriguez made this rather good
(I particularly like the collage plus the loopy/scratchy business
towards the very end where he collages/edits the sound too)
music video in 2007.

He said:

‘I was planning on shooting my friends for a
documentary. Magically the Mean Reds were also
playing, so I decided to shoot them as well.
Months went by with me sitting on this footage.
Then I found my self printing out frames,
and doing collage on individual frames.’

Duncan Speakman – Is Life Boring?


Duncan Speakman – Is Life Boring? (2005, 5.3MB, 1:17 min.)

From Duncan Speakman (yes, his real name) and the now abandoned 29fragiledays.
Duncan moved onto the less populated Delicate Museum, but I enjoy his older work much more (maybe because there is simply more of it?).
No contrived voice-overs (at least not at first), I’m also given enough time to meditate on the video.
Sometimes short is too short.
This is one of the best pieces from his previous incarnation.

Dan Canyon

Quilts Never Sleep
Quilts Never Sleep (short version) (2007, 20.9MB, 3:07 min)

Me... U
Me… U (2007, 80MB, 12:45 min)

Two very different but attractive & telling pieces from Dan Canyon.
The first was part of a show of – you guessed it – quilts in London in 2006,
about which read more here.
The second could’ve been made for dvblog, well, at least for me, as I’m a fool
for all things turntablist, & features the splendidly monickered Mickey Morphingaz.

Merry

a christmas medley from barnsley town centre
A Christmas Medley From Barnsley Town Centre (2011, 87MB, 1:29 min)

Normally we don’t post our own work here but I couldn’t resist this.
Also – it was a gift; no editing, just the take. (OK. I turned down the brightness
& jacked up the contrast a little.)
Barnsley is actually the friendliest of places, with a grumpy, wry, cheerfulness born of
generations of working-class solidarity, especially in the pits, though it’s now
ravaged by the cuts and closures of the past years.
From me & Doron, Happy Holidays and looking forward to a better world next year.
We’re taking a small holiday break & we’ll be back with something rather splendid
from Morrisa Maltz on January 2nd.

Betty Martins – When the Souls Arrive

when the souls arrive
When the Souls Arrive (2011, 72MB, 2:40 min)

I recently attended a fairly high profile art video festival,
which shall be nameless, and I came away feeling depressed.
There was some good work (indeed, some magnificent, not much, but some) but
on the whole it was just a dispiriting display of meretricious effects, sloppy thinking
and a striving for the quick impression; all pretty souless & forgettable stuff.
(Oh, and plus a lot of cliched tosh about the – yawn – “post-human”. Wasn’t post human,
most of it, so much as post-being-any-good)
Then, on the other hand, you come across something like this:
no in-your-faceness, modest, austere and subtle, makes you do a little bit of work,
but so, so worth spending time with.
is the Brazilian video maker who made this small and perfect gem
– an account of the celebration of the Day of the Dead by expat Mexicans
living in London.
You can see the whole thing here (and I urge you to do so).
Betty Martins cheered me up considerably and I look forward to much more
work of this quality from her.

Yu-Chen Wang – Struggle for Existence

struggle_existence
Struggle for Existence (2004, 18MB, 1:58 min.)

“By linking Darwin’s “The truth of universal struggle for existence” with a Taiwanese children’s game, The video represents two individuals’ slaughter in the virtual battle field and reflects on the ideology of boundary dividing, self-defending patriotism and bellicosity.”
by – Yu-Chen Wang.

Dali on Picasso/Prévert goes shopping

Dali on Picasso
Picasso – I salute you, I embrace you! (2006, 3MB, 29 sec)

Prevert
Prévert goes postcard shopping (2005, 10MB, 1:22 min)

Two gems from the excellent website of the French
Institut National de l’Audiovisuel , featuring two figures
associated with surrealism, the poet Jacques Prévert &
(seen here on crackingly deranged form) the artist Salvador Dali

Patrick Power – lights and darkness


Steamlight (2006, 16.2MB, 2:51)


Watauga (2007, 203.1MB, 26:23)

Two extraordinary pieces from Patrick Power.
Its as if the Qatsi trilogy found a way to use a videoblog as a testing ground.
This is much more than a test, though.
Some of the most important work I have seen in a while.
Beautifully touching randomized archives.
Pushing the limits of contemplative observation.
Taking time to visually visit other places.
There is so much beauty in reflections and the synchronicities of our minds.

Sample these two, then go visit the rest of his collection. Patrick makes the world watchable.

Edit: Sadly, Patrick Power passed away in 2007. This post was created to honor this man’s work, and now sadly, we must honor that work as his legacy.

Toby Tatum –The Golden Age

the golden age
The Golden Age (2011, 181MB, 5:34 min)

We’ve posted Toby Tatum’s work
before and it’s work with a definite charge to it and ambitious too.

I think this piece is more wholly successful than its predecessor but I’m still not totally convinced.
It’s something to do with the aim of conjuring a very precise & particular
dream-world which strikes me as an all-eggs-in-one-basket kind of approach,
in that the tiniest false note disrupts the sought for spell.
Therefore Tatum creates a very high bar indeed for himself and his performers.

If one compares similarly oneiric work by Cocteau, Lynch or Hadžihalilović,
however dense and rich the atmosphere gets, there is variation with humour
or banality preparing us for more poetry to come and somehow too, framing it,
setting it off.
That sounds more critical that I want to be for this is, in every respect, a
very nicely realised and haunting piece.

Next week, or the week after, we’ll post an interview with Tatum about his work.

Santiago Sierra – NO, Global Tour

NOGlobalTour
NO, Global Tour trailer (2010, 21 MB, 3:11 min)

Team Gallery, Lisson Gallery , Galería Helga de Alvear & Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani,
in association with Artprojx Cinema, present the UK premiere of NO, Global Tour,
2010 by Santiago Sierra.
The 120 minute film consists of the manufacture and transportation of two monumental sculptures
in the form of the word “NO”, travelling through different territories on a flatbed truck.
The NO, GLOBAL TOUR has resulted in a feature film that documents the passage of this
large NO through various world cities.
A monumental sculpture – unchanged both in its form and immediate meaning – that gradually
assumes a complex semantic load during a journey full of eventualities, accidents, and unexpected events.

Harddisko – Noise & Disturbances Amplifier System

Harddisko
Harddisko (2007, 12MB, 1:29 min.)

Piksel is an international network and annual event for electronic art and technological freedom. Harddisko was 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.

Monument (If it Bleeds It Leads) – Caleb Larsen

Monument
Monument (2006, 3MB, 1:53 min)

Monument, a computer program continuously scans the headlines
of 4,500 English-language news sources around the world, looking
for people who have been reported killed. Each time it finds an article,
an algorithm determines the number of deaths, and instructs a ceiling-mounted
mechanism built from Legos to drop one yellow BB per person.
by Caleb Larsen.

Cutting Edge Cinema

Lunch
A Tough Dance (1902, 7.1MB, 47 sec.)

Lunch
Bicycle Trick Riding (1899, 5.5MB, 37 sec.)

Lunch
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.

Martin Archer live at The Grapes

Martin Archer
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.

Hey Ya – OutKast

HeyYa
Hey Ya (2003, 80MB, 7:36 min)

“Hey Ya!” was a 2003 number-one single recorded by André 3000 of the
hip-hop duo OutKast.
The song’s music video, directed by Bryan Barber, features a performance,
styled in the manner of TV’s black and white era (although it’s in color).
It won the MTV Video Music Awards in 2004 for Video of the Year.

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.
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

domeright.jpg
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.

Two from Marcin Rychlicki

C Point Video
C Point (2011, 32MB, 1:15 min)

cyberhero
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.

The Cinema Effect: Realisms at Caixa Forum Madrid, Spain

cinema_effect_caixaforum
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.

Emily Murdoch – Before Honeymoon

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.

Talking About DVblog

evg_dvblog_talk.jpg
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, Martha Deed and Kate Southworth respectively – put work into making it happen.)
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

The Head of Raymond K – Bottom Union

theheadofraymond
The Head of Raymond K (2006, 25.3 MB, 2:50 min.)

“Did any of this happen? Should I quit drinking coffee?
Do I exist? Am I only a construct in the mind of some insane norwegian?
Should I quit my job? Change my head?
These are only a few of the existential questions you might ask yourself
when you venture into the head of Raymond K.“

Part 2 of 5 from Bottom Union

Josh Weinstein – “Cross Examination”

Cross Examination
Cross Examination (2005, 44 MB, 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.

Eleanor Suess films Christopher McHugh

Painting01-EleanorSuess.jpg
Painting 01 (1998-2001, 58MB, 2:51 min)

More from Eleanor Suess, this time an exploration of a painting
by UK artist Christopher McHugh.
She get’s the usual basics of this sort of thing – fidelity to McHugh’s wonderful colour
sense in particular – spot on, but, as I’m beginning to realise with all of Suess’s
work, there’s a good deal more to it than initially meets the eye.
(Which expression strikes a philosophical note when applied to two
predominantly visual practices)
It’s the modesty (in the best sense) of the that work does it.
The work refuses either to ingratiate or ambush.
We could do with more of this.

Interview with Ubermorgen.com at DAM Gallery Berlin

interview_ubemorgen
Interview with Ubermorgen (2011, 41 MB, 6:51 min)

In Berlin, DAM Gallery presented two projects by the artist duo Ubermorgen.com.
The show featured a temporary WOPPOW flagship store featuring fashion with bullet
holes as trademarks and the Deephorizon project that presents oil paintings that are
directly linked to the BP oil spill. On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition,
VernissageTV met with ubermorgen.com

Nam June Paik: Venus / Art Cologne 2009

namjunepaik_venus
Nam June Paik: Venus (2009, 62 MB, 5:28 min)

At Art Cologne 2009 Hans Mayer Gallery showed a piece by Nam June Paik,
a painted aluminium infrastructure with a multi painted satellite dish,
24 color TV sets and laser disc player. In this video, Hans Mayer gives us a
short introduction to the work. From VernissageTV.

More from Doodlebug

foodieterror.mov
Food Terror (2008, 73MB, 4:36 min)

More from Manchester’s Doodlebug.
This one is particularly splendid and
meal times will never be the same again.
Here’s the text Michael Barnes-Wynters sent me but
I don’t really know what it means:

Doodlebug Presents…25/10/08 at Contact feat.
Ronald fraser-munro’s RFM-UNPLUCKED. manc. poet
amanda milligan’s ‘mz.milly does…’ debut outting
with ‘On Becoming a Human Being’ (AV mix).
a sneak preview of Urbis’s Black Panther artist
Emory Douglas expo. French guerilla photgrapher
JR’s ‘Women are Heroes’ plus Terrorist’s FOOD TERROR mix.

I think we’re watching that last item.
Anyway, it’s great.

Well Did You Evah!?

Well Did You Ever
Well Did You Evah? (1990, 30MB, 3:45 min)

Staying with Monday’s Iggy Pop theme, maybe you’re all
totally familiar with this but I never saw
it before & I think it is great .
Here he duets with Debbie Harry on the
Cole Porter song Well Did You Evah? as part of an
AIDS fundraiser from 1990.

Carlos Gavito & Maria Plazaola

Carlos Gavito & Maria Plazaola
Gavito & Plazaola (n/k, 28 MB, 3:44 min.)

‘The secret of tango is in this moment of improvisation that
happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing
possible: to dance silence. This is essential to learn in tangodance,
the real dance, that of the silence, of following the melody.’
– Carlos Gavito

Watch the late Carlos Gavito & his partner Maria Plazaola
play havoc with the space time continuum in this extraordinary
piece in which time slows down, speeds up & actually comes to a
halt at least once.
Mesmerizing.

Studio Banana TV: Interview with video artist Annika Larsson

annikalarsson1
Interview with Annika Larsson (2011, 134 MB, 3:47 min)

An interview with the Swedish video artist Annika Larsson.
In this interview Larsson talks about her approach towards a
post-produced composition of reality, about the psychological
hidden dynamics hidden in the characters of her video pieces
and about the evolution of her work, amongst other things.

Michael Barnes-Wynters – Control #1

Control #1
Control #1 [Seeking Kind in Human] (2009, 114MB, 4:52 min)

Michael got in touch via a mutual friend to tell me about what
seems to be an incredibly thriving live art scene in Manchester, UK.
To my shame, this is the first time I’ve come across it, so I’m going to
make up for this a little by posting three vids from Doodlebug, the
creative arts platform he founded.
This first is a performance by Michael himself with Sophie Yesilyurt.
It’s very powerful. What strikes me is how these performative things achieve
a huge effect, often with very simple means. I think those of us working
primarily in moving image have a good deal to learn from them.
More soon.

Joy Garnett’s Unmonumental Videos

Found Art (Nolita) Unmonumental 484
Found Art (Nolita) Unmonumental 484 (2011, 3 MB, 26 secs)

Found Art (Chelsea) Unmonumental 507
Found Art (Chelsea) Unmonumental 507 (2011, 3 MB, 23 secs)

Joy Garnett is not only a fascinating and accomplished painter but
she takes a neat photo too.
There’s a huge set of images on her Flickr pages entitled
Unmonumental – a recording and honouring of the melancholy beauty
of the neglected, ephemeral, the broken and the passing.
Recently she’s added videos to the collection and here’re two
of them.
They are utterly beguiling and we’re going to show the whole
lot over the next weeks and months.

Klaus Lang –Zwillingsgipfel

suess-map 2b
Zwillingsgipfel (2007, 122 MB, 8:02 min)

The music of the Austrian composer Klaus Lang ( not to be confused
with fellow Lang composers Bernhard or even David) is both very strange
and very beautiful. It’s a world where the tiniest gesture, the smallest
variation or nuance has great weight and presence. It’s no intellectual game
or posture though, but something, certainly for me, deeply affecting.
See what you think.
Bizarrely, I believe (and I’m open to correction) that “Zwillingsgipfel”
translates as “Twin Peaks”.

Trisha Brown Interviewed

suess-map 2b
Interview with Trisha Brown (2007, 11 MB, 3:06)

Anyone in or near London should absolutely get to see the
“Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown & Gordon Matta-Clark –
Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s”
show,
currently at the Barbican. It’s fantastic!
I was particularly lucky to be there when a performance of the
Trisha Brown ‘walking on walls’ piece happened (worth
ringing in advance to see what performances are on and when)
I knew it would be interesting but, somewhat to my surprise,
I was immediately & intensely emotionally engaged by it too, finding
it lump-in-the-throat-&-tear-in-the-eye moving…
Although we’re concentrating here on Trisha Brown with an interview
conducted in 2007 at the Documenta 12 event (and after you’ve
watched that, the Guardian has a nice audio slideshow about the
walking on walls piece), all three artists shine in this show.
It’s all great but particularly interesting are the rooms of drawings
related to their various performance practices.

Ran Slavin – omni1.9

omni1.9
omni1.9 (2002-97, 18 MB, 1:28 min, excerpt)
“The idea behind this loop is to show the 360 degrees of choice. The mad culmination of wanting
to go to all directions at once. Inspired by the ceiling of the Geneva airport while in transit.
Shown also as a video installation of varying loop durations on a transparent two way screen.

Like a small vignette of digital nature, the small figures are continuously looping in a busy circular
motion with the urge to span in all directions at once.This stasis, a static dance, the body like a
scanner unable to decide, caught between indecision. A seemingly digital nature. The bodies
which are silhouettes of the artist, become small digital scanner probes.”

Video and audio: Ran Slavin
Original: 6:33min/variable/2002-97

George Spencer films Robert Roth

trav-erse_short
Robert Roth Reads from ‘Health Proxy’ (2011, 76 MB, 6:30min)

I can’t be objective about Robert Roth – he’s a dear friend and his
tremendous & utterly singular book Health Proxy ( Buy it here)
would most definitely be my choice for that desert island.
In this little movie, odd and charming both, by fellow writer
George Spencer, he reads an extract from it, twice.