Category Archives: performance

More from Doodlebug

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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!?

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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.

Jordan McKenzie – Serra Frottage

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serra_frottage
Serra Frottage (2009, 13 MB, 3:17 min)

Whenever I’m travelling through, or near to London’s Liverpool Street station
I try and make time to pass by the wonderful Richard Serra sculpture,
Fulcrum, at the Broadgate end.
I really love it, one of the most successful pieces of public art I’ve
ever seen.
I mentioned this to a friend and he sent me a link to this piece,
one of a series of ‘minimal interventions’ by Jordan McKenzie
who clearly also um – –loves– – Serra’s work.

Carlos Gavito & Maria Plazaola

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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.

Michael Barnes-Wynters – Control #1

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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.

Klaus Lang –Zwillingsgipfel

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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

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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.

George Spencer films Robert Roth

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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.

Ran Slavin – Everything Is Urgent

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EverythingIsUrgent
Everything Is Urgent (2008, 4 MB, 42 sec (Excerpt)

Ran Slavin
confronts the human figure in conjunction with the annoying barking of a dog. 4 figures, 2 young men and women, stand in front of an unknown audience, in front of a void and bark ferociously.
Driven away from systematic and social norms, the human barking figures attack us from within the digital domain, outward.
They present an uncompromising hybrid human, a cross between man and animal. Do they try to warn us, scare us like an omen or blame us? We see a human but hear an animal. Like a shout of desperation of a person who can no longer use his voice.
2008, 4:12 min. Single or 4 channel installation

Garrett Lynch performs Trav-erse

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trav-erse_short
Trav-erse short (2011, 96 MB, 1:58 min)

This is shaping up to be Furtherfield fortnight & whyever not?
Here’s some footage I took there last Friday night, at the very entertaining
launch of the Art is Open Source/REFF – Roma Europa Fake Factory publication
& exhibition, (GO, if you’re in London) of a splendid performance by
Garrett Lynch of his Trav-erse, where he uses custom Max/MSP created software to
grab audio from an analogue world band receiver, manipulate and remix it.
I was struck both by the simplicity of the idea and the effectiveness of
its execution – a neat concept but also an excellent ear at work.
The sound from my stills cam video was unusable (shame, it sounded great
there) so in the latter section I’ve dubbed on sound from
an earlier performance of the piece in Cardiff, Wales in 2008.

Steven Ball – Aroundabout: Second Person Present

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aroundabout
Aroundabout: Second Person Present (2011, 117MB, 4 min, silent)

Extracted from a longer work made for Steven Ball’s
Aroundabout blog

“I also showed it as part of a presentation of material from
Aroundabout I did at City Methodologies at the Slade,
where it was displayed looped continuously on a flat
screen monitor face up on the floor, while I ‘performed’
the blog with Powerpoint!”

Some of these expanded cinema folk do relish a challenge!

Even truncated & divorced from its performative context it stands
as a splendid bit of structural/formalist film/vid poetry.

Morrisa Maltz – Device Activated

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device activated
Device Activated (2011, 10MB, 1:54 min)

And after Tuesday’s ad here’s another piece of personal work
from Morrisa Maltz and it’s simply glorious.
I’m tempted to say it feels like restoration comedy on some
sort of mind-altering compound but it’s much, much weirder,
more beautiful & haunting than that.

Keep ’em coming Morrisa!
We’ll show them as long as you let us!

KMA – ‘Flock’ in Liverpool

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device activated
‘Flock’ in Liverpool (2008, 152MB, 2:44 min)

How many times do you read artists’ descriptions of their own work
and think ‘naaaaa…’ totally failing to recognise their stated ambitions
in what appears to you to be, at best, somewhat pedestrian and at
worst, a total disconnect from what they write.
This is the complete opposite of that, utterly living up to the makers’
stated intentions, and an absolute spine tingler to watch even through
the distance of video documentation.
Check out the KMA site for a complete description of the piece,
an ‘interactive light installation’ based around Swan Lake,
but not until you’ve watched this beautiful bit of documentary.
Particularly touching is the genuine joy in participation it evokes.

Very hard to pull off and very moving to see.

Bernhard Lang – I Hate Mozart

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mathematics
I Hate Mozart [excerpt] (2006, 11MB, 4:03 min)

Excerpt from the 2006 production of Bernhard Lang’s opera
I Hate Mozart written for the Viennese Mozart Year festivities
of that year.
It’s interesting in a number of ways. Lang’s musical language is based upon the
loop, but loops treated within a fairly hardcore art music environment.
Sounds like a recipe for pretension or disaster. Strangely it’s neither,
but most compelling.
Secondly, the piece is that rare beast, too often promised and so rarely
delivered, a genuinely comic opera and all the more impressive for being
cast in an apparently recalcitrant & unforgiving musical language
for such a purpose.
Hats off, Mr Lang, hats off.

Edward Picot: Dr Hairy in Frank Talking #3

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mathematics
Frank Talking #3 (2010, 278MB, 10:01 min)

Latest instalment in Edward Picot’s Dr Hairy saga which feels like
a weird amalgam of Oliver Postgate, soap and Carry On.
It’s interesting to observe how bold, deft & convincing Picot has become with the lo-fi
techniques he deploys in these and, furthermore, how engaging the actual
narrative is.
Great stuff!

Alan Sondheim – Over The Edge

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mathematics
Over The Edge (2010, 49MB, 1:37 min)

Alan Dojoji Pushes Fau Ferdinand in the Water because
She’s not Paying Him any ATTENTION!

so the story will be about I’m trying DESPERATELY TO GET YOUR ATTENTION,
but you’re ignoring me because you’re away or sleeping or not watching the
terrific goings-on in OpenSim so I sneak up on you (because you’re not
looking) and push you into the water which is very difficult because
pushing avatars requires the greatest skill, making sure that the pusher
is right behind the pushee, otherwise the pushee escapes, so you’re pushed
into the water and just as you’re falling you wake up and type “UOY” which
can only mean it’s a backwards world, and then we’re both in the water and
I’m dancing furiously and AGAIN YOU’RE PAYING NO ATTENTION!

Alan Sondheim

Annie Abrahams

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mathematics
Mutant #2 (2010, 64MB, 4:04 min)

Annie Abrahams is a singular and compelling voice, her singularity
ironically copper-bottomed by her willingness to embrace the network
& collaboration thereon fearlessly, inquisitively and to always
striking effect. This piece is described as a video arising out of
the second session of a
“Telematic Performance / Experiment investigating communication and
relational dynamics in a dispersed group.”
and it’s bewitching.
The pages documenting it bear the motto
“Communication is never clean, smooth and transparent”
True – and to turn that truth into crystalline & affecting art is a little miracle.

Ethernet Orchestra Networked Improvisation Live on FBi Radio, Sydney

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mathematics
Ethernet Orchestra on FBi Radio (2010, 92MB, 11:48 min)

More from the splendid Ethernet Orchestra with:
in Sydney, Australia – Roger Mills (Processed Trumpets), Bukhchuluun Ganburged (Mongolian Horse fiddle and throat singing) and Yavuz Uydu (Turkish Oud and Bendir)

in Londrina, Brazil – Chris Vine (Guitar)

and in Braunschweig, Germany – Martin Slawig (Laptop Electronics and Max/MSP processing).

All of it great, though I’m particularly a sucker for the throat singing.

Nuit blanches 2010 Metz, France with DIEZ and paradigme

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Nuit blanches 2010 – DIEZ and paradigme (2010, 41 MB, 1:55 min.)

Collaboration of Video mapping, light and sound installation, done for
Nuit blanches 2010 Metz.
Audio Visual design by paradigme.
Scenography and video mapping by DIEZ.

Marc Garrett & Ruth Catlow – At Winter Equinox We Burn the Sun

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the mouse escapes
At Winter Equinox We Burn the Sun (2010, 37MB, 3:48 min)

And by way of wishing a Happy New Year to all, here’s a tremendous piece from my friends
Marc Garrett & Ruth Catlow, the movers behind the indispensable Furtherfield.org & the Netbehaviour list.
Here they ritually burn a copy of the evil Murdoch’s UK organ The Sun & accompany this
with music both apposite and well executed.
I think this is shot very well. I don’t mean in a boring technical sense – who gives a? –
but that it is utterly alive, especially those beautiful final, almost vertical, shots.
There’s a delicious play here too on folkishness which treads a fine line in avoiding
being itself folksy.
Further – here’s a practical demonstration of how political art doesn’t have to
be dour or ploddingly earnest and indeed can summon a visceral beauty.
There’s a dialogue (or, perhaps better, an argument) between this celebration of the beauty
of the world, betokened in this scene and what passes therein, and the real ugliness and
anti-humanity of the paper and its contents.
Great Great Great.

Run DMC – Christmas in Hollis

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Christmas in Hollis
Christmas in Hollis (1987, 32MB, 4:02 min)

This vid is probably old news to a lot of you but it
passed me by completely in 87 (and the many times
too, apparently, it has since re-emerged on soundtracks &c.
I should get out more).
I love it. It makes me grin so wide I’m afraid my
head will fall off. Plus it’s seasonal.
This is our last post for 2010 so we’ll wish all of
you the happiest of holiday seasons & we’ll resume
posting on Jan 3rd.

Mapping Festival – Motomichi and Otto

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motomichi1
Mapping Festival – Motomichi and Otto (2010, 100 MB, 5:25 min.)

Mapping Festival is organized by Modul8, the most popular VJ software in the
market and the venue “Usine / le Zo” is their primary space.
Here is a great collaboration at the event. Video mixing by Motomichi and
music performance by Otto von Schirach.

Alice in Wonderland, 1903.

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Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland (1903, 136MB, 9:32)

Enthralling first ever screen version of Alice in Wonderland
from 1903, lovingly restored by the folks at the BFI.
There’s no-one –no-one – who could not learn
something about film-making from this gem.
Nine minutes of sheer, grinning-with-joy delight.

The Smith Family

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#1
#1 (2007, 1MB, 56 secs)

#2
#1 (2007, 1MB, 57 secs)

In 2007 I ran a little competition on my site centred aound
a musical setting I had made of a tiny poem by my friends and
collaborators Robert Roth & Carletta Joy Walker for
their magazine “And Then”.

I invited remixes, either musical or visual, of the song and
these two pieces, both utterly barking & delicately poetic at one
and the same time, came winging their way from the Smith Family
in Germany.
Wonderful!

Simon Mclennan – The Mouse Escapes

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the mouse escapes
The Mouse Escapes [Trailer] (2010, 4MB, 37 secs)

Difficult to gauge from the trailer what the full 12 minute piece
might be like but it will clearly be interesting & atmospheric and guided
by an acute visual sense.
The music, written by director Mclennan, is also rather good.
Website, with lots of details, here.

Black or White, the Gravy Version

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black or white
Black or White, the Gravy Version (2010, 58 MB, 2:38 min.)

An outing, or perhaps more a forced march, for Michael Jackson’s
Black or White refracted through the prism of English
whimsy that is Edward Picot (well, on occasion; fans will know
his range is much, much broader) with co-conspirator Hoola Hoop Kid.
Never understood the Jackson appeal myself but this I like a great deal.
Wish, though, they’d called it ‘Black or White, the Gravy Mix‘.

More Showstudio

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beasting
Beasting (2008, 3MB, 31 secs)

blackball
Blackball (2008, 10MB, 1:21 min)

God, I dislike this work! It’s the combination of the stellar
degree of smug self-congratulation with a faux experimentalism/pretension
to art similarly typified by the ludricous “creative” moniker
attached to exponents of advertising.
But..but..again – like some ads, not many, some – there’s
something to be learned here, especially from Beasting
which manages to be both deeply, Zoolanderishly, risible
(the branded underpants) but also generate a kind of deep,
myth-related frisson.
All the more vexing that somewhere here is real talent.

So…we hold our noses and post…

Enough! Six months, at least, before any more of this.
I’m going out for some air.

Marina Abramovic & Ulay: Relation Work (1976 – 1979)

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Relation in Space (1976, 2 MB, 26 sec.)

expansion_in_space
Expansion in Space (1977, 5 MB, 1:18 min.)

In “Relation in Space” (1976) Marina Abramovic & Ulay ran around the room – two
bodies repeatedly move past each other. They collide at great speed like two planets,
mixing male and female energy into a third component called

Sondheim & an Ad…

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rilkes tongue
Rilkes Tongue (2006?, 73 MB, 1:44 min)

Alan:
“something to stare at

This is a few years old, but hasn’t been put up; the dancer is Maud
Liardon, either Foofwa or I held the camera and made the video and
effects reminiscent of G. Moreau come to life, the church is in the
Swiss Alps, Rilke was buried behind it, murals of tormented hell,
angelic world of Elegies, we were transported”

PLUS
tether

…Alan Sondheim is one of the artists whose work you can see if
you can get to Nottingham, UK this Thursday – Sunday, 11th-14th Nov, 12-5 pm, in the first offline
appearance by DVblog, where a 45 minute program of work first posted here
will be continuously screened at The Wasp Room, part of Tether Studios.

Details:
Tether Studios,
17a Huntingdon Street
Nottingham
NG1 3JH

tel: 07729124336

mail@tether.org.uk

Artists featured:
Kerry Baldry, Steven Ball, Robert Croma, Rupert Howe, JimPunk, Donna Kuhn, Morrisa Maltz, Millie Niss, Giles Perkins, Sam Renseiw, Alan Sondheim, Nathaniel Stern, Liz Sterry, Eddie Whelan

Also – if you’re reading this & are interested in screening this program -we have both PAL and NTSC
DVDs available. Just mail us!

Tony Oursler – EVOL 1984

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evol
EVOL (1984, 25 MB, 2:36 min.)

“Tony Oursler is known for his fractured-narrative handmade video tapes including
The Loner, 1980 and EVOL 1984. These works involve elaborate sound tracks,
painted sets, stop-action animation and optical special effects created by the artist.
The early videotapes have been exhibited extensively in alternative spaces and museums..
His early installation works are immersive dark-room environments with video, sound,
and language mixed with colorful constructed sculptural elements. In these projects,
Oursler experimented with methods of removing the moving image from the video monitor
using reflections in water, mirrors, glass and other devices..” – from wikipedia

Ethernet Orchestra – Distant Presences

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sam_r
Ethernet Orchestra -Distant Presences (2010, 43MB, 6:42 min)

Delicate but nonetheless ravishing beauty from the improvisation-across-the-net,
(Brazil/Sydney/Germany on this occasion) outfit Ethernet Orchestra
That our hats come off in the face of their technical achievement should go almost
without mention -this cannot have been easy to do; but to make something so devoid of
gimmickry and so entrancing too…well, I’m lost for wo

More from Shannon Noble

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shanno
Shanno (2010, 11MB, 36 secs)

Nice contrast to Newt – more worked.
The man has range.

Morrisa Maltz – Previous Process

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previous process
Previous Process (2010, 15MB, 1:25 min)

New work from Morrisa Maltz, both revisiting and developing
themes, images and ideas from previous work.
Maltz’s work is growing & unfolding at a slightly scary pace.
The piece too, a little bit scary; or, better, unheimlich.
Interesting to compare it even with the last piece of hers we posted here,
bare weeks ago.
I want to say Maltz has a natural feel for image, cut, sound
but I suspect it is actually worked for and worked for hard.
Good. No falling back, then, on glib facility but lots
more change, development and fascinating work to come.

Suzon Fuks – RINGS from #1 to #6

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rings1to6
RINGS from #1 to #6 (2009, 24 MB, 6:35 min.)

An ongoing series (now numbering six) of one-minute unedited shots which
can each stands alone. Improvised choreography multi-reprojected on body parts,
with James Cunningham, Helen Varley Jamieson, Scotia Monkivitch and Suzon Fuks.
Text by Fernand Shirren.

By Suzon Fuks.

Sans Verre – Brad Tinmouth and Kaitlin Till-Landry

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sacsverre
Sans Verre (2008, 7.3 MB, 1 min)

A documentation of a performance made with Lili Huston-Herterich.
By Brad Tinmouth and Kaitlin Till-Landry.

The Idea of Karen Blisset

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The Idea of Karen Blisset
The Idea of Karen Blisset (2010, 77 MB, 1:13 min)

On the ever splendid Netbehaviour list there are all sorts of
interesting shenanigans as Karen Blisset, a fairly long time
contributor, offers to give her e mail log in to anyone who asks for it
in order to allow them to “be” her.
One of the interesting things about it is I’m not sure how
many people have actually taken up the offer ( and, of course, there’s
no way of telling)
(Go and join Netbehaviour to get the full works, it’s a warm and
welcoming place but one, nonetheless, with a tradition of robust
and interesting debate)
Anyway, one of this set of Karens contacts us
with a movie called ‘The Idea of Karen Blisset’.
I for one expected something quite fierce & in your
face but instead there’s this rather delicate & gentle &
lovely piece.
Very nice.
Interesting to see how it all unfolds…

PS 25th July
Since we posted this, another movie from ‘Karen Blisset’ appeared on the list:

The Idea of Karen Blisset
I am Karen Blisset (2010, 17 MB, 38 secs)

and, later the same day, yet more…

Jacky Sawatzky – Follow Me

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jacky_sawatzky_follow_me
Follow Me (2009, 173 MB, 7:10 min)

The first section of this piece by Jacky Sawatzky, in the library,
is one of my favourite dance video moments ever,
but the whole thing buzzes with life & ideas &
there’s a winning willingness to take risks & lack of
cynicism to it all too.
More here.

Pink Tall Bike

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pink tall bike
Pink Tall Bike (2010, 50 MB, 2:16 min)

One of those does-what-it-says-on-the-can movies.
Made by Mike Stoddard & Ryan Lynch who say:

”This is our latest creation made from free bikes and parts,
comprised of three womens’ frames, bed frame iron (front fork),
and an old ATV shock.
Filmed on the Woonsocket River Bikeway in Rhode Island. ‘

…not much to add except to say it’s very diverting &
WANT ONE!

Old Fashioned Medicine

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oldfashionedmedicine

Latest episode in Edward Picot’s splendid Dr Hairy sequence.

More Virtual Hiking

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Rush Creek
Rush Creek Wilderness Trail Movie (2006, 41.1MB, 5:43 min.)

This one, from 2006, is as splendid as the one we posted yesterday.
Like that, though, there’s a deep oddness here.
Sometimes the virtual hiker is discussed in a clinical, technical, manner,
then at others anthropomorphised shamelessly.
Then the narration: -is anyone really that deadpan?
Seems like the camping isn’t confined to tents on the trail.
But then it is also utterly beguiling & lovely – makes me, at least, yearn
to pack my boots & book a flight.

A Short History of Virtual Hiking

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virtualhiking6
A Short History of Virtual Hiking (2005, 9.1MB, 3:47 min.)

Originally posted in 2006.

‘Not sure it

Morrisa Maltz – First Class

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whats ahead
First Class (2010, 127 MB, 3:40 min)

And First Class it is too -we’ve enthused about Morrisa Maltz here quite
recently & her first music vid (for Everybody Else) doesn’t disappoint.
It’s stylish without being glib, chock full of ideas but nicely unified by
a visual language those who’ve seen her work before will instantly recognise.
My only cavil (which I already expressed to her) is the degree of
objectification at work here in the portrayal of women,
(you know…the boys play & the girls kind of dance around
or pose, looking nice &c &c) which I find a tad depressing coming from
a clearly enormously talented & capable woman artist.
More than well made though & I look forward to whatever comes next.

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.

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!

Brad Tinmouth – Flashbulb Memory

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flashbulb
Flashbulb Memory (2009, 7.3 MB, 3:40 min)

By Brad Tinmouth.

Omar Souleyman – Music Video for ‘Leh Jani’

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Applause
Leh-Jani (2007?, 10 MB, 3:22 min)

Omar Souleyman being the performer not the video maker,
whose name unfortunately I can’t find.
[STOP PRESS: Mark Gergis has got in touch to say he made the video.
Googling him has unravelled an interesting trail of audio & video work
which we hope to follow further in future]
Anyway the wonderful video ( & it is wonderful -even the cheesy ‘boxy’
effect which is used once & in exactly the right place –
& edit & pacing are pretty much perfect)
serves performer -what a voice!- & song admirably…couple of minutes
of sheer cool & utter exhilaration somehow
paradoxically delivered in the same package.
This is fast shaping up to be my favourite ever music vid,
and the album from Sublime Frequencies (they say they’re sold
out, but a little searching secured me a copy elsewhere) is as good
as this promises.
More to be found on Y**T***.

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.

Brad Tinmouth – cupping

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cupping
cupping (2009, 7.5 MB, 3:30 min)

By Brad Tinmouth.

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.

Gazira Babeli – Unbroken Eggs – Monument to Luciano Fabro

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unbrokeneggs
Unbroken Eggs – Monument to Luciano Fabro (2007, 13 MB, 3:30 min)

Physical scripted environment.
A Second Life performance by Gazira Babeli.

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.

Howe Gelb – Spiral

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Spiral
Spiral (2008, 16 MB, 3:41 min)

On the whole I’m totally bored with popular music of all kinds,
especially sick at hearing how “innovative” this or that is just to find
it as dull & derivative & lazy as the rest.

SO..the wonderful Howe Gelb continues to be a signal exception
to the gloom. Passionate, odd and totally engaging music seems to flow
from him continually & ( I could be wrong) he doesn’t seem to have
fallen into the trap of giving people what he thinks they want rather
than what his artistic conscience tells him to make – or to put it better
art trumps business in his work in a shockingly unusual way.
Long may it continue.

Edward Picot – Dr Hairy’s Address to the Nation

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election
Dr Hairy’s Address to the Nation (2010, 69 MB, 9:42 min)

With the UK general election coming up on Thursday
here’s Edward Picot’s Dr Hairy putting in his three penn’orth.

Whilst previous efforts have been more straighforwardly satirical
this is simply, and quite splendidly, barking…

Because it *is* funny ( the vicar punchline being my favourite)
it’s easy to overlook how much Picot has developed as
a filmmaker -there’s a quite individual and original syntax at work here,
deployed confidently and effectively throughout.

Sacha Baron Cohen – Borat on Politics

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Borat on Politics
Borat on politics (2004, 25MB, 3:31 min)

Wiki Borat. More Borat on DVblog.