Category Archives: performance

Patrick Lichty Season – #1: 8 bit videos

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wristful
a wristful of bits (2002, 6.19MB, 4:26 min)

8 bits or less
8 bits or less (2002, 5.58MB, 4:47 min)

close vision
close vision (2002, 4.79MB, 3:33 min)

wristful
for a few bits more (2003, 6.29MB, 4:59 min)

Patrick Lichty, artist, writer, curator & wit, the man responsible
for the excellent Intelligent Agent, has donated a decade’s worth
of his video work to DVblog.
We’ll be showing it all over the next few months.
We start with these wonderful pieces: smart
& delirious, made mostly with images from a
Casio WQV-1 WristCam watch which is B&W with a resolution
of 100X100 pixels, ‘both the embodiment of technological determinism’ ,
Lichty comments, ‘and its antithesis.’.
I mostly have the urge to run fast from stuff which is fashionably
self referentially about the technological, often so worthy but oh-so-dull.
Thing with Lichty is, dull it is so not, rather, simultaneously
light (in a good sense..not dumbed down & simplistic,
but playful & engaging) possessed of genuine humor,
& just chock full of ideas & joyous invention.

Ting Ting – Piano Sonata by Mozart

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Ting_Ting
Ting Ting Solo (2003, 6MB, 1:06 min)

Ting Ting plays “Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major” Third Movement
by Mozart at the Kichijoji Music Festival. Ting Ting plays the ancient Chinese
“Pi Pa” – a four-stringed Lute, one of the oldest Chinese musical instruments
which first appeared in Chinese written texts of the second century BC.
Filmed and edited by Rob Pongi.

Karaoke Death Match 100 – MTAA

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We Gotta Get Out of This Place
We Gotta Get Out of This Place [M.River] (2007, 15.8MB, 3:15 min)

Hashpipe
Hashpipe [T.Whid] (2007, 17MB, 3:23 min)

From the bastard progeny of Marcel Duchamp & the Marx Brothers,
the splendid & singular MTAA, comes Karaoke Death Match 100.
Here’s the thing:

Artist collaborative M.River & T.Whid face off in the most brutal performance art smack down of the new millennium.. Karaoke Deathmatch 100! This alcohol-fueled blood feud features 50 rounds of sing-along fury (taped live over an 8-hour period with hardly any pee breaks). No Carpenters hit too cheesy, no heavy metal lyric too trite for these teleprompter warriors to hurl in a battle to the end. Who will emerge victorious? Only YOU can decide.

It’s great stuff & clearly one to follow closely -we’ll be returning to them here ‘ere
close of play in 50 days. Just want to sneak in, though, that actually I found this
quite ahem..er.. moving: – the sheer effort invoked in the
act of singing; T.Whid’s strange shambling captive bear dance & M River’s weird
but somehow totally appropriate sudden & violent changes of dynamics.
A bit like Bas Jan Ader falling over, there’s something more here than originally
meets the eye & ear, & it’s a lot human & a bit wonderful.

PS. compare & contrast

Borat on Politics

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

Official Borat Homesite.

Ken Turner #2 – Derrida &c

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derrida the truth in painting and van gogh
derrida the truth in painting and van gogh’s painting (2006, 9.29MB, 1:52 min)

Ken’s site.

Ken talking about his ideas & work.

Original dvblog editorial

‘Infancy is a very good state to return to’
– A Ken Turner season.

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the philosophical table
the philosophical table (2006, 6.89MB, 1:28 min)

Over the next few weeks we’re going to feature 9 short pieces by British artist
Ken Turner. (Which form a sequence, but can also be viewed separately)
None of them will be criticised as slick or win any prizes for technical excellence.
Nontheless I’d much rather these, than much of the technically better made but
oh so shallow & glib stuff I see.
They’re quite extraordinary, incorporating philosophical reflection, visual art,
music & performance in a rich & demanding stew.
I particularly warm to their uncompromising nature – here’s a vision,
take it or leave it, but I think you’ll be the richer for engaging.
Also, perhaps rather sentimentally, I love the feeling that here in Cornwall, UK,
is a last continuously enduring pocket of the tremendous artistic radicalism
associated with arts education in the nineteen sixties UK, far from the semi corporate
bottom lineism that is the rule today.
Particularly interested to see comments….
Ken’s site.
Ken talking about his ideas & work.

The Phil Collins Singalong Hour

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The Phil Collins Singalong Hour
The Phil Collins Singalong Hour (2006, 96.5MB, 9:17 min)

Art Pt1
Art Pt. 1 (2006, 52MB, 8:50 min)

Utterly wonderful & deranged work from Jamie O’Brien.
Up there with the best – well… er… entertainers
in terms of comedic edge & timing & chutzpah & derring-do
but at the same time this work has the imaginative
breadth & the sheer smarts that lots of wannabe
performance artists could only dream about…

Primary and other Remote Locations

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Primary and other Remote Locations
Primary and other Remote Locations (2006, 44.5MB, 3 min)

We’ve featured the work of Brett Stalbaum & Paula Poole here before

*****Lewis Carroll like note – when I say before I might mean after
– I can’t remember whether we’ve reposted their other work yet –
something to look forward to perhaps!*****

a couple of times. I’ve been mystified in public here before (ditto)…are
the videos a work in themselves or merely the documentation of the computing/walking/painting/whatever that comprises the process?
I feel like it’s the former (no justification except my bones & the fact that
these vids are both clear & totally elusive..& it makes me a candidate
for Pseud’s corner but it seems to me no accident that the experience
-the way what seems initially straightforward somehow recedes –
of watching them is not unlike that of reading Emerson)
You can check out the details of the work process on the paintersflat
site but watch the video first..it’s ravishing..it conjures up the richness
of the process so beautifully & excitingly & oh now I’m in a loop because
of course I don’t know what the process was like because
I’ve only seen the videos. But they are sticky & fragrant &
evocative & funny in my head…
These folks are doing something very right.

Film to Fiber

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Knitpro
Knitpro (2005, 19.7MB, 3:18 min.)

Cat Mazza and Sabrina Gschwandtner speak about their piece
at the exhibition We Are All Together at Artist’s Space.
part of Performa 05.

BONUS VIDEO! –

Enclose
Enclose (2005, 9.21MB, 2:27min.)

Artist Bea Camacho knits herself in.
From PresentSpace.

By Mica Scalin.

Django and Grappelli

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Hot Club of France Live
Hot Club of France Live (1938, 12MB, 3 min.)

A beautiful old film of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli
playing their signature Hot Club jazz.

Man Mixes Sound on 2 GameBoys

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Kid Quaalude -Upside Downer
Kid Quaalude -‘Upside Downer’ (2006, 37MB, 4:01 min)

“Well!”, as my dear mother used to say,
“What will they think of next?”

Neat film by Dave Whiting, shot in a rather
atmospheric former Tram depot in Weimar
& featuring Kid Quaalude doing what it
says on the tin.

Boy In Static – Where It Ends

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Where It Ends
Where It Ends (2007, 48.3MB, 4:09 min)

To my shame, never heard of Boy in Static before someone
called Alex sends us a nice e mail about this vid, directed by
Yoshi Sodeoka of c505, but video, music, both, turn out to
be rather lovely…

Improv Everywhere – Jumper

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Tunnel
Suicide Jumper (2005, 8MB, 4 min.)

Improv Everywhere strikes again.
This is a video of a sketch performed,
unannounced, on the streets of NYC.

By Mica Scalin.

Nathaniel Stern – the odys series

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the storyteller
the storyteller (2001-4, 13.3MB, 2:24 min.)

Six pieces originally shown as a gallery installation.
Says their creator, the artist Nathaniel Stern :
‘The odys series consists of six short digital video poems / monologues for
small screen viewing in an intimate gallery space. By stuttering between
odys actions and words, listeners construct his person. As he attempts
to re-member, bringing the past back to his body and calling it his own,
listeners attempt to piece together a story for themselves. Viewers are
encouraged to re-visit and jump over juxtaposed media, and create a
shifting collage of, and in response to, his person.’

This is work of huge ambition both aesthetically & technically &
it’s brave and it’s edgy, sometimes to the point of being uncomfortable to
watch. Neither does Stern fear engaging with complex & difficult ideas.
Definitely worth more than one viewing.

noise
noise (2001-4, 11.4MB, 2:08)

they may be giant
they may be giant (2001-4, 12.3MB, 2:06 min.)

multiplicity
multiplicity (2001-4, 5.3MB, 1:17 min.)

upstandard
upstandard (2001-4, 14.2MB, 2:24 min.)

itown
itown (2001-4, 14.6MB, 2:32 min.)

Sacha Baron Cohen – Borat on Republicans

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Borat on Republicans
borat on republicans (2004, 9.1MB, 4:10 min)

“Lunch with Arizona Republican Committee”

More Borat.
Official Borat Homesite.

More Athens strangeness

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Dance
Dance, Motherfucker, Dance! (2006, 7.4MB, 3:22 min)

Epiphany
Epiphany (2006, 1.9MB, 11 sec loop)

From the town that brought you Boling & Morales here’s more,
this time from John Crowe of ‘plural medium’
Is it something in the water or just that unrelenting Southern sun
that seems to make Athens a crucible of weirdness?
Be afraid, be very afraid &c.

Music for the delicately entitled Dance, Motherfucker, Dance! by the
Violent Femmes.

Super Cool is Cary Peppermint

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Super Cool
Super Cool (2005, 14.4MB, 2:30 min)

Humorous faux interview of sorts with ecoarttech,
Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir.

The Human Browser – Christopher Bruno

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The Human Browser
The Human Browser (2006, 29.7MB, 8:18 min)

Documentation recorded at last year’s transmediale in Berlin
of a quite marvellous project by Christopher Bruno which
just won the share festival & most deservedly too.
It’s a fantastic blend of technology, performance & a kind of ‘information poetry’.
In many hands it could have been smart but dullish, but this is joyous stuff.
There’s a whole load of videos up on the human browser site
& they all have their particular delights.

Bruno’s short project description goes:

Human Browser is a series of wireless Internet performances
based on a Wi-Fi Google hack.
Thanks to its headset, the actor hears a text-to-speech
audio that comes directly from the Internet in real-time.
The actor repeats the text as he hears it.
The textual flow is actually fetched by a program
(set up on a Wi-Fi laptop) that hijacks Google,
diverting it from its utilitarian functions.
Depending on the context in which the actor is,
keywords are sent to the program and used as
search strings in Google (thanks to a Wi-Fi PDA)
so that the content of the textual flow is always
related to the context.

The performer in this video is Manon Kahle.
A good deal of the charm of this project
is due to the “performances” of the actors which are
highly professional but also very human too.
.
Great stuff!

Extreme Skipping

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Extreme_Skipping
Extreme Skipping (2006, 15.7MB, 2:36 min.)

This short was made a little while back, about one of the most
underappreciated universal sports: extreme skipping. If you are a skipper
and have footage of yourself skipping, make sure to submit it to us.
We would love to check out your moves.
Music by Blink 182. Edited by Ajit Anthony Prem.
Directed by Marc Miller and Marc Levine.
from – squigglebooth.

Anthony Rousseau – Float Like a Butterfly

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Float Like a Butterfly
Float Like a Butterfly (2005, 7.2MB, 1:15 min.)

Le jeune gar


Peppermint & Nadir – Wilderness Trouble

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Wilderness Trouble Version 1.0
Wilderness Trouble Version 1.0* (2007, 9.2MB, 3:31 min.)

When we posted their splendid Series of Practical Performances in the Wilderness
which will be returning here before long, we said lots of nice things about that.
No reason to change our minds now -this fizzes with both ideas & technique in much the same way (although the repetition lies in excellence sustained rather than any marking of time).
For me a litmus test of anything artistic is can it do the affective equivalent
of fart & chew gum, ie can it encompass radically different moods or themes
in a coherent way, that is, foreshadow in the particular, in tiny concrete detail,
something much broader & deeper.
Well, here, yes, sure.
A genuinely comic lightness of tone is yoked to some quite big themes,
but not awkwardly..in fact they make it look easy..don’t think it is though.
Neat.
from ecoarttech.

*This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License

‘I feel like a frigging performing monkey’

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Breakfast
Breakfast (2006, 8.6MB, 3:46 min.)

There’s a quiet surrealism that is a feature (not the defining feature, but very much
there) of Martha Deed’s work. Well…it’s somewhere in the surreal, magical-realist,
what-have-you ballpark & it arises, I think, out of a careful & dispassionate (but not
lacking in warmth) observation of small things, sometimes domestic,
sometimes a telling detail of something bigger & darker.
Here she’s in domestic mode & it’s & light & charming but don’t mistake that for
trivial. it’s not.

Ginsberg reads from </em>Howl<em>

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Howl
from Howl part 2 (1997, 7.5MB, 4:07 min)

The mighty Allen Ginsberg, buffoon, trickster, personality, conscience, catalyst
above all genuine, genuine poet; our Whitman, sometimes bad but never boring,
who in so many ways shaped ‘the best minds of his generation’,
reads from part two of ‘Howl’ shortly before his death in 1997.
From the excellent allenginsberg.org

Sondheim, Foofwa, Liardon

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duetavatargrange
duetavatargrange (2006, 28.9MB, 5:04 min.)

Alan:
That is absolutely stunning!
Was it choreographed or improvised? Are you saying the
source material was originally motion capture? Did you
contribute to the choreography?
Some of it puts me in mind of the kind of motion
“artifacts” one gets when pausing movie capture or
scrubbing through something..
Also there’s a spirit of resistance about it that is
profoundly human & humane – it reminds me of the
struggle to signal, to articulate, of people with
cerebral palsy whom I’ve known, or my late
father’s fight with Parkinson’s.
The piece seems tremendously dignified to me – almost
heroic; must have required *such* technique to perform (well,
doesn’t surprise me – I remember the Foofwa running
piece you posted somewhile ago)
This is everything I love about dance (& art in
general)
michael

Performers:
Foofwa d’Imobilit

Donna Kuhn – As You

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As you
As You (2006, 14.6MB, 3:00 min.)

We’ve featured (are featuring… will feature? – time is
all wrong here since the crash) Donna Kuhn’s
work before/now/later. It’s great.
Heartfelt & rich & fearless & distinctive.

Crispin Webb – Violin

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Crispin Webb
Violin For Nam June Paik (2005, 3.6MB, 2:35 min.)

from – Crispin Webb.