Category Archives: conceptual

Will Luers – Commute

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Will Luers – Commute (unnamed one of eight) (2001, 3.6MB, 1:00)


Will Luers – Commute (unnamed one of eight) (2001, 3.5MB, 1:00)

I set myself the task of recording the same route
to work (Brooklyn-Manhattan) eight different
mornings from winter through spring. Each
segment was edited to exactly 60 seconds.
The linear and cylical experience of the urban
commuter lends itself to the database structure.

Will Luers, also known as Taylor Street Studios and
various projects under the name SolubleFish, has a
great history of making web video. Sometimes artists
are a little miffed when we post their older work, but
I think respecting your own history is important.
Luers’s work is no different. This piece from 2001
might seem obvious in 2008, when taping your
commute seems pedestrian (hah) and obvious.
But these vignettes – eight in total – are a lovely
reflection on repetition, routine, and subtle change.

Simon’s Cat

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Simon’s Cat – “TV Dinner” (2008, 8.8MB, 2:35)

Award-winning sketch (Best Comedy at British
Animation Awards), of the several available,
this is my favorite video. Each is equally
endearing, and I’m particularly fond of the
amusing vocals.
From London’s Tandem Films

Recent work from Paul Kelly

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The Video Artist (2004-8, 15.5MB, 1:19 min)


Corporate Flag (2008, 47.2MB, 4:06 min)


Narrative (2008, 19.9MB, 1:35 min)

We’ve featured a number of pieces by Paul Kelly
in the last year, although in terms of their date of
making they stretch over some 4 years.
Looking back it seems to me there’s a very striking
sense of development.
The language and technique here is leaner, tougher
& more focussed, though without any loss of the
delight in the beauty & mystery of the everyday
that is a keynote of all the work.
As a little aside I know Paul has been making stuff
for Brittany (of this manor) & Andreas’s
Lumi

the whether|man

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wheatherman11
10_10_07 (2007, 8MB, 1:16 min.)

From Astoria, Queens, it’s the whether|man.
More vids here..

Kurt Ralske – Alphaville

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Alphaville ( extract) (2008, 32.MB, 51 secs)

Rather fetching art-work-over of Godard’s
great film Alphaville, by Kurt Ralske.

Laric – 50 50, 50 50 2008

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Oliver Laric – 50 50 (2007, 12.1MB, 2:06)

Oliver Laric has really grown on us over time.
In 2007, he mashed up fifty YouTube videos of
random kids lip-syncing (or really singing, sort of)
to “In Da Club,” “Candy Shop,” and “How We Do”
by the American rap artist (artist?) 50 Cent,
leaving them in their original YouTube format.
Also keep in mind that “In Da Club” is around five
years old by now. I guess the youth know what they
like, though it’s worth noting these songs are generally
foul and offensive at best. Nevertheless, due to what I’m
calling the constant influx of amateur 50 Cent covers onto
YouTube, Laric decided that he had to make a follow-up
video, 50 50 2008, seen below.


Oliver Laric – 50 50 2008 (2008, 10MB, 2:07)

Just

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Radiohead – Just (1995, 11MB, 4:05)

Arguably one of the , and
certainly one of the formative videos of my youth.
It never gets old or feels cliched, no matter what is
made today of new weight and relevance.
Video directed James Thraves.

Sondheim – Swirl

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Swirl (2008, 21MB, 1:05 min)

Regular visitors will be aware of how little excuse we need
to post work from the formidable Alan Sondheim.
So…it’s Wednesday… – here’s one of his recent Second Life
pieces.
His accompanying text appears below.

Jennifer and Julu: Clean yourselves, you dirty boys!
Jennifer and Julu: Clean yourselves, you dirty girls!
Julu: Hello Nikuko, you are looking wonderful this very morning.
Nikuko: Hello Julu, why you are looking odd I do think!
Julu: And my leg too hanging by a thread! Nikuko, where are you?
Nikuko: Oh dear you are half-blind Julu!
Julu: And you are All-Blind-Nikuko!
Julu: Can you see anything here? Can you see anything at all?
Nikuko: I hear your voice!
Nikuko: You do not, Julu, you do not have anything!
Julu: Maud, you must move slightly to your left, thank you.
Julu: Maud, you are not looking properly or you would move!
Nikuko: I am looking just fine, thank you!
Nikuko: I am so, I’m trying as hard as you are!
Julu: Adjust yourself!
Julu: You are adjusting yourself in a very wrong way!
Julu: It is 10:30 and you have just lost your head!
Nikuko: Ha ha ha I have lost my head over you!
Julu: And hello Nikuko, and how are you?
Nikuko: Now we will Swirl and Change.

Protest Films

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Alex Pearl – Protest Film Nottingham (2006, 7.6MB, 1:36)

Protest films…usually films about people protesting
something unjust in the world.
Or, perhaps you meant Protest Films, the conceptual
robot-banner-waving collection of videos wherein
little machines “protest,” more generally speaking.
This is the first from the long-running,
Arts Council-supported series from artist
and renaissance man Alex Pearl.
If you’d like to participate or create your own
Clockwork Protest, visit the blog and email Alex
for a protest kit.

Recombinant Rain from Millie Niss

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Recombinant Rain (2008, 7MB, 32 secs)


Source Video #1 (2008, 1.3MB, 10 secs silent)


Source Video #2 (2008, 2.2MB, 12 secs silent)


Source Video #3 (2008, 1.2MB, 14 secs silent)


Source Video #4 (2008, 2MB, 13 secs silent)

Millie Niss is one half of the daughter & mother team behind
the original & indispensable Sporkworld Microblog.
(And if you look at it for ten minutes & you don’t agree
it’s that, please check you have a pulse).
I’m not sure Millie felt that this piece was entirely successful.
(See her comments on the blog, linked above)
I’m posting it because even a borderline success from Millie
is something one can learn from. She has a formidable intellect
combined with a total & fierce independence & a complete
lack of bullshit.( Indeed I’m convinced that she wouldn’t
know how to bullshit, even if she wanted to.)
The last four pieces are tiny little studies of the rain
(delicate & lovely in their own right),
& the first is constructed from frames lifted from these
& worked over in various ways.
This piece (or actually the set of pieces, sources & first pass
at an end product alike) does it for me in a way that a lot of work doesn’t.
Simply, there’s a profound humanity to it.
Sure, it’s about the rain but it’s also about what it is
to be a human being in the world.