Maya Ciarrocchi – Herd (2004, 4.6MB, 2:04)
Excerpt from Maya Ciarrocchi‘s single channel
video/sound installation, which plays a continuous
15 minute loop of black and white footage of New
York streets.
Ciarrocchi said, “The frenetic movement of the street
is slowed to a pace where the viewer can form an intimate
relationship to the histrionics of everyday events.”
Dion Laurent – The Golden Age of Barcodes (2004, 27.6MB, 5:05)
Dion Laurent’s project is a “multi-ethnic international
representation of procreation and population explosion,
increased consumerism and capitalism, and the
commodification and devastation of our natural world.”
Enough said.
Snoop Dogg – Sensual Seduction (2007, 35.3MB, 4:08)
So Snoop Dogg is a misogynist and exploits
his own Black culture regularly.
I get it, and I preach it: the guy is nasty.
But if this isn’t an amazing music video,
I don’t know what is.
This song is called Sexual Eruption, but for
obvious reasons, the edited “clean” version
is the one being passed around.
It’s been out for several months, and I’ve been
debating whether or not to post it.
But since our mission is to post what thrills and
excites us, here it is.
I hope it does something similar for you.
Lawnmowing (2008, 3.9MB, 35 secs)
Mowing in February
Our Special Mowing in February Lawnmowers
are not the of the ordinary electric rotor,
gas-powered self-propelling,
or even hand pushed whirligig
human powered variety.
Our Mowing in February models
come with specially-equipped
permanently mounted plows
suitable for use by the most dedicated
lawnmowing enthusiasts
from September through May
in those clim’es so specially endowed
to understand the meaning
of a ‘Three Season Plow’
Martha Deed
Scraping (2008, 1.9MB, 58 secs)
Millie Niss & Martha Deed’s Sporkworld project is sui generis – entirely unbeholden to
fashion or cool & standing in a long & broad American tradition of such stubborn
(& sometimes even eccentric) beauty.
Their latest wheeze & a vastly effective one it is too, is the Sporkworld Microblog
which integrates many formerly slightly disparate areas of their activity – poetry, still
& moving imagery, filthy humour, a sense of life’s transience & tragedy & utter strangeness,
into one coherent, constantly unrolling whole.
Formally too, they are smarter than smart, as anyone with eyes will surely see –
they’ve taken the splendid Lumière form & integrated it beautifully.
It fits them like a glove.
Lawnmower in particular seems to have been crafted by a 21st century
suburban Breughel.
Maya Deren – Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, 99.4MB, 13:30)
A fabulous old film about the subconscious and
the psychology of film noir,
Deren’s first major avant-garde work, a seminal piece,
made with her collaborator (and later husband)
Alexander (Hackenschmied) Hammid.
Originally a silent film without dialog,
music was composed for the piece
in 1959 by Deren’s third husband Teiji Ito.
Still Project 07 (2007, 5.7MB, 1:29 min)
Half of the splendid & indispensable MTAA, whose work we feature here
whenever possible – conceptualist pranksters with a rare (for the territory)
& self deprecating human warmth – Mark River makes interesting video stuff
(amongst other things) on his Tinjail site.
A lot of them are kind of multi-channel (go look) & don’t fit the dvblog format.
This one does & is excellent too..
Here’s his preamble to it:
‘The wild blue yonder, the decent, la jetee, fearless, street fight,
loud QUIET loud, a sound of thunder, enemy at the gate, so wrong they
Soul Zodiac (2007, 6.4MB, 2:12 min)
Interesting documentation of a piece recently shown at
Newlyn Art Gallery by Cornish based artist Nigel Ayers.
The zodiacal stuff leaves me a bit cold but the sound is utterly wonderful,
and the simple yet elegant & effective presentation is great too.
Invisible Threads (2008, 18.3 MB, 2:53 min.)
Stephanie Rothenburg & Jeff Crouse will be producing designer blue jeans.
Styles include boot cut, skinny leg, flare and the new “Boyfriend” trousers.
Profits from these purchases will be used to maintain the factory and pay for
workers
Brian Gibson – A (2007, 11.1MB, 0:25)
DVblog’s own Brian Gibson made this, and I love it.
Maybe I just suck with lights and filters and editing,
but I don’t know how he does this.
Really charming.
Goya’s Stories (2006, 26.4MB, 3:38 min)
Three Goya paintings – La Maja Desnuda (Nude Maja), El Rey Carlos
Cazador (King Carlos dressed as a hunter) and Autorretrato (Self-portrait) –
are brought to life by three present-day stand-ins. The beauty of the piece is
that none of the three people from the present day is an obvious
equivalent for the painting alongside which he or she is placed.
The least satisfactory of the three is the Maja. Goya’s nude is both
more blatantly sexual and less conventionally glamorous than the
equivalent we are given here. On the other hand the Carlos and
the Autorretrato – respectively a a wild-haired gaunt ceramicist
fingering a three-cornered pot, and an imposingly fat middle-aged
man half-naked at the seaside – do replicate the powerful combination
of individual character and human fallibility which comes across from
the Goya originals.
Edward Picot
Doron Golan has constructed contemporary stories from Goya
paintings, using people whose resemblance to Goya’s subjects is
striking.
One need not be familiar with the masterworks themselves to enjoy the
whimsical – at times, poignant – real life portraits constructed from
the paintings. Michael Szpakowski’s music intensifies the mood and detail of
Golan’s video. Like ekphrastic poetry, the video and music carry viewers into a
deeper exploration both of the paintings and the stories spun from
them.
Martha Deed