Sounding the Body: Larsener & Sondheim

Posted on May 11, 2007 by doron

from star w (2005, 3.1MB, 1:40 min.)

watched wire (2006, 6.1MB, 2:15 min)

Compelling sound stuff from two different sources.
First a piece from projectsinge.net,
a kind of feedback carillon & the movement that
it engenders/engenders it totally absorbing –
comedic, touching, strange.
Secondly, work by Alan Sondheim, who needs
no introduction here. More delicate & austere
than the Larsener piece, it provides a sharp &
fascinating contrast in the, one would have hitherto
thought, relatively easily exhausted, genre of
“work-made-by-having-microphones-or
-other-devices-attached-to-one’s-body.”

Quick, Quick, Slow – the Sex Pistols Remixed

Posted on May 9, 2007 by michael

Anarchy (Jim Punk) (2006, 8.2MB, 52 sec loop)

reresex (Abe Linkoln) (2006, 3.5MB, 16 sec)

Anarchist (Szpakowski) (2006, 1MB, 26 sec loop)

Pistols remixes, from JimPunk,
Abe Linkoln & ..er.. me.

Send us yours & we’ll post ’em.

Ken Turner #5 – breathing

Posted on May 7, 2007 by michael

breathing (2006, 2.67MB, 1:12 min)

Ken’s site.

Ken talking about his ideas & work.

Original dvblog editorial

Nathaniel Stern – Compressionism

Posted on April 30, 2007 by michael

Compressionism (2006, 17.2MB, 5:37 min)

About time we had a new ism 🙂
DVblog regulars will have seen Nathaniel Stern’s video work here before
in particular the Odys series, characterised both by a luminous intelligence
& a willingness to take artistic risks.
In this short documentary about this (genuinely interesting & fruitful) ism of his own devising Stern
avoids lots of pitfalls: it’s clear, it’s thoughtful & smart, never smug & it makes
one want to see more of the work.

Ken Turner #4 – dance

Posted on April 27, 2007 by michael

foot and book dance (2006, 13.23MB, 4:34 min)

Ken’s site.

Ken talking about his ideas & work.

Original dvblog editorial

Ken Turner #3 – questioning

Posted on April 26, 2007 by michael

philosophical questioning by jane (2006, 6.36MB, 3:02 min)

Ken’s site.

Ken talking about his ideas & work.

Original dvblog editorial

Variations V – John Cage

Posted on April 25, 2007 by doron

Variations V (1965, 7.5MB, 2:22 min)

‘John Cage made ‘Variations V’ in 1965 for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
He and David Tudor settled on two systems for the sound to be affected by movement:
directional photocells aimed at the stage lights, so that the dancers triggered sounds as
they cut the light beams with their movements, and a series of antennae.
When a dancer came within four feet of an antenna a sound would result.
Cage, Tudor, and Gordon Mumma operate equipment to modify and determine
the final sounds.’ – from mediaartnet.

Patrick Lichty Season – #1: 8 bit videos

Posted on April 19, 2007 by michael

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

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

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

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.

Karaoke Death Match 100 – MTAA

Posted on April 17, 2007 by michael

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

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