DeResFX.Kill(KarmaPhysics < Elvis); (2004, 6.8 MB, 1:54 min.)
“A modification of the bloody science fiction first person
shooter computer game Unreal 2003.”
By Brody Condon.
Category Archives: conceptual
Gazira Babeli – iGods
Alan Sondheim: large tree-scan world images
treee (2006, 2.28MB, 1:03 min)
treees 3 (2006, 5.86MB, 38 sec)
treees 8 (2006, 9.15MB, 58 sec)
“similar to a scanning electron microscope, two images of a moving tree
with enormous detail were stitched together, warped, merged, and
analyzed at every stage. the result is a planetary configuration; one can travel
for at least an hour or two through the detailing. at times threads or
tubes appear; at times there are planes, sharpened edges, odd holes and
gaps. a tetrahedral mapping was employed.
it is this acute exploration of acute angles of inner worlds that
fascinates me. the mp4 file is small and an enormous amount of detail
is lost, but you get the idea. there are videos as well of course.
here is the resurrection of encapsulated movement-into-landscape of a
five-story tree outside the virtual environments laboratory at west
virginia”
Donna Kuhn – Please Don’t Look Like A Pear
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!
Kerry Baldry – 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.
Studio Banana TV Interviews Pablo Valbuena
Interview with Pablo Valbuena (2009, 43 MB, 3:46 min)
Studio Banana TV interviews visual artist and architect Pablo Valbuena.
After working in digital media designing virtual architectures for videogames,
he currently looks for new ways of using light to introduce the dimensions of
time and movement in urban spaces, altering the perception of physical space
through projected virtual realities.
Todd Polenberg – 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.
Gazira Babeli – Unbroken Eggs – Monument to Luciano Fabro
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
Ashleigh Smith – Impossible Conversations (2010, 75 MB, 2:30 min)
Emma Haggis – Out of Sight, Out of Mind (2010, 118 MB, 2:18 min)
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.
Stan Douglas – Win, Place or Show
Win, Place or Show (clip) (1998, 1.6 MB, 47 sec.)
Two men are having a discussion in a small apartment. The scene,
lasting only six minutes, is filmed from twenty camera positions.
A computer program then produces some 200,000 possible combinations
of images and sounds, so the viewer always sees a different version of the story.
Win, Place or Show questions our conditioned viewing behaviour.
video installation by Stan Douglas.
from ZKM Videosammlung.
Walead Beshty on his Whitney Biennial Installation
Walead Beshty – Whitney Focus (2008, 25 MB, 2:18 min)
2008 Whitney Biennial artist Walead Beshty discusses his photographs
of the former Iraqi embassy to the former East Germany (two nations that no longer exist)
and the complex ideas behind them. He also explains why his glass sculptures
have acquired multiple cracks and fissures.
Produced by the Whitney Museum.
2 from Lumière et Son
Time Travel (2010, 10 MB, 1:10 min)
A Right of Passage (2010, 14 MB, 1:04 min)
We’ve not hidden our enthusiasm here for the work,
always interesting ,often stunning, of Sam Renseiw.
Sam’s been a particularly deft & prolific exponent of the
Lumière form re-invented/discovered/conceptualised
by Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen and Brittany Shoot (of this manor).
Here the whole thing goes a stage further with a great
collaboration between Renseiw and British filmmaker/sound artist
Philip Sanderson, archived on a site called Lumière et Son
which title, for me at least, occasions both a groan and a kind of grudging admiration.
The work is great – Renseiw’s originals, with new found-sound additions
from Sanderson; playful, witty and perhaps even a a little profound,
in a Zen kind of way.
I hadn’t really clocked it properly until I saw a couple of these pieces
at a screening in London the other day.
Here’s one from that programme (the original of which
we posted here a while ago) plus another that especially
tickled me.
Splendid stuff & here’s to many more!
Derek Larson – Blank State
Danny Tanner (2010, 11 MB, 1:14 min.)
“Derek Larson is concerned with “working with his hands” in the sculptural space
inside video and in blurring the lines between social and media spaces.
He describes his intention to close his videos in a “culturally dependent,
feedback-loop” and, as a sculptor, is attracted to video’s infinite reproducibility.
His works appropriate the methodologies and deadpan humor of tactical media while
drawing a focus on its formal qualities and relationships in lieu of fixed and pointed content.”
LOUIS V. E.S.P.
The Insomniac City Cycles – Ran Slavin
The Insomniac City Cycles Trailer (2004-2009, 60 MB, 1:56 min)
“A man wakes up with a bullet wound in an abandoned parking garage in Tel Aviv,
having lost his memory and a gun. As the man struggles to recall his recent past,
a woman wakes up in a Shanghai hotel from a similar dream.
A fragmented conversation with a stranger on the phone sets off a strange exploration
between the two.
Tel Aviv and Shanghai in a movie within a movie and a dream within a dream..
..In The Insomniac City Cycles Ran Slavin explores a world with internal logic built
on the axis of memory the real and the fantastic.
It is a travel through dream structures, events and un-foldings that inventively blend
mystery, neo-noir and science fiction genres with experimental film making techniques.”
Directed Written and Produced by Ran Slavin.
Marisa Olson – 2 videos
Dark Stars (2006, 6.9MB, 1:30 min)
Two rather attractive & intriguing pieces by Marisa Olson
made at a 2006 residency at the Experimental Television Center.
Said Marisa:
“Both are made using a combination of analog & digital processes
and Dark Stars is almost completely analog.. but
then again, both appropriate found material from the internet.
From Here is the music video for Zach Layton’s remix of my song of the
same name. Dark Stars uses samples from one of those old VHS video
games”.
More from Marisa on DVblog here.
Double-Taker (Snout) – interactive installation
Double-Taker (Snout) (2008, 7MB, 52 sec.)
“Double-Taker (Snout)” deals in a whimsical manner with the themes of trans-species
eye contact, gestural choreography, subjecthood, and autonomous surveillance.
The project consists of an eight-foot (2.5m) long industrial robot arm, costumed to
resemble an enormous inchworm or elephant’s trunk, which responds in unexpected
ways to the presence and movements of people in its vicinity. Sited on a low roof above
a museum entrance, and governed by a real-time machine vision algorithm,
Double-Taker (Snout) orients a supersized googly-eye towards passers-by, tracking their
bodies and suggesting an intelligent awareness of their activities. The goal of this kinetic
system is to perform convincing “double-takes” at its visitors, in which the sculpture
appears to be continually surprised by the presence of its own viewers
Troika Ranch -16 [R]EVOLUTIONS
![16 [R]EVOLUTIONS](http://dvblog.org/wp-content/images/16revs.jpg)
16 [R]EVOLUTIONS (2006, 3MB, 1:50 min)
I saw this piece from NY based group Troika Ranch a few years back
in deepest Essex, UK & it was utterly great –
took me about ten minutes to put my jaw back in postion after.
Certainly by far the most convincing & mature use of digital
technology/projection in a dance context I had then seen.
Much of the visual flavour comes from the Isadora real time video
manipulation software created by co-artistic director Mark Coniglio &
used together with motion sensing software.
It’s not just the tech stuff though – it’s great choreography & dance
somehow informed by the particular rhythms, logic, that the tech
feedback loop sets up, implies.
It’s the fact, too, that a company deploying cutting edge tech can
still use simple shadow & stillness to devastating effect.
donebestdone
Willow Creek Coffee (2006, 14.5MB, 47 sec.)
A Greater Degree of Hardware Awareness (2006, 25.6MB, 4:40 min.)
Is that a Shakespeare reference I see before me?
These 3 artists from Milwaukee ( who seem to have mutated
into an essentially music making outfit since) used whatever comes to
hand or mind, allied to an aesthetic that privileged
collaboration, speed & the improvisational,
to make this beautiful & engaging work.
Nam June Paik – documenta performance
documenta performance (1977, 6 MB, 1:35 min.)
The 1977 “documenta” show, which became known as the ‘media documenta’,
opened its doors with a live satellite telecast from Kassel.
Nam June Paik appeared together with Charlotte Moorman and used the slot
for a Dadaistic, allusive excursion through his performance and installation works.
from ZKM Videosammlung.
Buky Schwartz – 2 illusory videos
videoconstructions2 (1978, 5MB, 1:16 min.)
The Chair (1980, 36MB, 9:54 min.)
Buky Schwartz (1932-2009), an Israeli sculptor and video artist
who passed away last year, was known for his deceptive videos
that interplay between illusory appearance and the actual ‘reality’.
The 2 vids here were exhibited at the Whitney Biennial in New York in 1981.
From the splendid Videoart.net
your eye on local sports
untitled 1 (2010, 630kb, 7 sec.)
untitled 2 (2010, 1MB, 10 sec.)
trophy sports (2010, 768kb, 8 sec.)
three miniatures from nick vitou (ormo).
all cellphone uploads to facebook.
all shot on location while running replay for a local sports television network.
..DNF chancellor with a gold eye.
& check out his music endeavors at LAPS.
Opto-Isolator – Golan Levin and Greg Baltus
Opto-Isolator (2007, 6MB, 46 sec.)
“Opto-Isolator inverts the condition of spectatorship by exploring the questions:
“What if artworks could know how we were looking at them? And, given this
knowledge, how might they respond to us?” The sculpture presents a solitary
mechatronic blinking eye, at human scale, which responds to the gaze of visitors
with a variety of psychosocial eye-contact behaviors that are at once familiar and
unnerving. Among other forms of feedback, Opto-Isolator looks its viewer directly
in the eye; appears to intently study its viewer’s face; looks away coyly if it is stared
at for too long; and blinks precisely one second after its visitor blinks.”
By Golan Levin and Greg Baltus.
Takashi Ito – Spacy
The other day,on a whim, I bought Takashi Ito’s collected works on DVD
from the BFI shop. I’d never heard of him before.
I’m so glad I did. It is utterly compelling and remarkable work.
Spacy is an early piece and the clip here is neither complete
not particularly good quality but it does give you a taste of Ito’s early
– almost formalist – style.
There’s such delight in seeing how this broadens into the flexible,
confidently handled and singular idiom of the later pieces, where a quite
musical rigor in the formal structuring is never absent but which
also underpins a beautifully ambiguous and rich expressivity.
The whole set was one of those all too rare tingle-down-the-spine
revelations which I gulped down in a couple of sittings.
This is outstanding & important work – I urge people to become acquainted with it.
Deaf Swedish Beaver TV
Deaf Swedish Beaver TV (2010, 9MB, 1:03 min)
Sooooo un-PC on just soooo many levels
and quite quite wonderful too, a great Lumière from
DVblog’s own Brittany Shoot.
my dark horse is horny – Jaron Albertin
my dark horse is horny (2008, 18MB, 1:23 min.)
Disturbingly hilarious and weird video from Jaron Albertin.
suzon fuks :: rings #1 – #6
rings #1 – #6 (2007, 25MB, 6:35 min.)
“Ongoing series of one-minute unedited shots which can each stands alone.
Improvised choreography multi-reprojected on body parts, counterpointed
by texts by Fernand Shirren, Maurice Bejart’s music advisor and rhythm teacher
of many dancers and choreographers, and a significant inspiration in Fuks’ work.
made collaboratively with and performed by Helen Varley Jamieson,
James Cunningham, Scotia Monkivitch and Suzon Fuks.”
Directed by Suzon Fuks.
Jolipunk – Octopus
Octopus (2010, 56MB, 1:15 min)
When we previously featured a piece by Jolipunk we took the
exceptional step of including a warning that it might disturb.
This new piece is interesting on several counts –
(1) The somewhat in-your-face Oldboy reference/homage
(I can’t believe there’s anyone interested in film who isn’t at least
aware of that scene)
(2) The sharp focus once again on the mouth and mouth
related transgression.
(3) That -at least in my case – it didn’t send me running
for the sick bucket or even force me to turn away; indeed there’s
something even elegant (especially after the beats kick in
around 47 secs) about it.
(4) The jumpy editing and ambiguous music (which flits rapidly
from mood to mood, ominous at one time, quite lighthearted
at others) which serve both to distance us from simple disgust
and from a too easy identification with the Chan-wook Park sequence.
Sometimes work is “interesting” without being good – here
the things that make it the one make it the other too.
Veronique Hubert – Two Movies
A Cube Bavards (2009, 20MB, 2:47 min)
A Venir Le Monde Sera Beau (2009, 52MB, 9:51 min)
OK -comparisons, I’m aware, can sometimes obscure as much as they illuminate but
imagine, if you will, a female, French, slightly more lapidary, Matthew Barney and it does
seem to fit the bill.
Exemplary and wonderful strangeness from Veronique Hubert.
Eyecode – Golan Levin
“Eyecode is an interactive installation whose display is wholly constructed
from its own history of being viewed. By means of a hidden camera, the system
records and replays brief video clips of its viewers’ eyes. Each clip is articulated
by the duration between two of the viewer’s blinks. The unnerving result is a
typographic tapestry of recursive observation.”
By Golan Levin.
Morrisa Maltz – Let Me Tell You Something Important
Let Me Tell You Something Important (2010, 20MB, 17 secs)
Little taster, simultaneously spooky and ravishing, of the work of young LA based artist
Morrisa Maltz.
Very singular, very nicely executed, very good.
Something a little longer next week.