After the Fall (2011, 44 MB, 1:01 min)
Antenna (2011, 65 MB, 57 secs)
Two very different and very beautiful movies from Alan Sondheim.
Category Archives: strange
1905 at 2 a.m. in the subway
2 a.m. in the subway (1905, 8 MB, 56 sec.)
A subway platform, a policeman and a conductor, a well-dressed man
with a cigar and two women dressed in long skirts and jackets.
One of the women causes a sensation by raising her skirt and
revealing her stocking. Artificial legs are displayed out the subway car window.
Hilarious. From The Open Video Project.
Errol Morris: Donald Trump on Citizen Kane
Donald Trump on Citizen Kane (2004, 40.2MB, 3:22 min.)
by Errol Morris.
‘The last thing one would imagine Donald Trump talking about is Citizen Kane,
what many believe to the greatest film ever made, but here he is talking about
in one of the aborted projects by Errol Morris — like he has lived it, like he is a
reincarnation of Charles Foster Kane. The beauty is not just in the Errol Morris
meditative style or even what Trump has to say about Citizen Kane but what we
want to see. Mainly, that Trump’s life mirrors that of Kane and that this real life
epic character sees his own tragedy.
Talking about wealth, he says ‘In real life, wealth does in fact isolate you from other
people…it is a protective mechanism’. That quote speaks volumes. The salesman is
poking holes into his much marketed life. Asked on what advice he would give
Charles Foster Kane, Trump says boldly: ‘Get yourself a different woman!’.
Edward Picot – Job’s Comforters
Job’s Comforters (2013, 3MB, 7:00 min)
Those who associate Edward Picot solely with his marvellous Dr Hairy series,
wickedly funny and pointed satire in the kind of lo-fi/hand made tradition
that comes down from Postgate and Firmin might be quite taken
aback by this. You have to watch the whole thing. Until shortly before the
end you seem to be simply watching a poetic & minimal retelling of a bible
story, then the whole thing suddenly lurches several gears into the kind of
territory that one associates more with Tarr and Kasznahorkai at their most
bleak and disturbing (and somehow their most bracing and exhilarating too).
It’s a punch to the solar plexus of a piece and simply magnificent.
I don’t know where its bleakness comes from or takes us but what it does
en route burns into you.
Will Oldham & Harmony Korine
No More Workhorse Blues (2006, 6.4MB, 2:55 min.)
Will Oldham a.k.a Bonnie Prince Billy is a writer/performer
of unusual talent & significance.
Extremely smart, genuine skill with language (in many registers)
a wide range of cultural reference, a sense of being part of a
larger tradition, but also a rootedness –
the mining of a very specific & personal seam.
Then, still, within this – a capacity to surprise, even shock.
An integrity.
Here he teams up with Harmony Korine who matches the
complex richness of the song with a roquefort of a video:-
a sweet rottenness -simultaeneously intensely delicious
& to the same degree inducing a certain queasiness.
‘Un Chien Andalou’ – Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
Un chien andalou (1929, 156MB, 15:40 min.)
This is just the source.
Can you imagine Cocteau, Deren, later Hitchcock & Cronenberg
without this?
Oh..more:- the whole of cinema would have a great gaping bloody gap
in it & what was left would be dull dull dull & Black Francis wouldn’t have been
able to write ‘Debaser’.
It simply prised open the language.
Afterwards, Bunuel went on to make some of the sharpest, most provocative
& disturbing films of the 20th century & Dali went on to
…well… be Dali.
William Wegman & Steve Martin
Martin on Wegman (1999, 13 MB, 2:09 min.)
The introduction to the identity program from the PBS series
Art in the 21st Century in which host Steve Martin is featured
in this charming and quirky video by the artist William Wegman.
Osvaldo Cibils – 2 Humans, 1 Paper
2 Humans, 1 Paper (2013, 10MB, 3:38 min)
I first stumbled across Osvaldo Cibils and his marvellously eclectic and well..simply marvellous work.
So simple but so, so telling. Kind of Buster Keaton meets Bruce Nauman meets something hard to pin down but lyrical, grotesque and smart all at once.
My kind of artist.
+++
2 humans 1 paper
video art/soundart.
performance with plotter paper 200 x 107 centimeters.
performers: fiorella alberti architect and osvaldo cibils artist.
place: artist’s studio. Via della Cervara, 55 – 38121 – Trento (TN) Italia
22 march 2013, 20 hours
Almost 7 Minutes of Unalloyed Bliss
What’s Opera Doc? (1957, 57.2MB, 6:52 min)
Remember the tingle down the spine when the first song kicks in in
the musical episode of Buffy?
Well, here’s the template from 1957.
Cartoons featuring talking and singing animals performing opera simply
do not get better than this.
Wishing you all a very happy holiday season…
Sam Easterton – Animal Vegetable Video
Ardvark (2001, 1.6MB, 15 sec.)
Scorpion (2001, 1.1MB, 10 sec.)
Tumbleweeds (2001, 1.2MB, 10 sec.)
Since 1988, Sam Easterton has been using tiny
‘helmet mounted’ cameras to create an archive of videos filmed
from the perspective of plants and animals.
By Mica
Burroughs, Balch & Gysin – The Cut-Ups
The Cut-Ups (clip) (1966, 15.4MB, 1:20 min.)
William Burroughs & co-conspirators made this in 1966.
1966! – could’ve been the day after tomorrow.
Will Goss – Penmanship
Penmanship (2010, 75 MB,2:59 min)
Genius.
Is that an actor, or frighteningly, is it appropriated documentary
of some normally little viewed, fringe sort?
Will Goss – Failure is an Option
Failure is an Option (2010, 53 MB, 2:03 min)
More rum goings-on from the prodigously talented Will Goss.
Is that the Kalevala?
More on Thursday.
Alan Sondheim – Kelvin Helmholtz Clouds
Kelvin Helmholtz Clouds (2008, 5.6MB, 24 secs)
It’s funny – even when Sondheim does picturesque there’s
something very defiantly personal about his take on it.
Here it’s the way that the sequence of images just occasionally
looks as if it hadn’t been thrown together at random but
most of the time it does.
And this does not matter -in fact it’s an asset -there’s a shamanic
urgency to everything Sondheim does which is wholly engaging.
Huzzah for Brittany Shoot!
Woah (2009, 6.1MB, 41 sec loop)
Bush Shoe (2009, 2.8MB, 27 secs)
Protest (2009, 14.1MB, 26 secs)
It’s the James-Bond-Martini scenario – tinder dry & leaving you
both shaken and stirred.
Three reasons to say “Huzzah for Brittany Shoot!“.
PS nobody in the UK actually says Huzzah, whatever you might have been told.
Will Goss – from Magenta’s Caress
Beanstalk [from Magenta’s Caress #3] (2010, 125 MB, 3:50 min)
This is great. It forcibly calls to mind the early work of the sainted Hal Hartley
and whilst it’s arguable that some of what’s on offer here is like a sort
of condensed supercharged bucket of HH’s stylistic tics I find none of that
irritating in the way I might have expected, rather it’s a definite plus, by some odd
counter-intuitive magic. It’s the very over-the-topness of it all that lends
it its huge charm.
More from Will Goss soon.
Richard Haley – Extending a Rain Puddle’s Reach By 16 Inches
Puddle Extension (2007, 5MB, 6:42 min.)
Masonite, masking tape, and plastic sheeting device
designed to extend a rain puddle’s reach by 16 inches.
By Richard Haley.
In the realm of ‘A Series of Practical Performances In The Wilderness’
by Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir. (1) (2)
Morrisa Maltz – Character 1/3 (Infinite Loop)
Character 1/3 [Infinite Loop] (2012, 130MB, 1:07 min)
I love Morrisa Maltz’s work. I particularly relish the way
she doesn’t rest on her laurels but pushes herself ever on to new
and (over-used word in the arts but, I think, apposite here)
fearless ways of thinking about and making things.
This is the first of three pieces best described, literally,
as moving pictures.
Tremendous!
Jeremy Bailey – Transhuman Dance Recital #1
Transhuman Dance Recital #1 (2008, 56MB, 6:30 min.)
“If Jeff Koons had fallen for the Microsoft Help Paperclip rather than
vacuum cleaners or La Cicciolina, presumably the result would have
looked a lot like: ”The Jeremy Bailey Show”.
Says Jeremy Bailey: “From now on I dedicate myself to finding better
ways for humans to dance”
Netbehaviour Mailing List Fractal Excerpt
Netbehaviour Mailing List Fractal [Excerpt] (2012, 5MB, 59 secs)
From Claude Heiland-Allen:
Seven years of archives for this mailing list filtered down
to the most often occurring 1000 words of 4 letters or more,
in an infinite fractal zoom – each word is made up of the
words that most likely follow it.
We love the Netbehaviour list & this, splendid & bonkers both, does just
what it says on the tin with that excellent institution – we’ve posted
the minute long version here but if that whets your appetite for more
there’s an hour long version at archive.org.
Dirty Projectors – Gun Has no Trigger
Gun has no Trigger (2012, 31MB, 3:26 min)
I need to get out more, or at least talk to more people because the
Dirty Projectors completely passed me by until a couple of weeks ago
when I happened upon this video for a track from their new (and, I
have to say, quite, quite, wonderful and – and I use the word advisedly
because it is so overused in a popular music context – strikingly original)
album.
I’ve no idea know who directed the vid but it’s smart and spare and beautiful
and fits the music like a glove (but a glove that brings more than simply being
a glove to the table – maybe it has striking patterns, or raised areas or a
couple of extra fingers, or it glows in the dark or something.)
Dan Osborne – Behold the Light (at Night)
Behold the Light (at Night) (2008, 87MB, 6:27 min)
We initially posted this in 2008 when we encountered Dan Osborne’s work
for the first time.
Recently he seems to be actively rejecting some of his earlier work so I hope
he doesn’t mind us reposting this. In my view he’s a very talented artist
with a quite singular vision.
We said then:
There’s something pleasantly reminiscent of Linklater’s Slacker
in this piece from Dan Osborne.
I don’t mean to suggest it’s derivative; I don’t think it is, or only
in the completely unescapable way of coming-after. This piece
has it’s own identity, which at first I wasn’t sure whether it was
completely random, but then little bits of structuring begin to
assert themselves. In particular I like the fades which occur
immediately prior to anything substantive happening.
A lot of it looks very good too – there’s no doubt the man
has an eye – the 3-D glasses sequence, the fire women,
the musical instruments procession (although am I alone in
finding something slighty snotty about the shot of the bemused onlookers?).
That little cavil aside this is interesting stuff & I look forward to seeing
how Osborne’s work develops.
Shannon Noble – Finger Bolts
Finger Bolts (2005, 1.9MB, 1:13 min.)
Shannon Noble, an extremely technically accomplished
artist, made this elegant short video in 2005 from the simple, well-timed,
juxtaposition of moving images and sounds.
He’s still making stuff – he’s quite strangely
secretive about his work and quite often as soon
as it’s posted somewhere it disappears again.
A shame – he’s consistently great.
Pierre Huyghe
Pierre Huyghe #1 (NK, 2.69MB, 1:43 min)
Pierre Huyghe #2 (NK, 1.59MB, 3:03 min)
Pierre Huyghe #3 (NK, 2.33MB, 1:29 min)
Pierre Huyghe #4 (NK, 2.29MB, 1:30 min)
Four short videos by the often vexing, occasionally brilliant, Pierre Huyghe
from the website of the PBS Art in the 21st Century series.
Bonnie Prince Billy/Ben Berman –I See a Darkness
I See a Darkness (2012, 32MB, 2:40 min)
Bonnie Prince Billy/Will Oldham has a way of generating interesting things
around his core business of making extraordinary music.
In a similar way to that of Ornette Coleman, his album artwork always
contains many little explosions of visual pleasure and neither is it devoid of
food for thought.
This is also true of the videos he commissions to accompany his music.
We’ve posted some of these before , including a deliciously bizarre
one from Harmony Korine.
This is one of my favourites to date. Made by Ben Berman, it involves
Oldham lolloping around the streets of Glasgow in a way that in real
life would have me crossing the road toot sweet.
I’m an Oldham fan. If I had to put my finger on one of the things
that lifts him so far from the ordinary it would be a confidence in his
work so great (or maybe better, simply an integrity to it and to his art),
that he can encompass within it and place around it things of utter
ridiculousness without undermining it, indeed, whilst rendering it the more potent.
This is not to downplay the role of Berman in this. He is clearly a significant
talent and a fine co-conspirator for Oldham.
Dawid Krępski & Jason Chiu – Fall into Light
Fall into Light (2012, 209MB, 3:57 min)
For about the first twenty seconds I didn’t think I was going to like
this music video by Dawid Krępski & Jason Chiu, or at least that I
would remain easily indifferent and unmoved.
Then, ..well.. , it’s a slow burn but it gently explodes, if that’s not too
much of an oxymoron, into something fertile and strange that won’t let
go of you.
I don’t think there probably is a narrative but, as you watch, the piece
fools you into believing there is, one straight from a fever dream.
Great.
Credits:
Song: Beca – Fall into Light
Directed: Dawid Krępski & Jason Chiu
Actors: Kelsey Peterson, Fred Geyer
D.O.P: Dawid Krępski & Jason Chiu
Edit: Dawid Krępski
Special thanks: Magdalena Gaca, Michael McKeogh
Psycho Bob – Bob’s Big Date
Bob’s Big Date (2008, 7 MB, 50 sec.)
“These are the adventures of a psychopath named Bob. Bob is not
a nice man; not even a little bit. This show is the video equivalent
of a Sunday comic strip.
Here Bob goes out on a date with Betty, perhaps the first woman
other than his mother to truly understand and appreciate him.”
From The AV Club.
Nathaniel Stern & Scott Kildall – Tweets in Space
Tweets in Space (2012, 52MB, 2:27 min)
Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern of Wikipedia Art return with another
project both odd, lyrical and utopian.
“Tweets in Space” will beam Twitter discussions from participants worldwide
towards GJ667Cc: a planet 22 light years away that apparently might support
earth-like life.
Anyone can take part, simply by adding #tweetsinspace to their tweets during
two performance times in September, when Stern and Kildall will be doing live
projections at the International Symposium on Electronic Art in New Mexico,
and boldly tweeting where none have tweeted before.
They say:
“This differs from every past alien transmission in that it is not only
a public performance, but also performs a public: it is a real-time
conversation between hopeful peers sending their thoughts to everywhere
and nowhere.
Our soon-to-be alien friends will receive unmediated thoughts and responses
about politics, philosophy, pop culture, dinner, dancing cats and everything
in between.
By engaging the millions of voices in the Twitterverse and dispatching them
into the larger Universe, “Tweets in Space” activates a potent discussion
about communication and life that traverses beyond our borders or understanding.
It promises more than could ever be delivered.”
Charlie Mars – Videomaker from Outerspace
Blurring Fat by Ajit Anthony Prem
Blurring Fat (2006, 20MB, 5:15 min.)
Podcast from Ajit @ squigglebooth
Her – Kelly Cook, Him/Writer/Director – Ajit Anthony Prem.
Superb !
Joan Healy: Deranged, but in a Good Way
Sithair (2007, 6.4MB, 1:49 min)
Cyber Skin (2007, 38.8MB, 3:05 min)
Meat Market (2007, 39.6MB, 7:14 min)
I was lucky enough to see young Irish artist Joan Healy
present her work at a 2008 DATA event in Dublin.
It was strange.
First off, consciously or not, she has this innocent
butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth demeanour and then she
shows this.. er..stuff
Documented here, in ascending order of weirdness, there’s a performance piece
where she transforms her hair into a musical instrument,
a piece where she satirises the current bio-art fashion by
getting into a box, exposing some of her back (the installation
claims this is especially grown cyber-skin)
& then attempting to draw to screen the patterns the punters trace
out on her.
Last is ..well.. (vegans avert your eyes), electronically assisted dancing meat
– you know.. chops.. steaks.. & the like..
After she gave her talk I said to her I thought her work was ‘utterly deranged’
She smiled sweetly and said she would take it as a compliment.
It was.
Amelia Winger-Bearskin – State of Things
Amelia Winger-Bearskin – State of Things (2007, 19.9MB, 8:58)
Amelia Winger-Bearskin makes fun, funky performance pieces
and has a couple on her website worth viewing.
This is my favorite piece from her Chroma Key series.
Try swearing for nine minutes straight and see
how successful you are.
Anri Sala – Time After Time
Time After Time (2003, 45.5MB, 5:39 min)
I was initially rather mystified by the vogue in UK galleries for
the work of Albanian artist Anri Sala but after a while the penny
dropped.
The courage to embrace the poetry of detail, of stillness,
apparent lack of incident & furthermore to trust
one’s viewers to accompany one to that place…
Elegant, sad, lugubrious & also, I think, much more crafted
than first meets the eye.
Great.
Dan Canyon
Quilts Never Sleep (short version) (2007, 20.9MB, 3:07 min)
Two very different but attractive & telling pieces from Dan Canyon.
The first was part of a show of – you guessed it – quilts in London in 2006,
about which read more here.
The second could’ve been made for dvblog, well, at least for me, as I’m a fool
for all things turntablist, & features the splendidly monickered Mickey Morphingaz.
Yu-Chen Wang – Struggle for Existence
Struggle for Existence (2004, 18MB, 1:58 min.)
“By linking Darwin’s “The truth of universal struggle for existence” with a Taiwanese children’s game, The video represents two individuals’ slaughter in the virtual battle field and reflects on the ideology of boundary dividing, self-defending patriotism and bellicosity.”
by – Yu-Chen Wang.
Gilbert & George -The Singing Sculpture
The Singing Sculpture (2010, 3MB, 41 sec.)
“Singing Sculpture documents one of Gilbert & George’s most famous “living sculpture” pieces.
Covered in multicolored bronze paint, the artists sing and interchange parts of the English
music hall standard “Underneath the Arches.” Through their stylized performance,
Gilbert & George deliberately blur the lines between life and art, reality and contrivance.
This ambiguity does not rely on a transformation from living to sculptural form. On the contrary,
they have merged the two in order to obliterate, rather than emphasize, the distinctions between life and art.” – Walker Art Center
from Video Data Bank
Brian Kim Stefans – Difficult Beauty
Vex #1 (2006, 29.1MB, 2:08 min.)
Vex #5 (2006, 25.9MB, 1:09 min.)
Ferrari Dogs (2006, 25.9MB, 1:09 min.)
You know sometimes how when you first look at a work
you can’t process it immediately, it seems jumbled – wrong –
& you’re tempted to dismiss it.
Then you live with it awhile & suddenly it leaps into focus &
you realise you’re in the presence of something much richer
& more rewarding than the things which did immediately fall into place?
Do you know that feeling?
Well, that’s how I felt as I prepared this post.
The work, by the artist & poet Brian Kim Stefans, snuck up
on me & then hit me over the head.
Furthermore, there’s still a puzzling quality to it all, for me:
the Ferrari Dogs piece seems like work of a different category
to the vex pieces somehow ( as does Manchurian Rainman on
the site. Check it. Now – what is that all about?)
Anyway – I’ll take mystery over glibness anyday – I look forward to more.
James Joyce has a Posse
James Joyce has a Posse (2011, 32MB, 4:49 min)
And mentioning Curt Cloninger, as we did on Friday last, it’s nice to report he has made
a new video which is both gorgeous and engimatic, with a musicality which stems
not only from the actual sounds but the video’s very construction, that repeated
wistful, strange, ‘Portrait of the Artist’, title motif…
Cloninger is someone (Eddie Whelan the other who springs to mind) who has thoroughly incorporated
data-moshing as an expressive tool into their vocabulary, defying reports of its early death.
Poetry.
PS And just in passing – I’m fascinated by movies like this one, for which it’s very difficult
to create an adequate poster image.
Data-moshing is a particularly dynamic form of moving image work
where the motion is like the Cheshire Cat’s grin.
It’s not just data-moshing – it happens elsewhere.
It’s like some movies are, in some sense, “further away” in the line of image kinship
with the still.
Business – Junu Ahn
Business (2007, 67.9MB, 9:33 min)
I find it easier to admire this piece, to respect its clear integrity,
than to actually like it much – it’s a pretty hardcore glitch
assemblage & it doesn’t let up …oooooh noooo… not at all
(Strikes me as a bit of a video analog for something like Lou Reed’s (in)famous
)
It’ll be interesting to see where Junu Ahn goes next…
aircondition – Oliver Laric
Andrew Norman Wilson #5
The Incorporation of Demands for Liberation (2011, 13MB, 3:24 min)
Brilliant!
Last piece from ANW, for the moment, although we
certainly hope to feature more in the future –
some of the most original and exciting work I’ve seen recently.
For some context see Monday’s post.
Andrew Norman Wilson #4
Flow Spot Test #6 (2011, 18MB, 3:34 min)
“Just downloading apps at my Blanc Laptop Cart when all
of a sudden BenJi, an old teammate from XpresSpa shows up.
He happens to be subcontracted now by the American Airlines
subsidiary AffinityAlliance as an evaluator of potential for their
Oneworld Alliance codeshare lounges (of which FlowSpot is the
newest member).”
Andrew Norman Wilson #3
Andrew Norman Wilson #2
Flow Spot Test #5 (2011, 57MB, 2:03 min)
“Just having my early afternoon session of Body-Work with
Nnah, my Body-Designer.”
Says ANW, of the FlowSpot Tests:
For a large-scale exhibition at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
I created a color coordinated airport/hotel/mall/bank/spa/biennial lounge to
offer a site of relaxation and bodily engagement in an exhibition dominated
by isolated, sellable art objects.
All lounge products were purchased through online transactions (mostly
Target and Walmart), and were returned at the end of the exhibition.
My dystopic science fiction news video Global Countdown played on
a 55” flat panel monitor.
On opening night, visitors to FlowSpot could register for massages from
licensed massage therapists. While participants received massages they
could not see anything and listened to my directors commentary of the
Global Countdown video. The commentary consists of very basic visual
descriptions, with the goal being that the person receiving the massage
can visualize the video in their minds.
Throughout the duration of the exhibition, I used the lounge as a science
fiction video set to make “FlowSpot Tests.” In these videos I engaged
with the lounge both conceptually and materially in a color coordinated
outfit.
Contact me if you are interested in opening a FlowSpot in your airport,
hotel, mall, bank, spa, biennial, gallery, cultural center, or any other
space that you own/lease/use.
See also.
Andrew Norman Wilson – Webinars & FlowSpot Tests
Anxiety About Relationships Between Friendship and Business (2011, 11MB, 2:41 min)
I’m so taken with Andrew Norman Wilson’s work I’m going to devote
the whole first week of this DVblog season to it.
He initially sent us a longish piece, Networking with Andrew Norman Wilson
made with Nicholas O’Brien of Bad At Sports.
It’s wonderful but pretty huge so you should definitely go and
look at the Vimeo version there.
On Monday, Weds and Friday of this week we’ll post smaller
pieces extracted from that (but without the commentary or
‘interview’ as it is styled elsewhere [-the text on the BAS page linked above]) ,
On Tuesday and Thursday we’ll post two of Wilson’s FlowSpot Tests
with some accompanying explanation from him.
I find this work in general very exciting because it does a lot
of interesting, nuanced and often rather funny (and I’m in favour of funny –
there are very few great works of art which contain no funny at all)
and intially apparently contradictory things.
Let me give you my take on it.
The Webinars are all composed entirely of footage sourced from Pond5
“the worlds stock media marketplace” . The FlowSpot Tests are performative
pieces involving bizarre consumer items sourced from e-bay and wallmart and
deployed in a 21st Century updating of silent movie Lloyd-Keaton-Chaplin
deadpan involving, too, a certain degree of slapstick
and displaying a deliciously calibrated sense of the ridiculous.
The Webinars (a least when one takes account of their titles and certainly viewed
in the light of the commentary from “networking”) are a kind of consumerist
reductio-ad-absurdam.
The intent is celarly in some sense satirical but the pieces take risks in
that they don’t stop and end in critique – there is an understanding of
how toxically compelling some of this imagery is and to some extent they
toy with celebrating this.
Wilson is clearly a natural movie maker. He doesn’t restrain himself from
visual flourishes and jokes which are by no means integral to any
satirical case but make the pieces more fun to watch.
(The distortion effects applied to objects in the periphery of the
action in FlowSpot Test #5 are a case in point.)
Additionally, and most impressively, there is a muddying of the
waters in Networking… (and by implication the
Webinars and FlowSpot Tests) whereby
cogent and apparently straightforward philosophising is allowed
to cross pollinate/contaminate with the satire and vice versa,
leaving the viewer with -ahem- work to do.
This work is not glib; it takes risks – in order to maintain its
high level potency it risks misunderstanding.
A look at Wilson’s CV shows a spell spent working for a
labour union and I read the impulse behind these pieces
as radically anti-commodification and corporate mind rot.
Agit-prop, thankfully, it’s not, but “something rich and strange”
– radical art for interesting times to come.
Nice to see this when so many younger artists seem to be
tempted by a career orientated and somewhat cynical celebration
of that same deadend emptiness.
Big Moth
Big Moth (2011, 9MB, 3:05 min)
“Experimental film and sound collage with a spoken poem
about embodying a moth”
As you do, as you do…
Another piece of strange & haunting loveliness from Simon Mclennan*.
Super Dog
Super Dog (2011, 20MB, 1:58 min)
You might remember that Pink Tall Bike brought
to you here previously by Mike Stoddart.
Now that gentle and slightly skewed sensibility*
brings you Super Dog.
*Not weird enough to qualify for surreal exactly,
but there is something about the way he makes them
that is, enough to notice (or to feel in one’s bones),
delightfully loopy & off kilter…
Wikipedia Art in London
Wikipedia Art Intro (2011, 114MB, 2:29 min)
And, appropriately following on from yesterday’s post, a little intro
to the splendid Kildall/Stern Wikipedia Art project which is showing, as part
of a two person show at London’s Furtherfield gallery (formerly HTTP)
from this Friday.
(One individual piece by each artist too – promises to be a real treat)
Private view tonight 6:30 (Thurs.) – all welcome, maybe see you there.
This piece narrated in Stern’s breathless-puppy-dog-with-an-off-the-dial-IQ
trademark delivery with reassuringly measured interventions by the
no less smart & talented Kildall.
Edit by Foster Stilp, plus suitably keyed up and excited music by Stilp and
Kevin McGillivray, who together trade as Felixsofia
HD VIDBLOG #119 – Research
HD VIDBLOG #119 (2006, 5.9MB, 3:09 min.)
“Why would somebody make something like this?”
by Prof. Chris Weagel from “human-dog”.
The Head of Raymond K – Bottom Union
The Head of Raymond K (2006, 25.3 MB, 2:50 min.)
“Did any of this happen? Should I quit drinking coffee?
Do I exist? Am I only a construct in the mind of some insane norwegian?
Should I quit my job? Change my head?
These are only a few of the existential questions you might ask yourself
when you venture into the head of Raymond K.“
Part 2 of 5 from Bottom Union
Robert Ashley/John Sanborn/Kit Fitzgerald
excerpt from ‘Word Music Fire’ (1981, 60 MB, 7:45 min)
Found at newmusicbox ,which also has lots of interesting interview footage
with the composer. Despite the low quality of this clip, it suffices to indicate
what a thrilling piece of work this (originally made for TV by Channel 13/WNET)
must be in its entirety.
I’ve been a bit of an Ashley agnostic until now, but this has really whetted my appetite
for more.
Partly it’s that, music aside, the vid by John Sanborn in collaboration with Kit Fitzgerald
from ELECTRONIC ARTS INTERMIX is so great.
The Internet – Aaron Valdez
The Internet (2006, 5.3MB, 1:03 min.)
2006 report from Valdezatron Industries technology department.
from Aaron Valdez.
Jordan McKenzie – Serra Frottage
Serra Frottage (2009, 13 MB, 3:17 min)
Whenever I’m travelling through, or near to London’s Liverpool Street station
I try and make time to pass by the wonderful Richard Serra sculpture,
Fulcrum, at the Broadgate end.
I really love it, one of the most successful pieces of public art I’ve
ever seen.
I mentioned this to a friend and he sent me a link to this piece,
one of a series of ‘minimal interventions’ by Jordan McKenzie
who clearly also um – –loves– – Serra’s work.
Puzzleweasel – ‘Cvon’
puzzle (2006, 19.2MB, 3:51 min)
Puzzleweasel is the sonic output of Peter Dahlgren.
Klaus Lang –Zwillingsgipfel
Zwillingsgipfel (2007, 122 MB, 8:02 min)
The music of the Austrian composer Klaus Lang ( not to be confused
with fellow Lang composers Bernhard or even David) is both very strange
and very beautiful. It’s a world where the tiniest gesture, the smallest
variation or nuance has great weight and presence. It’s no intellectual game
or posture though, but something, certainly for me, deeply affecting.
See what you think.
Bizarrely, I believe (and I’m open to correction) that “Zwillingsgipfel”
translates as “Twin Peaks”.
RUBBER – Quentin Dupieux
RUBBER (2011, 35 MB, 2:21 min)
Trailer for RUBBER, the story of Robert, an inanimate tire that has been
abandoned in the desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life.
RUBBER is a ‘smart, funny and wholly original tribute to the cinematic
concept of “no reason” ‘.
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Ran Slavin – omni1.9
omni1.9 (2002-97, 18 MB, 1:28 min, excerpt)
“The idea behind this loop is to show the 360 degrees of choice. The mad culmination of wanting
to go to all directions at once. Inspired by the ceiling of the Geneva airport while in transit.
Shown also as a video installation of varying loop durations on a transparent two way screen.
Like a small vignette of digital nature, the small figures are continuously looping in a busy circular
motion with the urge to span in all directions at once.This stasis, a static dance, the body like a
scanner unable to decide, caught between indecision. A seemingly digital nature. The bodies
which are silhouettes of the artist, become small digital scanner probes.”
Video and audio: Ran Slavin
Original: 6:33min/variable/2002-97
Ran Slavin – Everything Is Urgent
Everything Is Urgent (2008, 4 MB, 42 sec (Excerpt)
Ran Slavin
confronts the human figure in conjunction with the annoying barking of a dog. 4 figures, 2 young men and women, stand in front of an unknown audience, in front of a void and bark ferociously.
Driven away from systematic and social norms, the human barking figures attack us from within the digital domain, outward.
They present an uncompromising hybrid human, a cross between man and animal. Do they try to warn us, scare us like an omen or blame us? We see a human but hear an animal. Like a shout of desperation of a person who can no longer use his voice.
2008, 4:12 min. Single or 4 channel installation
Wendy Keenan – 3 Movies
legbones (2011, 9MB, 1:11 min)
dawnchorusorspeakingintongues (2011, 4MB, 33 secs)
The only things I know about these three pieces is that they
were posted to the Netbehaviour list on Saturday last, that they
were shot on a cellphone and that they are …well… quite odd.
Almost disturbingly so, but in a thrilling way too:
to be so offhandedly minimal, so cavalier about any technical considerations
and still to make something with this sort of punch…
Morrisa Maltz – MoFone commercial
MoFone commercial (2011, 8MB, 1:31 min)
First of two pieces this week from the very talented Morrisa Maltz,
this one is a commercial for some kind of art-phone venture she seems
to be involved in.
Whilst I might pass on the product, I’m stuck dumb by the glorious
verve and insouciance of the ad.
It’s interesting – her personal work is very identifiable ( in a good way, I
hasten to add, and, as you’ll see later this week it moves onwards).
This is utterly different but also a really really neat bit of film-making,
suggesting deep reserves of skill and smarts as well as vision.