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
on Flickr but he seems to have all sorts of things going.
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

I Don’t Want Your Lasagne Furnace – Donna Kuhn


I Don’t Want Your Lasagne Furnace (2009, 41.4MB, 2:23 min)

Artists I really care for tend to fall into two distinct categories.
The first is the extensive or Picasso category – refusing to be
bound by stylistic limitations or boxes they constantly
reinvent themselves, often seeming like ten artists in one skin.
The other might be called the Giacometti or Morandi model, where
the best part of a lifetime is devoted to an intensive, deep,
exploration of a limited set of themes and content.
They have in common more than would at first appear to be the case.
They are both led by a kind of shamanistic passion, a surrender to
the unconscious, to whim, to a playfulness which can be either infantile
or deadly serious, and they reject the most common practice which is the
dull conformity of making work which attempts to guess the market,
or follow fashion or whatever.
If Sondheim is the net exemplar of the first way then Donna Kuhn
must typify the second.
Small miracles of freshness & originality mined and chiselled from
a tiny pallette! Wit and sadness both! Wonder! Delight!

Body Magic – Javier Morales and John Michael Boling

bodymagic
Body Magic (2007, 26MB, 2:25 min.)

From the old gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com
Music by Javier.

Samuel Beckett – Quadrat I + II

quadrat1
Quadrat I + II (1981, 4.3MB, 1:04 sec.)

Quad (Play), by Samuel Beckett.

Morrisa Maltz – Character 3/3 – Iris

character_1_1
Character 3/3 – Iris (2012, 67MB, 1:20 min)

Last one of three and all a pleasure to post and to view.
Here’s to lots more work from Morrisa.

Morrisa Maltz – Character 2/3 – Inverted Rose

character_2_3
Character 2/3 – Inverted Rose (2012, 43MB, 55 secs)

2nd in the series of 3, the first of which we posted last week.
I think these are lovely and haunting and I’m impressed by Morrisa
Maltz’s diligence and imagination.
(I love what she does with sound, too)
Is it just me or do these slightly conjure Isadora Duncan for anyone else?
Last one on Friday.

Morrisa Maltz – Character 1/3 (Infinite Loop)

character_1_1
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!

Alan Sondheim – Disappearing Body

whirl1
Disappearing Body (2012, 44MB, 1:02min loop)

Time marches on but some things don’t change and one of these is
our unbounded admiration here for the work of Alan Sondheim.
This is a perhaps a lollipop in comparison to some of his work but
it is, as always, rich and beautiful and lodges both in the conscious
mind and in our dreams.

Says Sondheim:

Mark Esper’s Two-Tone Enlightenment work forms the basis
of this short video. The screen presents shadows as positive,
not negative; infrared light forms the projection source
which is read and interpreted by revolving LEDs.

The body disappears. In the video, I imitated the effect
using video echo in an attempt to erase the body almost
entirely. Mark’s piece is brilliant, and the video is a
byproduct; I take advantage of the illumination to create
a somewhat clumsy series of movements.

Thus the mechanical is made virtual, and the virtual made
mechanical; such reversals form the core of theory povera.

Mad King Thomas/Kevin Obsatz – Eat up, Little Pearl – trailer

eat up little pearl - trailer
Eat up, Little Pearl – trailer (2012, 42MB, 3:26min)

Absolutely wonderful promotional/performance video from US performance/dance
outfit Mad King Thomas (whom I know little about but would love to see),
the vid directed, apparently, by Kevin Obsatz who was behind the
video haikus we posted in July.
Video…&..er…troupe…all great, great.

Jeremy Bailey – Transhuman Dance Recital #1

transhuman.jpg
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”

2 from Donna Kuhn

mailmanmoronsuperman
mailman, moron, superman (2008, 76.3MB, 3:27 min)

spinning
Spinning (2008, 47.2 MB, 2:00 min)

Two pieces from Donna Kuhn in 2008.
I wrote then:

We’ve shown a number of pieces by Donna Kuhn here previously.
I wondered to myself a couple of times, I must admit, whether the fact of
having developed such an intensely freighted and personal syntax and vocabulary might
not at some point become a block to further development, whether there was a limit to
the elaboration (and not of course simply the formal elaboration but of how much
in the way of new approaches to her subject matter this process could be made to yield) of this
admittedly extraordinarily beautiful and singular set of moves.
Well no sign of it yet – instead there is this remarkable process of intensification,
of continual, ever finer and more nuanced scrutiny, distillation and development.
It’s like watching an never ending succession of rabbits being pulled out of
hats and it’s quite, quite beautiful and moving.
All of it something of a masterclass, but the use of sound especially colors me
green with envy – wonderful!

Video Haiku: Four Frame Dance Project


Video Haiku – Four Frame Dance Project: Megan Mayer (2008, 22.4MB, 3:38)

Second in a series of four frame dance videos from
Video Haiku in 2008.
Lovely, inspiring, and fun.
Next week, some more recent work by Kevin Obsatz, the person behind this.

Béla Halmos


Béla Halmos – Legyenes (2010, 19MB, 4:10 min)

I just love this and I can’t completely rationalise it. Everything about it –
the fantastic playing of Béla Halmos and companion, the earnest intensity
of the dancers, the crowd’s glorious vocal participation (especially that very
Eastern European tight-throated high pitched rhythmic women’s singing) just makes me
weak at the knees with delight.
It was recorded at the 29th National Dance House festival in Budapest in 2010.

3 from Alan Sondheim

me.jpg
me (2008, 12MB, 1:06 min loop)

slbarrier.jpg
slbarrier (2008, 33.1 MB, 4:32 min.)

elo1.jpg
elo1 (2008, 46.3 MB, 5:26 min.)

Three from 2008. As always, utterly watchable and quite unparallelled.
PS I’m going to post beneath a text piece by Sondheim from around the
time the movies were made, not because it has any direct
relevance to them (though of course it has relevance)
but because it’s great & a further demonstration, if such were required,
of his range of technique and vision…

she can MOVE FRUIT FROM ONE KIND OF TREE TO ANOTHER
she can MAKE OTHERS FALL ASLEEP OR WAKE AT WILL
she can MAKE FIRE BLAZE FROM WEAPONS
she can FLY THROUGH AIR
she can SEE THROUGH WALLS
she can TRANSFORM A CAVE INTO A PALACE AND SEAL THE EXITS
she can REMOVE THE TUSKS AND TRUNK FROM AN ELEPHANT AND RESTORE THEM
she can MAKE A KING SPEECHLESS AND RESTORE HIS SPEECH
she can GENERATE DEMONS AND COMPLETE DEMONS
she can END DROUGHT AND HEAL ILLNESS
she can SUBDUE LIONS AND TIGERS AND BRING THEM TO FAITH
she can REMOVE ARMS AND LEGS FROM SOLDIERS AND RESTORE THEM
she knows ALL LANGUAGES AND ALL DOCTRINES
she can EAT ENDLESSLY AND DRY UP WELL SPRINGS AND RESTORE THEM
she can CUT OFF HER HEAD AND FLY THROUGH THE AIR AND RESTORE IT
she can MOVE A BUFFALO AND HER CALF BACK TO THEIR HOME
she is SAFE FROM ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND BLOWS WITH CUDGEL AND ARROW
she can TURN AROUND ARROWS IN FULL FLIGHT
she can TURN INTO AN OLD WOMAN AND BACK AGAIN
she can SEE THINGS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
she knows ALL FUTURE AND ALL PAST EVENTS
she meditates FOR DAYS ON END WITHOUT SLEEP OR DRINK OR FOOD
she can HOLD SEVEN HUNDRED UMBRELLAS ABOVE HER WITHOUT TOUCHING THEM
she can RAISE THE DEAD AND RESTORE THEM TO DEATH
she can BE IN SEVERAL PLACES AT ONCE
she can TRAVEL INSTANTANEOUSLY FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER
she can MAKE SMALL THINGS ENORMOUS AND ENORMOUS THINGS SMALL
she can MAKE DEVOTIONAL IMAGES CRUMBLE AND RESTORE THEM
she can CARRY A TEMPLE ON HER BACK
she can CLIMB ENDLESS STAIRS AND OTHERS CANNOT FOLLOW HER
she fits THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE INTO A TINY CORNER OF A CAVE OR HOUSE
she disappears AND APPEARS AT WILL
she conquers DEATH
she eats CORPSES URINE EXCREMENT SEMEN MENSTRUAL BLOOD
her slightest MOVEMENT TRANSFORMS WORLDS
her dance CREATES AND ANNIHILATES WORLD
she loosens BOUND ANIMALS AND RELEASES THEM
she can WALK ON WATER AND WALK THROUGH FLAMES
she can CAUSE THE EARTH TO QUAKE AND FLOWERS TO FALL LIKE RAIN
she can DISCOVER HIDDEN TREASURES
she can WALK THROUGH WALLS AND CLIFFS
she can SEAL CAVES AND CREATE GREAT HALLS WITHIN THEM
she can MAKE HERSELF INVISIBLE AND MAKE HERSELF VISIBLE AGAIN
she can CREATE OVERWHELMING TEMPESTS
she can SUBDUE SNAKES AND OTHER WILD ANIMALS
she can SING PERFECT SONGS OF HER OWN DEVISING
she can ALLEVIATE THE SUFFERINGS OF THE ELDERLY
she can ALLEVIATE THE SUFFERINGS OF THE POOR
she can SCORCH CLOTHES AND RESTORE THEM
she can READ MINDS CLOSE BY AND AT A DISTANCE
she can EAT ANY SORT OF IMPURITIES
she can LAUGH AN EIGHT FOLD LAUGHTER
she can DRAW STELES AND JEWELS FROM THE GROUND
she can ERECT VAST PALACES AT AN INSTANT
she extracts POISON FROM WATER AND WALKS THROUGH BLAZING FLAMES
she can CHOOSE THE DATE AND TIME OF HER DEATH
she can MAKE DRUMS AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS TO SOUND BY THEMSELVES
her steps MEASURE GREAT OR TINY DISTANCES AT HER WILL
her gaze CAN SHATTER AND RESTORE ANYTHING
she can TRANSFORM HERSELF INTO A SKELETON AND A RAINBOW BODY
her gaze CAN OPEN CAVES IN SOLID ROCK AND SEAL THEM AGAIN
she remembers HER PAST AND FUTURE BIRTHS
she can TARRY WITH CONSORTS WITH OR WITHOUT ELABORATION
she can SELF ILLUMINATE
she can WALK AIMLESSLY DAY AND NIGHT
she can SPREAD THE SCENT OF PERFUMES IN EVERY DIRECTION
she can SIT LIE OR WALK IN MID AIR
she can WEAR APRONS OF BONES
she is FLEET FOOTED
she changes THE COLOR OF HER BODY AT WILL

Put Your Hands Up For Detroit – Fedde Le Grand

put_your_hands_up
Put Your Hands Up For Detroit (2007, 13.6 MB, 2:25 min.)

Sexy remix action from 2007 , from Director S.MacKay-Smith using footage
from Till West & DJ Delicious, TV Rock, Dirty South and Claude Von Stroke.
By Fedde Le Grand.

Ben Pranger – my life is not a happening


my life is not a happening

my life is not a happening (2007, 17.3MB, 1:31 min)

I really like this genre of physical theatre/dance/happening/what-you-will
put through the video mangler (apparently jitter does its stuff here)
& the splendidly named Ben Pranger & his accomplices
carry it off rather nicely.
I gather this piece arose out of some workshops in 2007.
I love the excitement of that sort of voyage of discovery; there’s a kind
of frontier feel to it which is really captured here.
It’s also a philosopher’s stone job – out of apparently prosaic fragments
comes forth a small kind of magic.

Alan Sondheim – What Remains

what remains
what remains (2007, 19.7MB, 1:26 min.)

We need no excuse here to feature more of Alan Sondheim’s singular & remarkable oeuvre.
This one caused a bit of a debate on Netbehaviour in 2007 -some baulked, fearing it to be images
of rending, tearing of the body. Alan says not at all, it’s tantric/ecstatic.
The singer is Alan’s wife Azure Carter.
When he originally posted it, it came with this poem (a sonnet?):

what remains

because of the faces and powers among our second lives
and third and others in-between the others; because of
swollen faces thinned back to pages bones and shadowed flesh
that nothing stays what was simple and illusion

and then poetics rounds and fills the world
among lost pages and inscriptions freed
from every symbol and symbols freed and world;
the less are said the farther truth transcends

because of truths and songs and lights and place
where bodies turn; because of bodies churned and stretched
among beams of those lights and those songs; those truths
nothing stays back nothing; valleys fill with jostled things

and things churn symbols; the world
fills silence; skies get dark kiss; welkin

Afrobeats Week – #5 // EL – Obuu Mo (Azonto Version)

EL - Obuu Mo (Azonto Version)
EL – Obuu Mo (Azonto Version) (2011, 89 MB, 4:23 min)

“Look boy, I’m changing my trajectory of isotopes to my temporal place of domicile,
to cause a thermostatical refreshment, to my gorgeous masculine homosapien.
I don’t want any discombobulation by the time I come back. Is that clear?”

Afrobeats Week – #4 // D’Banj Oliver Twist Dance Competition #2

My Backyard Crew - Oliver Twist
My Backyard Crew – Oliver Twist (2011, 18 MB, 3:57 min)

Afrobeats Week – #3 // EL – One Ghana for your Pocket

EL - One Ghana for your Pocket
EL – One Ghana for your Pocket (2011, 45 MB, 3:20 min)

Afrobeats Week – #2 // D’Banj Oliver Twist Dance Competition

 D' Banj Oliver Twist Dance Video Competition
D’ Banj Oliver Twist Dance Video Competition (2011, 33 MB, 1:57 min)

Afrobeats Week – #1 // 2Shy – Azonto Girl

azonto girl promo 2shy
2 Shy: Azonto Girl(2011, 82 MB, 3:39 min)

Q: Why?
A: Because we can

Sondheim, Foofwa – <em>Blanking</em>

blanking
Blanking (2011, 30MB, 1:07 min)

for Carol Novack

‘I was working on this, shot with Foofwa d’Imobilite at Eyebeam,
when I heard the news that Carol Novack had died. for many of us,
this was unexpected and awful, as if the year couldn’t end
without just one more tragedy.

Foofwa and I had talked about our
work together, earlier, about issues of pain, wounding, death;
I think this piece, made at the time, is all I could do, I speak
through image and sound, these words already lost, resting in
peace
thank you Foofwa and Jamie and Jackson at Eyebeam’

Alan Sondheim

Sondheim – Prisoners

Prisoners
prisoners (2008, 25.4MB, 2:36 min)

Nearest thing to a Picasso we yet have, in my view.
Whatever history decides, there’s no denying one point
of Sondheim/Picasso commonality – an almost compulsive
productivity.
I’d push it further -they both constantly transform lead into
gold. Picasso & his seat & handlebars, Sondheim, for example,
these bits of video.
The music, a kind of hallucinogenic, shredded-up
slow funk/blues, is also particularly noteworthy.
Here, for good measure, is Alan’s accompanying rubric:

prisoners of motion capture, prisoners of west virginia

prisoners of caloric, froid, prisoners of gravitation
prisoners of art, mayhem, vandal, prisoners of desecration

o to be a prisoner of life again (above the clouds
o to be a prisoner of love again (within the waters
o to be a prisoner of truth again (beyond the earths
o to be a prisoner of dance again (before the fires

prisoners of fires, froid, prisoners of aerostat and transport
transport of prisoners, clouds, waters, earths, fluids

yes, prisoners of fluids, prisoners of fluids and places
prisoners of west virginia, of fluids, places, life, love,
truth and dance again

Philippe Decouflé – Le P’tit Bal

le p'tit bal
Le P’tit Bal (1994, 14MB, 3:48 min)

Total joy.

Video: Philippe Decouflé
Song: Le P’tit Bal Perdu byAndré Bourvil

Sondheim – Unmissable , Unmatchable

native_dancer
Native Dancer (2011, 92MB, 2:08 min)

Genbush
Genbush (2006, 17MB, 6:03 min)

Two pieces from Alan Sondheim -one we originally posted in 2006
and one very recent. The new piece –Native Dancer
is a particularly affecting example of recent motion capture/avatar work.
It properly forms part of a triptych but I think it is the outstanding of the
three and I’m going to exercise curatorial perogative & post it singly.
It enchants me -I don’t know exactly why, I think the reasons could be
quite banal -there’s something of the children’s TV sci-fi epic about it perhaps…
Don’t know, just love it.
And here’s what we originally said about the other piece, which I see no reason to change:

Humor is perhaps not a quality that springs immediately
to mind when discussing the work of Alan Sondheim.
Wrong! His work is saturated in it, often a species of
graveyard or gallows wit.
Here, though, he just lets loose, plays.
But the man is incapable of doing anything that doesn’t
resonate with layer upon layer of meaning too!

Cutting Edge Cinema

Lunch
A Tough Dance (1902, 7.1MB, 47 sec.)

Lunch
Bicycle Trick Riding (1899, 5.5MB, 37 sec.)

Lunch
Three Acrobats (1899, 5.4MB, 36 sec.)

Three exhilarating chunks of early movie making from the
Library of Congress online collection of variety stage motion pictures.
I particularly love the deeply strange A ‘Tough’ Dance.
There’s also a great early animation collection on the LOC site.

Carlos Gavito & Maria Plazaola

Carlos Gavito & Maria Plazaola
Gavito & Plazaola (n/k, 13.5MB, 3:44 min.)

‘The secret of tango is in this moment of improvisation that
happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing
possible: to dance silence. This is essential to learn in tangodance,
the real dance, that of the silence, of following the melody.’
– Carlos Gavito

Watch the late Carlos Gavito & his partner Maria Plazaola
play havoc with the space time continuum in this extraordinary
piece in which time slows down, speeds up & actually comes to a
halt at least once.
Mesmerizing.

[ Found on this very strange tango site with lots more videos]

Trisha Brown Interviewed

suess-map 2b
Interview with Trisha Brown (2007, 11 MB, 3:06)

Anyone in or near London should absolutely get to see the
“Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown & Gordon Matta-Clark –
Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s”
show,
currently at the Barbican. It’s fantastic!
I was particularly lucky to be there when a performance of the
Trisha Brown ‘walking on walls’ piece happened (worth
ringing in advance to see what performances are on and when)
I knew it would be interesting but, somewhat to my surprise,
I was immediately & intensely emotionally engaged by it too, finding
it lump-in-the-throat-&-tear-in-the-eye moving…
Although we’re concentrating here on Trisha Brown with an interview
conducted in 2007 at the Documenta 12 event (and after you’ve
watched that, the Guardian has a nice audio slideshow about the
walking on walls piece), all three artists shine in this show.
It’s all great but particularly interesting are the rooms of drawings
related to their various performance practices.

KMA – ‘Flock’ in Liverpool

device activated
‘Flock’ in Liverpool (2008, 152MB, 2:44 min)

How many times do you read artists’ descriptions of their own work
and think ‘naaaaa…’ totally failing to recognise their stated ambitions
in what appears to you to be, at best, somewhat pedestrian and at
worst, a total disconnect from what they write.
This is the complete opposite of that, utterly living up to the makers’
stated intentions, and an absolute spine tingler to watch even through
the distance of video documentation.
Check out the KMA site for a complete description of the piece,
an ‘interactive light installation’ based around Swan Lake,
but not until you’ve watched this beautiful bit of documentary.
Particularly touching is the genuine joy in participation it evokes.

Very hard to pull off and very moving to see.