Category Archives: narrative

‘running to catch a train’ – a performance by Paula Musgrove

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running to catch a train (2016, 103MB, 9:07 min)

I’m gently waking DVblog up to post this extraordinary piece of work from Paula Musgrove, with videography from Yasmin Cox (both year two Art & Design students at WSD where – transparency! – I currently teach.)
The performance took place at the private view of the end of year show and the video was then inserted as is,replacing the original performance soundtrack and joining the various physical outputs of the performance to form the substantive exhibition piece ( As you can see in the poster image.)
I think it is marvellous, subtle and profoundly moving work and I hope we will all hear a good deal more from Paula over the coming years.

Alan Sondheim – Last Wine

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Last Wine (2013, 96MB, 2:50 min)

Anyone who has followed DVblog for any time at all will know how much we
admire & value the work of Alan Sondheim.
He commands a huge range of technique and tone in both his writing and moving
image work. At one point of his compass there is the fiercely cerebral; at
another a rich humour & at yet another a sense of fellow feeling with, a
striving to understand some of our most puzzling and yet everyday feelings
and states of mind.
Things we’ve all encountered in relationships with family, friends and strangers.
This is a particularly moving piece, the more so because of its uncertainty of tone
– its enactment of the sad awkwardnesses of human interaction.

Morrisa Maltz & Lauren Lillie – The Caretaker

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The Caretaker (2013, 397MB, 7:24 min)

We’ve been following Morrisa Maltz‘s work since just about the beginning and we’re delighted to show here her first longer, narrative (well, if you count fever dream as narrative), piece.
Quite a lot of firepower (lots of collaborators) deployed here, happily to excellent effect ( In fact the piece actually directed by Lauren Lillie although the look of it is pure & vintage MM). It all retains in buckets the goose-bump factor of earlier work but embeds it into a very satisfyingly rounded whole.
This is great work; it deserves to be seen widely.

Locusts

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Emergence – Locusts (2008, 233.8MB, 11:19)

From celebrated MC Invincible, a docu-music-video
about the history of gentrification and capitalism’s
destruction of communities in Detroit.
Video features several local activists, including
Grace Lee Boggs and (full disclosure) my good friend
Ron Scott.
This intense collaboration gives me chills every
time I watch it.
I’ll let the rest speak for itself.

David Olmos//José M. Sánchez-Verdú – Paisajes del placer y de la culpa

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Paisajes del placer y de la culpa #1
Paisajes del placer y de la culpa #1 (2008, 119MB, 7:49 min)

Paisajes del placer y de la culpa #1
Paisajes del placer y de la culpa #2 (2008, 74MB, 4:52 min)

José M. Sánchez-Verdú is a Spanish composer who creates richly textured and
sensuous music in an uncompromisingly contemporary idiom.
His richness is no frippery but properly fought for and won.
Here is a short movie, in two parts, made by David Olmos, about whom I can find
no information whatsoever, which blends a fictional narrative with footage of
an orchestral performance of one of Sánchez-Verdú’s works
Paisajes del placer y de la culpa – Landscapes
of Pleasure and Guilt.
The film is undoubtedly skillfully made but I remain slightly agnostic
about its premise or even necessity; however no such doubts about some
of the most extraordinary music of recent years.
I grabbed the film from YouTube and as you can see the image quality isn’t great
although in some ways the graininess appeals and seems apposite to the subject.

Bonnie Prince Billy Again

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Agnes (2004, 7.3MB, 3:12 min)


Horses (2004, 16.7MB, 4:37 min)

Agnes video by David Shrigley
& Horses by Braden King,
both of them classy bits of work.
There’s a PhD to be had for someone along the lines of
‘The Curatorial Role of the Recording Artist’.
BPB/Will Oldham’s CD cover art never disappoints –
the acme of hip good taste ( though not in a bland way, I think)
– & the same is true of his videos.
I particularly love the projection-within-the vid trope of Horses.
Also -what songs!

Will Goss – from Magenta’s Caress

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beanstalk
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.

5 Lumières

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Me and Pop
Me and Pop (2004, 3.88MB, 1:00min)

Maker’s site


Sleeping
Sleeping (2007, 2.34MB, 57 secs)

Maker’s site

gallo
Gallo (2007, 5.17MB, 55 secs)

Maker’s site

slugs
Dance of Death (2007, 5.53MB, 1:00 min)

Maker’s site

A Week
A Week’s Worth (2007, 4.93MB, 1:00 min)

Maker’s site

The rules for Lumière videos are as follows:

* 60 seconds max.
* Fixed camera
* No audio
* No zoom
* No edit
* No effects

In the spirit of the Lumière brothers and comparable in some ways to Dogme 95,
the Lumière video project emerged from a documentary perspective,
as Auguste and Louis Lumière blazed the trail in this genre.
In the tradition of the the cinematographe, the first movie camera,
which was arguably used and possibly built by the brothers, all
21st C Lumiere videos should be made only using features available in
camera (ie, no external editing, including bumpers and titles, should
be included).
Lumière videos hope to expand upon the ways that online video allows for
the advancement of personal narratives by capturing the everyday, and sometimes
unexpected, within a specific framework of constraints, less conflicted by sometimes
unnecessary editing.

See all Lumière videos.