Black or White, the Gravy Version

black or white
Black or White, the Gravy Version (2010, 58 MB, 2:38 min.)

An outing, or perhaps more a forced march, for Michael Jackson’s
Black or White refracted through the prism of English
whimsy that is Edward Picot (well, on occasion; fans will know
his range is much, much broader) with co-conspirator Hoola Hoop Kid.
Never understood the Jackson appeal myself but this I like a great deal.
Wish, though, they’d called it ‘Black or White, the Gravy Mix‘.

The Little Artists – Lick Yourselves

lick yourself
Lick Yourselves (2005, 64MB, 6:27 min, silent)

The Little Artists are a UK collaborative duo, most famous/notorious
for their re-renderings of iconic artworks in the childrens’ construction toy
LEGO.
This brief description doesn’t do them justice – their work is rich & complex
& they make hay, playfully but profoundly too, with all sorts of contemporary
obsessions – remix &appropriation, branding, celebrity & not least the idea of
artistry/creativity itself.

This video stems from their 2005 show based on the work of Mark Quinn, the casting-
his-head-out-of-his-own-frozen-blood guy, and the show featured them dressing
up as ice cream salespeople and flogging fruit flavour ice lolly replicas of
the Quinn piece.
The vid is a minimal, leisurely and ever so slightly disturbing account of
one of these slowly melting.

I must declare an interest – I wrote an essay for their new book, which, if
your appetite is whetted, you can get here.

Patrick Lichty Season – #3

The New Miranda
The New Miranda (2003, 38MB, 2:17 min)

blooper - voodoo chicks
Blooper – Voodoo Chicks (200?, 1MB, 16 secs)

 the engines of truth
The Engines of Truth (2000?, 20MB, 5:08 min)

Our Patrick Lichty season resumes after quite the longest break ever,
partly because I misplaced the files he so generously gave us
in 2007.
Looking through these again it comes home very forcefully what
a significant role Lichty played in the development of a new language of art video,
one contemporaneous with the birth pangs and development of net art & later to
feed centrally into online art practice.
The pieces still impress as hugely imaginative and sometimes challenging
and apart from their physical size and compression don’t appear time worn
at all. In fact, in many ways they seem amazingly prescient, perhaps
even ahead of their time.

More soon.

Some Frank Talking from Edward Picot

franktalking1
Frank Talking #1 (2010, 157 MB, 9:59 min.)

franktalking2
Frank Talking #2 (2010, 247 MB, 9:51 min.)

Two more episodes in Edward Picot’s satirical but affectionate
insider view of the British NHS.

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