Utterly ravishing Lumière from the never predictable,
always interesting, Rupert Howe.
On that summery note, we’re going to take a rest in the sunshine.
We love doing DVblog, but the daily deadline definitely takes
its toll after a bit.
We’ll be getting ready to hit the ground running again around 16th Sept.
& we’ll still keeping our eyes peeled for the new, for the weird &
(best of all!) for the wonderful.
Have a great summer!
Brittany, Doron, Michael.
Krista Birnbaum – Agatha and Bernice (2006, 35.2MB, 4:12)
The Loneliness of the Species is a three-video series
by Krista Birnbaum, featuring little white mice friends
and their respective teacups. The first features a mouse
named Constance, who roams his china playground alone.
The second (seen here) and third videos show the coming
together of Agatha and Bernice. A pleasure for animal
lovers, a simple, elegant piece about companionship and solitude.
Art Model [AHP] (2008, 4MB, 56 secs, silent)
Burger King [BS] (2008, 22.4MB, 1:02 min, silent)
Meeting from Above [BS] (2008, 28.7MB, 59 secs, silent)
Pole [AHP] (2008, 4.39MB, 55 secs, silent)
Sour Candy [AHP] (2008, 3.58MB, 46 secs, silent)
Five Lumières, two by DVblog’s own Brittany Shoot and three by
Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen with Brittany in the starring role.
They’re all great, but in particular I love the Meeting from Above piece
which is extraordinarily rich in color & incident in the kind of micro
observational way that the Lumières encapsulate.
In fact if Brakhage hadn’t got to it first, in a somewhat
grimmer context, The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes would make a
tremendous motto for the Lumière project…
Roundhay Remix (2006, 15.6MB, 1.57 min.)
A beautiful remix of the Roundhay Garden Scene,
from 1888, one of the first films ever made.
From Pouringdown.
By Mica.
Sergei Sviatchenko – Street & White (2006, 4.7MB, 2:42)
Sergei Sviatchenko – 20 hours tv (2004, 1.6MB, 1:46)
Simple, beautiful pieces from Sergei Sviatchenko,
the first with a great soundtrack by the band Kashmir
and the second totally silent.
Neither is wildly entertaining, but I found both to be
so calming in their simplicity.
Originally from the Ukraine, Sviatchenko now lives
in Denmark.
Toby Segaran – WalMart Growth (2008, 6.6MB, 0:46)
Toby Segaran isn’t a media artist – he’s actually
a software developer and writer. But, he made
this excellent video clip of American WalMart growth
from 1962 to the present on his off time at work,
and the way I see it, the best work sometimes
happens when you, well, aren’t working. Similar
to these videos made with the processing language.
Forgot (2008, 98.3MB, 12:06 min, silent theatrical act)
This is simply wonderful.
Doron’s work is strange – it doesn’t lend itself to blow by blow verbal description:
er..‘Some actors perform in a silent movie based on Waiting for Godot‘
Then you actually look at it (or if you haven’t you should, you really should).
The grammar of his editing is completely unique & mysterious (a feature of all his longer pieces).
‘Why did he do that?’ – ‘Dunno – but it made my spine tingle’
Work like this often slips under the radar because it has no easy marketing line,
it can’t be glibly summed up, reduced to an easily digestible one-liner.
Work like this is food you have to chew a little…but what flavour & what nourishment!
Also, the acting ( and the director/actor collaboration) is outstanding.
Smart, funny, puzzling, touching by turns…and generous also…
With Theodore Bouloukos, Joanne Douglas, Brian Gibson and Stephanie Noritz
The Sheep Market (2008, 5.4MB, 32 secs)
Aaron Koblin, whose work we’ve featured here before does
rather wonderful things using the Processing language.
Well..of course that’s true..but if he wasn’t endowed with wit & smarts
& a sense of beauty then the tools he used would interest us not at all.
Here’s what he says about this piece (or rather the project for
which this vid is a short installation view):
TheSheepMarket.com is a collection of the first 10,000 sheep
made by workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
Workers were paid 0.02 ($USD) to “draw a sheep facing to the left.”
Animations of each sheep’s creation may be viewed at
TheSheepMarket.com.
Lawnmowing (2008, 3.9MB, 35 secs)
Mowing in February
Our Special Mowing in February Lawnmowers
are not the of the ordinary electric rotor,
gas-powered self-propelling,
or even hand pushed whirligig
human powered variety.
Our Mowing in February models
come with specially-equipped
permanently mounted plows
suitable for use by the most dedicated
lawnmowing enthusiasts
from September through May
in those clim’es so specially endowed
to understand the meaning
of a ‘Three Season Plow’
Martha Deed
Scraping (2008, 1.9MB, 58 secs)
Millie Niss & Martha Deed’s Sporkworld project is sui generis – entirely unbeholden to
fashion or cool & standing in a long & broad American tradition of such stubborn
(& sometimes even eccentric) beauty.
Their latest wheeze & a vastly effective one it is too, is the Sporkworld Microblog
which integrates many formerly slightly disparate areas of their activity – poetry, still
& moving imagery, filthy humour, a sense of life’s transience & tragedy & utter strangeness,
into one coherent, constantly unrolling whole.
Formally too, they are smarter than smart, as anyone with eyes will surely see –
they’ve taken the splendid Lumière form & integrated it beautifully.
It fits them like a glove.
Lawnmower in particular seems to have been crafted by a 21st century
suburban Breughel.
Armenia: Mandelstam (2007, 16.3MB, 3:24 min)
Track 4 (2007, 10.3MB, 1:46 min)
A couple of rather evocative & lyrical pieces from Paul Kelly
about whom I know very little.
On his site he’s says he’s reluctant to join the
online fray, publicising his work.
Know how he feels, but I’m glad he got in touch with us
& we’re pleased to show his stuff here- it deserves an audience.
