Betty Martins – When the Souls Arrive

Posted on December 22, 2011 by michael

I recently attended a fairly high profile art video festival,
which shall be nameless, and I came away feeling depressed.
There was some good work (indeed, some magnificent, not much, but some) but
on the whole it was just a dispiriting display of meretricious effects, sloppy thinking
and a striving for the quick impression; all pretty souless & forgettable stuff.
(Oh, and plus a lot of cliched tosh about the – yawn – “post-human”. Wasn’t post human,
most of it, so much as post-being-any-good)
Then, on the other hand, you come across something like this:
no in-your-faceness, modest, austere and subtle, makes you do a little bit of work,
but so, so worth spending time with.
is the Brazilian video maker who made this small and perfect gem
– an account of the celebration of the Day of the Dead by expat Mexicans
living in London.
You can see the whole thing here (and I urge you to do so).
Betty Martins cheered me up considerably and I look forward to much more
work of this quality from her.

Cohen, Tarantino, Goffman

Posted on December 21, 2011 by michael

Dance Me To The End Of Love (clip, 1994, 0.5MB, 31 sec.)

Dance Me To The End Of Love (1995, 34.1MB, 6:07 min.)

Leonard Cohen’s work has always walked a fine line
between kitsch & poetry.
Don’t get me wrong – the kitsch is like a dash of chilli,
gives the whole thing added piquancy & depth.
Check out these two videos for ‘Dance Me To The End Of Love’.
The first, the short clip, is the official video.
Now look at the second.
OK- first things first -just who is that playing the bridegroom?
Then, consider if this whole unofficial one ( by Aaron Goffman)
prolix & kitschy in some respects as it undoubtedly is,
doesn’t somehow do more justice to Cohen’s world !’

Jennifer Steinkamp – Mike Kelley

Posted on December 20, 2011 by doron

Mike Kelley (2007, 7.3 MB, 15 sec.)

‘Mike Kelley’ are high definition video projections of individual trees
with branches moving in a twirling pattern. Projected to fill the height
of the gallery’s walls, the images interact with the architecture of the gallery,
creating tension between the imaginary landscape and the physical space.

by Jennifer Steinkamp.

Sondheim – Prisoners

Posted on December 19, 2011 by michael

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

Toby Tatum on ‘The Golden Age’

Posted on December 16, 2011 by michael

Toby Tatum on ‘The Golden Age’ (2011, 78MB, 4:38 min)

Toby Tatum, talking about his film The Golden Age, which we posted here
a couple of weeks back.
I’m always hungry for artists talking about process. Learn! Steal!

Yu-Chen Wang – Struggle for Existence

Posted on December 15, 2011 by doron

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.

Ruth Catlow – overland

Posted on December 12, 2011 by michael

overland (2010, 131MB, 2:58 min)

And sadly, the last in our little season of movies by Ruth Catlow. This is another
train movie, no conceptual underpinnings to speak of this time, just a beautiful,
bleached out pastels, lo-fi ( mobile?) account of the Serbian section of a journey by train to Istanbul
last year when she was refusing ‘to fly for art’, something more people should do more often if
the results here are anything to go by.
More from Ruth, of course, as she produces it…

Scritti Politti – pop sublimity

Posted on December 9, 2011 by michael

The Word Girl (1985, 7.62MB, 3:14 min)

Oh Patti (1988, 20.3MB, 4:14 min)

Two of the most perfect pop songs ever made, the first from
1985’s Cupid & Psyche & the second from 1988’s Provision
(& which features a trumpet solo from Miles Davis of staggering
economy & otherworldly beauty).
Pet Sounds excepted, pop music just doesn’t come better.
The vids aren’t just an adjunct – of course they have historical
interest (that weird decade!), but there’s something fragile
& haunting & mysterious there which survives the occasional impossible
to overlook moment of naffness.
Wonderful.

Annie Pui Ling Lok

Posted on December 6, 2011 by michael

EP (2008, 45MB, 2:29 min)

Anyone who has been lucky enough to see dancer & artist Annie Pui Ling Lok
do the former will know what a fruitful combination of fierce, almost austere,
intellect & yet sensitivity to the particular, the fragile & the human, to expect.
There’s such a sure hand at work here – the confidence in collaging
disparate material brings Marker to mind & although we’ve tagged it
‘experimental’, in one sense the piece is anything but -it’s so not
a technical exercise, but a rounded, resonant work of art.