I’m Dreaming of a White President (2012, 15MB, 3:16 min)
Great bit of film-making to match a genius song.
But…but…
Of course you want Obama to win just
to wrongfoot the racists et. al. but you
can’t help wishing he’d actually done something
to merit the mad hostility of the rich, the bigots
and the terminally gullible.
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.
Puddle Extension (2007, 5MB, 6:42 min.)
Masonite, masking tape, and plastic sheeting device
designed to extend a rain puddle’s reach by 16 inches.
By Richard Haley.
In the realm of ‘A Series of Practical Performances In The Wilderness’
by Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir. (1) (2)
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!
Imitations of Life (excerpt) (2003, 35MB, 4 min.)
Imitations of Life is a ten-part video that strains childhood through a history
of reproduction, culling pictures from the Lumières to
the present day in order to find the future in our past.
by experimental filmmaker Mike Hoolboom.
Adam Mufti – Garden Cities of the Future (2008, 53MB, 7:19)
Remarkable, hypnotic work from the incredibly talented Adam Mufti.
Part meditation on modern life, part perhaps futuristic foreboding,
this piece sort of leaves me speechless, though I fear a lack of
editorializing might portray lukewarm feelings.
It’s really just that I’d rather a viewer experience this on his/her own.
I thought I’d watched a 3 minute piece – only when posting this did
I discover the actual runtime is more than double what it seems.
In this case, that’s exceptional.
The video also features the voice of London actress Juliet Rylance.
The whole thing, the composition, the editing, all of it: truly stunning,
took my breath away. Find a quiet spot and enjoy.
Sunday Afternoon Narcissism (2012, 190MB, 2:46 min)
Hypnotic and disorientating chunk of enchantment from London artist
Lucy Mills.
Only one cavil and that’s the title – the self-deprecation involved might
serve to camouflage the actual richness of this piece, at least from the
casual viewer*.
Let’s be optimistic and assume careful viewing, which work of
this quality certainly merits.
* Although, on reflection, the ‘Sunday Afternoon’ also suggests a certain
dreamy languor quite in keeping with just how gently ravishing it all is.
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.
The One That Got Away (2005, 19MB, 9:02 min.)
In the Fall of 2004,Marisa Olson gained worldwide attention
while training to audition for American Idol
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.
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”
Emily Richardson -‘Over the Horizon’ (extract) (2012, 75MB, 1:10min)
We’ll start this season with an suggestion for something you
can physically attend and absolutely should, too, if you’re
anywhere near London this Thursday evening (Sept 27th).
As part of the London Underground Film Sessions
The Horse Hospital are premiering Volume 6 of Kerry Baldry‘s
exemplary ‘One Minutes’ compilations of …er… one-minute-in-length
artist moving image work.
Transparency dictates I reveal I have a piece in it, but any claims
for mine aside, I can confidently predict a wonderfully varied, well
curated, roller coaster of work.
This piece is an extract from a longer work by Emily Richardson
(and, of course, splendid though it is, showing a single piece
immediately traduces one of the principal attractions of the project
which is the heady variety and contrast of it all. Here and here
is some stuff from previous volumes)
Hope to see you there!
History of the Demonstrations (2012, 211MB, 15:53 min)
A Statement by Luaty Beirão (2012, 34MB, 7:05 min)
Three connected movies, which connect in a very direct way with the world about us.
For the last couple of years, simultaneously with the ‘Arab spring’ there have been
a number of similar movements around the world where ordinary folk have stood up for
the right to free speech and the right to a decent life, mostly both.
This happened on a small scale in the Southern African country of Angola where the inheritors
of the magnificent struggle against imperialism in the 70s seem to have forgotten their roots,
perhaps lulled by power and the good life it can bring to a few. A small but dogged and effective
campaign for democracy and against corruption, poverty and police state begaviour sprang up amongst
young people there.
The first video is a documentary relating the beginning, growth of this movement and subsequent
attempted government repression.
( You can find some more info , from Human Rights Watch, here)
Our second video is a track by the Angolan rapper Luaty Beirão, better known as Ikonoklasta
which is a tremendously entertaining bit of agit-prop against the regime.
It clearly struck home because the Angolan security forces have attempted to frame Beirão by
secreting a substantial amount of cocaine in a bicycle wheel in his possession on a flight
from Angola to Portugal.
The third video is Luaty Beirão’s statement upon and account of these events.
Watch the videos and draw you own conclusions – I do not for a moment believe Beirão is guilty
of anything except bravery and standing up to oppression.
We’ll leave you with these videos for the summer a reminder there’s art and there’s life and there’s
not a lot of space between.
We’re going to take a break until mid September-ish when we’ll be back with mostly
art videos but anything else that amuses, inspires or outrages us.
If you have stuff you think we’d like, send us links – we look at everything we’re sent.
It remains only to wish you all a nice and relaxing summer if you can manage it.
The Visitors (2012, 42MB, 3:51min)
Exquisite work from Simon Mclennan, whom we’ve celebrated here before
and will again.
Rehabilitates that near-cliché “poetic” as applied to moving image…
mailman, moron, superman (2008, 76.3MB, 3:27 min)
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!
MyStyle (2008, 73MB, 3:40 min.)
Michael C. Place promotes “MyStyle” for Pritt in France in 2008.
Michael is founder of BUILD.
iKast 2012 (2012, 70MB, 3:23min)
iKast voodoodoodles (2012, 89MB, 2:35min)
voodoo 1 (2012, 362MB, 9:58min)
Here’s some more gripping work from Michael Barnes-Wynters a.k.a Barney Doodlebug
who previously opened my eyes to a thriving live arts scene in Manchester, UK.
Featured here are two videos of a new piece by Michael which figured in i-Kast,
“a live intervention transmission for www.artplayer.tv with artists roney fraser-munroe,
naomi kashiwagi and michael barnes-wynters” in May of this year.
The first video is an excellent short documentary overview of the event
with interviews with key figures.
Michael is going to be running an event for 15-25 year olds as part of the season
in the new Tate Modern space “The Tanks” on Thursday 23 August.
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.
Netbehaviour Mailing List Fractal [Excerpt] (2012, 5MB, 59 secs)
From Claude Heiland-Allen:
Seven years of archives for this mailing list filtered down
to the most often occurring 1000 words of 4 letters or more,
in an infinite fractal zoom – each word is made up of the
words that most likely follow it.
We love the Netbehaviour list & this, splendid & bonkers both, does just
what it says on the tin with that excellent institution – we’ve posted
the minute long version here but if that whets your appetite for more
there’s an hour long version at archive.org.
Gun has no Trigger (2012, 31MB, 3:26 min)
I need to get out more, or at least talk to more people because the
Dirty Projectors completely passed me by until a couple of weeks ago
when I happened upon this video for a track from their new (and, I
have to say, quite, quite, wonderful and – and I use the word advisedly
because it is so overused in a popular music context – strikingly original)
album.
I’ve no idea know who directed the vid but it’s smart and spare and beautiful
and fits the music like a glove (but a glove that brings more than simply being
a glove to the table – maybe it has striking patterns, or raised areas or a
couple of extra fingers, or it glows in the dark or something.)
Driving (2006, 6MB, 4:39 min.)
Loop (2006, 11.8MB, 7:49 min.)
Two 2006 movies from Christian Marc Schmidt’s adaptive landscapes
sequence of work.
Check out the link above for Schmidt’s background notes on the pieces.
I’ll just observe that they are not alone in recent work featured here
in belonging to a category of work that could be called gorgeous formalism.
Still Life (2006, 16.9MB, 3:36 min)
Spout (2006, 8.26MB, 2:14 min)
Two short movies from Canadian artist Adamo Macri in 2007.
Grass Barbed (2008, 13.8MB, 41 secs, silent)
Grass In Wind (2008, 20.4, 48 secs, silent)
Utter loveliness from Irish artist Kevin Flanagan in 2008.
Utter loveliness never something to be disdained in my view, but here it’s also allied to a
steadfastness of purpose & well, just simple old fashioned
courage of conviction.
DRIFT SLICYCLE POPPED! (2007, 11MB, 1:59)
LOQUACIOUS EYESICLE WILD-BITES (2007, 14.9MB, 2:34)
PSST gets designers, animators, and directors together for
collaborative film projects every year. Their main concern
is process, which they explain comes from a fusion of the
Dadaist game Exquisite Corpse and the sometimes childhood
game, Telephone.
Whatever their theory, their annual collections are stellar.
Margarida Paiva – Untitled Stories (2007, 15.6MB, 2:49)
Excerpt from Margarida Paiva’s 11 minute Untitled Stories,
a video from 2007 about everyday stories, told through a broken
female monologue about memories.
Expertly layered and totally gorgeous.
Cell Portraits (2005-7, 28.7MB, 4:18 min)
Beautifully assured piece of documentary film making from Richard Jochum in 2007,
a portrait of the scientist Jan Schmoranzer preparing microscopic images
of cells (& and eating lunch, drinking coffee &c.)
I particularly like the lighness of touch shown here, the gentle wit.
Jochum’s openness to the humanity, the quirkiness and individuality of the
participants ( the..um..dance), raises the level of the piece from
an interesting educational short to something much richer.
To be slightly controversial, it’s dully predictable someone left
a comment on Jochum’s site along the lines of ‘I’d like to get some of those
images for my wall’ The final slide images, laden with scientific interest as I’m
sure they are, are in my view the bit of the piece with the least artistic
interest (or at least such interest as they have derives from their place
in the process and the film’s account of it rather than their pretty-pattern-ness).
Tim and Puma Mimi: High Five Low Five (2012, 283MB, 4:22 min)
Slightly self-consciously kooky but, it must be said, splendidly
entertaining bit of both music and moving image, from -ahem –
Tim and Puma Mimi.
Curiously we were lobbied for this by a publicist type fellow.
We’re quite flattered here at DVblog that we’re thought of as having
any clout.
I should say we turned down the first couple of things he suggested
and he obviously then did his homework because this one we like, a lot.
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.
June Pak – double (2002, 892 KB, 0:30)
June Pak’s work is innovative and breathtaking.
In double, one character disrupts the other’s stability
by changing the television channel but is nevertheless
oblivious to this effect. Pak says, “This exchange
between the two suggests the disjunction within
oneself caused by technology and boredom.”
Finger Bolts (2005, 1.9MB, 1:13 min.)
Shannon Noble, an extremely technically accomplished
artist, made this elegant short video in 2005 from the simple, well-timed,
juxtaposition of moving images and sounds.
He’s still making stuff – he’s quite strangely
secretive about his work and quite often as soon
as it’s posted somewhere it disappears again.
A shame – he’s consistently great.
