Category Archives: place

Scanner et al. – Night Jam

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NightJam
NightJam (2006, 26MB, 11:28 min.)

An Artangel commissioned project from 2006 involving
sound artist Scanner working with clients of London’s
New Horizons Youth Centre, devoted to work with homeless youth.
The musical collaborators are MC Utta, MC Marcel,
MC Quick Latino, MC Magic and MC Sweetie.

Undoubtedly evocative, if a tad derivative, especially
considering the resources at play here.
The multilingual MCing is great though!

One Minute, Volume 4

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Dinosaur
Martin Pickles – Dinosaur  (2010, 130 MB, 1:01 min)

1961 Revisited.
Nicki Rolls – 1961 Revisited  (2010, 114 MB, 58 secs)

Two pieces from a touring screening of one minute films,
the fourth such from British filmmaker Kerry Baldry.

It’s a really well put together and gripping hour
(transparency dictates I confess I have a piece in it
but I won’t foist that on you here), with a strike rate well above
most of this kind of compilatation.

Here are two of my favourite pieces; both, in different
ways, little gems of cinematic poetry.
Although Martin Pickle’s piece is amusing there’s
something enchanting about the changing seasonal
landscape & light of West London and how it manifests on screen,
which raises the work from anecdote to something more complicated
and lasting.

The Nicki Rolls piece had me in the palm of its hand within about a second.
(I’m a total sucker for near stillness and for the movement of light)
Then I started to think about what exactly I was watching.
You might like to give it some thought too.
Again, the twist breaks the confines of the one minute form
to resonate long after.
I haven’t see the other three compilations but I hope we could maybe
feature a couple of pieces from each in the not too distant future.
Next week we’ll have a piece by Kerry herself.

Brian Gibson – On A Roof

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on a roof
On A Roof (2010, 20 MB, 2:52 min)

Sheer ravishing loveliness from DVblog’s own Brian Gibson
( I posted his last piece too, I know, but he’s not making that much these days
& what he does make is just so great, I can’t resist.)
More please!

Takashi Ito – Spacy

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Private Charges
Spacy ( 1981, 14MB, 2:27)

The other day,on a whim, I bought Takashi Ito’s collected works on DVD
from the BFI shop. I’d never heard of him before.
I’m so glad I did. It is utterly compelling and remarkable work.
Spacy is an early piece and the clip here is neither complete
not particularly good quality but it does give you a taste of Ito’s early
– almost formalist – style.
There’s such delight in seeing how this broadens into the flexible,
confidently handled and singular idiom of the later pieces, where a quite
musical rigor in the formal structuring is never absent but which
also underpins a beautifully ambiguous and rich expressivity.
The whole set was one of those all too rare tingle-down-the-spine
revelations which I gulped down in a couple of sittings.
This is outstanding & important work – I urge people to become acquainted with it.

Sam Renseiw – Fragmented Occurences

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Fragmented Occurences
Fragmented Occurences (2010, 67MB, 4:33 min.)

It’s a little while since we featured anything from the splendid Sam
Renseiw, so here’s a recent piece.
In contrast to many of his films, which have an incredibly strong
sense of a particular place, this was apparently composed
from odds and ends of footage from various locations during the last
few months.
I think it works beautifully; it’s instructive to see Sam intervening,
perhaps a little more than usual, at the editing level.
(His camera work is always very distinctive – there’s often a sense
-true or not- that many pieces are largely composed in the shooting.)

Whatever the case, this is, as always, a wonderful and utterly distinctive voice.

PS This is our 1000th post of the new series. Many thanks to all who have sent words of encouragement & appreciation. It makes the time spent working on DVblog feel doubly worthwhile.

Two from Kate Dickinson

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19th
19th ( 2010, 1MB, 1:00 min, silent)

are you ready
Are You Ready? ( 2008, 20MB, 52 secs)

Two contrasting short movies from Leeds, UK, artist Kate Dickinson.
The second should provoke a smile (did for me) but it’s
the first, in which not a great deal happens & in a deliberately
confined area of the screen to boot, that I particularly liked.
There’s a melancholy about its view of an overcast
Leeds landscape which is amplified by cropping a good deal of it out.
The resulting minimalism marshalls the viewer’s attention in a quite hypnotic way.

More Steven Ball

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ex Local Authority
ex Local Authority (2005, 156 MB, 6:59 min)

Over the Borough Island
Over the Borough Island (2009, 63 MB, 1:51 min)

Two longer pieces from Steven Ball some of whose
Direct Language pieces we posted here last week.
Both pieces are great but I have particular soft spot for
ex Local Authority which, although I’m sure it
has all sorts of potent intellectual justifications for being is also,
quite simply, austerely & melancholically gorgeous.

Jason Miller – Fall Was Kind

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fall was kind
Fall Was Kind (2009, 40 MB, 2:57 min)

Well, we’re a season out, but it somehow feels altogether
appropriate to feature this bit of tranquil & melancholy loveliness
on a holiday day like today.

(Made, BTW, by yet another School of Athens alumnus, Jason Miller)

We’re going to take a short break ourselves now, but we’ll be back,
batteries fully re-charged, on January 4th.

We wish everone a happy & peaceful holiday season.

Annette Hollywood – Stuttgarter Filmwinter Trailer

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filmwinter trailer
Stuttgarter Filmwinter – Trailer (2009, 6 MB, 58 secs)

Adding with distinction one feels to the, perhaps hitherto
somewhat sparsely populated, genre of German-Art-Country & Western
is this quite splendid trailer from Annette Hollywood for the annual
Stuttgarter Filmwinter festival.
The subtitles are in Schwabian, the local dialect, and we
reproduce both Engilsh and Schwabian lyrics below.
Photography is by Anna Go, all else by Ms Hollywood.
Fab.

for a shooting cowboygirl like me
in the cold desert of artscenery
filmwinter is like a warm campfire
and makes filmworld much higher

they bombard you with prices of honour
like this arty wolperdonger

Ed Day – Hats

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Hats
Hats (2009, 123 MB, 10:54 min)

A first film from young UK actor Ed Day this made me laugh quite inordinately.
It was “was filmed over a few weeks in Jersey and Guernsey with the cast from
Oddsocks Theatre Company’s 2009 summer tour of Richard III”.
Apart from the humour what strikes home is the sheer technical ability,
wit and

Sebastian Hernandez – DIY or Die #3 – A Month of Sundays

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A Month of Sundays
A Month of Sundays (2009, 65 MB, 4:54 min)

Last &, in my view, the best of Sebastian Hernandez’ DIY or Die
series of documentaries, which we’ve been delighted to
be able to feature here in the past few weeks.
I found them all well made, engaging and informative.
This one I also found profoundly moving.
We look forward to featuring more of Sebastian’s work
in the not too distant future.

42 New Briggate – a film & a call for work

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Untitled 1, 2 and 3 (Bullet Series)
Untitled 1, 2 and 3 (Bullet Series) (2007, 4 MB, 40 secs)

Rather splendid film by Steven Allbutt shown as part of a film showcase
in 2007 at the 42 New Briggate Gallery in Leeds, UK.
Apart from the piece’s intrinsic merits I had said to curator Yvonne Carmichael
we’d post her call for short films to be projected in the gallery window
Dec 2009 -Feb 2010 if she sent me a nice QuickTime we could also post here.
She did & so here it is – please consider submitting something!

Two from Rick Silva

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Colorado
Colorado (2008, 93 MB, 8:41 min)

Massif
Massif (2009, 142 MB, 110:13 min)

Continuing a line of thought, of work, which seemed to begin with
his 2007 piece A Rough Mix Rick Silva creates two new pieces
in the wholly original style he has forged over the past few years.
(Contemplate those last words – it’s a rare claim to be able to make)
The two big themes seem to be landscape/environment & various
remixing practices ( of which Silva, of course, under various pseudonyms,
is a we-are-not-worthy master).
Thre’s a lot of greatly well-intentioned and almost equally dull “environmental” art
around, it being so zeitgeisty and all, but if this is how is could be
I want more.
Big downloads but, even if you’re on a slowish connection, well worth the wait.
(The movies here are obviously compressed & reduced in size -I would love to see them
full on in a gallery context!)

Brian Gibson – to the young, youth

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torc
to the young, youth (195?/2008, 13 MB, 2:04 min)

Poignant & beautiful work from DVblog contributor Brian Gibson
gently & quirkily re-configuring footage shot by his late grandfather
on a European visit in the 50s.

Brian’s work is always striking, always affecting, but the secret extra
ingredient is the luminous intelligence underlying everything he does.

Regina C

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videocat
Video Cat (2009, 11 MB, 1:34 min)

videocat
Aguas De Maio (2009, 9 MB, 1:19 min)

Two videos from earlier this year by Regina C