The Yes Men – Vivoleum

yesmen tribute
Tribute to Reggie (excerpt) (2007, 52MB, 2:51 min.)

Vintage Yes Men from 2007, posing as representatives of Exxon-Mobil
and the National Petroleum Council in Calgary, Alberta, to deliver a keynote
speech presenting a new product – Vivoleum, a new fuel made from the
deceased bodies of human climate-change casualties.
‘Tribute to Reggie” was a promo video for the event.

Joan Brossa – Fi

brossa.jpg
Fi (2011, 51MB, 9:57 min)

Joan Brossa, the Catalan poet, artist, performer and polymath,
who died in 1998, deserves to be more widely
known in the rest of the world.
I’ve often thought his work, in particular the visual
poems, prefigured much of the art of the early days
of the net (but mostly better: terser, wittier, riskier –
I think Brossa would have loved the net).
This elegant & delightful performance ( ‘Fi’ is Catalan
for ‘End’, in this context The End) was recorded
in Barcelona eight months before his death.

It requires a little patience; the reward being that
it can be viewed many more than one time, so it
seems like an appropriate thing to leave you with
over the summer.
Remember we’re always delighted to look at new work,
so if you’re making moving image yourself,
or you happen across great stuff don’t hesitate
to send us links.

We’re back on Monday, September the 26th – in
the meantime we wish you all a happy and relaxing summer.

Jordan McKenzie – Serra Frottage

serra_frottage
Serra Frottage (2009, 13 MB, 3:17 min)

Whenever I’m travelling through, or near to London’s Liverpool Street station
I try and make time to pass by the wonderful Richard Serra sculpture,
Fulcrum, at the Broadgate end.
I really love it, one of the most successful pieces of public art I’ve
ever seen.
I mentioned this to a friend and he sent me a link to this piece,
one of a series of ‘minimal interventions’ by Jordan McKenzie
who clearly also um – –loves– – Serra’s work.

Tony Oursler – Studio: 7 Months of My Aesthetic Education (Plus Some)

met_speedup_07
7 Months of My Aesthetic Education (2005, 14 MB, 1:45 min.)

Speed up documentation from Tony Oursler‘s installation, “Studio: Seven Months of My
Aesthetic Education (Plus Some)” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005.
It combined video, sound, music and poetry to create environments that truly reflect the dissolving
boundaries of twenty-first-century culture. The work is inspired by Courbet

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‘.

Millie Niss – Skyway

skyway
Skyway (2009, 39 MB, 1:53 min)

A couple of months before her untimely death last year Millie Niss
sent me this video –

‘I have been working for a long time on and off (mostly off) these
days on a video showing industrial ruins on the outskirts of Buffalo,
shot from an elevated highway which is scheduled to be torn down…’

I remember thinking how beautiful and evocative it was and I assumed
Millie would publish it on the Sporkworld Blog in due course.
Sadly this never happened.
The other day I came across it & asked Millie’s mother and collaborator,
Martha Deed, for permission to post it here, which she gave,
so it’s a pleasure tinged with sadness to do so.

We’re going to take a summer break now.
We’ll be back on September 20th but in the meantime we’ll leave you
with this memorial to a fine artist & a fine human being.