A Sad Loss

voting
Voting (2008, 37.2MB, 13:37)

We’re deeply sad to have to report the untimely death on Sunday of
Millie Niss, at the age of 36.
Anyone fortunate enough to have met her, either online or in person,
will have been struck by the combination of razor sharp intelligence,
a glorious sense of humour and personal kindness with a sense of utter
puzzlement at pomposity, bullshitting or self-agrandisement.
She just didn’t get the latter three.

In recent years, working in close collaboration with her mother, Martha Deed
she brought us the wonderful Sporkworld Microblog,
something that always felt to me that rarity, the invention
of a new form (or at least an unprecedentedly deep and
thorough realisation of the possibilities of a new medium,
effectively the same thing.)
It’s uncool to the deepest degree, being about domesticity,
illness, food, birds and animals glimpsed from a car or house window,
the life of a small blue-collar town -its problems and its festivals- and so much more,
but then cool -being a facade- was a concept lost on Millie and that’s why I
treasure all the more this beautiful work and I mourn her loss
as an artist, as a friend and as a marvellous human being.

We send our deepest condolences to Millie’s family but in particular to Martha.

As a small tribute we post once again their short collaborative film about Millie’s
attempt to deal with the absentee ballot form in last year’s presidential election.

Weberg – Mamo


Mamo (2009, 18.7MB, 2:27 min)

“Senses and memories of motherhood evoked by visiting Birkenau
(Auschwitz II) in Poland July 2008.”

I wonder whether memorialising the Holocaust isn’t too important a job to be
left to artists.
Anders Weberg’s piece is as well made as one would expect from him
and I have no doubt it is a sincere response.
Does it tell us anything new, though?
Does it contribute to any understanding which will make
repetition less likely?
As we get further away in time isn’t it the facts we have
to insist upon & isn’t there a danger that art -especially well made
art -aestheticises and dilutes?
Read the Primo Levi book. It sets the bar very high.

Broken Bones – House of Freaks

House of Freaks
Broken Bones (2006, 18.8MB, 3:11 min.)

After the murder of Bryan Harvey, half of the band House of Freaks,
I had wanted to make a music video for one of their songs as a small tribute,
but I was just too heartbroken to approach it.
I found the occasion on my last train ride home to Virginia.
I filmed this on the way down and edited it on my way back to New York.
While this talented duo had two legitimate pop hits in the 1980s
and an international fan base, their influence is far greater than
their current notoriety would suggest. I think so.

By Mica.

Mimi, Jack & Anna

mimi_jack_anna
Mimi, Jack & Anna (2007, 14.6MB, 2:09 min.)

‘About half way through this, I realised I was unconsciously structuring it with the work
of Jacques Rivette in mind. So it’s a kind of tiny tribute to a master.
The music is my arrangement for Tuba Quartet of the Pixies’
Is She Weird? played by Tubalat on their Hall of Mirrors CD.
Thanks to them & thanks to Anna, Jack & Mimi.’

from Michael Szpakowski.
a beauty !