Nam June Paik – documenta performance

NJP_documenta1977.mov
documenta performance (1977, 6 MB, 1:35 min.)

The 1977 “documenta” show, which became known as the ‘media documenta’,
opened its doors with a live satellite telecast from Kassel.
Nam June Paik appeared together with Charlotte Moorman and used the slot
for a Dadaistic, allusive excursion through his performance and installation works.
from ZKM Videosammlung.

Derek Bailey & Will Gaines

Derek Bailey & Will Gaines #1
clip #1 (1995, 7.6MB, 32 sec.)

Derek Bailey & Will Gaines #2
clip #2 (1995, 3.2MB, 14 sec.)

Derek Bailey & Will Gaines #3
clip #3 (1995, 4.1MB, 17 sec.)

Some lovely footage of the great free improv guitarist Derek Bailey,
who died in 2005, working with be-bop hoofer Will Gaines.
As with so much Bailey did, it seems at first deeply
odd & then, in equal measure, wonderful.
Important to understand this wasn’t some sort of gimmick:
Gaines had known Bailey since the sixties & although much of his
fame was garnered firmly in the mainstream, he has spent a great
deal of time working with cutting edge improvisors.
Enjoy two wonderful artists at the top of their game.
From European Free Improvisation.

Opto-Isolator – Golan Levin and Greg Baltus

optoisolator
Opto-Isolator (2007, 6MB, 46 sec.)

“Opto-Isolator inverts the condition of spectatorship by exploring the questions:
“What if artworks could know how we were looking at them? And, given this
knowledge, how might they respond to us?” The sculpture presents a solitary
mechatronic blinking eye, at human scale, which responds to the gaze of visitors
with a variety of psychosocial eye-contact behaviors that are at once familiar and
unnerving. Among other forms of feedback, Opto-Isolator looks its viewer directly
in the eye; appears to intently study its viewer’s face; looks away coyly if it is stared
at for too long; and blinks precisely one second after its visitor blinks.”

By Golan Levin and Greg Baltus.

suzon fuks :: rings #1 – #6

rings1to6
rings #1 – #6 (2007, 25MB, 6:35 min.)

“Ongoing series of one-minute unedited shots which can each stands alone.
Improvised choreography multi-reprojected on body parts, counterpointed
by texts by Fernand Shirren, Maurice Bejart’s music advisor and rhythm teacher
of many dancers and choreographers, and a significant inspiration in Fuks’ work.
made collaboratively with and performed by Helen Varley Jamieson,
James Cunningham, Scotia Monkivitch and Suzon Fuks.”

Directed by Suzon Fuks.

Annie Abrahams & Curt Cloninger -<em> Double Blind</em>

double blind
Double Blind (clip) ( 2010, 70MB, 5:38 min)

“Annie Abrahams (from the Living Room in Montpellier, France)
and Curt Cloninger (from Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center
in Asheville, North Carolina, US) repeatedly sang “love, love, love”
(a short excerpt from a pop song) as a kind of duet, in real
time/space and online.

In order to isolate them from their surroundings and make them
more attentive to the other, they were both blindfolded.
While singing they evolved and mutated the original song excerpt,
collaborating and communicating in a space/time of alterity.
The artists have never met each other in the flesh.

There was no set duration.
They sang until the last one of them decided to stop.
In both places a space was reserved for the live performance
and another for the video and audio projection.
A camera was fixed on each of their faces singing to each other.
This live video of both faces was projected both in the
Living Room space and in the Black Mountain College
Museum and Arts Center space.
The performance was also visible on the web at http://selfworld.net.”


Interesting and affecting convergence of the performative work
Curt Cloninger has been doing of late with the
strange, wonderful & categorisation denying oeuvre of Annie Abrahams.

We feature here only a tiny extract from the 4 hour plus performance
of Double Blind – the complete documentation will be on show
as part of Annie Abraham’s first UK solo show at HTTP gallery
in North London, in addition to new works and performances.
The opening is on Friday night & all are welcome – if you’re in
or near London it’ll be well worth getting along to.

Complete Double Blind documentation & links