Monthly Archives: February 2007

Nathaniel Stern – the odys series

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the storyteller
the storyteller (2001-4, 13.3MB, 2:24 min.)

Six pieces originally shown as a gallery installation.
Says their creator, the artist Nathaniel Stern :
‘The odys series consists of six short digital video poems / monologues for
small screen viewing in an intimate gallery space. By stuttering between
odys actions and words, listeners construct his person. As he attempts
to re-member, bringing the past back to his body and calling it his own,
listeners attempt to piece together a story for themselves. Viewers are
encouraged to re-visit and jump over juxtaposed media, and create a
shifting collage of, and in response to, his person.’

This is work of huge ambition both aesthetically & technically &
it’s brave and it’s edgy, sometimes to the point of being uncomfortable to
watch. Neither does Stern fear engaging with complex & difficult ideas.
Definitely worth more than one viewing.

noise
noise (2001-4, 11.4MB, 2:08)

they may be giant
they may be giant (2001-4, 12.3MB, 2:06 min.)

multiplicity
multiplicity (2001-4, 5.3MB, 1:17 min.)

upstandard
upstandard (2001-4, 14.2MB, 2:24 min.)

itown
itown (2001-4, 14.6MB, 2:32 min.)

More Athens strangeness

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Dance
Dance, Motherfucker, Dance! (2006, 7.4MB, 3:22 min)

Epiphany
Epiphany (2006, 1.9MB, 11 sec loop)

From the town that brought you Boling & Morales here’s more,
this time from John Crowe of ‘plural medium’
Is it something in the water or just that unrelenting Southern sun
that seems to make Athens a crucible of weirdness?
Be afraid, be very afraid &c.

Music for the delicately entitled Dance, Motherfucker, Dance! by the
Violent Femmes.

Rupert Howe – FatGirlInOhio -2 cell phone movies.

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Falafel
Falafel (2006, 1MB, 43 sec)

ShotCutScoredAndPostedByEmailFromMyNokia93Phone
ShotCutScoredAndPostedByEmailFromMyNokia93Phone (2007, 2.4MB, 2:41 min)

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on how, whatever is the ostensible
subject of movies, they are all in some sense ‘about’ everything we see
in every frame. And with the passing of time how this often becomes
more true as if, like a dog from water, the meaning is shaking itself out.
The Bas Jan Ader ‘falling’ movies exemplify this ( & how poignantly!) for me –
their conceptual motor aside, I remain most haunted by their background landscapes..
Rupert Howe of FatGirlInOhio brings this sharply to mind –
the subject might be a morning jog or Falafel but the totality of each movie
contains some of the best evocation of the glory & the grime that is
2007 London I’ve yet seen. That doesn’t exhaust it, of course, which is why this
work is deft & it is fine.
He is gravely mistaken about the Falafel though – undoubtedly the
best Falafel in London is at Gaby’s on the Charing Cross Road…