Soul Zodiac (2007, 6.4MB, 2:12 min)
Interesting documentation of a piece recently shown at
Newlyn Art Gallery by Cornish based artist Nigel Ayers.
The zodiacal stuff leaves me a bit cold but the sound is utterly wonderful,
and the simple yet elegant & effective presentation is great too.
Heroes of the Revolution (excerpt) (2007, 31.5 MB, 3:31 min.)
Marina Zurkow works with character and narrative in animated cartoons,
interactive installations, print and pop objects.
‘Heroes of the Revolution’ is an animation loop for all-in-one aluminum framed wall unit,
using two custom PCs and four widescreen monitors.
from New Frontier on Main.
Quiet City (2007, 11.2MB, 1:52)
Stunning, reflective trailer for Quiet City,
a movie by Aaron Katz, available from Benten Films.
These are my favorite kinds of films.
I love living in – being in – cities, but I prefer them
when they are their most silent and empty.
Text loosely taken from the Apple trailer site, edited by me:
Together, Samantha and Charlie, two somewhat aimless youths,
share twenty-four hours drifting from late night diners, to city parks,
to abandoned apartments, to a party and art gallery deep in the heart
of industrial Brooklyn. Delicately realized with generous humanity,
Quiet City offers hope for intimate connection in a world that grows
larger by the day.
Invisible Threads (2008, 18.3 MB, 2:53 min.)
Stephanie Rothenburg & Jeff Crouse will be producing designer blue jeans.
Styles include boot cut, skinny leg, flare and the new “Boyfriend” trousers.
Profits from these purchases will be used to maintain the factory and pay for
workers
Volver trailer (2006, 30 MB, 1:38 min)
A long time ago I sat stony faced and unmoved through the much lauded
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown & concluded,
quite wrongly, that Almodovar was not for me.
In 2006 about him by Bob Light in the UK Socialist Worker
prompted me to go & see his latest movie, Volver,
& I’m so glad I did – it’s simply magnificent.
Since then I’ve done a bit of catching up.
Eyes on the Fair Use of the Prize (2006, 20.9MB, 2:19)
Another important, striking piece from the
Media That Matters Film Festival 6.
The filmmaker, Jacob Caggiano, is a young man who I
believe is even younger than me, and according to him,
the whole short film came together at the last minute.
I think this is a beautiful effort.
Breaking the Rules (2007, 8.7MB, 2 min.)
‘..I thought it might be interesting to have one episode devoted to breaking the rules.
This was a fun one for us’.
Some more DV tutorials – here.
From Izzy Video.
Brian Gibson – A (2007, 11.1MB, 0:25)
DVblog’s own Brian Gibson made this, and I love it.
Maybe I just suck with lights and filters and editing,
but I don’t know how he does this.
Really charming.
Snow Mirror (2006, 3.1 MB, 1:56 min.)
Snow Mirror is the first in a series of pieces that celebrate slowness
and black and white, in this piece the image of the viewer is created
by the congregation and accumulation of white snow flakes in areas of
the image that are brighter. The result is projected on a transparent silk
fabric which creates a feeling of the flakes being suspended in space.
by Daniel Rozin. from New Frontier on Main.
What Does Joppa Mean? (2007, 41.7MB, 3:34)
Where the hell am I going to get $10,000,000? (2007, 22.7MB, 1:57)
I’m not usually a fan of Internet video series,
but I LOVE Joppa.
Here are the first two episodes of the series,
including the infectious intro that first got me hooked.
I think the first season is the best, still sort of raw.
Produced by four adorable guys who live on the
northern Massachusetts coast, Joppa asks important
questions like “How much is that in hands?”, “Is jive
a language?”, and “Isn’t the Lupus like a giant rabbit?”
I rarely laugh so hard.
via Joppa on blip.tv
Goya’s Stories (2006, 26.4MB, 3:38 min)
Three Goya paintings – La Maja Desnuda (Nude Maja), El Rey Carlos
Cazador (King Carlos dressed as a hunter) and Autorretrato (Self-portrait) –
are brought to life by three present-day stand-ins. The beauty of the piece is
that none of the three people from the present day is an obvious
equivalent for the painting alongside which he or she is placed.
The least satisfactory of the three is the Maja. Goya’s nude is both
more blatantly sexual and less conventionally glamorous than the
equivalent we are given here. On the other hand the Carlos and
the Autorretrato – respectively a a wild-haired gaunt ceramicist
fingering a three-cornered pot, and an imposingly fat middle-aged
man half-naked at the seaside – do replicate the powerful combination
of individual character and human fallibility which comes across from
the Goya originals.
Edward Picot
Doron Golan has constructed contemporary stories from Goya
paintings, using people whose resemblance to Goya’s subjects is
striking.
One need not be familiar with the masterworks themselves to enjoy the
whimsical – at times, poignant – real life portraits constructed from
the paintings. Michael Szpakowski’s music intensifies the mood and detail of
Golan’s video. Like ekphrastic poetry, the video and music carry viewers into a
deeper exploration both of the paintings and the stories spun from
them.
Martha Deed
Sleighride (2006, 63MB, 4:30 min)
the church of the future (2006, 28.5MB, 2:39 min)
There’s a rather un-PC expression current in estuary English:
mental. Its semantic nuances don’t lend themselves to easy explanation.
It implies a kamikaze degree of chutzpah, often in a physical
context but also by metaphorical extension to any field of
behaviour & often expressing a kind of stunned admiration.
Well, watch the vids & deny if you can that John Michael Boling
+ Javier Alberto Morales ( collaborators on the visuals, JAM does the music on
sleighride) and owners of
www.gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com
are totally fucking mental
Asparagus! (A Stalk-umentary) – (2006, 65.8MB, 6:05)
From the excellent Media That Matters, powered by Arts Engine,
a short film from the Media Matters Film Festival 6.
Submissions are soon due for the 8th annual online festival.
Since I saw much of 6 on the big screen last year,
I’m reposting some of the most striking pieces.
All pieces are made by youth or other independent producers,
all under eight minutes.
This stalkumentary is also a 72-minute documentary,
cut down here to reach a wider audience.
Stories like these make so much sense to me,
being from a similar area, similar background.
Poignantly done, this is a lovely piece.
I also happen to really like asparagus.
Resexed Pistols (2006, 6.4MB, 2:06 min)
“another remix of the sex pistols piece you posted a while ago..
i had been working on it awhile ago then i went on vacation… and when
i saw the valdez piece, i felt someone had been searching my harddrive.
then i saw the piece (which is great) and realized that they’re quite
different, even though they tread in the same arena… i don’t know why so many
of us have been attracted to redoing the same clip (remember jimpunk did
another remix), but here is my mine.”
from Antonio Mendoza – Mr. Tamale.
Anarchy (Slight Delay) (2006, 17.8MB, 3:23 min.)
In which Aaron Valdez takes the Sex Pistols vid from
these very pages and..er..does stuff to it.
Explains Aaron:
‘This is the second entry in a study (or me messing around) with audio
and video delay. I did a Bob Dylan one way back. Nothing new but
interesting nonetheless. I made three tracks of video each offset by
6 frames then I cut out three frames alternating between those three
tracks. It
Anarchy in the UK (1976, 18MB, 3:32 min)
The Sex Pistols performing Anarchy in the UK in 1976
on the Granada TV show ‘So It Goes’.
From Bedazzled
PS In case you missed it first time round check this out too 🙂
Body of War (2007, 16.8MB, 2:30)
Trailer for the forthcoming documentary about
paralyzed Iraqi veteran Tomas Young’s fight to tell
the truth about the war.
Sad and informative, not to be missed.
Produced by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue,
original music by Eddie Vedder.
Jaan Pehechan Ho (1966, 55.4MB, 5:33 min)
Clip from the 1966 film Gumnaam sung by
Bollywood legend Mohammed Rafi, which you might
recognise from the opening sequence of Ghost World.
There’s the full lyrics & several translations here.
From WFMU’s Beware of the Blog
Mes Amis (2007, 37.8MB, 7:35 min)
Giles Perkins, from the excellent onsuper8.org
(whose own great work we’ve shown, last week & previously)
pointed this one out to us.
Gorgeous he said, and he was right.
Comes from here & there’s a discussion here.
Going Places Sitting Down (2006, 14.8MB, 2:34 min)
Images from Hiraki Sawa solo exhibition in 2006
at the New York James Cohan Gallery.
‘Going Places Sitting Down’ is a triptych video projection.
(video by Doron Golan)
Transformations v 1.0 (2007, 54MB, 2:47 min)
We’ve featured some of Irish artist Kev Flanagan’s work here
before.
He’s just started a new video blog which manifests a radically different
approach to that of his previous work.
Here’s an example – it’s slow (in a good sense), meditative and hypnotic.
Kev says he’s been looking at a lot of Chris Marker’s work – I can see that high
seriousness coming through, but this puts me in mind more of Tarkovsky or
particularly Tarkovsky’s sensibility in the face of natural phenomena.
Rorschach Revelations (2005, 3.5MB, 1:56 min.)
‘A Rorschach test blot comes slowly into view. A voice responds to the image
in free flow of associations. The abstract image humorously morphs into a
recognizable one, in which the viewer identifies a demonic vision of the political left.’.
Eat your heart out Woody Allen!
From ‘Too Much Freedom’ by freewaves.org
Juicy Brunette (2006, 2.9MB, 3:24 min)
Addi Somekh is obviously a talented musician but his
chosen instrument is the common household balloon.
You can hear more balloon music on his site Balloonbass.com.
By Mica Scalin.