Gareth Long (2004, 1.2 MB, 25 sec.)
More from Gareth Long.
Monthly Archives: March 2008
Keep On Smoking
Michel de Broin – Keep On Smoking (2006, 8.2MB, 2:51)
Absolutely hilarious video for a fantastic piece of interactive art.
I thought I was going to end up with a statement about
smoking cigarettes with I came across Michel de Broin’s
Keep On Smoking.
But completely unrelated, de Broin says this:
As an alternative to petrol, this custom-made bicycle
transforms kinetic energy produced by the cyclist into smoke.
The will to power is a renewable energy resource that can be
recuperated by a power generator supplying enough electricity
to operate a smoke machine. The work is the result of two
coupled machines; the one human is productive and the other
machine, consumptive. This coupling of machines produces smoke,
a waste energy that is liberated freely in the atmosphere.
Ride with Theo
Ride with Theo (2005, 27.7MB, 6 min.)
Directed in 2005 by Owen Plotkin of the now corporation
(Owen is also behind the excellent gaaagled.com)
this is a piece of viral advertising for an annual bike ride to raise
money for leukaemia research at Hammersmith hospital, London.
It features the splendid Theodore Bouloukos, whom regular dvblog
viewers will have seen & admired in Doron Golan�s recent piece.
Day of Ashurah (Day of Tenth)
Day of Tenth (2006, 13.6MB, 1:40 min.)
Europe January 2006.
Sunnis and Shi’a Muslims commemorating ‘Day of Ashurah‘.
A Good Joke – Nick Fox-Gieg
A Good Joke (2005, 18.5 MB, 3:16 min.)
This short is based on an old joke, a perennial in compilations of
Jewish humor. Although the details differ between versions, the
scene remains the same: a priest challenges a rabbi to debate on
the spiritual condition of Jewish people. But neither speaks the other’s language.
Commissioned by Project Mosaica, by Nick Fox-Gieg.
Doron Golan – Forgot
Forgot (2008, 98.3MB, 12:06 min, silent theatrical act)
This is simply wonderful.
Doron’s work is strange – it doesn’t lend itself to blow by blow verbal description:
er..‘Some actors perform in a silent movie based on Waiting for Godot‘
Then you actually look at it (or if you haven’t you should, you really should).
The grammar of his editing is completely unique & mysterious (a feature of all his longer pieces).
‘Why did he do that?’ – ‘Dunno – but it made my spine tingle’
Work like this often slips under the radar because it has no easy marketing line,
it can’t be glibly summed up, reduced to an easily digestible one-liner.
Work like this is food you have to chew a little…but what flavour & what nourishment!
Also, the acting ( and the director/actor collaboration) is outstanding.
Smart, funny, puzzling, touching by turns…and generous also…
With Theodore Bouloukos, Joanne Douglas, Brian Gibson and Stephanie Noritz
Lossy Video
Hollywood News (2006, 2.7MB, 1:06 min. )
Saddam on Trial (2006, 1.9MB, 52 sec)
Two pieces from the Montreal based video collective Lossy Video.
The idea being to take news footage & ..er..look at it closely.
The results are undeniably capable, attractive & interesting.
Reminds me, conceptually, of Mark Tribe
Two from Human Dog
Garage Door (2006, 4.4MB, 0:47)
Human Dog was one of the first videoblogs and has
been closed down since early 2007. Luckily, all of
the media remains online (so far). One of the best
things about the entire series of videos (and the various
serials therein) was creator Chris Weagel’s ability
to tease out the absurdity of everyday life without
hitting the audience over the head with his message.
Video that was made specifically to live online, this
is some of the best work ever produced in videoblog
format.
The French Democracy
The French Democracy (2005, 39.7MB, 13:09 min)
Quite remarkable piece of Machinima from France, dealing with
the riots there by oppressed North African and Arab youth.
The subtitling and translation ( ‘I had some training to do’ says koulamata,
the author, rather disarmingly) are hit and miss, to say the least -but it would
be wrong to view this as an ‘all your base are belong to us’ curiosity.
The very strangeness of the English translation, the sheer virtuosity of shaping
the fairly recalcitrant source material into a coherent 13 minute plus narrative
means that its honesty and sincerity shine through at every moment.
There is an interesting discussion of the piece on the Machinima.com site.
Aaron Koblin –The Sheep Market
The Sheep Market (2008, 5.4MB, 32 secs)
Aaron Koblin, whose work we’ve featured here before does
rather wonderful things using the Processing language.
Well..of course that’s true..but if he wasn’t endowed with wit & smarts
& a sense of beauty then the tools he used would interest us not at all.
Here’s what he says about this piece (or rather the project for
which this vid is a short installation view):
TheSheepMarket.com is a collection of the first 10,000 sheep
made by workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
Workers were paid 0.02 ($USD) to “draw a sheep facing to the left.”
Animations of each sheep’s creation may be viewed at
TheSheepMarket.com.
Papa and Daddy
Papa and Daddy – Jump Start (2008, 9.8MB, 0:53)
Papa and Daddy (Shawn Preston and Ross Ludwig)
made this terrific 2008 Superbowl commercial,
a fun coincidence since I found their charming ad
work via Food Chain Films, a nice page of several
directors based in Portland.
Lewis LaCook –The Ghosts of Colors
The Ghosts of Colors (2006, 1MB, 29 sec)
Lewis LaCook is often brilliant & never less than interesting.
He says of this:
EVP is short for electronic voice phenomena; these are purportedly
“otherworldly” sounds audible only via magenetic tape.
They are often cited as evidence of the supernatural.
Some of the sounds heard in this video are culled from
paranormal research archives.
Videominuto
Cosimo Terlizzi by Regina Irena Radmanovic (2008, 4MB, 1 min.)
Special Mention “1.000 Euro for 1 Minute”, 2008
IlluminAzione by Corrado Bungaro (2007, 4MB, 1 min.)
Winner “1.000 Euro for 1 Minute” 2007
From Videominuto –
exhibition of videos not longer than one minute in duration.
Lewis LaCook -<em>Joey</em>
A new video from Lewis LaCook comes too infrequently.
He’s one of a kind in his and here too.
There’s a throwing of everything, including the
kitchen sink, going in his movies & it shouldn’t work
but it so does.
We’ll repost another of his pieces tomorrow; a little feast for you.
Just for the record here’s Lewis’s description of the piece:
Joey, or DJ Joey, as he is affectionately called, is a
young man in Lorain, Ohio, who spends most of his day
dancing on the corner of 28th Street and Elyria Avenue
to his boombox, waving and smiling at passing
traffic.
This video was constructed of footage found on
YouTube, all dealing with Lorain, Ohio. This is the
first video I
Marc Greenfield’s drought
Marc Greenfield – Toothbrush (2004, 5.5MB, 0:31)
Emmy winner Marc Greenfield’s public service
announcement about Denver water
via Food Chain Films
Brian Kim Stefans Again
Popahna (2004, 20.7MB, 11:25 min.)
There’s Something About Barney (2004, 3.7MB, 3:35 min.)
More from Brian Kim Stefans.
This is ‘early’ work from 2004 & Barney quite clearly
has an experimental stamp to it -Stefans describes it as at least
in part an homage to Alvin Lucier’s great sound piece “I am Sitting in a Room”.
Popahna in my view is something altogether more
substantial – there’s so much of interest happening here, both
performance wise & in directorial terms. OK, it walks the occasional fine line
but in sum it’s haunting & utterly compelling.
Stefans contrives to give it an immensely powerful narrative forward
drive whilst still remaining nuanced, dreamlike & deeply odd.
Feels like a feature film that has been shrunk to 11 minutes
by a wicked fairy.
Great stuff.
My View
Phil Hamilton – My View (2007, 12.6MB, 1:00)
Phil Hamilton doesn’t post video very often.
When he does, it’s just freaking cool.
Phil is now a freshman at the same school where
I’m currently finishing my graduate degree, but
I’ve never see him in real life.
This is a video of his dorm room view.
The music is also original, by him.
His work – all of it – always makes me wish
I was younger, and that is a real compliment.
Ready for the Floor
Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor (2008, 26.6MB, 3:42)
Yeah yeah, more hipster music videos. But they’re so good!
Hot Chip’s second single from their newest album,
featuring their front man in various Joker references,
including the line, “You’re my number one guy,”
originally used repeatedly in 1989’s Batman.
See? You know you love it.
From Nima Nourizadeh.
Hack.it.art
what the hack it art (2005, 33.5MB, 3:22 min.)
Hack.it.art was an exhibition and event about hacktivism in Italy.
Video of the opening night by Florian Cramer.
GARhodes – Mirror
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes – Mirror (2006, 22.2MB, 6:09)
Holy sh*t this is amazing.
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, aka GARhodes, is an
insanely talented artist across mediums.
The impossible mirror shot only becomes more
impressive as this piece progresses, and I sure do
love reflexive performance art done right.
Wow.
L’un la poup
One the puppet of the other (2007, 178 MB, 26 min.)
Video composed of a webcam streams captured during a performance
of Annie Abrahams and Nicolas Frespech in 2007 at the
Webflash Festival in Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Speaks French with English subtitles.
Satanic Messages in Digital Videos – Yoshi Sodeoka
em_478 (2005, 16.4 MB, 6:46 min.)
From Yoshi Sodeoka.
Part of a 3 Channel Video, 2005, These videos were manually degraded and
corrupted and then recaptured. The footages were taken from the previous
project “Prototype #44, Net Pirate Number Station“, 2004.