Rupert Howe – Sun

sun
Sun (2008, 5.4MB, 30 secs)

Utterly ravishing Lumière from the never predictable,
always interesting, Rupert Howe.

On that summery note, we’re going to take a rest in the sunshine.
We love doing DVblog, but the daily deadline definitely takes
its toll after a bit.
We’ll be getting ready to hit the ground running again around 16th Sept.
& we’ll still keeping our eyes peeled for the new, for the weird &
(best of all!) for the wonderful.

Have a great summer!

Brittany, Doron, Michael.

Curt Cloninger -<em> Pop Mantra</em>

Pop Mantra
Pop Mantra Video Documentation #4 (2008, 51.7MB, 5:17 min)

Pop Mantra
Pop Mantra Video Documentation #7 (2008, 50.5MB, 5:41 min)

I like & admire Curt Cloninger for his steadfastness of belief in both his religion
& his artistic work.
He’s also one of the best writers about new media around at the moment.
In both theory & practice he’s curious, inventive, knowledgable, quirky and passionate.

Unlike many in this sphere he’s also not afraid to think aloud in public, to take risks.
Even, (quelle horreur!), to risk appearing uncool.
Recently he’s been making work away from the web, some of it performative
& very interestingly so.

Here (& I stress what you see here is the documentation, not the piece
itself -a fine, but important, distinction) he repeatedly sings & plays a
single phrase from a popular song, in this instance Radiohead’s Karma Police, for several hours.
For me there are number of interesting resonances – minimalism, shamanism,
the kinds of ‘test’ that occur in many religious belief systems, a losing, dissolving
of the self (In additon to the eponymous “mantra” ,there’s an echo too, I think, of Sufism);
but also there is the straightforward investigation*** of the mechanics of playing,
of performing (& there’s a fractal quality to the rather symmetric & crystalline
structure of popular song that makes this kind of extracting both possible & immediately
approachable -it’s a world familiar enough to welcome us in.)

The two extracts are from different ends of this marathon
( & selecting & typing that word just conjured another association –
the of the twenties & thirties).

I find this work fascinating.
Fascinating & affecting too.

*** It’s almost always a laughable misuse of the word to say ‘investigation’
in an art-speak context. Here it seems correct & natural.

Two from Pash

Ludwig
Ludwig Poos Schwabe (2007, 36MB, 1:20 min)

Ping Pong
1st Ping-Pong Lesson With Lucha Lib (2008, 31.2MB, 4:18 min)

Even 18 years after the wall came down there’s still a quite palpable
residue of the great absurdist tradition that flourished under Stalinism in work
being made in the former Eastern bloc.
(Of course it goes back further, to

PES – Sneaux Shoes – Human Skateboard

Sneaux
Sneaux (2007, 7MB, 31 sec.)

Sneaux Shoes launched a consumer-generated video campaign
with a stop-motion video of a human skateboard. The TV ad
features a skateboarder using a kid as a skateboard and performing
classic tricks like ollies, grinds and 360s.
PES who directed the video made it entirely in-camera (Canon D20)
and on location through the use of a stop-motion animation technique
known as pixilation. Says PES: “This spot is a great example of the
breadth of stop-motion. If something exists in the real world, it can be animated.”

Editing and sound design was done by Sam Welch at Homestead, New York.

Carey/Laric/Stracke

Laric/Carey
Touch My Body (Oliver Laric version) (2008, 40.9MB, 4:18 min)

Laric/Carey
No Mariah (Caspar Stracke version) (2008, 52MB, 4:03 min)

OK, pay attention! This is complicated.
Ms Carey (or her corporate minders) release a video, which if she did have
a significant part to play in it shows such a staggering lack of self esteem
that a kind of dark despair begins to envelop me.
Artist Oliver Laric remixes it, removing all the backgrounds and replacing it with
green, for ease of a certain species of remixing.
There follows what is actually an interesting and nuanced exchange of views.
Then Caspar Stracke posts the second of our videos & MTAA make a
very funny joke.

Three more from Paul Kelly

Dust/Spring Evening
Dust/Spring Evening (2005-7, 26.2MB, 1:57 min)

dignity
Dignity (2004, 40.4MB, 7:02 min)

Rain : Focus
Rain : Focus winter in the north (2004-9, 9.5MB, 1:12 min)

We showed a couple of rather restrained, pastoral pieces by Paul Kelly
in February of this year.
So, here’re three rather restrained, somewhat more urban pieces.
I admire the determinedly austere approach, to make much – or rather
to make us make much- of what is given to the camera (quite a lot, it has
to be said, in Dignity which is a touching portrait of man & dog), although
one does have visions of a kind of Yoda figure meditating in depth before every possible
editing decision to take the four years Focus apparently took to make.
I look forward to more.