Morrisa Maltz – First Class

whats ahead
First Class (2010, 127 MB, 3:40 min)

And First Class it is too -we’ve enthused about Morrisa Maltz here quite
recently & her first music vid (for Everybody Else) doesn’t disappoint.
It’s stylish without being glib, chock full of ideas but nicely unified by
a visual language those who’ve seen her work before will instantly recognise.
My only cavil (which I already expressed to her) is the degree of
objectification at work here in the portrayal of women,
(you know…the boys play & the girls kind of dance around
or pose, looking nice &c &c) which I find a tad depressing coming from
a clearly enormously talented & capable woman artist.
More than well made though & I look forward to whatever comes next.

Rupert Howe – The Wicker Man Remade

wickerman
The Wicker Man (2010, 12 MB, 1:09 min)

wickerman live
The Wicker Man Live (2010, 7 MB, 3:31 min)

Rupert Howe is always doing interesting things.
He’s also an early adopter of the sort of tech that in-my-old-age I
would cautiously leave a few months to see how it turns
out, so many of the interesting things he does mystify me
somewhat at first.
SO.. here he seems to have got given (?) lots of extras
(in what universe does this occur?) to remake a section of
cult British horror film The Wicker Man on Hampstead Heath.
The results are jaw dropping in two ways.
Jaw droppingly charmingly-funny.
And jaw droppingly odd.
Most of his work is essentially some combination of these
two axes. ( Plus serious skills)
As an added bonus there a kind of Making-Of-The-Wicker-Man-Remake
which apparently was originally streamed live from his mobile.
I didn’t even know you could do that.
If anything the ‘making-of’ piece surpasses the substantive one on the
Howe strangeness scale. Even his friends & colleagues seem touched too
by a species of benign insanity.
Long may he flourish.

Scanner et al. – Night Jam

NightJam
NightJam (2006, 26MB, 11:28 min.)

An Artangel commissioned project from 2006 involving
sound artist Scanner working with clients of London’s
New Horizons Youth Centre, devoted to work with homeless youth.
The musical collaborators are MC Utta, MC Marcel,
MC Quick Latino, MC Magic and MC Sweetie.

Undoubtedly evocative, if a tad derivative, especially
considering the resources at play here.
The multilingual MCing is great though!