PIRATE (2006, 45 MB, 8:25 min)
By Annika Larsson.
Music by Tobias Bernstrup & Annika Larsson.
Monthly Archives: March 2011
Crystal Stilts/Kate Thomas – Departure
Departure (2009, 34 MB, 4:24 min)
I love this video for two, apparently almost entirely independent
(but maybe, in some strange, deep way, connected) reasons.
First – the music is great. I listen very little popular music these
days (which is why I’m 2 years late with this) as most of it, even
(especially!) the so called indie stuff gives the impression of
having been focus-grouped into bland submission before being let
limply loose not to offend anyone.
This, contrariwise, oozes life & not-giving-a-fuck from every note
(especially the splendidly slightly out of tune vocals; but it’s all a joy).
Secondly, director of the video, Kate Thomas, about whom I know
nothing and could find out no more, had the totally brilliant idea
of simply stringing together some footage of French students
and workers standing up for themselves against the riot cops in 68.
If this all doesn’t make you weep with barely suppressed joy please
check your pulse.
Land of the Free
untitled (2005, 1.5MB, 1:50 min.)
Nice bit of guerilla art/action/video by Judith Supine and friend.
Took some bottle, I think.
Joy Garnett’s Unmonumental Videos
Found Art (Nolita) Unmonumental 484 (2011, 36 MB, 26 secs)
Found Art (Chelsea) Unmonumental 507 (2011, 32 MB, 23 secs)
Joy Garnett is not only a fascinating and accomplished painter but
she takes a neat photo too.
There’s a huge set of images on her Flickr pages entitled
Unmonumental – a recording and honouring of the melancholy beauty
of the neglected, ephemeral, the broken and the passing.
Recently she’s added videos to the collection and here’re two
of them.
They are utterly beguiling and we’re going to show the whole
lot over the next weeks and months.
Klaus Lang –Zwillingsgipfel
Zwillingsgipfel (2007, 122 MB, 8:02 min)
The music of the Austrian composer Klaus Lang ( not to be confused
with fellow Lang composers Bernhard or even David) is both very strange
and very beautiful. It’s a world where the tiniest gesture, the smallest
variation or nuance has great weight and presence. It’s no intellectual game
or posture though, but something, certainly for me, deeply affecting.
See what you think.
Bizarrely, I believe (and I’m open to correction) that “Zwillingsgipfel”
translates as “Twin Peaks”.
Ran Slavin – Organic Urbanic
Organic Urbanic (2002, 14 MB, clip, 1:17 min)
“Organic Urbanic is a reality-fiction video based on an ambient
micro/macro cosmos of the urban-organic tapestry of the city.
The local and familiar transgresses into a dense textured
urban scape. The city is featured and filtered as a distorted
blue print image of itself.
The streets cars and buildings reveal an organic living machine-symbiotica.
Organic Urbanic amplifies what is already there. Among others, a complex
inner connectivity of city factors amplified and relocated.”
By Ran Slavin
Full duration: 9:00 min.
Trisha Brown Interviewed
Interview with Trisha Brown (2007, 11 MB, 3:06)
Anyone in or near London should absolutely get to see the
“Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown & Gordon Matta-Clark –
Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s” show,
currently at the Barbican. It’s fantastic!
I was particularly lucky to be there when a performance of the
Trisha Brown ‘walking on walls’ piece happened (worth
ringing in advance to see what performances are on and when)
I knew it would be interesting but, somewhat to my surprise,
I was immediately & intensely emotionally engaged by it too, finding
it lump-in-the-throat-&-tear-in-the-eye moving…
Although we’re concentrating here on Trisha Brown with an interview
conducted in 2007 at the Documenta 12 event (and after you’ve
watched that, the Guardian has a nice audio slideshow about the
walking on walls piece), all three artists shine in this show.
It’s all great but particularly interesting are the rooms of drawings
related to their various performance practices.
Eleanor Suess – Map 2b
We’ve got hold of a few movies spanning nearly 15 years from
Eleanor Suess who has staked out a very interesting position on the
borders of architecture and fine art (and specifically film/video art).
We’ll start with an early, and rather ravishing, handmade piece:
“Using a 16mm handmade film technique a DOLA/OS map of Perth
is transformed into a spatial surface. The territory of the drawing
is explored and navigated, the gridlines dominating the optical
soundtrack, marking the speed of the film as it passes in front
of the viewer
Joseph Beuys – Transformer
Joseph Beuys – Transformer (1979, 10 MB, 3 min)
Excerpt from a 60-minute documentary featuring avant-garde
German artist Joseph Beuys during a 1979 exhibit at the
Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
RUBBER – Quentin Dupieux
RUBBER (2011, 35 MB, 2:21 min)
Trailer for RUBBER, the story of Robert, an inanimate tire that has been
abandoned in the desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life.
RUBBER is a ‘smart, funny and wholly original tribute to the cinematic
concept of “no reason” ‘.
Director: Quentin Dupieux