Save Your Skin (2007, 4 MB, 1:03 min)
Save Your Skin – stolen skins, scripted environment,
where the skins of avatars are being put on display.
A Second Life performance by Gazira Babeli.
bad l.a. pool water – Antonio Mendoza
bad l.a. pool water (2010, 31MB, 4:14 min.)
Antonio Mendoza remix triptych.tv. Music by ‘no johnny’.
Scanner et al. – Night Jam
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!
Sun Capture – Julianne Swartz
Sun Capture (1999, 9.6 MB, 1:23 min.)
Transferring the reflection of a natural occurrence (the movement of the sun)
from outdoors to indoors, Brooklyn-based artist Julianne Swartz creates
her site-specific installation “Sun Capture” with existing architecture, metal pole,
mirror, sun, and wind.
Moljevic aka Albert Nanning
What Is This? (2006, 20.8MB, 2:31 min.)
Deft & attractive travelogue/visual poem/puzzle taking
us on a dream tour of Moljevic’s native Amsterdam.
More on his YouTube channel, and website
Gazira Babeli – iGods
Amazing
Amazing (2005, 4.1MB, 2:02 min.)
I found this in my DVblog to-do folder & embarassingly
I can’t remember when or from where I downloaded it.*
If anyone can oblige please mail us.
Anyway, it made me laugh quite immoderately.
* Update -the splendid Sam Renseiw rides to the rescue with
this link.
Brody Condon – DefaultProperties()
DefaultProperties() (2006, 6 MB, 30 sec.)
“The first in a series of re-interpretations of Late Medieval Northern
European religious paintings, DefaultPropeties(); is a non-interactive,
animated recreation of the baptism scene from the Triptych of
Jean des Trompes by Gerard David from 1505 using current game
development technology and visual styles.”
By Brody Condon.
Alan Sondheim: large tree-scan world images
treee (2006, 2.28MB, 1:03 min)
treees 3 (2006, 5.86MB, 38 sec)
treees 8 (2006, 9.15MB, 58 sec)
“similar to a scanning electron microscope, two images of a moving tree
with enormous detail were stitched together, warped, merged, and
analyzed at every stage. the result is a planetary configuration; one can travel
for at least an hour or two through the detailing. at times threads or
tubes appear; at times there are planes, sharpened edges, odd holes and
gaps. a tetrahedral mapping was employed.
it is this acute exploration of acute angles of inner worlds that
fascinates me. the mp4 file is small and an enormous amount of detail
is lost, but you get the idea. there are videos as well of course.
here is the resurrection of encapsulated movement-into-landscape of a
five-story tree outside the virtual environments laboratory at west
virginia”
Lynda Benglis – Contraband
Lynda Benglis – Contraband (2008, 26 MB, 2:20 min)
Artist Lynda Benglis discusses the process of creating Contraband
by pigmenting rubber latex and pouring it on the floor of her studio.
First recognized for
Donna Kuhn – Please Don’t Look Like A Pear
Please Don’t Look Like A Pear (2010, 10 MB, 3:22 min)
I love Donna Kuhn’s work.
I’ve rhapsodised about it here before, so I’ll just note, first,
that she continues to develop in the most thoughtful & interesting of ways
& second that this video is very funny, poetic
& scarier than most horror movies.
( Donna: ‘people don’t believe that these are completely unembellished
craigslist personals ads’)
To do all three – a coup!
More soon please Donna!
Brad Tinmouth – Flashbulb Memory
Omar Souleyman – Music Video for ‘Leh Jani’
Leh-Jani (2007?, 10 MB, 3:22 min)
Omar Souleyman being the performer not the video maker,
whose name unfortunately I can’t find.
[STOP PRESS: Mark Gergis has got in touch to say he made the video.
Googling him has unravelled an interesting trail of audio & video work
which we hope to follow further in future]
Anyway the wonderful video ( & it is wonderful -even the cheesy ‘boxy’
effect which is used once & in exactly the right place –
& edit & pacing are pretty much perfect)
serves performer -what a voice!- & song admirably…couple of minutes
of sheer cool & utter exhilaration somehow
paradoxically delivered in the same package.
This is fast shaping up to be my favourite ever music vid,
and the album from Sublime Frequencies (they say they’re sold
out, but a little searching secured me a copy elsewhere) is as good
as this promises.
More to be found on Y**T***.
Max Moswitzer – Early Videos
RAMBO (1987, 5.6 MB, 2:32 min)
ZERO ONE KILL MY DESIRE (1988, 7 MB, 3:12 min)
Early videos by Max Moswitzer using found footage material,
video collage, remix and animation.
More Max Moswitzer here.
Kerry Baldry – Applause
Applause (2010, 104 MB, 1:02 min)
Last week we showed some of Kerry Baldry’s curatorial work,
now here’s one of her own pieces.
Says Kerry:
“Applause is a piece of work made on 16mm film.
Using superimposition and coloured gels Applause has been edited in camera …”
& its a smart & winning piece which punches above its weight.
It looks great & there’s something about the way the visuals work
that really illuminates the sound – the..er..um..applause-ness –
of the applause & this in turn directs us back, carefully, to the visuals.
(& both make us ponder it as a social phenomenon)
The piece made me listen attentively, mindfully, & then look &
listen & think & then do all three again.
Studio Banana TV Interviews Pablo Valbuena
Interview with Pablo Valbuena (2009, 43 MB, 3:46 min)
Studio Banana TV interviews visual artist and architect Pablo Valbuena.
After working in digital media designing virtual architectures for videogames,
he currently looks for new ways of using light to introduce the dimensions of
time and movement in urban spaces, altering the perception of physical space
through projected virtual realities.
Todd Polenberg – Monster/Identity Prosthetic
Monster/Identity Prosthetic (2009, 54 MB, 1:13 min)
Documentation from last years Spark Festival of a rather splendid
installation by Todd Polenberg.
Brad Tinmouth – cupping
A Letter From Beirut
A Letter From Beirut (2006, 36.9MB, 4:41 min.)
This video letter was made on July 21, 2006 at the studios of Beirut DC, a
film and cinema collective which runs the yearly Ayam Beirut Al Cinema’iya Film
Festival. This video letter was produced in collaboration with Samidoun, a grassroots
gathering of various organizations and individuals who were involved in relief
and media efforts from the first day of the Israeli attack on Lebanon. It was
also featured at the Biennial of Arab Cinema, organized by the Arab World
Institute in Paris.
Max Moswitzer – early found footage and remixed videos
ZWlSCHENLAGERUNG EINER NULLOESUNG (1988, 10.5 MB, 4:47 min)
COMPUTER GAME (1987, 9 MB, 3:53 min)
Early videos by Max Moswitzer using found footage material, remix
and live performance.
ZWlSCHENLAGERUNG EINER NULLOESUNG was using documentary
films from 1938-1945 and was a live action performance at the
University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 1988.
COMPUTER GAME was exhibited at ARS Electronica in 1987.
More Max Moswitzer here.
One Minute, Volume 4
Martin Pickles – Dinosaur (2010, 130 MB, 1:01 min)
Nicki Rolls – 1961 Revisited (2010, 114 MB, 58 secs)
Two pieces from a touring screening of one minute films,
the fourth such from British filmmaker Kerry Baldry.
It’s a really well put together and gripping hour
(transparency dictates I confess I have a piece in it
but I won’t foist that on you here), with a strike rate well above
most of this kind of compilatation.
Here are two of my favourite pieces; both, in different
ways, little gems of cinematic poetry.
Although Martin Pickle’s piece is amusing there’s
something enchanting about the changing seasonal
landscape & light of West London and how it manifests on screen,
which raises the work from anecdote to something more complicated
and lasting.
The Nicki Rolls piece had me in the palm of its hand within about a second.
(I’m a total sucker for near stillness and for the movement of light)
Then I started to think about what exactly I was watching.
You might like to give it some thought too.
Again, the twist breaks the confines of the one minute form
to resonate long after.
I haven’t see the other three compilations but I hope we could maybe
feature a couple of pieces from each in the not too distant future.
Next week we’ll have a piece by Kerry herself.
Gazira Babeli – Unbroken Eggs – Monument to Luciano Fabro
Unbroken Eggs – Monument to Luciano Fabro (2007, 13 MB, 3:30 min)
Physical scripted environment.
A Second Life performance by Gazira Babeli.
Three from Writtle
Ashleigh Smith – Impossible Conversations (2010, 75 MB, 2:30 min)
Emma Haggis – Out of Sight, Out of Mind (2010, 118 MB, 2:18 min)
Lucy Mills – Response (2010, 108 MB, 2:02 min, silent)
So, first, I should say, Writtle is where I taught this year, but it cuts both ways:
I wouldn’t post these pieces by graduating students here on DVblog unless I
thought they were all great, which I do.
They’re also diverse, in a fascinating way.
There’s Ashleigh Smith’s haunting – stays with you long afterwards – game/real life hybrid,
Lucy Mills beauty industry critique – half mash-up, half rather brave performance,
(It’s interesting the way that all three pieces incorporate, to
some degree, elements of self performance) and Emma Haggis’s superbly made
and utterly captivating stop motion environmental piece.
In each case one can see a personal language well into its development.
(All these pieces or variants/derivatives thereof formed part of larger
installations; I’m impressed by the naturalness & lack of self consciousness
with with these three move between modes of working/presentation)
I hope they’re all still making work in ten years – given this
starting point then that would be a treat in store.
Stan Douglas – Win, Place or Show
Win, Place or Show (clip) (1998, 1.6 MB, 47 sec.)
Two men are having a discussion in a small apartment. The scene,
lasting only six minutes, is filmed from twenty camera positions.
A computer program then produces some 200,000 possible combinations
of images and sounds, so the viewer always sees a different version of the story.
Win, Place or Show questions our conditioned viewing behaviour.
video installation by Stan Douglas.
from ZKM Videosammlung.
Howe Gelb – Spiral
Spiral (2008, 16 MB, 3:41 min)
On the whole I’m totally bored with popular music of all kinds,
especially sick at hearing how “innovative” this or that is just to find
it as dull & derivative & lazy as the rest.
SO..the wonderful Howe Gelb continues to be a signal exception
to the gloom. Passionate, odd and totally engaging music seems to flow
from him continually & ( I could be wrong) he doesn’t seem to have
fallen into the trap of giving people what he thinks they want rather
than what his artistic conscience tells him to make – or to put it better
art trumps business in his work in a shockingly unusual way.
Long may it continue.
Walead Beshty on his Whitney Biennial Installation
Walead Beshty – Whitney Focus (2008, 25 MB, 2:18 min)
2008 Whitney Biennial artist Walead Beshty discusses his photographs
of the former Iraqi embassy to the former East Germany (two nations that no longer exist)
and the complex ideas behind them. He also explains why his glass sculptures
have acquired multiple cracks and fissures.
Produced by the Whitney Museum.
Brantley Jones Again
Mountains – “Interlude” (2010, 105 MB, 2:11 min)
Wistful, quirky & -well, just quite lovely – bit of filmmaking from
Brantley Jones who squeezes real magic – what feels in part like a summoning up of a child’s
eye view of the world (in the best possible sense) – from minimal resources.
Don’t be fooled though – there’s both eye and technique at work here.
We’ve shown his work here before & on the evidence of this will certainly
do so again.
Maisie Crow – A Life Alone
A Life Alone (2009, 81 MB, 5:08 min)
“Tom Rose, 85, wipes a tear from his eye while reminiscing about
his wife who passed away. The two were married for 60 years,
and Tom continues to struggle over her loss.”
By Maisie Crow.
Abe Linkoln/Triptych TV
triplightz (2010, 2 MB, 5 sec silent palindrome loop)
3skullstr (2010, 18 MB, 7 sec silent palindrome loop )
skull3pth (2010, 2 MB, 7 sec silent palindrome loop)
Three new pieces from Abe Linkoln on the ever reliable,
ever astonishing Triptych TV
Studio Banana TV Interviews Chen Chieh Jen
Interview with Chen Chieh Jen (2008, 40 MB, 6:05 min)
Studio Banana TV interviews Taiwanese videoartist Chen Chieh Jen.
Chen