Zoomer (trailer) (2010, 26MB, 2:24 min.)
ZOOMER is a feature-length documentary about the life of Mary
DeBoutez Zellmer-Fenoglio, an eccentric and charismatic owner
of ‘Zoomer’s Treasures’ in Kansas, USA.
ZOOMER is Sam Huntley‘s first feature-length film and was entirely self-funded.
clip #1 (1995, 7.6MB, 32 sec.)
clip #2 (1995, 3.2MB, 14 sec.)
clip #3 (1995, 4.1MB, 17 sec.)
Some lovely footage of the great free improv guitarist Derek Bailey,
who died in 2005, working with be-bop hoofer Will Gaines.
As with so much Bailey did, it seems at first deeply
odd & then, in equal measure, wonderful.
Important to understand this wasn’t some sort of gimmick:
Gaines had known Bailey since the sixties & although much of his
fame was garnered firmly in the mainstream, he has spent a great
deal of time working with cutting edge improvisors.
Enjoy two wonderful artists at the top of their game.
From European Free Improvisation.
videoconstructions2 (1978, 5MB, 1:16 min.)
The Chair (1980, 36MB, 9:54 min.)
Buky Schwartz (1932-2009), an Israeli sculptor and video artist
who passed away last year, was known for his deceptive videos
that interplay between illusory appearance and the actual ‘reality’.
The 2 vids here were exhibited at the Whitney Biennial in New York in 1981.
From the splendid Videoart.net
Utterly compelling clip from a 1960s German documentary featuring a
spine tingling live performance in a Piraeus taverna by the great
rembetiko singer Markos Vamvakaris.
I could watch & listen all day.
PS I think atakti means ‘bad’ or ‘naughty’
untitled 1 (2010, 630kb, 7 sec.)
untitled 2 (2010, 1MB, 10 sec.)
trophy sports (2010, 768kb, 8 sec.)
three miniatures from nick vitou (ormo).
all cellphone uploads to facebook.
all shot on location while running replay for a local sports television network.
..DNF chancellor with a gold eye.
& check out his music endeavors at LAPS.
Private Charges ( 2010, 51MB, 9:59)
Another bit of pointed fun from the team who brought you
the original Dr Hairy movie.
Made me laugh a lot, especially the superb timing and the
gratuitous cruelty to toy animals.
Shouldn’t need saying, especially with this one, but, US
viewers, please see the disclaimer on the original post.
Opto-Isolator (2007, 6MB, 46 sec.)
“Opto-Isolator inverts the condition of spectatorship by exploring the questions:
“What if artworks could know how we were looking at them? And, given this
knowledge, how might they respond to us?” The sculpture presents a solitary
mechatronic blinking eye, at human scale, which responds to the gaze of visitors
with a variety of psychosocial eye-contact behaviors that are at once familiar and
unnerving. Among other forms of feedback, Opto-Isolator looks its viewer directly
in the eye; appears to intently study its viewer’s face; looks away coyly if it is stared
at for too long; and blinks precisely one second after its visitor blinks.”
By Golan Levin and Greg Baltus.
The other day,on a whim, I bought Takashi Ito’s collected works on DVD
from the BFI shop. I’d never heard of him before.
I’m so glad I did. It is utterly compelling and remarkable work.
Spacy is an early piece and the clip here is neither complete
not particularly good quality but it does give you a taste of Ito’s early
– almost formalist – style.
There’s such delight in seeing how this broadens into the flexible,
confidently handled and singular idiom of the later pieces, where a quite
musical rigor in the formal structuring is never absent but which
also underpins a beautifully ambiguous and rich expressivity.
The whole set was one of those all too rare tingle-down-the-spine
revelations which I gulped down in a couple of sittings.
This is outstanding & important work – I urge people to become acquainted with it.
Deaf Swedish Beaver TV (2010, 9MB, 1:03 min)
Sooooo un-PC on just soooo many levels
and quite quite wonderful too, a great Lumière from
DVblog’s own Brittany Shoot.
The Lost Shoe (2010, 16MB, 4:35 min)
Martha Deed, one of our favourite people, & co-founder with
the much missed Millie Niss of the fantastic Sporkworld Microblog,
which we’ve raved about before & which we can’t recommend too
highly, has a paper publication coming out, a book of poems, for which
she created this chilling and beautifully made video “trailer”.
Watch the trailer then
Simultaneous (2003, 1MB, QTVR)
Multiple video cameras placed at different angles and heights surround the
subject and capture simultaneously. The resulting frames are superimposed
upon each other and re-constructed through post-production techniques.
The attempt further illustrates the flattening of time and space and the
perceptible conjoining of these states by allowing the viewer to see from
multiple vantages simultaneously.
By Stephen Cady.
interactive: use mouse to click and drag.
Elephants (2008, 9MB, 1:19 min.)
Flatheads (2008, 2MB, 30 sec.)
3 commercials for Samsung, Axion and Fruit Roll-Ups
by inspiring director – Keith Schofield.
my dark horse is horny (2008, 18MB, 1:23 min.)
Disturbingly hilarious and weird video from Jaron Albertin.
Bramble Jelly (2010, 63MB, 5:14 min)
Lovely little pastoral from Edward Picot, as resolutely
unfashionable as ever and not any the worse for it.
More soon.
rings #1 – #6 (2007, 25MB, 6:35 min.)
“Ongoing series of one-minute unedited shots which can each stands alone.
Improvised choreography multi-reprojected on body parts, counterpointed
by texts by Fernand Shirren, Maurice Bejart’s music advisor and rhythm teacher
of many dancers and choreographers, and a significant inspiration in Fuks’ work.
made collaboratively with and performed by Helen Varley Jamieson,
James Cunningham, Scotia Monkivitch and Suzon Fuks.”
Directed by Suzon Fuks.
Tales of the Unexpected (2008, 14MB, 1:06 min.)
Debris (2008, 33MB, 3:20 min.)
By Carl Burgess.
‘Disappointment’ video here.
Octopus (2010, 56MB, 1:15 min)
When we previously featured a piece by Jolipunk we took the
exceptional step of including a warning that it might disturb.
This new piece is interesting on several counts –
(1) The somewhat in-your-face Oldboy reference/homage
(I can’t believe there’s anyone interested in film who isn’t at least
aware of that scene)
(2) The sharp focus once again on the mouth and mouth
related transgression.
(3) That -at least in my case – it didn’t send me running
for the sick bucket or even force me to turn away; indeed there’s
something even elegant (especially after the beats kick in
around 47 secs) about it.
(4) The jumpy editing and ambiguous music (which flits rapidly
from mood to mood, ominous at one time, quite lighthearted
at others) which serve both to distance us from simple disgust
and from a too easy identification with the Chan-wook Park sequence.
Sometimes work is “interesting” without being good – here
the things that make it the one make it the other too.
“Move” (2009, 25MB, 3:06 min.)
Mims – “Move”, a hip-hop music video that used high-speed Phantom
cameras to shoot the “ultra slow-motion” dance/movement sequences.
By Keith Schofield.
A Cube Bavards (2009, 20MB, 2:47 min)
A Venir Le Monde Sera Beau (2009, 52MB, 9:51 min)
OK -comparisons, I’m aware, can sometimes obscure as much as they illuminate but
imagine, if you will, a female, French, slightly more lapidary, Matthew Barney and it does
seem to fit the bill.
Exemplary and wonderful strangeness from Veronique Hubert.
KUNSTHAUS TACHELES (2009, 24MB, 2:59 min.)
By Karen Chan. Graffiti. Super 8. Shot in Berlin.
Another great piece from Morrisa Maltz, whom we first showed here last week.
This puts me in mind, stylistically, of another DVblog favourite, Donna Kuhn.
I mean that entirely positively – the content & tone are clearly different but there’s
something of the same dynamism and confidence in working with very diverse materials
in both artists.
“Eyecode is an interactive installation whose display is wholly constructed
from its own history of being viewed. By means of a hidden camera, the system
records and replays brief video clips of its viewers’ eyes. Each clip is articulated
by the duration between two of the viewer’s blinks. The unnerving result is a
typographic tapestry of recursive observation.”
By Golan Levin.
Let Me Tell You Something Important (2010, 20MB, 17 secs)
Little taster, simultaneously spooky and ravishing, of the work of young LA based artist
Morrisa Maltz.
Very singular, very nicely executed, very good.
Something a little longer next week.
“Heaven Can Wait” (2009, 21MB, 2:40 min.)
Charlotte Gainsbourg & Beck music video by Keith Schofield.
Skateboard on Cheeseburgers and Floating Cloth shots inspired
by the work of William Hundley.
DEATHDISCO aphrodisiskratch remix (2006, 16.8MB, 25 sec loop)
Neat remix from 2006 by jimpunk of abe linkoln’s DEATHDISCO.mov,
posted here yesterday.
The sample is aphrodisiskratch by DJ QBert.
More jimpunk on DVblog.
DEATHDISCO (2005, 22.7MB, 1:31 min.)
From Abe Linkoln in 2005.
series 1, #10 (2006, 625KB, 1 sec. loop)
series 1, #1 (2006, 564KB, 1 sec. loop)
series 1, #20 (2006, 550KB, 1 sec. loop)
Attractive & interesting 2006 work from Belgian artist Hugo Heyrman
Despite a superficial similarity to the work of the late David Crawford
this work has a dynamic (and a charm) entirely its own.
Check out Heyrman’s Museums of the Mind site for more.
Rave Culture (1998, 16MB, 11:19 min.)
Shot on location at six Chicago parties over the course of a year,
this film explores multiple issues surrounding the rave scene,
including public opinion, promoters, drugs, police, and the culture
created by this phenomenon.
By Tom Frisch.
with wavering light (2010, 31MB, 3:03 min.)
Delicate, beautiful & assured work from occasional contributor here,
Brian Gibson.
I do particularly love the recorded-as-live harmonium, which, unlike
so much of the current use of music in movie-making serves to somehow
open out, rather than close off, the piece’s field of meanings.
