HI
we’ll be back for a week, monday to sunday, march 25th – 31st, with seven new posts.
We intend to continue doing this occasionally, a modest online showcase
for work we like.
We’d be interested to see work by people who’ve contributed in the past
but also by those we haven’t come across before. We’ll look at everything sent to us
and if we like it we’ll post it with a little bit of accompanying writing as per we’ve been
doing for what feels like forever.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s your first or your 101st
video, we’re interested.
The only stuff we’re likely (though not certain) to ignore is
corporate type publicity for ads or music vids though, in truth,
we’ve had some good ones from that quarter too.
Read the “about” page and send links to michael[at]dvblog[dot]org
or d[at]dvblog[dot]org or both of us.
cheers
michael & doron
Happy New Year/Everything Changes
Gilgamesh, Part #1 (2012, 214MB, 5:03 min)
Beyond Spectacle (2012, 214MB, 5:03 min)
About DVblog –
Doron started DVblog in summer 2005 and Michael started posting about a month after.
A number of people have contributed hugely along the way – notably Mica Scalin, Brittany
Shoot and Brian Gibson.
We’ve been vandalised a couple of times (hence postings now dating back only to late 2006,
although the vast majority of what was ever posted is back up now) but we’ve also had some really
delightful feedback from people who’ve felt what we’ve done is worthwhile.
Early on we decided that anything we posted would actually live on our server and this means we have assembled an extraordinary and unique archive of the birth and infancy of art video specifically created for or focussed upon the network.
One day we will donate this to an institution that will preserve it and continue to make it available for both joy and study.
When we started Quicktime was the only serious way for anyone to post moving image work to the net. Although it remains the backbone of virtually all digital moving image activity, as a mode of delivery it has now been almost completely superseded by streaming video. This has two implications – one being that the casual viewer has become less patient and is much more likely to go to YouTube or similar, where there’s no significant wait and where quality has improved immeasurably. The other is that fewer and fewer artists are posting their work in QuickTime format – so our old methodology of accepting submitted work but also scouring the net for interesting stuff is at least 50% outmoded.
Finally we want to say – it has been hard work and for no material reward. Indeed, not only have we never made a dime out of DVblog, it has cost us both cash and a great deal of time to sustain. Not that we are complaining – we hope we provided a service to people and certainly we learned a great deal and derived a great deal of pleasure from everything we posted. We made some good and lasting friendships too.
For the reasons listed above we are going to stop posting regularly from today. We finish with pieces from two artists who, in very different ways, have given us a great deal of pleasure – Annie Abrahams and Edward Picot.
Annie, with a record of a networked performance in November of 2012 and Edward with a splendidly mad take on the tale of Gilgamesh, featuring characters from his Dr Hairy series.
We’re not proposing to shut up shop entirely – we will continue post such work in QuickTime format which is submitted to us and which we like. We still think there is something special about the amount of control over quality posting an actual QT file gives and we’re very interested in continuing to write short, but we hope thoughtful and helpful, texts about these. Please, therefore, don’t be shy abuot sending us stuff!
We’d like to thank all who have contributed work over the past seven and a half years and, of course, those who have taken an interest both in the work and what we’ve had to say about it.
Finally we wish readers and contributors alike a happy, productive and thoughtful 2013.
Michael Szpakowski & Doron Golan, 1st Jan 2013.
Brian Eno – Mistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan
Mistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan (1981, 43MB, 6:01 min)
A six minute excerpt from the 45 min beaut.
The DVD comes with ‘Thursday Afternoon’ and your
option of playing either movie vertically or horizontally.
I Don’t Want Your Lasagne Furnace – Donna Kuhn
I Don’t Want Your Lasagne Furnace (2009, 41.4MB, 2:23 min)
Artists I really care for tend to fall into two distinct categories.
The first is the extensive or Picasso category – refusing to be
bound by stylistic limitations or boxes they constantly
reinvent themselves, often seeming like ten artists in one skin.
The other might be called the Giacometti or Morandi model, where
the best part of a lifetime is devoted to an intensive, deep,
exploration of a limited set of themes and content.
They have in common more than would at first appear to be the case.
They are both led by a kind of shamanistic passion, a surrender to
the unconscious, to whim, to a playfulness which can be either infantile
or deadly serious, and they reject the most common practice which is the
dull conformity of making work which attempts to guess the market,
or follow fashion or whatever.
If Sondheim is the net exemplar of the first way then Donna Kuhn
must typify the second.
Small miracles of freshness & originality mined and chiselled from
a tiny pallette! Wit and sadness both! Wonder! Delight!
My Bloody Valentines – Videos by Angus Cameron
Only Shallow (37.1MB, 3:40 min.)
To Here Knows When (47.7MB, 4:43 min.)
My Bloody Valentine videos from the rare & wonderful – Story of Creation.
Burroughs & Van Sant
Thanksgiving Prayer (1986, 7.6MB, 2:21 min.)
An astonishing rendition by William Burroughs of his
‘Thanksgiving Prayer’ in a short video directed by
Gus Van Sant.
Almost 7 Minutes of Unalloyed Bliss
What’s Opera Doc? (1957, 57.2MB, 6:52 min)
Remember the tingle down the spine when the first song kicks in in
the musical episode of Buffy?
Well, here’s the template from 1957.
Cartoons featuring talking and singing animals performing opera simply
do not get better than this.
Wishing you all a very happy holiday season…
3 from Ben Pranger
Morse Gestures (2009, 28.6MB, 2:54 min)
Floating Cup (2009, 1.35MB, 28 secs, silent)
Suitcase in a Box (2009, 59.6MB, 1:00 min)
Assured & smart domestic surrealism from Ben Pranger.
Transfers by Caitlin Berrigan
Caitlin Berrigan – Transfers (Clip) (2009, 8.7MB, 3:21)
Beautifully choreographed piece by Caitlin Berrigan.
The Story of Stuff
The Story of Stuff (2008, 54.1MB, 21:20)
The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard is a twenty
minute video about waste, recycling, corporations,
and sustainability. Even a radical like me finds it
occasionally heavy-handed, but then, this is serious
stuff. Nicely done, worth the twenty minutes you’d
otherwise spend watching crap TV, no?