
Peace (2005, 19.7MB, 2:46 min)
This Borat performance at a country-western bar in Tucson, Arizona
provoked a sharp letter from the Anti-Defamation League.

Peace (2005, 19.7MB, 2:46 min)
This Borat performance at a country-western bar in Tucson, Arizona
provoked a sharp letter from the Anti-Defamation League.
Simple in conception and execution & quite lovely.
Photography: Julie Roehr
Music & Video: Nikola Jeremic
From http://www.njeremic.ecobytes.net/njeremic//index.html
(Don’t you wish, though, people wouldn’t leave those huge bars of black
space above & below like that -so many do- but crop to the area where
stuff is happening?)

The Listening Project (2008, 31.5MB, 2:43)
It feels a bit cliched, but I’ll give this one the
benefit of the doubt, of doing relevant and
important work about the current state of
global relations.
The Listening Project is a documentary feature film
that puts a human face to world opinion of the U.S.
Filmed in 14 countries, it explores many facets of
America

SF Culture (2007, 17 MB, 2:09 min.)
“Bumped into a street opera singer in San Francisco who saw my
camera and said, “Of course you can film me.” He didn’t know who I was,
but I told him afterwards and still gave me permission to show, so here is
live from Sutter Street, Robert Close!!!!”
From Paul Knight at – Pjkproductions.

Kill the Artist Trailer (2008, 17MB, 2:37 min)

Kill the Artist (excerpt) (2008, 12.7MB, 1:09 min)
Documentary from Andreas Troeger about ‘artists who got into trouble with the law
because of their art-works’.
Personally I don’t share what I understand to be the film’s implicit
libertarianism – I’m all in favour of shutting down, for example,
Holocaust deniers, or race hate merchants generally.
Niether did I see any work in the extracts sent that I gave a damn about artistically
but of course the point is that censorship operates salami style
& often by picking the most problematic, hard to defend, cases first,
so the discussion here matters.
Nonetheless when the definitive history of political censorship of/attacks upon art in the early
twenty first century is written I can’t help feeling the Steve Kurtz case
will figure more largely than the stuff on display here.
Interested what others think.

Roundhay Remix (2006, 15.6MB, 1.57 min.)
A beautiful remix of the Roundhay Garden Scene,
from 1888, one of the first films ever made.
From Pouringdown.
By Mica.

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries at the New Museum (2008, 62.5MB, 2:48 min)
If you don’t know them, you should; Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
have been responsible for some of the most spine tingling & evocative work
on the net in the last ten years,
This documentary, lifted from the indispensable Rhizome, gives a good bares bones historical
account of them in the context of a show earlier this year at the New Museum.
I didn’t see the show & whilst I’m pleased they’re getting this wider exposure I wonder
if there isn’t something quite particular about the way their work presents in a browser
(preferably, in my view, with headphones on, ie. as submerged in these delicious
& fractured quasi narratives as only the net experience will allow).
Then, it is visceral and immediate.
On the evidence here, there seems to have been something
a little more diffuse about this multiple screen installation.
I don’t know; it’s a surmise; I’d be happy to be told I’m wrong.
It raises interesting questions, though, about the transplanting of work
from browser to gallery.

LAb[au] – PixFlow #2 (2007, 132.3MB, 0:30)
PixFlow #2 is a generative artwork showing a vector field and moving particles/pixels shaping into flows as their density evolves. From the mutual influence in between vectors and particles results an unsuspected, highly evolving behavior.
a preview of the latest from LAb[au]

MOON CRASH (2008, 58 MB, 4:42 min.)
“MOON CRASH is a 360 degree immersive experience using DJ sets
and mutant slides, painted live with video projections.
All visuals are painted on acetate using slide mounts, vitrail glass paint
and drops of water. The paints are solvent based and don

gumball (2008, 35 MB, 7:16 min.)
During The Beginning is a series of installation stations based on
Genesis 1:3, “And God said let there be light and there was light.”
Collectively, these stations perform the impossibility of reducing the
creation event to words. by Curt Cloninger.

Sergei Sviatchenko – Street & White (2006, 4.7MB, 2:42)

Sergei Sviatchenko – 20 hours tv (2004, 1.6MB, 1:46)
Simple, beautiful pieces from Sergei Sviatchenko,
the first with a great soundtrack by the band Kashmir
and the second totally silent.
Neither is wildly entertaining, but I found both to be
so calming in their simplicity.
Originally from the Ukraine, Sviatchenko now lives
in Denmark.

Huffer (2002, 69.2MB, 2:15 min)
Video for the 2002 single from The Breeders
The new album is great too; feels like it was made by
smart wayward, passionate, human beings
rather than a focus group.

restart (2006, 9KB, 4 min. loop)
We’re Alan Sondheim fans here at dvblog.
When so much work on the web is banal & lacking in ambition
he is an antidote, a tonic, a reason to hope.
His restless energy & intelligence transmute everything
he engages with into art (remember Picasso & those handlebars?)
Those living in the Santa Monica area might have seen his installation
‘embedded’ (also including work by filmmaker Leslie Thornton)
at the Track 16 gallery in 2006.

Limbo (2008, 26.3MB, 3:08 min)
We’ve shown Donna Kuhn’s work couple of times before.
Look at the trajectory.
It’s always been impressive but there’s a new note here:
a confidence & ambition that is really striking.
It’s a cliche but cliches are nonetheless sometimes true
-here’s someone who has found a very personal
voice & learned how sing with it in a sophisticated
& affecting way.
More here.

Broken Bones (2006, 18.8MB, 3:11 min.)
After the murder of Bryan Harvey, half of the band House of Freaks,
I had wanted to make a music video for one of their songs as a small tribute,
but I was just too heartbroken to approach it.
I found the occasion on my last train ride home to Virginia.
I filmed this on the way down and edited it on my way back to New York.
While this talented duo had two legitimate pop hits in the 1980s
and an international fan base, their influence is far greater than
their current notoriety would suggest. I think so.
By Mica.

Feeling like a Genie (2005, 1.2MB, qtvr)
Life from the perspective of a 2-litre Volvic water bottle.
Thomas Mottl interactive photographs.
(Use mouse to click and drag. use shift & controll to zoom in and out)

Jeff Nichols – Shotgun Stories (2008, 10.3MB, 1:50)
Shotgun Stories tells the tale of two families with the
same father. One, in which the children are named
Kid, Boy, and Son, came before dad sobered up and
found Jesus. The second, his marriage to a beautiful
woman who had four more boys, was his do-over.
After his death, an explosive feud breaks out between
the grown half-siblings.
It opened to rave reviews, and from the chilling
trailer alone, I can see why.

I want it that way (2005, 20.3MB, 3:39 min.)
A super hit back in 2005 that started the Karaoke trend
on Utube. (3M hits)
from- The Dormitory Boys.

‘Irark’ (2003, 5.7 MB, 5 min.)

‘ME’ (2001, 18.5 MB, 2:45 min.)
Simply great stuff from Austrian Monochrom.

What’s He Building? (2006, 6.7MB, 1 min.)
Matt Smithson is a gifted illustrator whose videos incorporate text,
drawing and photography into rich animated collages.
This video perfectly complements the Tom Waits reading it accompanies.
By Mica.

Terminally Ambivalent Over You (2002, 26.1MB, 3:19 min.)
Based on Stephen Coate‘s song from the album ‘When Psyche meets Cupid’,
this animation tells the story of a prisoner who works in a prison’s
gramophone factory and while assembling gramophones thinks of his girlfriend.
Neat stuff from Alex Budovsky, aka Aleksey Budovskiy.

Memory Loss (2008, 61.4MB, 2:13 min)

No Exit (2008, 38.2MB, 2:19 min)
Two pieces from Lee Sarter.
Memory Loss is an unequivocal success in my view,
evocative, very nicely constructed & haunting.
(Even manages to temporarily subdue my deeply felt &
longstanding antipathy to ambient sounding piano
soundtracks)
I don’t think No Exit works quite so well but it’s clear
in both that there’s a thinking & creative filmic intelligence at work here.
I look forward to more.

Moves and Shadows (2008, 17.5MB, 3:17 min)
3:17 min of visual enchantment from the genius Dane
in this utterly ravishing dance vid.

Motion Theory – Beck – Girl (2007, 38.9MB, 3:28)
From Venice, California visual design/filmmaking studio
Motion Theory, this laid back Beck video was directed
by Mathew Cullen and Grady Hall.

My Temporary Visiting Position From The Sunset Terrace Bar (2008, 30 MB, 4:10 min.)
“Set in the city of Ahlen, Germany, “My Temporary Visiting Position From The Sunset Terrace Bar“, imitates an amateur’s film of the landscape framed at sunset.
While the city strip is pre recorded the sky is captured in real time from a webcam shooting the sky of Naples (Italy) at sunset and as such, always changing.
The work, confronting themes such as exile, migration and border control, is enhanced by a poem by the esteemed author Ghada Samman and music by the international band Gotan Project and legendary composer Gabriel Yared.”
Clip from the beautiful project by Carlo Zanni.

Jay and Mark Duplass – The Puffy Chair (2005, 6.3MB, 2:14)
Debut feature from the Duplass brothers, a few years
old, and part of the Mumblecore filmmaking movement,
which I seem to be partial towards.