The Journey(2008, 30.8MB, 3:12 min)
Like a modern day Dante Robert Croma manages to squeeze
poetry even from a rush hour journey on the London Underground.
Beautiful. Beautiful & elegant & telling.
Protest Films
Alex Pearl – Protest Film Nottingham (2006, 7.6MB, 1:36)
Protest films…usually films about people protesting
something unjust in the world.
Or, perhaps you meant Protest Films, the conceptual
robot-banner-waving collection of videos wherein
little machines “protest,” more generally speaking.
This is the first from the long-running,
Arts Council-supported series from artist
and renaissance man Alex Pearl.
If you’d like to participate or create your own
Clockwork Protest, visit the blog and email Alex
for a protest kit.
Recombinant Rain from Millie Niss
Recombinant Rain (2008, 7MB, 32 secs)
Source Video #1 (2008, 1.3MB, 10 secs silent)
Source Video #2 (2008, 2.2MB, 12 secs silent)
Source Video #3 (2008, 1.2MB, 14 secs silent)
Source Video #4 (2008, 2MB, 13 secs silent)
Millie Niss is one half of the daughter & mother team behind
the original & indispensable Sporkworld Microblog.
(And if you look at it for ten minutes & you don’t agree
it’s that, please check you have a pulse).
I’m not sure Millie felt that this piece was entirely successful.
(See her comments on the blog, linked above)
I’m posting it because even a borderline success from Millie
is something one can learn from. She has a formidable intellect
combined with a total & fierce independence & a complete
lack of bullshit.( Indeed I’m convinced that she wouldn’t
know how to bullshit, even if she wanted to.)
The last four pieces are tiny little studies of the rain
(delicate & lovely in their own right),
& the first is constructed from frames lifted from these
& worked over in various ways.
This piece (or actually the set of pieces, sources & first pass
at an end product alike) does it for me in a way that a lot of work doesn’t.
Simply, there’s a profound humanity to it.
Sure, it’s about the rain but it’s also about what it is
to be a human being in the world.
John Baldessari – I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art
John Baldessari – I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art (1971, 135.3MB, 13:13)
One of my favorite older pieces from legendary artist
John Baldessari. Commissioned in ’71 to make an
installation piece, Baldessari couldn’t make the trip
and instructed students to write on the walls in his
place. Inspired by their results – that they covered
the gallery with this phrase – he made this video,
following his usual path of pointing out irony in art.
Look for follow-up pieces like “Teaching A Plant The
Alphabet” if you have the time. Classic.
Via the indispensable UbuWeb
Rebecca Bray & Britta Riley – Feedback Interview
submersibledesign (2008, 6.6MB, 3:04 min.)
What happens when we think of our bodies as their own ecosystems?
Interview with Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray, artists and collaborators who also
own a company called submersible design.
From eyebeam.
Always on Time
Random Show – Always on Time (2005, 4.4MB, 2:22)
Oh, how I loved this video. And how I still do.
If you don’t get it, look up the Ja Rule/Ashanti version.
From the now defunct Random Show.
Brian Gibson – Lincoln
Lincoln (2008, 69MB, 7:36 min)
Typically exquisite bit of work from poet of the video
& occasional contributor here, Brian Gibson.
The Blackest Spot by Jody Zellen
Blackest Spot (2008, 18MB, 2:17 min.)
A new installation by Jody Zellen at LA’s Fringe gallery.
The Blackest Spot is an interactive installation that uses Elias Canetti’s
seminal text “Crowds and Power” as its point of departure. Viewers step
on floor mounted triggers to change images and sounds within the space.
3 from Kinetocast
Kinetocast – To Watch While Smelling Summer (2007, 8.2MB, 1:30)
Kinetocast – To Watch With Any Spectacle (2007, 8MB, 1:21)
Kinetocast – To Watch Feeling Betrayed (2006, 2.7MB, 0:35)
Three from the wildly amusing, all too infrequently updated kinetocast.
All based on the idea that these short videos can be watched as they
are labeled appropriate to time or event, this entire videoblog is fairly
genius conceptual work. Also worth checking out from Mack McFarland,
The Portland That Was….
More of these to come…
Daniel Swan – Interlords II
Interlords II (2008, 70MB, 5:09 min.)
Deft & compelling bit of After Effects powered You Tube
mashing from Daniel Swan, frighteningly, still a
student at Camberwell.
One to watch.