I wish we'd gotten our dirty CINEPLOSION hands on these tracks before they got ofiical videos...
Sugar and Gold "Bodyaches" - These dudes did a CINEPLOSION at "The Exchange" in Hot Springs National Park, AR, a while back, but to my knowledge the video either didn't record properly or became lost to some sort of un-labeled tape void. FUTURE ESTATE SALERS BEWARE!
Birds and Batteries "Lightning (UTNG Version)" - This is a super track from a somewhat lesser-known but relentlessly touring outfit. Picked it up at a show once, and it really socked it for me. This clip is essentually a music video for Len Lye's 1935 Colour Box. Lye is one of the great pioneers of early hand-made cinema, and I love his stuff. But for me... the film and the song are too good for each other. I'd suggest watching the movie silent, and then listening to the song in darkness.
For another way-cool Len Lye film, search out "Neighbors" 1952
Black Cherry "Radio" - This swanky UK outfit breezed into Hot Springs National Park during the 2011 Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival, playing a sleeper, early-evening gig at the Star Gallery downtown. I picked up their rare "The Preface" EP. Mega cool--
Actually, Black Cherry's "Fake Blood" is by far my favorite on the album, and tore it up live. This song doesn't seem to have a video yet... hmmm....
====>>> contemporary avant-garde film, video and performance art ##
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Czech "mapping"
Whoa, this one knocked me off my rocker. Over in Prague the art of video "mapping" man-made objects is taking off. Light shows, puppetry, phantasmagoria and the like have a long history here, so this is no surprise.
Oh yeah, Jan Svankmajer lives there too!
Family folklore has swirled that I've got stake in a castle somewhere in those Czech hills... one of these days I'd ought to find it!
The 600 Years from the macula on Vimeo.
Oh yeah, Jan Svankmajer lives there too!
Family folklore has swirled that I've got stake in a castle somewhere in those Czech hills... one of these days I'd ought to find it!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
FLEX Performances- CINEPLOSION/Nugent/Justice
The idea of “CINEPLOSION” has morphed a bit over time, and the latest real-life occurrence occurred at the Palomino Pool Hall patio in Gainesville, FL on Thursday, 17, 2011. I had been penciled in for the gig, but backed out just a few weeks before due to a case of the “practicalities.” Well by golly if I didn’t get a little queeze in the gut; you know, the kind like maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere or missed your exit? Yes, I’d learned this lesson before-- as a Minnesotan might say, “if the road’s plowed, drive it.” So recant, I did, and was off to Florida with a sigh of relief.
It was a super swell drive. I left Hot Springs at about 8pm, a bit past the 10am I’d planned, and made it just past Birmingham, Alabama for my first stint. Took a snooze in the far corner of a Wal/Mart parking lot from 4:30-10am, then booked it to Gainesville.
I got into town just a bit late for Phil Solomon’s show (reviewed in past post), then got to meet the whole FLEX crew and the next day a chill day before the show.
Wow, what a rare pleasure to have ample time to prepare. I sorta felt obligated to pull out all the stops with the gear, just ‘cause I’d traveled a long way and kinda wanted to bust out my best. Problem is, my getup it all hardware-- plugs and gadgets; do-dads and googliematts. Taming and patience required. So I got there at 2pm, and started projecting at 11pm-- successfully mobilizing 80% of my technological availabilities. 80 percent?! Whaaa-wooooo! A new record..!
Gainesville native, Andrew Downs was my DJ, and it proved to be the perfect combo. His setup is all cassette audio tapes, and mine is all cassette video tapes, so we managed a complete audio and visual analog tape set. Thumbs up to Andrew Downs, and for FLEX and Palomino crews for hooking this one !
Next up for live projects was Patrick Nugent, who’s “Merry-Go-Round” premiered at the IndieGrits festival in Nugent’s home-base of Columbia, South Carolina. Wizard gizzards, did FLEX find a diamond in this one! The installation consists of a large painted screen, cosmically cobwebbed precisely to coordinate with fragmented, mutating images on the projection. The resulting installation is a repressed adolescent boy’s neurological mind meltdown, as sex advice and protocol electrocute the third eye..
Patrick Nugent bowling at FLEX.
The third performance of the festival provided the perfect swam song to the weekend. Festival organizer, Amanda Justice, came armed with a backpack of VHS tapes and a killer naturally-birthed VJ name. Yes, I can attest the local thrift outlets professionally scoured, and tape pirates best move on to the next town for holy grail “Swayze Dancing” tapes or other such finds. Those gems are in the hands of Justice, waiting to whirl with the whizz and click of a rewind, pause and play.
Somewhere along the line I mentioned that it was pretty unusual to have two VHS VJ’s in one room, and heard in response, “Oh... I just thought that’s how it was ALWAYS done.” And at first I was baffled but then a little charmed. To know that “Bohiemias” still exit were a competent, art-going patron can be tricked into believing VHS-mixing is a standard, practical art form. Ah, it just melts my big ‘ol analog heart.
Photo credits: FLEX/Jessie White
Reviewed by d.anderson 2011
It was a super swell drive. I left Hot Springs at about 8pm, a bit past the 10am I’d planned, and made it just past Birmingham, Alabama for my first stint. Took a snooze in the far corner of a Wal/Mart parking lot from 4:30-10am, then booked it to Gainesville.
I got into town just a bit late for Phil Solomon’s show (reviewed in past post), then got to meet the whole FLEX crew and the next day a chill day before the show.
Wow, what a rare pleasure to have ample time to prepare. I sorta felt obligated to pull out all the stops with the gear, just ‘cause I’d traveled a long way and kinda wanted to bust out my best. Problem is, my getup it all hardware-- plugs and gadgets; do-dads and googliematts. Taming and patience required. So I got there at 2pm, and started projecting at 11pm-- successfully mobilizing 80% of my technological availabilities. 80 percent?! Whaaa-wooooo! A new record..!
Gainesville native, Andrew Downs was my DJ, and it proved to be the perfect combo. His setup is all cassette audio tapes, and mine is all cassette video tapes, so we managed a complete audio and visual analog tape set. Thumbs up to Andrew Downs, and for FLEX and Palomino crews for hooking this one !
Next up for live projects was Patrick Nugent, who’s “Merry-Go-Round” premiered at the IndieGrits festival in Nugent’s home-base of Columbia, South Carolina. Wizard gizzards, did FLEX find a diamond in this one! The installation consists of a large painted screen, cosmically cobwebbed precisely to coordinate with fragmented, mutating images on the projection. The resulting installation is a repressed adolescent boy’s neurological mind meltdown, as sex advice and protocol electrocute the third eye..
Patrick Nugent bowling at FLEX.
The third performance of the festival provided the perfect swam song to the weekend. Festival organizer, Amanda Justice, came armed with a backpack of VHS tapes and a killer naturally-birthed VJ name. Yes, I can attest the local thrift outlets professionally scoured, and tape pirates best move on to the next town for holy grail “Swayze Dancing” tapes or other such finds. Those gems are in the hands of Justice, waiting to whirl with the whizz and click of a rewind, pause and play.
Somewhere along the line I mentioned that it was pretty unusual to have two VHS VJ’s in one room, and heard in response, “Oh... I just thought that’s how it was ALWAYS done.” And at first I was baffled but then a little charmed. To know that “Bohiemias” still exit were a competent, art-going patron can be tricked into believing VHS-mixing is a standard, practical art form. Ah, it just melts my big ‘ol analog heart.
Photo credits: FLEX/Jessie White
Reviewed by d.anderson 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
FLEX- Mark Toscano curated show
Opening the 2011 FLEX Fest in Gainesville, FL, was a curated show by festival juror and Academy archivist, Mark Toscano. These works ranged from 1957-1975, and were all shown on 16mm, sans one early PortaPak video. What is most striking to me, upon reviewing the program after the fact, is that each film in itself represents a historical document that now lives beyond it’s time. Each film is a vignette of a time, an idea, a concept. We live and think based on the world around us, and experimental film, more than perhaps any other medium, takes us into the visual minds of the past. There is a pureness to experimental media that cannot be achieved by the superficial nature of narrative films, or even traditional documentaries. This is “cinema of the mind,” and it is a rare treat to see works made by true fringe, unheralded artists from times gone by-- films simply are not made like this in our current age, experimental or otherwise.
The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time known for “acid” films, which I’ve always found very misleading. While the vision for creating a particular piece may be encouraged by mind alternating substances, the technical process of creating a 16mm film is far too complex to be credited to them alone. And while a case can be made that viewing these films can be enhanced by substances, I would defiantly fist-fight anyone in the street who claimed they could not be fully enjoyed without.
Two of my favorite "acid" films in the program were Daina Krumins’ “Aether” (1972) and Ben Van Meter’s “SF Trips Festival” (1967). Both films were breathtakingly crisp on vibrant, deliciously reversal, 16mm film-- and represent a time and place when mind-expansion was much more en vogue, when there was more to our reality than body, car and iPhone. “Aether” is a candy apocalypse, terrorizing yet ever so sweet. A technicolor apparition from the center of the moon. If it were possible to see "aether" itself, not only as a gas compound, but as a real being with aspirations, conscious and soul-- it may very well look like this film.
“SF Trips Festival” documents an art festival in line with a more homespun “Burning Man.” This film consists of thee exposures on one reel of film stock, meaning that the film was exposed, rewound, re-exposed, rewound, and re-exposed again. The beauty of the film is that all three exposures are meticulous and calculated, yet fatefully random. One exposure is mainly color streaks and abstractions, while the other two contain more recognizable objects and people-- with Van Meter taking obvious care to frame each image to balance the overall final product. While the film is certainly “experimental,” there is a true organic documentary quality to the film, with a feel that you’ve been sucked into the scene rather than just examining the petri dish.
As a vintage video junkie, “Turning Over” (1975) by Morgan Fisher was a real thrill. It had a very deadpan William Wegman style, that just seems to shine in the light of grainy b/w videotape. Essentially, the video is a document of Fisher’s car “turning over” at 100,000 miles-- overly analyzed, hyper-hyped, hilarious in a British-comedy sort of way. Just as the old saying goes, “people remember you if you wear the same clothes every day,” people will also remember your film if it stretches a single moment out for 15 minutes. Love it!
Also worth mentioning, “Picasso” (1973), made as a sort of anti-homage to Pablo Picasso. Chis Langdon was said to be very disfavorable towards Picasso, and rapidly made this film within the scope of several hours. The most memorable part of the film is an inane, incessant looped recording of Picasso himself in his doddering years, mumbling something about children needing to do something or another. “King David” (1970) was an engaging documentary on a black egomaniac “Mr. T” style character in 1970s San Francisco, making me wish more filmmakers would champion their local eccentrics. Mike Henderson’s “Dufus” was a charming psuedo-documentary, staging variations of stereotyped black identities. At one point, Henderson flashes the “self” title card and childishly scampers into the frame, buck-naked and scared, as in a teenage anxiety dream. What is a self anyway? Are we to simply scroll down the list until we find the right persona? Who do you think YOU are, Bub?
Full program:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2011
THE TOP SECRET SPACE , Gainesville, FL
CURATED SHOW: Mark Toscano
The Maltese Cross Movement (8:00/16MM/1967) Keewatin Dewdney
Logos (2:00/16MM/1957) Jane Conger Belson Shimane
Brummer’s (10:00/16MM/1967) David Bienstock
S.W.L.A. (6:00/16MM/1971) Rob Thompson
Aether (4:00/16MM/1972) Daina Krumins
Mirror People (5:00/16MM/1957) Kathy Rose
Picasso (3:00/16MM/1973) Chris Langdon
King David (9:00/16MM/1970) Robert Nelson & Mike Henderson
Turning Over (13:00/VIDEO/1975) Morgan Fisher
SF Trips Festival--An Opening (9:00/16MM/1967) Ben Van Meter
Dufus (8:00/16MM/1970/73) Mike Henderson
Throbs (7:00/16mm/1972) Fred Worden
Reviewed by d.anderson 2011
The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time known for “acid” films, which I’ve always found very misleading. While the vision for creating a particular piece may be encouraged by mind alternating substances, the technical process of creating a 16mm film is far too complex to be credited to them alone. And while a case can be made that viewing these films can be enhanced by substances, I would defiantly fist-fight anyone in the street who claimed they could not be fully enjoyed without.
Two of my favorite "acid" films in the program were Daina Krumins’ “Aether” (1972) and Ben Van Meter’s “SF Trips Festival” (1967). Both films were breathtakingly crisp on vibrant, deliciously reversal, 16mm film-- and represent a time and place when mind-expansion was much more en vogue, when there was more to our reality than body, car and iPhone. “Aether” is a candy apocalypse, terrorizing yet ever so sweet. A technicolor apparition from the center of the moon. If it were possible to see "aether" itself, not only as a gas compound, but as a real being with aspirations, conscious and soul-- it may very well look like this film.
“SF Trips Festival” documents an art festival in line with a more homespun “Burning Man.” This film consists of thee exposures on one reel of film stock, meaning that the film was exposed, rewound, re-exposed, rewound, and re-exposed again. The beauty of the film is that all three exposures are meticulous and calculated, yet fatefully random. One exposure is mainly color streaks and abstractions, while the other two contain more recognizable objects and people-- with Van Meter taking obvious care to frame each image to balance the overall final product. While the film is certainly “experimental,” there is a true organic documentary quality to the film, with a feel that you’ve been sucked into the scene rather than just examining the petri dish.
As a vintage video junkie, “Turning Over” (1975) by Morgan Fisher was a real thrill. It had a very deadpan William Wegman style, that just seems to shine in the light of grainy b/w videotape. Essentially, the video is a document of Fisher’s car “turning over” at 100,000 miles-- overly analyzed, hyper-hyped, hilarious in a British-comedy sort of way. Just as the old saying goes, “people remember you if you wear the same clothes every day,” people will also remember your film if it stretches a single moment out for 15 minutes. Love it!
Also worth mentioning, “Picasso” (1973), made as a sort of anti-homage to Pablo Picasso. Chis Langdon was said to be very disfavorable towards Picasso, and rapidly made this film within the scope of several hours. The most memorable part of the film is an inane, incessant looped recording of Picasso himself in his doddering years, mumbling something about children needing to do something or another. “King David” (1970) was an engaging documentary on a black egomaniac “Mr. T” style character in 1970s San Francisco, making me wish more filmmakers would champion their local eccentrics. Mike Henderson’s “Dufus” was a charming psuedo-documentary, staging variations of stereotyped black identities. At one point, Henderson flashes the “self” title card and childishly scampers into the frame, buck-naked and scared, as in a teenage anxiety dream. What is a self anyway? Are we to simply scroll down the list until we find the right persona? Who do you think YOU are, Bub?
Full program:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2011
THE TOP SECRET SPACE , Gainesville, FL
CURATED SHOW: Mark Toscano
The Maltese Cross Movement (8:00/16MM/1967) Keewatin Dewdney
Logos (2:00/16MM/1957) Jane Conger Belson Shimane
Brummer’s (10:00/16MM/1967) David Bienstock
S.W.L.A. (6:00/16MM/1971) Rob Thompson
Aether (4:00/16MM/1972) Daina Krumins
Mirror People (5:00/16MM/1957) Kathy Rose
Picasso (3:00/16MM/1973) Chris Langdon
King David (9:00/16MM/1970) Robert Nelson & Mike Henderson
Turning Over (13:00/VIDEO/1975) Morgan Fisher
SF Trips Festival--An Opening (9:00/16MM/1967) Ben Van Meter
Dufus (8:00/16MM/1970/73) Mike Henderson
Throbs (7:00/16mm/1972) Fred Worden
Reviewed by d.anderson 2011
FLEX FEST
Just recently finished up nearly a full week at the 7th FLEX, Florida Experimental Film Festival, in Gainesville, FL. Roger Beebe is the founder/curator, and a longtime figure at various experimental fests-- including several times at Bearded Child, which toured to Gainesville several years back.
I’ve worried that ultra-alternative American cinema may be slipping for venues-- with note-worthies like MicroCineFest, PDX, CINEMATEXAS, HiMom!, Thaw in Iowa City and others disappearing or taking leaves in recent years. Thankfully, FLEX has been there to pick up the slack during these turbulent times, along with TIE, Experiments in Cinema and now newcomers like Strange Beauty. Roger strongly hints that his rein of terror may be coming to the end, but hopefully the vision will continue, as we NEED venues such as these for the sake of our fleeting intellectual underground culture.
As I can, I’ll post a few notes on the event, held Feb. 17-20, 2011.
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