By Simen Johan.
Klub Odložených (1989)
At first glance it is easy to see that Ian Svankmajer has been an influence on Jiri Barta visually, and to an extent, thematically. However, after watching Barta's films it's just as easy to appreciate how he mixes the aesthetic traditions of such artists as Gaudi, Kafka, Poe, Fritz Lang, The Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer: Barta's films are wondrous creations that go far beyond mere children’s tales.
In the 1980s Czechoslovakia switched from a socialist nation to a consumer capitalist one, and most of Barta's work deals with that exchange.
The Club of the Laid Off is split into two movements. Laid-off old mannequins spend their cracked and broken lives in an old, abandoned warehouse. They repetitively go about their business day after day after day like automatons.
New mannequins are brought to the warehouse. They are old as well, but from a younger generation. The two groups must live together, but it's not easy at all, and then fight them, and then become a part of their lives as well.
It's a sort of a editorial on the plight of the modern worker in a society that is becoming less and less human, or merely a hallucinatory look into the secret life of plastic replicas of people.
You can buy Jiri Barta: Labyrinth of Darkness
.
In the 1980s Czechoslovakia switched from a socialist nation to a consumer capitalist one, and most of Barta's work deals with that exchange.
The Club of the Laid Off is split into two movements. Laid-off old mannequins spend their cracked and broken lives in an old, abandoned warehouse. They repetitively go about their business day after day after day like automatons.
New mannequins are brought to the warehouse. They are old as well, but from a younger generation. The two groups must live together, but it's not easy at all, and then fight them, and then become a part of their lives as well.
It's a sort of a editorial on the plight of the modern worker in a society that is becoming less and less human, or merely a hallucinatory look into the secret life of plastic replicas of people.
You can buy Jiri Barta: Labyrinth of Darkness
.Winds of Change
Philip Straub focuses on invoking an emotional response from his images through composition, color, light and subject matter. Although a conceptual illustrator at heart, his ability to successfully execute a variety of styles has allowed him to work with an array of clients producing imagery ranging from the dark and fantastic to the playful and charming.
Ruka (1965)
The Hand was banned by the Czech government because too easily seen as a parable about the cruelty of totalitarian government. Jiri Trnka has seen It as a horrifying protest against any violence restraining human freedom, emotions, creative force or life.
This short strictly follows story outline without developing lyrical details as usual; it had a strong dramatic arc with deep catharsisin the end. The elements are few, the symbolisms simple, and his trademark ornaments almost absent here, allowing the viewer to concentrate on the fable.
Trnka had used a combination of his typical funny-foolish but undefeated, ordinary man puppet as the protagonist and a live-action human hand as the despotic antagonist. A man in his room dedicates to pottery and to take care of his only plant. But suddenly a huge hand enters the room and orders him to make a statue of itself. The man refuses and he's persecuted by the ominous gloved hand.
As ever, Trnka’s use of lighting to convey the tiniest emotional nuances on an otherwise static face is little short of miraculous, as is his attention to detail.
You can buy The Puppet Films of Jiri Trnka
.
This short strictly follows story outline without developing lyrical details as usual; it had a strong dramatic arc with deep catharsisin the end. The elements are few, the symbolisms simple, and his trademark ornaments almost absent here, allowing the viewer to concentrate on the fable.
Trnka had used a combination of his typical funny-foolish but undefeated, ordinary man puppet as the protagonist and a live-action human hand as the despotic antagonist. A man in his room dedicates to pottery and to take care of his only plant. But suddenly a huge hand enters the room and orders him to make a statue of itself. The man refuses and he's persecuted by the ominous gloved hand.
As ever, Trnka’s use of lighting to convey the tiniest emotional nuances on an otherwise static face is little short of miraculous, as is his attention to detail.
You can buy The Puppet Films of Jiri Trnka
.Thee Coyote
By Ben Bigelow and Juliacks.
Ben Bigelow is currently working on a series that compares different natural disasters to our emotional, cultural and spiritual states. Phantasmagoria exudes out of multimedia installations and videos, where a unique aesthetic follows radical content.
As a comics artist Juliacs has been published in magazines such as "Article," "Windy Corner," "Unicorn Mountain," and most recently, "The New Yinzer." She has performed and exhibited at venues ranging from the gallery High Energy Constructs in Los Angeles, to the Andy Warhol Museum and Hazlett Theater in the American Shorts Season Finale in Pittsburgh to the gallery Giant Robot in New York.
Ben Bigelow is currently working on a series that compares different natural disasters to our emotional, cultural and spiritual states. Phantasmagoria exudes out of multimedia installations and videos, where a unique aesthetic follows radical content.
As a comics artist Juliacs has been published in magazines such as "Article," "Windy Corner," "Unicorn Mountain," and most recently, "The New Yinzer." She has performed and exhibited at venues ranging from the gallery High Energy Constructs in Los Angeles, to the Andy Warhol Museum and Hazlett Theater in the American Shorts Season Finale in Pittsburgh to the gallery Giant Robot in New York.
Army of Me (2005)
Stephane Sednaoui has worked as a photographer in fashion and journalism and many of his music videos have a very stylized, photographic quality as a result. His videos tell elaborate stories as backdrops for the characters he creates. He makes juxtapositions that work with the songs, despite his admission that when coming up with the concepts for his videos, he never listens to the text.
Sednaoui considers the individual personality of the modern pop star more generously than any other music video director, and his simulacra of the human body connects us in startling ways to that essence we find so attractive in these artists.
His videos often evoke the distortion of looking into a funhouse mirror, an alternate reality of sinister shapes, streaks, and colors brought to life using wave-like visual effects, double exposures, greenscreen compositing, oblique camera placements, and a radical use of film stock.
You can buy Director's Series Vol. 7 - Work of Director Stéphane Sednaoui
.
Sednaoui considers the individual personality of the modern pop star more generously than any other music video director, and his simulacra of the human body connects us in startling ways to that essence we find so attractive in these artists.
His videos often evoke the distortion of looking into a funhouse mirror, an alternate reality of sinister shapes, streaks, and colors brought to life using wave-like visual effects, double exposures, greenscreen compositing, oblique camera placements, and a radical use of film stock.
You can buy Director's Series Vol. 7 - Work of Director Stéphane Sednaoui
.
Tv Bra for Living Sculpture (1969)
Nam June Paik is widely considered the father of video art, which incorporates television as an art object and as a medium for expression.
TV Bra for Living Sculpture is one of several objects Paik designed to be used in performances by the late avant-garde cellist Charlotte Moorman.
Paik's intention is "to humanize electronics and technology. By using TV as bra, the most intimate belonging of human being, we will demonstrate the human use of technology, and so stimulate the viewers NOT for something mean but stimulate their phantasy to look for the new imaginative and humanistic ways of using technology.
TV Bra for Living Sculpture is one of several objects Paik designed to be used in performances by the late avant-garde cellist Charlotte Moorman.
Paik's intention is "to humanize electronics and technology. By using TV as bra, the most intimate belonging of human being, we will demonstrate the human use of technology, and so stimulate the viewers NOT for something mean but stimulate their phantasy to look for the new imaginative and humanistic ways of using technology.
Pinch Neck (1968)
Each of the five elements feature close-cropped images of Bruce Nauman's face framed by bridge of his nose to his Adam's apple by the width of his face. Within this frame Nauman, using his fingers, pinches his lips; pulls his lower lip; pinches his cheeks, pulls his neck; and pulls his lips. The prints, which are printed in black and a DayGlo yellow-green, through the optical play of these colors mimic a holographic feel without the use of the actual mid-century utopian technology.
Nauman's holograms could easily be seen as being about the experience of information because the most intelligible explanation of what is seen in a hologram is given in terms of information.
The esthetic uses of the concept of information up to now have mostly looked like attempts to maintain a kind of abstraction in attitude while playing at immersion in certain kinds of concrete and commonplace subject matter, such as the referents of the statistics found in so much conceptualism. The troubling aspect of all this is perhaps the disengagement of information as a concept from speech, and thus from the kinds of justification which spoken and written utterances are subject to and which frequently determine their value.
You can buy Bruce Nauman (PAJ Books: Art + Performance)Nauman's holograms could easily be seen as being about the experience of information because the most intelligible explanation of what is seen in a hologram is given in terms of information.
The esthetic uses of the concept of information up to now have mostly looked like attempts to maintain a kind of abstraction in attitude while playing at immersion in certain kinds of concrete and commonplace subject matter, such as the referents of the statistics found in so much conceptualism. The troubling aspect of all this is perhaps the disengagement of information as a concept from speech, and thus from the kinds of justification which spoken and written utterances are subject to and which frequently determine their value.
.
Anatomy
By James Gulliver Hancock. His work is conceptually driven and is concerned with confusions of perception and embraces personal subjectivity. Born to psychologist parents he draws from an analysis of hyperchondria, obsession, and hyper-awareness. Throughout this investigation his work maintains a consistent charm, whimsy and poetic graphic sensibility.
Volcano Saga (1989)
Based on the thirteenth-century Icelandic Laxdeala Saga, this narrative reverie is a televisual retelling of a medieval myth about a young woman whose dreams foretell the future. Shot in the dramatic natural landscapes of Iceland and in New York, this performance-based work uses ancient dream analysis as a starting point for a densely textured tale, in which the young woman's interpreter hears her dreams and sees their meaning.
Joan Jonas' work are mainly about perception, like the ways in which one´s feelings about one´s body change according to its surroundings, the media in which it is mirrored and viewers´ reactions. She resorts to camouflage and deception through onstage masquerades and transformations, and her works are processes.
Jonas manages to create live actions which are as rich in symbolism as they are in layers of meaning. She splits the apparent continuum of space and time up into language, motion and objects. In Volcano Saga, she was trying to show how the landscape can represent psychic space.
You can watch Volcano Saga' second part, third part and fourth part.
Joan Jonas' work are mainly about perception, like the ways in which one´s feelings about one´s body change according to its surroundings, the media in which it is mirrored and viewers´ reactions. She resorts to camouflage and deception through onstage masquerades and transformations, and her works are processes.
Jonas manages to create live actions which are as rich in symbolism as they are in layers of meaning. She splits the apparent continuum of space and time up into language, motion and objects. In Volcano Saga, she was trying to show how the landscape can represent psychic space.
You can watch Volcano Saga' second part, third part and fourth part.
Turning (2007)
Robert Whitman is part of a bygone generation of artists who sought to cleanse art of the commodification and commercialization that befell the art world in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism.
Whitman explores the light, movement, and space of planetary experience. He began by gathering video footage from NASA which he has digitally manipulated and montaged to create moving imagery projected internally onto the surface of three plastic hemispheres: Earth, Europa and Ganymede.
How and to what effect the imagery has been changed isn’t immediately apparent.
Whitman explores the light, movement, and space of planetary experience. He began by gathering video footage from NASA which he has digitally manipulated and montaged to create moving imagery projected internally onto the surface of three plastic hemispheres: Earth, Europa and Ganymede.
How and to what effect the imagery has been changed isn’t immediately apparent.
Venice series (2001-2008)
Titarenko has received numerous awards from institutions such as the Musee de l'Elysee in Lausanne, Switzerland; the Soros Center for Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg; and the Mosaique program of the Luxemburg National Audiovisual Centre. He has participated in many international festivals, biennales, and projects and has had more than 28 personal exhibitions, both in Europe and the United States.
Two monographs have been published about his work: City of Shadows: Alexey Titarenko by Irina Tchmyreva (2001) and Alexey Titarenko, photographs. Essay by Gabriel Bauret(2003). Soon after being published, this book was nominated for the Best Photographic Book of the Year Prize (International Arles Festival, France 2004).
In 2005, the French-German TV Channel Arte produced a 30-minute documentary about Titarenko entitled "Alexey Titarenko: Art et la Maniere."
Two monographs have been published about his work: City of Shadows: Alexey Titarenko by Irina Tchmyreva (2001) and Alexey Titarenko, photographs. Essay by Gabriel Bauret(2003). Soon after being published, this book was nominated for the Best Photographic Book of the Year Prize (International Arles Festival, France 2004).
In 2005, the French-German TV Channel Arte produced a 30-minute documentary about Titarenko entitled "Alexey Titarenko: Art et la Maniere."
Meat Joy (1964)
First performed as part of the First Festival of Free Expression at the American Center in Paris, and later at Judson Memorial Church in NYC. Carolee Schneemann, influenced by Antonin Artaud and Wilhelm Reich's psychological theories, celebrated the sensuous flesh in all its aspects as an intermedia performance with couples acting on stage using materials like paint, blood to various dance and sound elements
Meat Joy revolved around eight partially nude figures dancing and playing with various objects and substances including wet paint, sausage, raw fish, scraps of paper, and raw chickens Meat Joy is an erotic rite - shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent - and an indulgent Dionysian celebration of flesh as material.
Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience.
Meat Joy revolved around eight partially nude figures dancing and playing with various objects and substances including wet paint, sausage, raw fish, scraps of paper, and raw chickens Meat Joy is an erotic rite - shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent - and an indulgent Dionysian celebration of flesh as material.
Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience.
Paint by Numbers
Jesse LeDoux worked for many years as an art director for Seattle-based Sub Pop Records where he created iconic album and poster artwork. Parallel to working on commercial illustration and collaborative projects, he has exhibited internationally. Most recently, his work was included in the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (2007) and an installation at the University of Maryland (2008). A large-scale mural of his work can currently be seen in downtown Denver, Colorado.
The Triadic Ballet (1927)
Between 1916 and 1927, Oskar Schlemmer had developed the "Triadic ballet", a plotless costume play in which the essential features of geometrically stylized body attire defined the dance. Schlemmer continued to base his work on the human figure as a model determined by mathematical and geometrical formulae.
He turned to choreography because of his concern for the relationships of figures in space, and he realized his vision of a dance of pure, geometric form in which dancers’ movements work against gravity and cooperate with it. The word “triadic” refers to the prevalence of the number three in the performance: three dancers, three musical movements, and three artistic elements (dance, costume and music).
He successfully conducts a renegotiation of deeply-rooted tendencies: abstraction-expression; mechanised-human bodies; heterogeneity-homogeneity of an art work constituted by a dialogue of different mediums. Then he Triadic Ballet represents a place of tensions followed by resolutions
The ballet did not have a plot. Instead, the figures told a story about moving geometric forms.
The Triadic Ballet allows yourselves to be astonished by the marvel of proportion, by the splendour of arithmetical ratios and numerical correspondences, and construct the principles we need from the results of such enquiries.
He turned to choreography because of his concern for the relationships of figures in space, and he realized his vision of a dance of pure, geometric form in which dancers’ movements work against gravity and cooperate with it. The word “triadic” refers to the prevalence of the number three in the performance: three dancers, three musical movements, and three artistic elements (dance, costume and music).
He successfully conducts a renegotiation of deeply-rooted tendencies: abstraction-expression; mechanised-human bodies; heterogeneity-homogeneity of an art work constituted by a dialogue of different mediums. Then he Triadic Ballet represents a place of tensions followed by resolutions
The ballet did not have a plot. Instead, the figures told a story about moving geometric forms.
The Triadic Ballet allows yourselves to be astonished by the marvel of proportion, by the splendour of arithmetical ratios and numerical correspondences, and construct the principles we need from the results of such enquiries.
Seedbed (1971)
A low wooden ramp merging with the floor - it extends across the width of the room, beginning two feet up the side of one wall and slanting down to the middle of the floor. Vito Acconci lay hidden underneath the ramp installed at the Sonnabend Gallery, masturbating. The artist's spoken fantasies about the visitors walking above him were heard through loudspeakers in the gallery.
Seedbed operates as a performative work not only through its use of the body, but also through its reliance upon the ramp — the ramp could be said to make possible the fantasized moment of intimacy through its very operation of concealing Acconci the masturbator. Architecturally, the ramp creates a hidden space, embedded within the gallery as an anomaly, and yet acting as an “amplifier” for the desires of an individual body seeking its social partner. In this regard, the ramp suggests an “architectural performance” in which the negative space under the ramp allows something to occur within the gallery space.
Seedbed operates as a performative work not only through its use of the body, but also through its reliance upon the ramp — the ramp could be said to make possible the fantasized moment of intimacy through its very operation of concealing Acconci the masturbator. Architecturally, the ramp creates a hidden space, embedded within the gallery as an anomaly, and yet acting as an “amplifier” for the desires of an individual body seeking its social partner. In this regard, the ramp suggests an “architectural performance” in which the negative space under the ramp allows something to occur within the gallery space.
Number One (2007)
Leighton Pierce has made over 30 short impressionistic/experimental documentaries exploring the margins of memory and perception and the filmic construction of space and time. Many of his recent works focus on unsentimental close views of small events in domestic space. While always concentrating on the subtleties of sound/image relationships, these films are also visually unique as reflected in the cinematography awards these films have won.
With water imagery as the foundation, Number One presents an experience of elasticity between varying states of mind. The contrasts in this multi-image poetic piece are developed in an interwoven relation to each other to both document and invoke the magnetized and elastic push/pull that is the flow of our conscious attention.
There is never one set of oppositions but rather a dance of relationships between contrasting states. This is one way to think about how a mind works: at any moment, there is never just one thing (or feeling, or perception) in life; there is always a magnetized and elastic push/pull among many things at once. The flow of our attention among these things is our mind. Number One is one way to map a few moments in such a mind.
With water imagery as the foundation, Number One presents an experience of elasticity between varying states of mind. The contrasts in this multi-image poetic piece are developed in an interwoven relation to each other to both document and invoke the magnetized and elastic push/pull that is the flow of our conscious attention.
There is never one set of oppositions but rather a dance of relationships between contrasting states. This is one way to think about how a mind works: at any moment, there is never just one thing (or feeling, or perception) in life; there is always a magnetized and elastic push/pull among many things at once. The flow of our attention among these things is our mind. Number One is one way to map a few moments in such a mind.
Rabbit's Moon (1950)
Could a Japanese fairy tale meets commedia dell'Arte?
Kenneth Anger directed this film in the style of both mime and Kabuki theatre. The title refers to the Japanese myth about a rabbit on the moon.
He used a rich pancultural texture of myth to explain his own psychological condition in Rabbit's Moon. Pierrot was based on Crowley's tarot card of the Fool, which meant divine inspiration
in spiritual or creative matters, but folly, mania, or death in everyday affairs, and the moon in Crowleyan terms representing the female principal.
The story focuses on Pierrot trying to obtain the unattainable moon. Harlequin appears and bullies him, then uses a magic lantern to project an image of Columbine. Pierrot tries to court the illusory Columbine unsuccessfully, then enters a mystical moon-realm from which he returns dead.
Harlequin appears and entertains Pierrot with sword play, juggling, and dance. Pierrot remains distraught, so Harlequin summons Columbina to help uplift Pierrot.
You can buy The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 1
and The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 2
.
Kenneth Anger directed this film in the style of both mime and Kabuki theatre. The title refers to the Japanese myth about a rabbit on the moon.
He used a rich pancultural texture of myth to explain his own psychological condition in Rabbit's Moon. Pierrot was based on Crowley's tarot card of the Fool, which meant divine inspiration
in spiritual or creative matters, but folly, mania, or death in everyday affairs, and the moon in Crowleyan terms representing the female principal.
The story focuses on Pierrot trying to obtain the unattainable moon. Harlequin appears and bullies him, then uses a magic lantern to project an image of Columbine. Pierrot tries to court the illusory Columbine unsuccessfully, then enters a mystical moon-realm from which he returns dead.
Harlequin appears and entertains Pierrot with sword play, juggling, and dance. Pierrot remains distraught, so Harlequin summons Columbina to help uplift Pierrot.
You can buy The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 1
and The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 2.Tete a Tete
By Martin Fougeron. The Tete a Tete 2005-2008 series on two adolescent sons has won numerous national and international prizes.
This photo depicts Fougeron' son Nicolas smoking a water Shisha with friends, with a cherry flavor in their home in NYC.
The Foxhole Manifesto (2007)
This is an adaptation of a poem by Jeffrey McDaniel, who has some ideas for a few appropriately modern gods. Rather than a didactic discourse, Nick Fox-Gieg invites us to a discussion.
Effective simple cartoon style, it has a touch of Woody Alan.
Effective simple cartoon style, it has a touch of Woody Alan.
Ten Thousand Pictures of You (2007)
Ten Thousand Pictures of You is a surreal, animated story about the destructive power of obsessive love. A roller coaster ride through the animated pictures of Sarah's world, as she seeks revenge upon the movie star who broke her heart.
Robert King first maked one stop-motion animation; then printed every frame of that photo paper; then made a second animation of a character looking at the photo – in each frame of this, the photo is replaced with the next one on the pile. This meant the film had to be shot in a very specific order.
Robert King first maked one stop-motion animation; then printed every frame of that photo paper; then made a second animation of a character looking at the photo – in each frame of this, the photo is replaced with the next one on the pile. This meant the film had to be shot in a very specific order.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a silent film directed by Robert Wiene from a screenplay written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. They met each other in Berlin following World War I. The two saw the then-new film medium as a revolutionary form of artistic expression because visual storytelling that necessitated collaboration between writers and painters, cameramen, actors, directors. They felt that film was the ideal medium through which to both call attention to the emerging pacifism in postwar Germany and exhibit the radical anti-bourgeois art.
One evening, they saw a sideshow titled "Man and Machine", in which a man did feats of strength and forecast the future while supposedly in a hypnotic trance. Inspired by this, Janowitz and Mayer devised their story that night and wrote it in the following six weeks. The name "Caligari" came from a book Mayer read, in which an officer named Caligari was mentioned.
The arrival of the traveling magician Dr Caligari and Cesare in a town coincides with savage killings. Secretly Caligari was an asylum director who hypnotizes Cesare to re enact murders. But the final reel contains something which will leave an audience shattered. It blows away all your moral certainties and beliefs.
The film has been read as an allegory for German social attitudes in the period preceding World War II. The character of Caligari should represent a tyrannical figure, to whom the only alternative is social chaos.
You can buy The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Special Collector's Edition)
.
One evening, they saw a sideshow titled "Man and Machine", in which a man did feats of strength and forecast the future while supposedly in a hypnotic trance. Inspired by this, Janowitz and Mayer devised their story that night and wrote it in the following six weeks. The name "Caligari" came from a book Mayer read, in which an officer named Caligari was mentioned.
The arrival of the traveling magician Dr Caligari and Cesare in a town coincides with savage killings. Secretly Caligari was an asylum director who hypnotizes Cesare to re enact murders. But the final reel contains something which will leave an audience shattered. It blows away all your moral certainties and beliefs.
The film has been read as an allegory for German social attitudes in the period preceding World War II. The character of Caligari should represent a tyrannical figure, to whom the only alternative is social chaos.
You can buy The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Special Collector's Edition)
.
The Factory (2001)
Yann Jouette communicates his stories using pictures instead of telling stories. He works on lights and backgrounds than on character design because it gives them a lot more freedom. Usually filmakers tells you what each character will look like, but Jouette tells you how the background should look like.
A Human Being's factory is managed by a dollar bill, until a faulty part turns the system around. In La fabrik, Jouette shows his messages and his opinions of what society is becoming.
People are treated like machines. They are built to consume and to mass-produce. Money is becoming more important than life, whereas at the beginning money was invented to help people.
A Human Being's factory is managed by a dollar bill, until a faulty part turns the system around. In La fabrik, Jouette shows his messages and his opinions of what society is becoming.
People are treated like machines. They are built to consume and to mass-produce. Money is becoming more important than life, whereas at the beginning money was invented to help people.
Birdcalls (2007)
Malcolm Sutherland is one of Canada’s most talented and imaginative young animation filmmakers. Birdcalls won the prestigious debut prize at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival. Sutherland also works as an illustrator and comic book artist. His drawings and prints have been exhibited across Canada. His comic book Oola Dug won the 2008 Expozine Alternative Press Award for Best Comic.
He was a student of both astronomy and classical printmaking before he discovered animation at the Quickdraw Animation Society in Calgary, Alberta.
Have you never tried to talk with your dog, your cat or a bird? What if can they be trying to tell us something?
Sutherland, with Birdcalls, has an answer of sorts: the written languages of birds come to life.
He was a student of both astronomy and classical printmaking before he discovered animation at the Quickdraw Animation Society in Calgary, Alberta.
Have you never tried to talk with your dog, your cat or a bird? What if can they be trying to tell us something?
Sutherland, with Birdcalls, has an answer of sorts: the written languages of birds come to life.
The Gay Utopia
By Lilli Carre. She's the author of comics books "Tales Of Woodsman Pete
" and "The Lagoon
". She also makes animated shorts.Muto (2008)
Blu is a Italian graffiti/street artist . Blu' stuff is simply amazing.
Muto is a film combining both animation and wall-painting.
La Jetée (1962)
La jetée is one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made.
In the movie, the survivors of a destroyed Paris in the aftermath of World War III live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. They research time travel, hoping to send someone back before the devastating war to recover food, medicine, or energy for the present, to summon the past and future to the aid of the present.
It has no dialogue aside from small sections of muttering in German; the story is told by a voice-over narrator. It is constructed almost entirely from optically printed photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying pace. It contains only one brief shot originating on a motion-picture camera.
The reason the film works without becoming a cold, lifeless lecture is because it anchors the images of nuclear holocaust and scientific exploration within humanistic characters and a sense of unashamed romanticism.
La Jettée is the way in which Chris Marker manages to relate his story of travel and movement through the use of still images.
You can buy La Jetee
.
In the movie, the survivors of a destroyed Paris in the aftermath of World War III live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. They research time travel, hoping to send someone back before the devastating war to recover food, medicine, or energy for the present, to summon the past and future to the aid of the present.
It has no dialogue aside from small sections of muttering in German; the story is told by a voice-over narrator. It is constructed almost entirely from optically printed photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying pace. It contains only one brief shot originating on a motion-picture camera.
The reason the film works without becoming a cold, lifeless lecture is because it anchors the images of nuclear holocaust and scientific exploration within humanistic characters and a sense of unashamed romanticism.
La Jettée is the way in which Chris Marker manages to relate his story of travel and movement through the use of still images.
You can buy La Jetee
.
An Andalusian Dog (1928)
Cinema was a new art form still to be experimented with: Buñuel and Dalí knew they would produce something different, with the purpose of attracting attention. Simply following the logical sequence that words can be poetic and an image is worth a thousand words, and that poetry can be abstract, thus so can images, and if they move, then better still.
Un Chien andalou was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 for a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months.
The film has no narrative, in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.
Historically the film represents a violent reaction against what in those days was called 'avant-garde,' which was aimed exclusively at artistic sensibility and the audience's reason.
The idea for the film actually began when Buñuel was working as an assistant director for Jean Epstein in France. Buñuel told Dalí at a restaurant one day about a dream in which a cloud sliced the moon in half "like a razor blade slicing through an eye". Dalí responded that he'd dreamed about a hand crawling with ants. They were fascinated by what the psyche could create, and decided to write a script based on the concept of suppressed human emotions.
Un Chien andalou was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 for a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months.
The film has no narrative, in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.
Historically the film represents a violent reaction against what in those days was called 'avant-garde,' which was aimed exclusively at artistic sensibility and the audience's reason.
The idea for the film actually began when Buñuel was working as an assistant director for Jean Epstein in France. Buñuel told Dalí at a restaurant one day about a dream in which a cloud sliced the moon in half "like a razor blade slicing through an eye". Dalí responded that he'd dreamed about a hand crawling with ants. They were fascinated by what the psyche could create, and decided to write a script based on the concept of suppressed human emotions.
Codex (1987)
Codex for seven dancers, a series of tableaux inspired by Luigi Serafini's illustrated encyclopaedia depicting imaginary plants and insects as well as numerous strange fantasy creatures. It was then filmed the following year by Philippe Decouffè. Decodex, conceived almost ten years later for 12 dancers, was a logical continuation of the idea created with his children in mind.
Codex was heavily reliant on costumes that at times swamped the dancers and turned them into pret a porteurs for the fabrics.
Codex was heavily reliant on costumes that at times swamped the dancers and turned them into pret a porteurs for the fabrics.
American Falls (2008)
American Falls, is a looped 30-minute preview version of a larger, epic "cine-mural" that Phil Solomon is creating as an installation for the rotunda at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it will be shown in autumn 2009.
The mesmerizing American Falls employs Solomon's astonishing cinematic techniques to create an expressive, poetic vision of American history in constant motion. Solomon's project American Falls is ultimately one of great hope, stemming from a life-long love for this American experiment that seemed so vivid to him during his television-infused childhood; but it is also necessitated by his deepest concern for its present and future directions,
The mesmerizing American Falls employs Solomon's astonishing cinematic techniques to create an expressive, poetic vision of American history in constant motion. Solomon's project American Falls is ultimately one of great hope, stemming from a life-long love for this American experiment that seemed so vivid to him during his television-infused childhood; but it is also necessitated by his deepest concern for its present and future directions,
Girl from Moush (1994)
Girl From Moush look at the after-effects of genocide in Armenia and large-scale expulsion and murder in Asia Minor in the years after the First World War. It focuses on identity and how it is constructed in our global society. On camera, images move rapidly, often looking as though a strip of film is being pulled quickly through the projector. Multiple images appear as well.
This short marks the beginning of Gariné Torossian's investigation into visual approaches to an imaginary home country, offering a performative approach to memory, that requires the viewer to actively participate in the assimilation of the material presented, as fleeting and disparate as it is.
An English-speaking woman, who's off camera, talks about what it means to be an Armenian, even though she's never been in Armenia. Beginning with her own journey as a diasporanl Armenian born in Lebanon and raised in Canada, Torossian culls images from books, shot and recorded her own voice in an attempt to capture the schism between self and place in a world where the concept of native and migrant is always in flux.
This short marks the beginning of Gariné Torossian's investigation into visual approaches to an imaginary home country, offering a performative approach to memory, that requires the viewer to actively participate in the assimilation of the material presented, as fleeting and disparate as it is.
An English-speaking woman, who's off camera, talks about what it means to be an Armenian, even though she's never been in Armenia. Beginning with her own journey as a diasporanl Armenian born in Lebanon and raised in Canada, Torossian culls images from books, shot and recorded her own voice in an attempt to capture the schism between self and place in a world where the concept of native and migrant is always in flux.
Call and Response (2007)
Call and Response is a short by visul artist Aaron Valdez.
This short define the fine line between catchy commercial jingles and mental paralysis.
This short define the fine line between catchy commercial jingles and mental paralysis.
1985 Garland, Texas
Esther Pearl Watson's pieces are often overtly narrative, clear but mysterious scenes of houses or figures ornamented with snippets of prose telling just enough to get the viewer's own imagination engaged, wanting to know more.
Body of War (2007)
Body of War is an intimate and transformational feature documentary about the true face of war today and Tomas' coming-home story as he evolves into a new person, coming to terms with his disability and finding his own unique, passionate voice against the war. He's only 25 years old, when he's paralyzed from a bullet to his spine, wounded after serving in Iraq for less than a week.
As he lay in his hospital bed, unable to move, Tomas learned of the countless injuries and deaths afflicting hundreds of thousands in Iraq. In the process, he became one of the nation's most ardent opponents of the Iraq invasion.
Body of War is a naked, honest portrayal of what it's like inside the body, heart, and soul of this extraordinary and heroic young man.
Unapologetically political, this intimate and heart wrenching profile of an Iraq veteran may be rough around the edges but takes a potent stance with determination and compassion.
The editing is sharp and potent. The music, especially the two new songs by Eddie Vedder, works in profound harmony with the powerful images on the screen.
As he lay in his hospital bed, unable to move, Tomas learned of the countless injuries and deaths afflicting hundreds of thousands in Iraq. In the process, he became one of the nation's most ardent opponents of the Iraq invasion.
Body of War is a naked, honest portrayal of what it's like inside the body, heart, and soul of this extraordinary and heroic young man.
Unapologetically political, this intimate and heart wrenching profile of an Iraq veteran may be rough around the edges but takes a potent stance with determination and compassion.
The editing is sharp and potent. The music, especially the two new songs by Eddie Vedder, works in profound harmony with the powerful images on the screen.
Treevil (2002)
A weird short movie done in stop motion by three finnish authors: Christer Lindström, Aino Ovaskainen and Aiju Salminen, all students of the Arts Academy of Turku Polytechnic since the year 2000.
A woodsman goes to cut down some trees, but strange things start to happen, involving walking trees and giant were-rabbits.
A woodsman goes to cut down some trees, but strange things start to happen, involving walking trees and giant were-rabbits.
La Chambre (1972)
Chantal Akerman reject classical conventions regarding space, time and place, preferring a narrative that is not stamped with a beginning or an end and using a rhythm created by long, fixed shots which denies edited cinematic language, to arrive at a cadence resembling real time, reflecting the real rhythm of the flow of things, of events and people
Like other avant-garde filmmakers of the period, Akerman foregrounds space and time to an unusual degree in her films of the ’70s. In La chambre, Akerman maps out a literal movement of encirclement completed once the pan reverses, as if the camera had demarcated the minimally essential space for the performance.
La Chambre 1 reveal structural filmmaking's influence through their usage of extended duration takes. These protracted shots serve to oscillate the films' images between abstraction and figuration.
The films eschew close-ups and shot/reverse-shot sequences in favor of long-shot framing and deep focus, in which most if not all of a person’s body is visible along with much of the surrounding environment; this forces the viewer to scan the space of the shot for relevant details of behavior and setting: fixed and extended shots combine with aleatory, unique events, setting structure against play, and bringing out a performance aspect that is basic to '70s aesthetics.
Symmetrical frame composition, with the camera placed at the same height perpendicular to the setting, creates a noticeable rectilinear patterning from shot to shot as well as a high degree of uniformity, sensitizing one to subtle changes over time.
Like other avant-garde filmmakers of the period, Akerman foregrounds space and time to an unusual degree in her films of the ’70s. In La chambre, Akerman maps out a literal movement of encirclement completed once the pan reverses, as if the camera had demarcated the minimally essential space for the performance.
La Chambre 1 reveal structural filmmaking's influence through their usage of extended duration takes. These protracted shots serve to oscillate the films' images between abstraction and figuration.
The films eschew close-ups and shot/reverse-shot sequences in favor of long-shot framing and deep focus, in which most if not all of a person’s body is visible along with much of the surrounding environment; this forces the viewer to scan the space of the shot for relevant details of behavior and setting: fixed and extended shots combine with aleatory, unique events, setting structure against play, and bringing out a performance aspect that is basic to '70s aesthetics.
Symmetrical frame composition, with the camera placed at the same height perpendicular to the setting, creates a noticeable rectilinear patterning from shot to shot as well as a high degree of uniformity, sensitizing one to subtle changes over time.
Le Sang des bêtes (1949)
Blood of the Beasts is considered to be one of cinema’s purest achievements: an unflinching portrait of the bloody routine of butchery in a Paris slaughterhouse.
The documentary presents the gory, bloodstained reality of the slaughter of animals at the Abattoirs de La Villette in Paris. George Franju's film contrasts peaceful scenes of Parisian suburbia with scenes from a slaughterhouse. The film documents the slaughtering of a horse, sheep, and calves; once the horse is stunned by a pistol, it is bled and butchered. Disturbing in its honesty, it challenges a number of banal conceptions seemingly integral to everyday life.
There is not a single shot that does not move us, almost for no cause, through the sole beauty of the style, the great visual calligraphy.
Franju states that he wasn't interested on the subject of slaughterhouses when he decided to make the film, but the location around the building was the Ourcq Canal allowing him to make a documentary film. Franju stated by using a documentary film format, he was able to use both locations as lyical counterpoints and "to explain it as a realist while remaining a surrealist by displacing the object in another context. In this new setting, the object rediscovers it's quality as an object".
The documentary presents the gory, bloodstained reality of the slaughter of animals at the Abattoirs de La Villette in Paris. George Franju's film contrasts peaceful scenes of Parisian suburbia with scenes from a slaughterhouse. The film documents the slaughtering of a horse, sheep, and calves; once the horse is stunned by a pistol, it is bled and butchered. Disturbing in its honesty, it challenges a number of banal conceptions seemingly integral to everyday life.
There is not a single shot that does not move us, almost for no cause, through the sole beauty of the style, the great visual calligraphy.
Franju states that he wasn't interested on the subject of slaughterhouses when he decided to make the film, but the location around the building was the Ourcq Canal allowing him to make a documentary film. Franju stated by using a documentary film format, he was able to use both locations as lyical counterpoints and "to explain it as a realist while remaining a surrealist by displacing the object in another context. In this new setting, the object rediscovers it's quality as an object".
Scwechater (1958)
In 1957, Peter Kubelka was hired to make a short commercial for Scwechater beer. He shot his film with a camera that did not even have a viewer, simply pointing it in the general direction of the action. He then took many months to edit his footage, and finally he submitted a film, 90 seconds long, that featured extremely rapid cutting between images washed out almost to the point of abstraction of dimly visible people drinking beer and of the froth of beer seen in a fully abstract pattern.
Kubelka has taken Soviet montage one step further. While Eisenstein used shots as the basic units and edited them together in a pattern to make meanings, Kubelka has gone back to the individual still frame as the essence of cinema. The fact that a projected film consists of 24 still images per second serves as the basis of his art.
His films move with the rhapsody of precision. Nowhere else in cinema have I been so stuck to a sense of everything being just right. There are at present a multiplying number of films which use techniques similar to Kubelka's, and which attempt similar effects; but for all the experiment rampant now, his visions of absolute time transcend and show up all that is merely modern.
Kubelka has taken Soviet montage one step further. While Eisenstein used shots as the basic units and edited them together in a pattern to make meanings, Kubelka has gone back to the individual still frame as the essence of cinema. The fact that a projected film consists of 24 still images per second serves as the basis of his art.
His films move with the rhapsody of precision. Nowhere else in cinema have I been so stuck to a sense of everything being just right. There are at present a multiplying number of films which use techniques similar to Kubelka's, and which attempt similar effects; but for all the experiment rampant now, his visions of absolute time transcend and show up all that is merely modern.
Star Spangled to Death (2004)
Star Spangled to Death is the magnum opus of the independent filmmaker Ken Jacobs. Begun in 1957 as a backyard bohemian romp starring the avant-garde legend Jack Smith the project grew over the years to incorporate huge chunks of appropriated material. Star Spangled to Death is like a sponge, absorbing into itself political advertisements, patriotic songs, home movies, television programs, soft porn, newsreels, early cartoons, and the delirious street antics of Jack Smith and Jerry Sims.
Though the film originally included more autobiographical sections than in the final cut, Star Spangled to Death easily lends itself to a broader experience. It is recognisable for the fears and concerns it invokes of a particular era that perhaps translate too easily into our own.
This film is a major event in the history of poetic cinema and at the same time, it's highly political: an exhaustive, sprawling history of America in the form of found footage and recordings, as seen through the eyes of those on the margins .
Six hours and forty-five minutes of obscure found educational and nature films mixed with 1950s street theater footage shot by the filmmaker and updated with anti-Bush thoughts and opinions from the past five years. That’s right, 50 years in the making.
Styles of editing and photography are mixed and matched, found footage sometimes plays out completely and other times it cuts back and forth with footage shot for the film.
Though the film originally included more autobiographical sections than in the final cut, Star Spangled to Death easily lends itself to a broader experience. It is recognisable for the fears and concerns it invokes of a particular era that perhaps translate too easily into our own.
This film is a major event in the history of poetic cinema and at the same time, it's highly political: an exhaustive, sprawling history of America in the form of found footage and recordings, as seen through the eyes of those on the margins .
Six hours and forty-five minutes of obscure found educational and nature films mixed with 1950s street theater footage shot by the filmmaker and updated with anti-Bush thoughts and opinions from the past five years. That’s right, 50 years in the making.
Styles of editing and photography are mixed and matched, found footage sometimes plays out completely and other times it cuts back and forth with footage shot for the film.
Yoman (1983)
Shot over a ten-year period, Diary is not only the political, professional, and personal diary of a man, but is a testimony on the turbulent reality of a war-torn country, Israel. The six chapters that make up the film takes us from Tel Aviv to Paris, then to London and Brazil, where David Perlov was born, and where he decides to return after a twenty year absence.
Diary is finally about the threads that bind a man to his country of citizenship, his countries of belonging. Perlov's deep voiced narration ties together these fragments of contemporary Israel, for by ploughing into himself and his life he painted his country's fate.
The film is also a family diary in which Perlov records the coming of age of his two daughters, yael and Naomi. An extraordinary mixture of home movies, political documentary, and cinéma-vérité, Diary is a unique work. His Diary, filmed informally over the course of ten years, unhurriedly recomposes life as it goes on and suggests a simple exercise of patience in deciphering the best in our humanity.
Diary is finally about the threads that bind a man to his country of citizenship, his countries of belonging. Perlov's deep voiced narration ties together these fragments of contemporary Israel, for by ploughing into himself and his life he painted his country's fate.
The film is also a family diary in which Perlov records the coming of age of his two daughters, yael and Naomi. An extraordinary mixture of home movies, political documentary, and cinéma-vérité, Diary is a unique work. His Diary, filmed informally over the course of ten years, unhurriedly recomposes life as it goes on and suggests a simple exercise of patience in deciphering the best in our humanity.
Sonando estar atrapada
Alejandro Cartagena's works has been exhibited internationally. He is recipient of several major national and state young creators grants, numerous honorable mentions and acquisition prizes.
Drawn and Quartered (1987)
Lynne Sachs and her friend John shot this film with a Regular 8 camera on a roof in San Francisco, literally creating a drawn and quartered image. Images of a male form and a female form exist in their own private domains, separated by a barrier. Sometimes, however, one person dares to intrude upon the pictorial space of the other. Only for a moment does the one intrude upon the pictorial space of the other.
This short is a diary in which the filmaker reflected on the possibilities and the limitations of her own body became the skeletal framework for the film.
This short is a diary in which the filmaker reflected on the possibilities and the limitations of her own body became the skeletal framework for the film.
Le Canard à l'orange (2002)
Patrick Bokanowski developed a manner of treating filmic materiel that crosses over traditional boundaries of film genre. His works lie on the edge between optical and plastic art, reinventing itself. He challenges the idea that cinema must, essentiallly, reproduce reality, our everyday thoughts and feelings, contradicting the photographic objectivity that is firmly tied to the essence of film production, and attempting to open the art of film up to other possibilities of expression
A housewife is preparing a duck à l'orange in her kitchen. But the reluctant bird tries to escape from her but the woman manages to recaptures it and plucks it savagely. Once the duck is put in the oven, an alligator unexpectedly appears in the kitchen, threatening the cook. She tries to escape from it first, then pursues it and finally sits down at the table with it. Meanwhile, the duck succeeds in opening the the door of the oven and flies away through the open window.
A housewife is preparing a duck à l'orange in her kitchen. But the reluctant bird tries to escape from her but the woman manages to recaptures it and plucks it savagely. Once the duck is put in the oven, an alligator unexpectedly appears in the kitchen, threatening the cook. She tries to escape from it first, then pursues it and finally sits down at the table with it. Meanwhile, the duck succeeds in opening the the door of the oven and flies away through the open window.
Rock Series
"Feeling Sublime", 40" x 96" oil on Canvas.
"I'm Here", oil on Canvas, 48" x 60".
By Stephanie Taormina.
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