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.
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