Barn Owl – Turiya

I’m going to pull out the age-old ‘two buses’ adage for this post, thanks to this beautiful video from John Davis that bears some striking resemblances to yesterday’s selection of films by Paul Clipson. As nice as it is, I may very well not have put it up – out of desire for variety – had it not been for the accompanying song; Barn Owl’s majestic ‘Turiya’. Echoes of Slint and Earth abound in this stoned and heavy-lidded journey through an imagined American pastoral – a sound that’s mirrored exquisitely by the grainy, black and white Super 8 nature montage.

Barn Owl will be playing at the Hoxton Bar & Kitchen on November 19th and have a new album out on Thrill Jockey. Jump on it.

As a special treat, and in a doffing of our caps to the filmmaker, here’s another of John Davis’ films – a mysterious collage of fantastical poetry, found footage and distant guitars. Enjoy.

Image is a painting of Gilbert & George by Gerhard Richter, a retrospective of whose will shortly be showing at Tate Modern.

Quayola – Strata Series / Topologies

Massive thanks to the people at BL NK C NV S for putting on an absolutely brilliant show last night. Highlights were Anne Lanzilotti’s masterful and disturbing treated violin, Mark Fell’s cripplingly intense beat destructions, the hypnotic moving op art – akin to Susan Hiller’s Magic Lantern film – by an unfortunately unknown artist and, of course, the main subject of this post – the incredible video art by London based Quayola.

Quayola’s work investigates dialogues and the unpredictable collisions, tensions and equilibriums between the real and artificial, the figurative and abstract, the old and new. His work explores photography, geometry, time-based digital sculptures and immersive audiovisual installations and performances.

Here’s a short selection of his most recent work. You can see more of it, including excerpts from his immersive installations (featured at last year’s Ether festival), over on his website, here.

Martin Arnold – Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy

A short while ago we published a couple of videos by the wonderful Belgian video artist Nicolas Provost. In response to this, a friend replied with a few links to videos by an Austrian filmmaker, Martin Arnold, who he said reminded him very much of Provost’s work (or vice versa). We watched, thoroughly enjoyed and so thought we’d post here for you to help while away a few minutes, waiting for the clock to tick down until weekend time.

Arnold takes strips of archive film and manipulates them, flipping back and forth over particular shots, repeating instances and extending time duration. By exposing shots to greater scrutiny this process reveals previously unseen narratives – individual fears, inter-personal tensions, subconscious yearnings – and involves the viewer further within the text. It also forces the viewer to investigate and deconstruct the cinematic apparatus, unearthing the inherently surreal, disturbing nature of the art form.

Granted, though, it is quite long. If you’re pushed for time I’d recommend skipping to 3.34 and watching through until 6.47. It’s like David Lynch has cast Judy Garland. Fantastic.

Image is by Eadweard Muybridge.

Entropy

ATP have recently put together a youtube playlist of videos by all the bands that are playing at the Animal Collective curated festival at Minehead this May. It’s a pretty great line-up and there are a lot of really nice videos on there, not to mention this one, by Finnish electronic experimenter, Vladislav Delay:

This reminded me of a series of films currently on exhibit at the the fantastic online film gallery, Animate Projects, entitled Lapse. As well as being a set of mysterious and mesmerising films, the project comes at a symbolic moment in time, as the cleaver of Conservative cuts has recently fallen onto Animate Projects’ digital neck, leaving them to soon lapse into obscurity. And so it seems, unlike the manipulated reality of Vladislav’s reforming ice cubes, we are all doomed to entropy…

Image is by our old fave Walker Evans.

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David O’Reilly – The External World

Take a look at this visually arresting stream of animations from Irish-born film maker, David O’Reilly. A loose thread runs through the scenes we’re treated to- from the flippant, to the violent to the outright bizarre, each clip lasts no more than thirty seconds and none miss the mark. It recalls Monkey Dust in its playfully black humour and bizarre situations and as an extra bonus, features guest voiceovers from Adam Buxton and Julian Barratt.

Luke Wyatt – Sad Stonewash: A Video Mulch

Here’s the trailer for Luke Wyatt’s Sad Stonewash, recently released on the fantastic AAVV film label. It uses the same digital manipulation techniques as the previously featured Mark Brown, Nicolas Provost, and the soon-to-be-featured (and equally brilliant) Tracy Widdess videos. In Wyatt’s film the choice of source material and musical accompaniment throw the viewer into a brilliantly garish postmodern world, replete with ersatz body-forms, chintz-laden cityscapes and melting simulacra of pop culture schlock. Makes you want to vomit pixels. In a good way.

Image is one of Clark Goolsby’s, more of whose awesome work can be found here.

Nicolas Provost – Gravity

We ran a short piece on Nicolas Provost’s new work, Stardust, a few days ago. Since then he’s kindly been in touch and provided us with an exclusive excerpt of another of his films, (my personal favourite) Gravity. Here are a few well-chosen words on the film from its creator:

‘The cinematic kiss is probably one of the most archetypal images to be found in film history. It is usually a reassuring and sometimes climactic element in a movie’s storyline.  Not in Nicolas Provost’s Gravity though: with stroboscopic effects, more than a dozen movie scenes, most from stereotypical 1950s romantic dramas, are edited together and superimposed. Narrative is subverted as the kissing is isolated from its context entirely; the action slows down and flickers back and forth. Every now and then shots from different films overlap and match; protagonists merge and diverge again a few seconds later. The sugary and dramatic soundtrack of romantic film music contrasts with the deconstructed images; together, they form a dazzling 6-minute vertigo where love becomes a passionate battle.’

And here’s the film itself for your viewing pleasure:

Please do check out the exhibition of his works which are currently showing at the Haunch of Venison Gallery, Mayfair. To see them blown up in HD really is something else. Or, if you’re not London based, have a browse through the complete catalogue on his own website. Really can’t recommend him highly enough.

Nicolas Provost

Belgian filmmaker/video artist Nicolas Provost has got an exhibition currently running in London’s Haunch of Venison gallery. Definitely one to try and catch if you can. He describes his work as a reflection on the grammar of cinema, that picks apart tropes, deconstructs them and then replays the elements in mutated formats, highlighting the rhythmic nature of theme and image, shifting accents and creating new works of visual poetry. It’s an attempt to provoke both recognition and alienation and catch our expectations into an unravelling game of mystery and abstraction.

Unfortunately his work isn’t that easy to come by online, but I have managed to find his most recent work on the Dazed & Confused website, which is here for you to enjoy. However, please make sure you visit either his website or the gallery itself to check out the fantastic Gravity and Long Live The New Flesh, two of the most fascinating, spellbinding and disturbing pieces of video art you’re likely to see this year.

Dazed Digital | Nicolas Provost: Stardust, posted with vodpod

Image is a still from another Provost film, Suspension.

Holy Spirits – White Walls (Nathaniel Whitcomb)

Another hypnotic video from Nathaniel Whitcomb and another chance to plug Holy Spirits, whose Afternoon’s Blood E.P has never been far from my ears in the past couple of months.

The latest track to receive Whitcomb’s motion collage treatment is the soaring, Thom Yorke-esque White Walls. It’s an absolutely stunning track and one that you’ll see popping up on a mix of ours in the next few days.

Image by Jean Arp

Holy Spirits Bandcamp here for the free to download EP.

Mark Charles Brown

I found this guy on the brilliantly bizarre DIS Magazine site after they posted an audio and visual remix of the video he did for Teengirl Fantasy’s new single Dancing In Slow Motion. As great an idea as it is, I’m afraid the original remains the best, and after a little bit of research (one search on Google) I found his own website, chock full of jarring videos of digital distortion set to tracks by some of our favourite artists. His work is the epitome of contemporary video art, embracing the internet as a gallery and creating works from the cracks, glitches and fall-out of digital realities. It seems to be almost accidental, a moment of serendipitous error that stuns you by its shimmering, contingent beauty. I really can’t recommend him highly enough.

Image above is a painting by Swiss artist Andy Denzler. You can see more of his wonderful work here.

Kristian de la Riva

Here’s a video I came across at the Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition, currently running at the ICA in London. It struck me and my companion immediately and we stood in rapt concentration, at turns wincing and guffawing, whilst it played on endless repeat.  It’s by an artist called Kristian de la Riva, who’s kindly sent me the video, as well as a few words to be included on the blog.

‘My animations focus on habitual, archetypal patterns of human behaviour where visual simplicity belies subtle layers of complexity. The characters are taken from real footage, often of myself, yet all detail is stripped away to create generic images of men or women, which is then illustrated in plain, black, line-drawn images. Such a reduction in the representation of the human form creates a playful, cartoonish edge that sits in contrast to the more serious psychological issues that unravel within the work.’

And without further ado, here you have it.

Nicholas Gurewitch – Martha’s B-Day 10-09-1985

If you don’t know the Perry Bible Fellowship you should. Go and look at it. And laugh at it. Because it’s funny. A very, very funny cartoon by Nicholas Gurewitch, who’s been on hiatus for the last couple of years, after finishing with PBF in 2008. He’s now moved on to making short films, the first of which has just been released and is provided here for your perusal. It contains the same black, irreverent humour as his cartoons but, well, is a film, so it’s more exciting to look at. Because it’s got moving pictures in it. And apparently they’re all the rage.

And then go here and spend hours, like I’ve often found myself doing, clicking random and giggling uncontrollably over and over again. Brilliant.

Sophie Clements – Evensong

Another bit of artist’s video today to shake off those Monday blues. This is Sophie Clements’ Evensong, ‘a piece of visual music… [that] explores the notion of physical reality in relation to time and memory’, according to the blurb. Although I’m not entirely sure of this. Probably chiefly because I don’t necessarily understand what it means, or how a five-minute-long video that consists of still shots and superimposed geometric light shapes can discuss such profoundly difficult metaphysical concepts. But it doesn’t matter really. Whether you respond to it as something aphoristically resonant and quasi-religious or as a nice set of images with lovely movey bits and some nice music on it as well (smiley face), you shouldn’t help but be moved and beguiled by its mysterious beauty.

Two fingers up to theory. All hail experience unto itself.

Image is from visionary photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Lightning Field series. Check out the rest of his pieces here.

Folk///Projects

Next Wednesday, the ICA are screening Strange Lights, the new film by Joe King and Rosie Pedlow, alongside a retrospective of their earlier work, including the Jerwood Moving Image Award-winning Sea Change. I came across this a couple of years ago and was immediately and utterly entranced by its haunting mood and technical brilliance. Ostensibly nothing more than a tracking shot through a seaside caravan park, the film steadily and rhythmically manipulates time and light, evoking a dream-world all the more eerie for its base in reality. If you fancy five minutes of escape this afternoon I couldn’t recommend anything better.

The ICA talk takes place next Wednesday 12th at 6.30 pm. Details here.

Add Void’s Ten from 2010#5

Apologies for the long time coming on this mix. Christmas and New Year took a heavy toll on wallets, waistlines and wi-fi connectivity (struggled a bit to keep the alliteration in that), but now we’re back on board the blog bus (whereas that badboy just rolled off the tongue) so saddle up for our remaining six end of year mixes. And please don’t point out that it’s 2011, everyone else has done theirs and that we should be moving on. It’s not helpful. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The last couple of years have seen a dramatic shift in the sound-boards of what we can loosely term ‘indie’ bands. After increasingly weak offerings from the hopefuls of five or six years ago, the jangly, danceable, pseudo-post-punk style has either totally died away or become mollified into radio-friendly, sing-along indie-cum-pop, played as Gaga respite on Mainstream FM. Recently though, the influences of Sonic Youth, Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine and Neu! have become far more prevalent and trends are now veering towards scuzz, dirge, noise and a much more laconic aesthetic. So, without further ado, here’s a selection of some of the best tracks from 2010 that we feel can be loosely categorised in this way. Heads down, eyes shut, enjoy.

Click here to get the tracklisting and to download the mix for keeps.

Photo is from Walker Evans’s Polaroid series, probably some of the most beautiful photographs ever taken. You can find more of them, along with A LOT of other REALLY incredible images at the astoundingly good site, American Suburb X.

Nathaniel Whitcomb and Holy Spirits

Keeping up a recent Friday tradition of treating your eyes as well as your ears, here is a bumper post largely courtesy of the various endeavours of New York artist Nathaniel Whitcomb.

First up, have a watch of the videos below. Each motion collage has been made by Whitcomb to accompany tracks from Holy Spirits’s EP, The Afternoon’s Blood, whose delicately sparse and spectral textures compliment the  photomontages perfectly. There’s only two videos up at the moment, but the other three tracks on the EP will supposedly be getting the same treatment soon.

As well as taking in the videos, I’d also recommend you check out Whitcomb’s own website, Think or Smile, which provides a wonderful platform for exploring new music, art and design. Definitely one to check out, along with Holy Spirits’s EP, which you can download for free from bandcamp on the link below.

Don’t say we don’t spoil you…

Jon Hopkins – Vessel (Four Tet Remix)

Happy Friday all. Hope this little doozy gets you all in the mood for feeling better about whatever it is you’re going to be spending the next two days doing. It certainly does for me.

Also thought I’d post this that it kind of reminded me of. A really beautiful bit of pre-CGI animation from the hugely talented and incredibly influential Norman McLaren. Pas de Deux.

And if you like that here are some of his others.

Greens

I recently got sent a link to an excellent film blog, called cinemasparagus. This reminded me of a film by Susan Pitt, called Asparagus. See what I did there? Linked two words by the word ‘asparagus’. The powers of association, eh? The wonders of the mind!

Sorry.

This is a really great animation, made back in the day when CGI was an unknown acronym and Disney still had the power to move and entertain, rather than simply induce to participate in a franchise.  Reminds me of a Beryl Cook painting, inspired by Hieronymous Bosch, scripted by Salvador Dali and David Lynch, animated by Terry Gilliam and Walerian Borowczyk (check those references – boom). Characters slip in and out of fantastical non-spaces, following non-sequitur logical processions that break all rules of editing. Freudian and biblical imagery abound as snakes become vegetables become guns become flowers become any number of possible quasi-fallic object. The self is projected as a series of possibilities, fluctuating, masked, suggested and underlying all is a pervasively disturbing sexuality. There’s a narrative of sorts in it, too, but it’s very, very loose. Fun to find though, if you’ll give it room to breathe.

Please note, however, that it’s probably not too safe for work.

asparagus | Free Animation Videos – Watch Anima…, posted with vodpod

Image is one of Henri Michaux’s Éclatements, exercises in automatic gestural script.

Klein

Also, just another quickie, cos it’s Friday, and the weekend’s here, and we’re all happy, and this has just come out, and it’s real pretty, and it’s a lovely song, and it’s nice to see beautiful visuals paired with such lovely sounds, and I’m good to you, and Gorilla vs Bear always have the best stuff.

Live Paints

I’m pretty stunned by the imagination, dedication, creativity, patience and, above all, love that must have gone into making this video. It’s really quite incredible.

I don’t know if you recognise their stuff but they’ve done a whole host of other films, drawings and wall paintings (don’t really feel the term ‘graffiti’ is applicable, in fact I think it would probably be an insult) around Europe, the closest to me of which is next to a petrol station in Camden. Seeing it now in context has only made it better. These guys are great, whoever they are. (I think they might be Italian. Either that or they’ve just chosen the website – www.artsh.it – for comedic/satirical effect.)

http://blublu.org/