Side by Side

After watching this trailer , I'm extremely excited to watch this film, produced and narrated by non other than Keanu Reeves(?!). What looks like an encompassing debate between old and new film makers alike, Side by Side looks to offer a comparative arguement of the digital medium and how cinema is evolving.
Has anyone else heard of this film? I'd love to find a UK release date.

Nathan

Get on this you fine people you

http://www.tramway.org/events/Pages/Tramway-Festival-of-Artists-Moving-Image.aspx

A Night At The Museum

A couple of weeks ago I was helping this guy Omar out with a bit of demolition and it turns out he's also working as an architect on a huge museum conversion (in a former tobacco factory) in La Reole and was planning a big night market/party in part of the building. As part of the event he offered us a corner to put on an exhibition and promote the gallery we're opening here in October. Great, apart from the fact that this was with about a weeks notice and by the Friday I had a studio full of half finished work! After two days of manic work & installation this what we ended up with...

Bread & Circuses pt1, Concrete, Plywood, Melamine, 2012

I'd Rather Live On My Feet Than Die On My Knees, Welded Steel, Spraypaint, Plywood, Worklight, 2012

You're Either Fucked Or You're Not, Steel, Spraypaint, Lorry Tyre Debris, Lightbulb, 2012

Detail from You're Either Fucked Or You're Not

Detail from You're Either Fucked Or You're Not

The show was only open for one night (about 7pm to midnight) but we had a generally positive reaction with quite a few people coming over for a look and a chat.

Sam

Terry Riley - You're Nogood (1967)

Recently finished [skim] reading Keith Potter's Four Musical Minimalists and thought I'd share this rather amazing 1967 electronic work/proto-remix by Terry Riley that's mentioned in it:

You're Nogood is what its composer calls 'a set of variations' on a tune of this name by a New York rhythm-and-blues group called the Harvey Arverne Dozen. Riley was attracted to this source partly because by this time he had started calling himself 'Poppy Nogood'. You're Nogood exposes its borrowed material much more directly, and at greater length while remaining untransformed, than do the other tape pieces. By this time, its composer had acquired a sine-wave generator from [La Monte] Young and also, on loan from him, a small Moog synthesizer, Riley had never had access to a synthesizer before. The result was what he calls 'a combination of a synthesizer piece and a cut-up tape-loop piece', adding synthesizer sounds and their transformations to the basic techniques of tape-splicing, etc. Additionally, he now had two decent Revox tape recorders, giving him much better sound reproduction than before; Riley wanted to give his new piece, intended for replay in a discotheque, a cleaner sound.

'My idea was to make an arrangement', he says. 'So you'd have the tune, a set of improvisations, different loops of the tune: an abstract arrangement of the tune, almost like a jazz chorus. And then at some point, this tune generator which has sweeping and pulsing sounds'. A pulsing figure, taking the rhythm of the tune as its basis, starts with a very low pitch, then sweeps right upwards, at which point the tune itself enters. At the end of the piece, there are sonic very fast, double-speed loops, also supported by the pulses. Commissioned by a Philadelphia discotheque, You're Nogood apparently made a curious impact on the dance floor. Initially, the unusual effects seemed to mesh with the strobe lights and the general atmosphere. When the loops started to get out of phase with each other, however, the dancers were forced to stop and attempt to adjust to the constantly shifting metre, with apparently entertaining results.

John

Untitled (Indigestion Relief Club for Esoteric Discussion and Emancipated Learning) 2012

Following some discussion on the point and purpose of the BS collective, such as it is, I would like to propose the formation of a regular-as-far-as-possible study group for discussing papers, theses, books, pamphlets, ideas or whatever, in order to help our individual research as well as encouraging some slightly more formalised critical debate within the group and/or interpersonal chillaxing with tea and cake. This is basically, what happened in uni bar the tea and cake, with Ciara’s lectures and the seminar groups, the only difference being we choose the papers ourselves and there is no formal direction. 

The group would run as follows; one person chooses a text which is important/inspirational/difficult/controversial to them - whether that is a post-it note, a magazine article, an essay, a chapter of a book, in short anything that you would like to share or get feedback on. They then email it to everyone before meeting up to discuss, eat cake and whatnot. Then someone else chooses a thing to gather round and discuss, ad inifitum, until everyone is full of cake and knowledge. Yum.

As we have something of a tradition for naming things I hereby christen this vastly original concept as, Untitled (Indigestion Relief Club for Esoteric Discussion and Emancipated Learning) 2012, to be henceforth referred to only as, Book Club. Those in favour say “aaayye!” and I’ll put together an email group.

michael

Superb!

http://gawker.com/5936665/heres-what-happened-when-an-elderly-man-took-it-upon-himself-to-restore-a-painting-in-a-nearby-church

Nathan

Post Cards from the Future

Here's a really fascinating slide show that runs through the 75 Mega-cities of  the urban revolution across the globe.

It's quite incredible just how many of the top 20 cities are from China alone and how many of them break 20 million in population size.

View of China Central Television tower in Beijing 2012

So now I actually live rather near most of you guys, and know you all have creative ambitions beyond fathering/mothering a bastard child to the alcoholic down the local (ahem); I was wondering if perhaps we could get together for purpose of a crit? I'm sure like myself, you all have some ideas floating round you are either unsure of or blindly confident about that a little criticism could better shape.  I think we discussed a fair few months ago what the Collective was (I really don’t remember the conclusion...or if there was a conclusion) but I’m willing to bet neither of us are aware of exactly what other  members are up to/working on. I would imagine small crits to be a great way for us to pull both a collective and individual momentum in the art scene and is something I’d quite like to see happen once every few months.

I think what we need is for these crits to be relaxed and informal yet constructive discussions at someone’s house giving us a little headspace (Or we could sit in Starbucks and speak very loudly?).  I'd be more than happy to host myself! We could bring work with us; sketches, discs, prototypes, photos, laptops etc. Please comment if you are interested and we could create a round of emails setting a time and date.

Also...just putting it out there but The Thing is showing at the GFT at 11pm on the 24th if anyone would like to join me??

Nathan

Walls and Doors

I just wanted to share this as I find it nice to see a modern muscian (and a well known one at that) speaking creatively about his music.
 John Frusciante

"This song, (Walls and Doors) recorded in September 2010, marks the point at which I began combining 60s and early 70s production styles with modern electronic production styles. This song was also the first time I successfully balanced pop music with abstract forms of music. This song showed me that the pop parts of myself and the more adventurous parts of myself could blend without one compromising the scope of the other. After this song I did not pick up the ball and run, but rather I continued to challenge myself, experiment and investigate, more from the abstract angle than the pop angle, until March 2011, at which point I'd figured out the things which made it possible for me to consistently make precisely the music I wanted to make, in which I was not restraining any part of my nature, allowing me to begin the recording of PBX. I might mention that Walls And Doors was also the first time my electronic instruments had begun to convey the visceral energy that one associates with people beating the fuck out of their instruments, in the context of a pop song."

Nathan

the PH level of where the time goes

Similar in destination to the below post I have seen the New Bridge Project will be opening up a new space (PH.) with the show 'Where Does the Time Go' an exhibition of photographic works that highlight the moment and respond to it. Taking Martin Heidigger's idea that Humans created time but are also imprisoned and controlled by it, this seems like a rather exciting starting point for a space that will look to present work that focus's on photography, film and post-photography aesthetics to re-examine this media's physical capabilities in a time of transition from analog chemical based production to digital remediation.

WHERE DOES TIME GO. An exhibition with : Marco Barrera, Alexander Binder, Nicolas Poillot, Kuba Ryniewicz, Jordan Tate & Grant Willing. PH Gallery - Newcastle upon Tyne (UK)
~
photo: Nicolas Poillot
poster design: Alina Kropiwnicka

Kit

CANNED opportunity

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Does the apparent insurgence in politically motivated art indicate real dissent, a sign of revolutionary times (as suggested by the Occupy Movement, the UK riots, the Arab Spring, the Pussy Riot trials) or rather chronic faddism: that art and politics have recognised their criticisms and new forms of opposition, cynically absorbing them into their own modus operandi?

Can art and culture, in and of themselves, actively change society? Or merely offer alternative ways of seeing, thinking and living which may be a commentary, precursor or catalyst to - but not an active agent in - real political change? Can art ever be truly revolutionary? Is it possible to inhabit an entirely new political stand point without conforming to existing structures, innate logic or bowing to mythological, aesthetic, historical and institutional constraints? Or can revolutionary art really be based on appropriation, mimicry and détournement?

These are some of the questions posed by CANNED ISSUE IV –The Politics of Representation. As the title suggests, whilst we embark on this enquiry through the lens of contemporary art it is examined within a wider ecology of political, social and economic systems, exchanges and ideologies. We invite contributions both from within and beyond the purview of art criticism including (but not limited to) art history, politics, economics, technology, literature, conceptual writing and philosophy. Our aim is not necessarily to find a conclusion to the questions posed (and many more may arise through this process) but rather to open a dialogue, through a range of perspectives, on the current and ongoing relationship between art and politics and the endeavour to find new forms of artistic and political representation.

CANNED is a limited edition magazine (1000 copies) distributed both nationally and internationally. For more information about the magazine and previous editions please see the website www.cannedmagazine.com.

http://www.facebook.com/events/186441371489579/

The Olympics and the Future of Television

I couldn't make it to London for the Olympics, but I could make it to Bradford!

The posters made by artists for both the 1972 and the 2012 Olympics that someone mentioned a few posts back (Kit?) have been exhibited at Impressions Gallery in Bradford - whilst it's nice to see the current ones in the limited-to-150/200/250/300/350 edition flesh, I don't really like any of them to be honest. Oh well. Surely Bradford isn't one of the only places where these are being shown - does Glasgow have them exhibited somewhere too?

Anyway, the main reason I'm writing this post was due to this free screening I attended today at the National Media Museum. The 2012 London Olympics has been the first time that the experimental ultra-high definition technology Super Hi-Vision has been used for a major world event, and only a few places in the UK (Bradford, Glasgow and London) have had the lucky opportunity to show this test footage to the viewing public. It's absolutely incredible to watch and to hear on a technical level - there's 16 times the number of pixels as regular 1080p HD television (twice as better as digital cinema, but about equal to IMAX/70mm) producing an extremely detailed image on the big screen, and a truly immersive 22.2 surround sound system that make you feel like you're actually there. And as for what you view? Well, over the course of a 45 minute screening you get an introduction to the technology with stock footage filmed in Japan (the mandatory busy street crossing in Tokyo, footage of wildlife and natural scenery, an orchestra performance to highlight the surround sound etc), some footage from the opening ceremony (Fireworks? Check. The Queen and James Bond? Check. Great Britain announcement? Check. Torch lighting? Check.) and some of the early British gold award winnings with the medals being given (Ennis, Mo Farah, Hoy), plus the 100m run with Usain Bolt. Call it the super-highlights, if you will...

I really wish I knew about these screenings much earlier - it appears the final screenings tomorrow at BBC Scotland are all fully booked up so those in Glasgow will sadly have to wait another 20 years for SHV to come your way. But my god, it will be worth the wait - Coronation Street will look so amazing in 2030!

John

The Gallery of Lost Art (no not a Ben Stiller or Spielberg movie...)

Tate has teamed up with Channel 4 to create the Gallery of Lost Art, a website devoted to works of art that are no longer with us. The site has a sort of detective, Unsolved Mysteries vibe to it, with overhead shots of “evidence” laid out on tables, plus case-file-like type and eerie electronic music playing in the background. It’s all slight hokey, but the works they highlight make up for it.

In short; a weird ass website woth a gander.

Nathan

A Short Collection of Film Stills Dealing With Perspective.

Drive (2011) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn. A complicated affair; the composition illustrates brilliantly here The Drivers inability to take his love interest for his own.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Dir. Alain Resnais. An enigmatic film dealing heavily with repetition, placing affairs into an uncertain continuity.

Peeping Tom (1960) Dir. Michael Powell. In this penultimate scene, the anti-protagonist Mark faces his trauma (a video projection) which led him to subsequent murders, while behind him on the right is his love interest and saving grace.

Mulholland Dr. (2001) Dir. David Lynch. Here a woman with no memory of her own identity searches for a name so as to not rouse suspicion in a helpful stranger. Ironic that in this movie centred on the film industry she chooses an actresses name taken from a reflection; both film and mirror, a mimetic medium.

Choc Ly Tan: A Point in Space or Time that Is or Seems infinitely Distant

Stumbled upon this, this very morning. http://chooclytan.com/a-point.php

 

The artist places and displaces various objects in the room: she does random figures in the air with a frame and indicates verticality by jumping with an umbrella. she also sticks images on the wall, including a hand, with a pointing finger in an up/down direction which is eventually decided upon by the artist. Simultaneously, a flat screen plays back what is being recorded by an upside down video camera, allowing the audience to witness both the way up, and the way down, of the performance and emphasising the feeling of weight(lessness) and Gravity. While she hangs from a horizontal pole, the artist catches a leek. She also finds a book, 'The Master and Margarita', hidden behind a small secret door. Consecutively the artist asks two people in the audience to pick a quote from the book. Using the leek she then writes it in paint, upside-down on the wall, in an attempt to make it correctly appear upright in the inverted image shown on the monitor. Sometimes she is forced to walk back and contemplates the flat screen, to better realise the failure of such attempts.

Does anyone happen to know any other works by the artist? I'm quite taken with this film.

Nathan

Conflict

If you have 10 minutes this will give you some thoughts for the day







Geoff

How Film Restoration Begins

 With the Genius of Hitchcock season unveiling the results of our Rescue the Hitchcock 9 project to restore the director’s surviving silent features, curator Bryony Dixon explains how a restoration begins.
 

 Nathan

The Universal Texture

"At first, I thought they were glitches, or errors in the algorithm, but looking closer, I realized the situation was actually more interesting — these images are not glitches. They are the absolute logical result of the system. They are an edge condition—an anomaly within the system, a nonstandard, an outlier, even, but not an error. These jarring moments expose how Google Earth works, focusing our attention on the software. They are seams which reveal a new model of seeing and of representing our world - as dynamic, ever-changing data from a myriad of different sources – endlessly combined, constantly updated, creating a seamless illusion."

Quote taken from The Universal Texture by Clement Valla, courtesy of Rhizome.

And on a similar note, here's the greatest video game of all time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMnMOEB1zmE

John

Speaking of compiling list...

On a vaguely relateable subject to Nathan's post below, Taryn Simon has been collaborating with 'technologist' Aron Swartz to create the Image Atlas. It is an interactive online work which investigates cultural differences and similarities by indexing top image results for given search terms across local engines throughout the world. Visitors can refine or expand their comparisons from the 57 countries currently available, and sort by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or alphabetical order. This work was created during Rhizome's Seven on Seven Conference at the New Museum in New York. *

You can view the Image Atlas here

Website with contemporary art typed into the search engine


The New Yorker, Culture Desk, " Taryn Simon's Visual Babel"

"Image Atlas highlights cultural differences and similarities, and questions the possibility of a universal visual language. In some searches it presents a flattening and in others it highlights the inevitability of contrast. And then there are the scrambled moments-like, I typed in the word "jew." The results yielded a crude caricature that seems to have circulated in many countries. In Syria, it presented Obama in a yarmulke, and then in Germany it was all photos of Jude Law, because Jew in translation is "jude," and clearly "jude law" is getting more hits than "jew" within those borders right now. As people move farther away from verbal communication (Instagram, etc.), it's worth questioning if visual communication is subject to the same issues of translation and misinterpretation found in verbal communication."



You can read the rest of that article here

*http://www.gagosian.com/news/2012/08/03/479

Kit

LISTS!

We've all stumbled through top 10 lists/countdowns and many a time found something new and interesting along the way. With Sight & Sound compiling their Greatest Films list, one has to wonder what modern times remember most vividly and what precious space is taken by new films. In fact, take a look at IMDb revised list. Stunning that The Passion of Joan of Arc can be thrown aside to make room for Tim Burton's Big Fish! Though let's face it IMDb is a metacritic and any old Jimbo can log on there. Though do read this article here (the main point of this post) to grasp this obsession with listing and what background information each list may hold (note: the new poll includes links where to ever-so-easily watch each film...(but then again watching films on a laptop just isn't cinema is it?))

Compiling a body of work that exceeds a lifetime into a hierarchy should be an impossibility. Film reflects society, technology, trends, culture, fashion, etc, etc. Put simply, film is a sign of the times, moments recorded in short succession and arranged into a product. I would like to imagine like many good things, you truly had to be there to fully appreciate it. For instance sitting in Newcastle watching and reading about Dogme films last year meant nothing to actually being in Copenhagen upon the release of the first Dogme film, Festen in 1998. Consider now how their trademark shaky handheld formats seem to have since been handed over to being another cliche of the horror genre...

Nathan

The Act of Drinking Beer With Friends is the Highest Form of Art

By Tom Marioni, circa 1970

For all you painters out there and the rest who like the Batman soundtrack

There's been a few rather interesting programmes on the BBC of late including an Imagine that focuses on the Glasgow art scene (unfortunately now gone on Iplayer) and a series that's exploreing the history of three colours (Gold, Blue and White) and their effect/influence on Western art. Plus I think he might just be a better host then Adrian Sooke...

Futura