Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
When movement becomes dance
11 min, 16 mm film, B/W, no sound
Camera: Bill Rowley
Edit: Elaine Summers
Dir: Elaine Summers
Prod: Hans Breder, Iowa University
There are two things about this short fragment I love.
The first is the choreography of joy. The slow-motion allows us to better appreciate the flow of the common movement, the combining of the bodies, the contrast between them and everything that happens around them.
But there is something else. The dance becomes obvious at the end, when the movement continues beyond what we expected. Yet there is one earlier moment, one step of the girl coming from "our" side, which makes that clear. At a very precise point, she deviates from the way she has been running, her body bends like a bow and then moves sideways. That is when the simple vectors of meeting become something else - something more complex, less obvious. The bodies, now, create a space for our meeting to go beyond the embrace.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The Way Things Go and Pass
Fischli and Weiss, Der Lauf Der Dinge (The Way Things Go), video, 30', 1987
Honda Ad, 2003
OK Go - This Too Shall Pass, 2009
I remember the choreographer João Fiadeiro once showing Fischli & Weiss's work during some seminar or workshop and talking about what in his mind made it so impressive: necessity. Although it might seem like anything can happen, what happens is exactly what needs to happen. A tautology that evolves in time? But isn't any proof precisely that - a dynamic tautology?
So is it because it's a proof that it's so appealing?
A proof of what?
Of how things go, we are tempted to say.
Which, of course, is just silly talk. It's precisely because things don't go this way that we enjoy it so much. It's because the unexpected becomes necessary.
What about this "evolution"? The work of art turned into a commercial turned into a music video. Don't expect any moral judgement on that. Actually, I enjoyed all three videos.
We could discuss the question of authorship. But we won't. (Fischli & Weiss threatened to sue Honda).
Here's what I've been pondering on: what exactly are the differences?
Because, once you've accepted that they're all in the same category (actually, this type of inventions is called either Heath Robinson contraptions (UK), or (more commonly) Rube Goldberg Machines (US) and have been in popular culture at least since the beginning of the 20th century), you can see into how very different they are.
So what makes it an art project, a commercial, a music video?
If we turn the volume off, what changes?
If we put music, or switch it from one video to another?
The timing, the materials, the way things go and pass.
What sort of universe appears in each of them?
Yes, that's precious: they each have their own universe. They are entities. You can easily find yourself around them, with their texture, their dynamics, their smell...
One more thing: aren't they each hiding in their specific ways this very basic urge for things to make sense?
If that is so, it's beyond necessity or discovery. It's the comfort of order. The sense that somewhere beyond the frame, things are just waiting to come into action, to move into view. And their potential is already in perfect harmony with the moment when they will become what they are meant to be. The best of possible worlds.
It shouldn't come as a surprize that these delicately balancing certainties remind us of childhood.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Another childish question inspired by a beautiful project
What is it that we like about simplicity? Is it not that it's close to us? It is attainable, like something that is nearly us. Or, to put it differently - an it that almost makes it into me. Thus, an imaginary community. Yes, if I dared, I would say simplicity gives us an imaginary community. A universe we don't need to adhere to, as it has already adhered to us.
The video, directed by Johannes Nyholm, is both a music video for Little Dragon, and a pilot of Nyholm's short film Dreams from The Woods.
The video, directed by Johannes Nyholm, is both a music video for Little Dragon, and a pilot of Nyholm's short film Dreams from The Woods.
Another childish question inspired by a beautiful project
What is it that we like about simplicity? Is it not that it's close to us? It is attainable, like something that is nearly us. Or, to put it differently - an it that almost makes it into me. Thus, an imaginary community. Yes, if I dared, I would say simplicity gives us an imaginary community. A universe we don't need to adhere to, as it has already adhered to us.
The video, directed by Johannes Nyholm, is both a music video for Little Dragon, and a pilot of Nyholm's short film Dreams from The Woods.
The video, directed by Johannes Nyholm, is both a music video for Little Dragon, and a pilot of Nyholm's short film Dreams from The Woods.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Does beauty make sense?
Is it as coherent as we like to think it? Does it demand coherence?
And does beauty differ dependent on categories? After all, we do watch differently than we listen. And when we watch, the pleasure of, say, seeing a beautiful feature film is quite different from the pleasure of seeing a piece of video art. And although of course the merging and the postmodernism and the over-all mishmash exists in discourse, the categories are still quite strong, our (my) attitudes vary tremendously depending on what I'm watching. It's a tricky area, tagging. But the fact that it's tricky should only encourage to explore, no?
(via)
And does beauty differ dependent on categories? After all, we do watch differently than we listen. And when we watch, the pleasure of, say, seeing a beautiful feature film is quite different from the pleasure of seeing a piece of video art. And although of course the merging and the postmodernism and the over-all mishmash exists in discourse, the categories are still quite strong, our (my) attitudes vary tremendously depending on what I'm watching. It's a tricky area, tagging. But the fact that it's tricky should only encourage to explore, no?
Between from Via Grafik on Vimeo.
(via)
Does beauty make sense?
Is it as coherent as we like to think it? Does it demand coherence?
And does beauty differ dependent on categories? After all, we do watch differently than we listen. And when we watch, the pleasure of, say, seeing a beautiful feature film is quite different from the pleasure of seeing a piece of video art. And although of course the merging and the postmodernism and the over-all mishmash exists in discourse, the categories are still quite strong, our (my) attitudes vary tremendously depending on what I'm watching. It's a tricky area, tagging. But the fact that it's tricky should only encourage to explore, no?
(via)
And does beauty differ dependent on categories? After all, we do watch differently than we listen. And when we watch, the pleasure of, say, seeing a beautiful feature film is quite different from the pleasure of seeing a piece of video art. And although of course the merging and the postmodernism and the over-all mishmash exists in discourse, the categories are still quite strong, our (my) attitudes vary tremendously depending on what I'm watching. It's a tricky area, tagging. But the fact that it's tricky should only encourage to explore, no?
Between from Via Grafik on Vimeo.
(via)
Monday, October 5, 2009
Blu Going Further
in collaboration with David Ellis.
COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.
Blu Going Further
in collaboration with David Ellis.
COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Simple Stories
David Lynch's new project, Interview Project, is assumingly as simple as it gets: travel across the US. Interview people.
Here is the first episode.
First impressions? It's... nice. Potentially fascinating. Not quite yet. For the moment, it's too early to say.
This might seem like something very unfocused, as if it lacked a form, a formula, a format to support it. Compare this first episode to Kieślowski's (amazing, amazing) Talking Heads (1980):
Kieślowski has a format and sticks to it.
Seen from this perspective, Lynch's project might appear as amateurish.
But then, it goes so well with the spirit of our times, with the thirst for simple, everyday stories...
After all, we can still feel quite a heavy dose of humanist ideals and pathos in Kieślowski's approach. Even the way he films his subjects is dramatic, often painting-like.
Lynch has this capacity too, as we know so well. Yet he chooses a very different approach, different texture. Different proximity.
One small, hardly noticeable element is similar in the two projects: the music. It is heavy, dramatic, as if contradicting the simplicity of the protagonists.
Is it nostalgia for the great narratives?
Oh, and one more thing. We can only get that far asking constantly the most basic questions. After a while, I get tired. I want more. The essential stops being essential. It becomes annoyingly abstract, unaccessible. That's one reason to go beyond the existential questions, and one reason to ask other questions. One way of dealing with this is moving away from the person-as-biography to the person-as-projection. Take the famous work by Sophie Calle called Blind, where she asked people who were born blind about what is their image of beauty.
The pathos is still quite present. Yet the projection, the sensibility of the imagination, makes us... dance with empathy.
Simple Stories
David Lynch's new project, Interview Project, is assumingly as simple as it gets: travel across the US. Interview people.
Here is the first episode.
First impressions? It's... nice. Potentially fascinating. Not quite yet. For the moment, it's too early to say.
This might seem like something very unfocused, as if it lacked a form, a formula, a format to support it. Compare this first episode to Kieślowski's (amazing, amazing) Talking Heads (1980):
Kieślowski has a format and sticks to it.
Seen from this perspective, Lynch's project might appear as amateurish.
But then, it goes so well with the spirit of our times, with the thirst for simple, everyday stories...
After all, we can still feel quite a heavy dose of humanist ideals and pathos in Kieślowski's approach. Even the way he films his subjects is dramatic, often painting-like.
Lynch has this capacity too, as we know so well. Yet he chooses a very different approach, different texture. Different proximity.
One small, hardly noticeable element is similar in the two projects: the music. It is heavy, dramatic, as if contradicting the simplicity of the protagonists.
Is it nostalgia for the great narratives?
Oh, and one more thing. We can only get that far asking constantly the most basic questions. After a while, I get tired. I want more. The essential stops being essential. It becomes annoyingly abstract, unaccessible. That's one reason to go beyond the existential questions, and one reason to ask other questions. One way of dealing with this is moving away from the person-as-biography to the person-as-projection. Take the famous work by Sophie Calle called Blind, where she asked people who were born blind about what is their image of beauty.
The pathos is still quite present. Yet the projection, the sensibility of the imagination, makes us... dance with empathy.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
To-ge(t)-ther(e)
My last posts brought about several inspiring reactions, among them two great suggestions.
The animation made several people think of William Kentridge, whose characteristic style is a mix of playfulness and profound reflection, exploring what it means to draw, to create a world, to translate, to travel...
In this video, though, he is less focused on the means of drawing itself, and concentrates on an attempt of putting things back together – or is it, trying to find what was it about them that made them/me this and not that?
The simple, classic time reversal and the retro music combined with the “choreography” make it seem like an old magician’s trick. Indeed, undertaking the attempt of constructing myself seems like an impossible task, one that requires, among others, defying the basic entropy of time. Putting it all together is nothing short of getting the papers to fly right in your hand, dancing in the air as if you had trained them all your life.
Another great discovery is Dibujando un espacio (Drawing a Space), a series of 3 videos by two artists working together, Teresa Solar Abbout and Carlos Fernández-Pello.
At first glance, this is a work about distance and communication, and I must admit that given my personal history, it took me a while to go beyond this reading.
But then, once we get past the metaphor of a long-distance relationship, new layers appear: after all, every relationship is, on some levels, a long-distance relationship. Trying to construct something together is a mad project. Words only get us that far, and the only way of building it together is trying to construct primitive (always primitive) structures that can handle the heterogeneous spaces we bring with us.
Suffice it to say that contemporary analytic philosophy started with the idea that some things are simple enough to constitute a solid basis for communication, and by now, analytic philosophers focus on discussing what they mean by "communication", "constitute", "solid", "basis" and "for".
Both works have a desperation I appreciate and fear. They seem at once hopeless and surprizingly effective. Also thanks to the formal discipline, they become clear pictures of a very unclear, impossible structure, entering right at the point where philosophy struggles.
They share a powerful combination of obsession and self-irony which is both scary and enchanting. Also in art.
The animation made several people think of William Kentridge, whose characteristic style is a mix of playfulness and profound reflection, exploring what it means to draw, to create a world, to translate, to travel...
In this video, though, he is less focused on the means of drawing itself, and concentrates on an attempt of putting things back together – or is it, trying to find what was it about them that made them/me this and not that?
The simple, classic time reversal and the retro music combined with the “choreography” make it seem like an old magician’s trick. Indeed, undertaking the attempt of constructing myself seems like an impossible task, one that requires, among others, defying the basic entropy of time. Putting it all together is nothing short of getting the papers to fly right in your hand, dancing in the air as if you had trained them all your life.
Another great discovery is Dibujando un espacio (Drawing a Space), a series of 3 videos by two artists working together, Teresa Solar Abbout and Carlos Fernández-Pello.
At first glance, this is a work about distance and communication, and I must admit that given my personal history, it took me a while to go beyond this reading.
But then, once we get past the metaphor of a long-distance relationship, new layers appear: after all, every relationship is, on some levels, a long-distance relationship. Trying to construct something together is a mad project. Words only get us that far, and the only way of building it together is trying to construct primitive (always primitive) structures that can handle the heterogeneous spaces we bring with us.
Suffice it to say that contemporary analytic philosophy started with the idea that some things are simple enough to constitute a solid basis for communication, and by now, analytic philosophers focus on discussing what they mean by "communication", "constitute", "solid", "basis" and "for".
Both works have a desperation I appreciate and fear. They seem at once hopeless and surprizingly effective. Also thanks to the formal discipline, they become clear pictures of a very unclear, impossible structure, entering right at the point where philosophy struggles.
They share a powerful combination of obsession and self-irony which is both scary and enchanting. Also in art.
To-ge(t)-ther(e)
My last posts brought about several inspiring reactions, among them two great suggestions.
The animation made several people think of William Kentridge, whose characteristic style is a mix of playfulness and profound reflection, exploring what it means to draw, to create a world, to translate, to travel...
In this video, though, he is less focused on the means of drawing itself, and concentrates on an attempt of putting things back together – or is it, trying to find what was it about them that made them/me this and not that?
The simple, classic time reversal and the retro music combined with the “choreography” make it seem like an old magician’s trick. Indeed, undertaking the attempt of constructing myself seems like an impossible task, one that requires, among others, defying the basic entropy of time. Putting it all together is nothing short of getting the papers to fly right in your hand, dancing in the air as if you had trained them all your life.
Another great discovery is Dibujando un espacio (Drawing a Space), a series of 3 videos by two artists working together, Teresa Solar Abbout and Carlos Fernández-Pello.
At first glance, this is a work about distance and communication, and I must admit that given my personal history, it took me a while to go beyond this reading.
But then, once we get past the metaphor of a long-distance relationship, new layers appear: after all, every relationship is, on some levels, a long-distance relationship. Trying to construct something together is a mad project. Words only get us that far, and the only way of building it together is trying to construct primitive (always primitive) structures that can handle the heterogeneous spaces we bring with us.
Suffice it to say that contemporary analytic philosophy started with the idea that some things are simple enough to constitute a solid basis for communication, and by now, analytic philosophers focus on discussing what they mean by "communication", "constitute", "solid", "basis" and "for".
Both works have a desperation I appreciate and fear. They seem at once hopeless and surprizingly effective. Also thanks to the formal discipline, they become clear pictures of a very unclear, impossible structure, entering right at the point where philosophy struggles.
They share a powerful combination of obsession and self-irony which is both scary and enchanting. Also in art.
The animation made several people think of William Kentridge, whose characteristic style is a mix of playfulness and profound reflection, exploring what it means to draw, to create a world, to translate, to travel...
In this video, though, he is less focused on the means of drawing itself, and concentrates on an attempt of putting things back together – or is it, trying to find what was it about them that made them/me this and not that?
The simple, classic time reversal and the retro music combined with the “choreography” make it seem like an old magician’s trick. Indeed, undertaking the attempt of constructing myself seems like an impossible task, one that requires, among others, defying the basic entropy of time. Putting it all together is nothing short of getting the papers to fly right in your hand, dancing in the air as if you had trained them all your life.
Another great discovery is Dibujando un espacio (Drawing a Space), a series of 3 videos by two artists working together, Teresa Solar Abbout and Carlos Fernández-Pello.
At first glance, this is a work about distance and communication, and I must admit that given my personal history, it took me a while to go beyond this reading.
But then, once we get past the metaphor of a long-distance relationship, new layers appear: after all, every relationship is, on some levels, a long-distance relationship. Trying to construct something together is a mad project. Words only get us that far, and the only way of building it together is trying to construct primitive (always primitive) structures that can handle the heterogeneous spaces we bring with us.
Suffice it to say that contemporary analytic philosophy started with the idea that some things are simple enough to constitute a solid basis for communication, and by now, analytic philosophers focus on discussing what they mean by "communication", "constitute", "solid", "basis" and "for".
Both works have a desperation I appreciate and fear. They seem at once hopeless and surprizingly effective. Also thanks to the formal discipline, they become clear pictures of a very unclear, impossible structure, entering right at the point where philosophy struggles.
They share a powerful combination of obsession and self-irony which is both scary and enchanting. Also in art.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Simpler than Blu
Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber and Yanni Kronenberg.
My favorite part is the chalk accumulating on the board. And the simple, obvious, yet powerful ending.
How different is this from Blu? Maybe not too different. I would call it a tribute. The style, the dynamics. Yet the addition of the canvas, the frame, turns it into a slightly different game, a play with pictures, and with types of spaces. I only wish this latter element were slightly more present in the film, and we got more often to travel outside of the canvas.
Simpler than Blu
Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber and Yanni Kronenberg.
My favorite part is the chalk accumulating on the board. And the simple, obvious, yet powerful ending.
How different is this from Blu? Maybe not too different. I would call it a tribute. The style, the dynamics. Yet the addition of the canvas, the frame, turns it into a slightly different game, a play with pictures, and with types of spaces. I only wish this latter element were slightly more present in the film, and we got more often to travel outside of the canvas.
Monday, April 13, 2009
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