Frameshift

Oops (remixed YouTube videos)

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:12:35 GMT

Chris Beckman
oops, 2009
digital video art
concept by Billy Rennekamp

Somewhere between a home-video mixtape and a postmodern travelogue, "oops"—a ten-minute art video composed entirely of appropriated YouTube videos, seamlessly stitched together via a motif of camera drops—serves both as transportative adventure and metaphorical elucidation of YouTube itself (i.e. endless related videos), exemplifying the Internet's infinite repository of "throwaway" social documentation. From suburbia to subterranea, the radically shuffling environs induce a vertiginous yet aesthetically contextual thread—a transcendent, reincarnating POV; our omnipresent Camera—by which, the nature of the ultra-verité videos, eschewing any filmic grounding, plunges the viewer into a relationship of fleeting immediacy w/ its many videographers: a self-portrait at arms length, the digital blur of an obscuring thumb, a disembodied narrating voice. This abstractly voyeuristic portrayal of an ever-filming generation (who won't let the transcendence of being in A Moment inhibit their document-everything impulse) presages a future where every instant of our existence, from the mundane to the sublime, is preserved and catalogued for all to see.

oops from Chris Beckman on Vimeo.

comments

Okay, maybe it's just me...

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:39:29 GMT

...but this just struck me as surreal.

You know that Seal song, "Kiss from a Rose"? Someone used it for their solo last night on So You Think You Can Dance Canada, and I idly started wondering why I'd never seen it vidded (granted, it's 15 years old, so maybe it was overvidded in Highlander or Xena or X-Files fandom back in the day...), and in searching YouTube I discovered that it was on the soundtrack for one of the '90s Batman movies and they made a music video of Seal singing in front of the Bat Signal interspersed with clips from the movie. And, wow:

Now I kind of wish someone would do an updated version with Christian Bale's Batman and Heath Ledger's Joker. *facepalm*

comments

Friday videos

Fri, 29 May 2009 17:43:28 GMT

Via Art Fag City: "What does an orgy require? If Christodoulos Panayiotou’s video Guysgocrazy is any indication, a fuck of a lot of condoms. Made in cooperation with a Czech porn company specializing in orgies, Panayiotou shot the set right before and right after the group sex takes place. Not surprisingly, the party leftovers are a little messy."

Via Panayiotou's blog, Yvonne Rainer's Trio A. From her Wikipedia entry:

This exploration in reducing dance to the essentials climaxed with one of Rainer’s most famous pieces, Trio A (1966), initially part of a larger work entitled The Mind Is a Muscle. Something of a paradigmatic statement that questioned the aesthetic goals of postmodern dance, Trio A was a short dance that consisted of one long phrase. In Trio A, Rainer intended to remove objects from the dance while simultaneously retaining a workmanlike approach of task performance. Not simple but certainly not fancy, it was a demanding piece of work, both to watch and to perform. She explored such dynamics as repetition, the distribution of energy, and phrasing. The movement consisted of task-oriented actions, emphasizing neutral performance and featuring no interaction with the audience. The dancer was to never make eye contact with her observers, and in the case that the movement required the dancer to face the audience, their eyes were to remain shut for the duration of their face time. The first time the piece was performed it was entitled The Mind is a Muscle, Part 1, and was performed by a set of three simultaneous solos by Rainer, Stephen Paxton, and David Gordon. Trio A has been widely adapted and interpreted by other choreographers.

Check it out -- it's still pretty amazing:

comments

Video of the day

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:53:50 GMT

Okay, a year old, but new to me: Japanese turntablist DJ Baku's "Akbah Attack": brilliant music, mesmerizing video.

DJ Baku on MySpace; interview at Tiny Mix Tapes; his new album Japadapta comes out in Japan next week.

Bonus over-the-top press release from last year:

From Tokyo Japan, this amazing turntablist / producer is hands-down, DJ Krush's protege and has deep ties with DJ Kentaro, all the roughest Shinjuku freestyle MC's, and psycho-garage band Guitar Wolf. DJ Baku (pronounced "Bah-Koo") the rightful heir to the unique Japanese aesthetic of production, DJ'ing, turntablism started by Krush 20 years ago. "It's a perfect match for our digital-analog-dubplate vinyl slayer N2O Records imprint. Just this year we've been obliterating all- genres by pressing everything from Omar Rodriguez Lopez' Mars Volta solo projects to Indie Dubstep of 6BLOCC to Japanese Pop & Punk to hardcore Kingston Reggae to Mad Capsule Markets solo collabo's and the hyper-cool Tokyo electro-rockers Boom Boom Satellites. We are introducing the 'Mixture' sound to America from Japan and back with music and feature film anime collaborations," explains N2O Records label creator Nate "N8LOC" Shimizu, now at 130 records released in their mobile- suit mission to "break the genre binding" barriers. "We've been doing it for a decade, but now we can do it on a multi-lingual global Death-Note viral scale with ill-mech-warrior Japanese artists like DJ Baku and Uzumaki, mixed in with the Famima-fresh-factor big steps beyond mash-up," says N8LOC.

[Speaking of Boom Boom Satellites, has anyone seen any vids to their songs? I can't listen to What Goes Around Comes Around or Moment I Count without craving a good action vid -- someone must have used them for a Matrix vid at some point, right?]

comments