My Life and Prophecies

funny / not funny

2009-02-20T14:07:00.002-05:00

Some recent writing for your online enjoyment:

At Artforum: Gustav Deutsch, Bruce Baille, Wang Bing, Godard's Made in USA

At Triple Canopy: an essay on the work of DC genius Jeff Krulik. (I like to think of it as part of a trans-publication "comedy trilogy" with recent writings on Jerry Lewis and Cory Arcangel.)

It Is To Laugh

2008-12-27T00:07:00.002-05:00

Check out this conversation I did with Cory Arcangel about comedy, posted on Rhizome.

Joke Book

2008-11-23T23:58:00.003-05:00

Newish piece of mine on The Total Film-Maker by Jerry Lewis over at Artforum, timed for his appearance at the Museum of the Moving Image this past weekend.

Our Expanding Universe

2008-11-18T14:19:00.004-05:00

This Saturday, November 22 I'll be part of a mini-symposium at EAI called Expanded Video. The full schedule is below.

* * * * * *
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Noon - 6:30 pm

Admission Free
RSVP: info@eai.org
Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI)
535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10011
www.eai.org

Please join EAI for a day of panels and discussion that will explore the changing landscape for exhibiting, collecting, distributing and preserving media art. Leading curators, artists, gallerists, distributors and critics will examine new paradigms for media art practice and activate dialogue on how moving image artworks are being exhibited, collected and circulated today, from YouTube to the gallery and the museum – and everywhere in between. Join us for two panels that will discuss this shifting landscape in relation to media art’s remarkable history, its multi-faceted present and the unforeseeable future.

PANEL 1: EXHIBITING
Noon - 2:00 pm

Lauren Cornell
Executive Director, Rhizome.org and Adjunct Curator of the New Museum

Jacob Ciocci
Artist and member of Paper Rad

Ed Halter
Critic and Co-Director of Light Industry, Brooklyn

Glenn Phillips
Senior Project Specialist and Consulting Curator, Department of Contemporary Programs and Research, Getty Research Institute

Moderated by Caitlin Jones
Independent writer and curator

PANEL 2: COLLECTING
3:30 - 5:30 pm

Christopher Eamon
Curator of the Pamela and Richard Kramlich Collection

Chrissie Iles
Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Joan Jonas
Artist

Jenny Moore
Director of Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York

Moderated by Rebecca Cleman
Director of Distribution at EAI

Introduction by Lori Zippay
Executive Director of EAI

SCREENING + BREAK
2:00 - 3:30 pm

Cory Arcangel Bootleg Comedy Album

2008-11-17T09:57:00.004-05:00

Hey "sorry for not posting in a while" but here's a bootleg audio recording of Cory Arcangel's entire Continuous Partial Awareness lecture at the New Museum last week. Since it was recorded from my lap, you hear me chuckling a lot.

CoryArcangelCPA.WMA - Cory Arcangel

Blue is Beautiful

2008-10-28T14:01:00.005-05:00

A short article by me on Jennifer Reeves's When It Was Blue, which she will perform tomorrow night at The Kitchen, is now online at Artforum.

Just Gaming

2008-10-09T23:17:00.002-05:00

Tonite at the New Museum!

Next Level: New Independent Gaming
Friday, October 10th, 7:30pm
the New Museum, New York, NY
$6 Members/$8 General Public

Bringing together prominent game designers, artists and critics, Next Level takes a look at the recent rise of indie gaming: a vibrant new culture of individually made and self-distributed video games that blur the line between digital art and creative entertainment.

Featuring artist and game designers Mark Essen, Jason Rohrer and Greg Costikyan. Moderated by Rhizome staff writer Ed Halter, an author, critic, and curator whose book From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games was published in 2006.

Part of Rhizome's New Silent Series at the New Museum.

[ BUY TICKETS HERE ]

LA, RR, IWRC?

2008-10-01T12:41:00.005-05:00

OK a few things.

First, a photo of me and Jeff Krulik at last Saturday's event in Los Angeles, taken by Andrew Lampert, who also happened to be in town. Thanks for all those who attended (which included Badlit's Mike Everleth and Jessica Everleth (née Villines), Mike Plante, Morgan Fisher and Stanya Kahn), and thanks to Matt Keegan for putting the event together. Maybe I will have an mp3 of the talk courtesy of Jeff at some point.

Second, a link to a new article I just published at Artforum on this week's "Views from the Avant-Garde" program.

Third, have you been to In What Respect, Charlie? It's a group blog on the election brainchilded by Jim Finn with the participation of myself and a gaggle of others.

Talking in LA

2008-09-25T06:54:00.002-05:00

This Saturday in Los Angeles I'm going to be at the Anna Helwing Gallery for a conversation with documentary legend Jeff Krulik. It's part of Matt Keegan's exhibit Now's the Time and we're going to talk about 1986, Heavy Metal Parking Lot and its aftermath. Join us!

Chafed Moments

2008-09-10T10:40:00.002-05:00

New piece up on Moving Image Source: an interview with Robert Downey Sr!

Also, a little publicist bird tells me that Bob Downey will appear in person at Anthology on Sept 18 to do a Q&A after Chafed Elbows and then an intro before Moment to Moment. Both films are highly recommended!

Wild Times by Ed Halter - Moving Image Source

Land Survey

2008-08-04T14:03:00.002-05:00

I've got a new article up at Moving Image Source today on John Gianvito's Profit motive and the whispering wind and other experiments in the political landscape film.

This Land Is Your Land by Ed Halter - Moving Image Source

Ritalined Critters

2008-07-30T10:20:00.001-05:00

As I was waking up this morning, I had a dream of someone telling me a joke (or maybe I was telling the joke to someone). It went like this:

"Raccoons are the nerds of the animal world."

"Why?"

"They wash their food all the time. Totally ADD."

(I told T––––– this dream-joke, and he noted that "ADD" should really be "OCD". However, in my dream it was indeed ADD.)

USSSP - Clipart & Library

The House That Kent Built

2008-07-28T14:35:00.000-05:00

Jeff Krulik, one of America's greatest treasures and a real swell guy, just sent me word of this new short documentary he posted to YouTube. It's a profile of a local librarian who built up his library's 16mm collection, and remembers the format's popular heyday in the 60s to 80s. Great stuff with many cinephilistic shout-outs!

Trop tôt, trop tard

2008-07-25T19:48:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted here in like a bajillion years, so here's a post simply to get the old gears running.

For those of you who have not been following my every move, here's a recap of some recent longform Ed-ness and other bits:

On Eddo Stern, in Moving Image Source.

On found-footage cinema, in Moving Image Source (which sadly and coincidentally ran the same week as Bruce Conner's passing).

On James Nares in the Village Voice.

On Buckminster Fuller for Rhizome.

If you just love to listen to mp3s of panels, you could tune into this recording of the Net Aesthetics 2.0 colloquy I moderated last month.

For a peek inside Light Industry, if you haven't yet been, check out these great photos by Martin Elder of Mark Essen's show a little while ago, one of which is featured above.

And finally, for those of you who—like me!—are ardent fans of both LoVid and Thomas Beard, you can hear them combined in this simply delightful WPS1 interview.

Upcomingness

2008-06-04T17:47:00.003-05:00

Two upcoming events I'll be a part of--you can be too! Just come to one or more of them and then you will be a part of them.

On Friday June 6, I'm moderating a panel at the New Museum presented by Rhizome as part of Internet Week. It's called Net Aesthetics 2.0 and will comprise a panel of potent notables: Tom Moody, T. Whid, Petra Cortright, Damon Zucconi and Jennifer and Kevin McCoy. We shall discuss the current state of internet art. More details at Rhizome.

On Wednesday June 11 I'll be reading at KGB Bar in the East Village as part of an event devoted to Exile Cinema: Filmmakers At Work Beyond Hollywood, the new collection of essays edited by Michael Atkinson. Other readers will include B. Kite and Stuart Klawans. I love the idea of reading film criticism live! My selection will be a chapter I wrote on the films of James Fotopoulos. (Christ, it's been Flavorpilled--I better wear a clean shirt.)

What Fools These Mortals Be

2008-05-26T22:31:00.002-05:00

Brian Frye posted this haunting viddy a while back, taken during his show at Light Industry on April 1, 2008. I'm only just catching up to it now.

Also added his blog A Young Whig to the sidewise roll to your right.

Dick Martin

2008-05-25T16:41:00.000-05:00

Dick Martin, Who Rode ‘Laugh-In’ to Fame, Dies at 86 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

The Beat Goes On

2008-05-01T07:10:00.001-05:00

Πόλεμος και βιντεοπαιχνίδια Από τον Σουν Τζου στο Xbox

2008-04-26T17:37:00.003-05:00

By book From Sun Tzu to Xbox is now available in Greek! With an even more bizarre cover.

According to Google Translator, here's what one reviewer had to say about the translation:

One such book is indispensable to those who have children (especially in childhood and teenage age): what he says - which achna recoverable here-giving clear the extent of a phenomenon that is not a phase of maturity and therefore has much yet to impose. In the current phase has affected (though it has not changed) behaviours, relationships, interpretations, decisions. Chances are that the impact on downstream will be greater. As for the completeness of the issue, has everything to the translator main Nektario Kalaitzi, carried on the language in our clearest way the original and had the patience and courage to complete his efforts with a glossary explaining the efficiency and definitions concerning video games.

Link: Βιβλιοπωλείο Ψαράς, Εκδόσεις Δίον, Βιβλία, Ελληνική λογοτεχνία, Έλληνες συγγραφείς, βιβλιοπωλείο online

Famous Amos

2008-04-10T08:12:00.004-05:00

My godchild Tiana's birthday is coming up this weekend (turning five!). So I bought some more books for her as a gift--The Red Balloon, The Story of Ferdinand, Harold and the Purple Crayon, a weird and wonderful Maurice Sendak-illustrated obscurity called A Hole is to Dig: A First Book of First Definitions, and finally this gem pictured above.

Experimental cinephiles will recognize Amos Vogel as founder of Cinema 16, early shaper of the New York Film Festival and author of the definitely not-for-kids-book Film As a Subversive Art. Sendak also did artwork for advertisements for Cinema 16's children's shows. Kino-geeks take note: one of the stores on the street is called "Marcia's"--no doubt after Marcia Vogel, Amos's wife and co-runner of Cinema 16--and the film society itself hangs its shingle a little ways down the block!

On the Marks

2008-03-30T20:57:00.002-05:00

Touch: Sensuous Theory and ... - Google Book Search

Light Linking

2008-03-25T07:08:00.004-05:00

The first show of Light Industry happens tonight at 8pm! Here's some recent chatter from Internetland:

Filmmaker Magazine blog

Rhizome

BadLit

Brownstoner

ArtCal

Documents on Art & Cinema

Invisible Cinema

GreenCine Daily

(photo: the view from outside the entrance to Light Industry's digs!)

I Am In The Whitney Biennial

2008-03-18T09:25:00.001-05:00

Well, sort of. This Saturday!

* * * *

Please join
Jennifer Montgomery and Peggy Ahwesh
and our esteemed Lecturers (listed below) for an Evening Salon
"ALCOHOL, TOBACCO and FIREARMS"
Featuring educational orations on the histories of New York and the struggles
of her People, their tribulations and recreations, during tumultuous times.

Lecturers include: Yvonne Buchanon, Ben Coonley, Ed Halter, Jeanne Liotta,
Melissa Ragona, Judith Rodenbeck, Keith Sanborn, Leslie Thornton, Emily Vey Duke,
and Tom Zummer.

Traditional stimulants: Absinthe, Bombay Sapphire, and Whiskey
will be served.

Free and open to the public!
Whitney Biennial at the Park Avenue Armory
Fourth Floor (take the Elevator at the left end of the entry hall)
643 Park Avenue at 67th Street
armoryonpark.org

Saturday, March 22, 2008

In Exile

2008-03-10T09:08:00.005-05:00

Noted typomane Mike Atkinson announces blogwise that Exile Cinema: Filmmakers at Work Beyond Hollywood is finally hitting the shelves of your local bookstore, virtual versions included.

I happened to hold a physical copy of this tome myself this past weekend while meandering through the academic press book-faire set up within the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference in Philadelphia. I should have snapped a phone-pic to document my findings, which felt something like a Bigfoot sighting for this long-rumored release. The design looks good and the book feels solid in the hand in that wonderfully durable heavy-glossy-paper academic-publishing way, even if its contributors have fewer Ph. D's and more Certificates of Survival from film criticism's School of Hard Knocks (or is it a School for Scoundrels? My diploma has become too smudgy to tell).

Here's the redoubtable table of contents from the SUNY Press site:

Table Of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Michael Atkinson

Part 1: Rockets from East Asia

1. Double Trouble: Tsui Hark & Ching Siu-tung
Howard Hampton

2. Bullet Ballet: Seijun Suzuki
Jonathan Rosenbaum

3. Kuala L'Impure: The Cinema of Amir Muhammad
Dennis Lim

4. A Kurosawa Kiyoshi Kit
B. Kite

5. The Bong Show: Bong Joon-ho
Ed Park

Part 2. On the European Outskirts

6. Beyond the Clouds: The Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Geoff Andrew

7. Pawel Pawlikowski: Dreaming All My Life
Jessica Winter

8. Bela Tarr
Jonathan Romney

9. Blunt Force Trauma: Andrzej Zulawski
Michael Atkinson

10. Sharunas Bartas
Laura Sinagra

Part 3. Documentarians and Mad Scientists

11. Ken Jacobs
David Sterritt

12. A Few Moments of Arousal in a Film by Martin Arnold
George Toles

13. Ross McElwee
Godfrey Cheshire

14. Judith Helfand: Secret Stories, Video Diaries, and Toxic Comedy
Patricia Aufderheide

Part 4. Lost between Genre and Myth-Making

15. The Beardo: José Mojica Marins
Guy Maddin

16. Dellamorte Dellamore and Michele Soavi
Maitland McDonagh

17. Guy Maddin
Mark Peranson

18. James Fotopoulos
Ed Halter

19. Christopher Munch: For Those We Have Loved
Graham Fuller

Part 5. Defiant Lions of the New Wave Generation

20. Pleasures of the Flesh: Walerian Borowczyk
David Thompson

21. Chris Marker: The Return to Work at the Wonder Factory
Joshua Clover

22. Moebius Dragstrip: Monte Hellman Circles Back
Chuck Stephens

23. The Not-Too-Long Discourses of Chantal Akerman
Stuart Klawans

List of Contributors
Index

Let There Be...

2008-02-29T22:24:00.003-05:00

Hot news! The first press release for my and Thomas Beard's new exhibition project Light Industry went out tonight, and the website is up! Full press release below with all the details.

* * * *
Light Industry

Contact:
Contact Thomas Beard for further information ::
thomas@lightindustry.org (646) 420-0359

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"The Blazing World," a screening to be held on March 25, marks the beginning of Light Industry, a new venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New York. Developed and overseen by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the project will begin as a series of weekly events this spring and summer, each organized by a different artist, critic, or curator, including Peggy Ahwesh, Cory Arcangel, Rebecca Cleman, Ben Coonley and Michael Smith, Bradley Eros and Brian Frye, eteam, Kendra Gaeta and Laris Kreslins, David Gatten, Lia Gangitano, Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Nick Hallett, William E. Jones, Andrew Lampert, Dennis Lim, Mark McElhatten, MTAA, Marisa Olson, Jacob Perlin, Seth Price, Jennifer Reeves, Eddo Stern, and Dan Streible, among others.

Conceptually, Light Industry draws equal inspiration from the long history of alternative art spaces in New York as well its storied tradition of cinematheques and other intrepid film exhibitors. Through a regular program of screenings, performances, and lectures, its goal is to explore new models for the presentation of time-based media. Bringing together the worlds of contemporary art, experimental cinema, new media, documentary film, and the academy, to name only a few, Light Industry looks to foster a complex dialogue amongst a wide range of artists and audiences within the city.

For its opening seasons, all events will take a place on Tuesdays at 8PM in Industry City, an industrial complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn that's home to a cross-section of manufacturing, warehousing and light industry. As part of a regeneration program intended to diversify the use of its 6 million square feet of space to better reflect 21st century production, Industry City now includes workspace for artists. In addition to offering studios at competitive rates, Industry City also provides a limited number of rent-stabilized studios for artists in need of low-cost rental space. This program was conceived in response to the lack of affordable workspace for artists in New York City and aims to establish a new paradigm for industrial redevelopment--one that does not displace artists, workers, local residents or industry but instead builds a sustainable community in a context that integrates cultural and industrial production.

More information, including program schedules, location, and directions can be found at http://www.lightindustry.org

-

The Blazing World
Curated by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter

March 25, 2008 at 8pm
55 33rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY
Ticket Price - $6

"A map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which humanity is always landing." - Oscar Wilde

30/73: Coop Cinema Amsterdam, Kurt Kren, 16mm, 1973, 3 mins
Swamp, Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, 16mm, 1971, 6 mins
Victory Over the Sun, Michael Robinson, 16mm, 2007, 12 mins
Possible Models, Jenny Perlin, 16mm, 2004, 11 mins
Wildwood Flower, Keewatin Dewdney, 16mm, 1971, 4 mins
Berenice, Michael Gitlin, 16mm, 1996, 51 mins

Light Industry's inaugural event brings together a group of films that ponder the vicissitudes of utopian scheming and the search for new ground. Juxtaposing the heady, exploratory optimism of the Aquarian age with the more sobering observations of contemporary artists, The Blazing World attempts to embrace the complexities inherent in what Light Industry sets forth to support: the ongoing social experiment in community that undergirds moving-image art-making.

Beginning on a reflexive note, Kurt Kren's rarity Coop Cinema Amsterdam documents three weeks in the life of the legendary Dutch venue The Electric Cinema, condensed into a frantic hallucination through single-frame shooting. In Swamp, artist Nancy Holt attempts to navigate her way through a grassy, muddy stretch of New Jersey wetlands, guided only by the sights of her Bolex and Robert Smithson's verbal cues. Michael Robinson's Victory Over the Sun revisits the abandoned sites of World's Fairs in the service of subtle, sci-fi psychedelia, while Jenny Perlin's hand-drawn film Possible Models compares the communitarian dreams of Victor Gruen, architect of the first shopping mall, with his hypercapitalist spawn: the Mall of America, Dubailand, and the "Freedom Ship," a proposed libertarian tax-shelter-of-the-seas. Back on dry land, Keewatin Dewdney's Wildwood Flower offers up a folk-crafted vision of bucolic innocence that could only have emerged from 1971.

Anchoring the lineup, Michael Gitlin's Berenice provides a richly psychological costumer set during the decay of an upstate New York utopian community in the 1830s. Partially adapted from the Edgar Allen Poe tale of the same name, blended with texts on phalansterist socialism by Charles Fourier and letters from the Transcendentalist commune Brook Farm, Berenice wends a tale of an old, weird America in search of new social harmonies through visionary ideals.

About Thomas Beard

Thomas Beard is a curator based in New York. >From 2005-2006 he was Program Director of Ocularis, a series for artists' film and video in Brooklyn. He also served as a programmer at Cinematexas as well as a programming consultant for the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, and has organized screenings and exhibitions at Art in General, Aurora Picture Show, the New York Underground Film Festival, Mass Art Film Society, the Museum of Modern Art, and Pacific Film Archive. Most recently he is the editor of Live Cinema: A Contemporary Reader, which will be published by San Francisco Cinematheque later this year.

About Ed Halter

Ed Halter is a critic and curator living in New York City. His writing has appeared in Arthur, The Believer, Cinema Scope, Kunstforum, Millennium Film Journal, Rhizome, the Village Voice and elsewhere. From 1995 to 2005, he programmed and oversaw the New York Underground Film Festival, and has organized screenings and exhibitions for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cinematexas, Eyebeam, the Flaherty Film Seminar, the Museum of Modern Art, and San Francisco Cinematheque. He currently teaches in the Film and Electronic Arts department at Bard College, and has lectured at Harvard, NYU, Yale, and other schools as well as at Art in General, Aurora Picture Show, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, the Images Festival, the Impakt Festival, and Pacific Film Archive. His book From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games was published by Thunder's Mouth Press in 2006.

$999...or 666?

2008-02-28T17:02:00.003-05:00

On eBay: some Kenneth Anger-related photo negatives for sale, for which the seller theorizes about postmodernism:

SCORPIO RISING

1963 MC Motorcycle Club Photo Negative

ITEM: SCORPIO RISING 1963 MC Motorcycle Club Photo Negative.

DETAILS: Unpublished 60 mm photo negative of Scorpio Rising MC leader wearing his club colors in Washington Square Park, New York. The club was the subject of a Kenneth Anger film in 1963. This photograph is of the actual leader of the gang. Bruce Bryon portrayed him as Scorpio in the film. Visit our ebay store for other Scorpio Rising Motorcycle Club items.

FYI: Scorpio Rising is an avant-garde, experimental film by Kenneth Anger. The film was produced in 1964 and initially shown on the underground film circuit. It features no lines of dialogue, accompanied instead by music from popular 50's and 60's artists including Ricky Nelson, The Angels, Bobby Vinton, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and Martha Reeves & the Vandellas. It is considered to be one of the first post-modern films and an influence to future directors such as Martin Scorsese and David Lynch.

The Problem With Brother Sam

2008-02-27T19:39:00.003-05:00

Three hot pickups on 6th Avenue today.

The sweetest melody is the unheard refrain

2008-02-23T13:13:00.000-05:00

poisonarrow.mid (audio/midi Object)

Hearts of Darkness

2008-02-14T08:11:00.003-05:00

mostly from here but one from here

Arcane Project

2008-02-05T09:20:00.000-05:00

* * * * *

ARCANE PROJECT

8PM FRIDAY
FEB. 8, 2008

NATIONAL ARTS CLUB
15 GRAMERCY PARK SOUTH
New York City

An evening of glass slides, magic lantern projections, and antique technologies,
in inventive combinations, with silent films and sound recordings
played on the wind-up Victrola and other musical devices.

Lary Seven, Joel Schlemowitz and Bradley Eros,
experimental film artists and collectors of obsolete media artifacts,
present a night of uncanny images:
mysterious travels,
occult iconography,
bizarre creatures,
industrial detritus,
and
the strange and wondrous
landscapes of fairy tales,
fables and myths
of the artificial sublime,
displayed through
the translucent exotica
of hand-tinted photographs,
decayed surfaces,
and
the odd symbols
and
illustrations
of the mundane
made marvelous.

Light Reading

2008-02-03T21:53:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting folio I found whilst gallivanting through eBay tonight: Still Light, a limited edition tome by Robert Beavers from 1971, offered for sale out of the Netherlands, complete with an autographed letter, signed by Beavers to John Gielgud (!) (?). I assume the book comprises notes on his film of the same name. At almost $300 it's far beyond my book budget, but that price is more than half what a seller on Amazon is asking.

More on Beavers by J. Hoberman, an issue of Millennium Film Journal on Robert Beavers and Gregory Markopoulos from 1998, and extensive notes from the programme "To the Winged Distance: Films by Robert Beavers" at the Tate. I've written various reviews of his work over the years as well.

Film-Makers' Cooperative Benefit

2008-02-02T10:18:00.000-05:00

Press release attached for the upcoming benefit silent auction and screening for the Film-Makers' Coop in New York. I went to this a couple years ago and amazing things were being auctioned...one thing, I remember, was a guided shopping spree with M.M. Serra called "I'll Be Your Mirror". Extremely recommended!

* * * * *

____________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: MM Serra
Tel: (212) 267-5665 Fax: (212) 267-5666

HAPPENING NOW AT THE FILM-MAKERS’ COOP
BENEFIT SCREENING AT MILLENNIUM FILM WORKSHOP
66 East 4th Street (betw. 2nd Avenue and the Bowery) in New York City.

On Saturday, February 23, 2008, at 8PM internationally acclaimed filmmakers and media artists will rally in support of The Film-Makers’ Cooperative at a Winter Benefit Screening and Silent Auction at the Millennium Film Workshop. Doors and auction open at 7PM and screening begins at 8PM.

The evening’s theater screening features a special program curated by Caroline Koebel of historic and contemporary works inducted recently into the world-famous FMC collection and will begin at 8 pm.

New works at the 2008 FMC benefit screening include “Beirut Outtakes” by Peggy Ahwesh, “Faux Movements (Wrong Moves)” by Pip Chodorov, “Capitalism: Slavery” by Ken Jacobs, “Description of a Struggle” by Bosko Blagojevic, “The Small Ones” by Lynne Sachs, “1/3 (One Over Three)” by Chiaki Watanabe, “Carnalavare” by Flavia Souza, “The Glowing Woman” by Joel Schlemowitz, “Meet Me In Wichita” by Martha Colburn, and “Backcomb” by Sarah Pucill. As well, the recent digital preservation of Jud Yalkut’s 1967 “Kusama’s Self-Obliteration” and a newly acquired print of Mike Kuchar’s “Tone Poem” will be shown. Many of the artists will be present.

This is an international program of works by artists of diverse cultural backgrounds. In its timeliness and breadth of style, the show echoes the original mission of the Film-Makers' Coop.

Film-Makers’ Coop Executive Director M.M. Serra asserts, "It will be a phenomenal night, and an unusual screening of rare and contemporary avant-garde, cinematic treasures."

In addition to the screening the evening will include Two Boots pizza, refreshments and the Coop’s annual silent auction, giving viewers the opportunity to bid on works of art, rare books and other ephemera from the world of the Film-Makers’ Coop.

The program was conceptualized and curated by FMC Board member Caroline Koebel.

Founded in 1962, The Film-Makers’ Cooperative is the oldest and largest artist-run collection of avant-garde cinema in the nation. Proceeds from the benefit will support the Coop’s preservation efforts and the distribution of over 4000 films in its collection.

Tickets: $10-$25 sliding scale (tax deductible contribution) Tickets may be purchased by calling the Coop office (212) 267-5665 or at the door. Cash or credit cards accepted. This event is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. For further information, go to our website: www.film-makerscoop.com

Contact:
MM Serra, Director
Film-Makers Cooperative at The Clocktower Gallery, 108 Leonard Street, New York City 10013

Lol, cats

2008-01-27T12:36:00.000-05:00

Philadelphienne Kendra Gaeta recently won a storytelling contest!

Witness it:

Weiner Words

2008-01-22T13:30:00.001-05:00

My recent review of Lawrence Weiner's film and video retrospective, coming soon to Anthology.

Seven Instances of the Austrian Avant-Garde

2008-01-20T23:46:00.000-05:00

A short essay I wrote on Austrian avant-garde film, commissioned for Innovative Film Austria 07/08, is now available online as a pdf.

On Criticism

2008-01-19T12:24:00.000-05:00

This is from a while back, but the folks at The Spectator posted this excellent take-down of mediocre critics:

We therefore very often find, that Persons the most accomplished in Ridicule are those who are very shrewd at hitting a Blot, without exerting any thing masterly in themselves. As there are many eminent Criticks who never writ a good Line, there are many admirable Buffoons that animadvert upon every single Defect in another, without ever discovering the least Beauty of their own. By this Means, these unlucky little Wits often gain Reputation in the Esteem of Vulgar Minds, and raise themselves above Persons of much more laudable Characters.

If the Talent of Ridicule were employed to laugh Men out of Vice and Folly, it might be of some Use to the World; but instead of this, we find that it is generally made use of to laugh Men out of Virtue and good Sense, by attacking every thing that is Solemn and Serious, Decent and Praiseworthy in Human Life.

Apprenez à faire un dessin animé

2008-01-19T11:22:00.000-05:00

Le link

Future So Bright

2008-01-16T22:14:00.000-05:00

"In the Light, in the Dark, with Guitar." A spiffy profile of Matt McCormick upon occasion of his Future So Bright at the Lee Center for the Arts, Seattle.

"After Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick screened his film The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal at Sundance Film Festival, galleries and museums began asking to show it—including such prestigious venues as the Museum of Modern Art and the Serpentine Gallery in London. The film would play on a loop in some corner, looking for all the world like a clever piece of video art. More than once, he says, a collector approached him to inquire about buying the work. He'd say yes, but instead of naming a four-figure price, he'd direct the collector to www.peripheralproduce.com, the website of his own small distribution company. The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal retails at $24.95, and it comes with nine other short films...

"But there are differences between experimental film and video art, and most have to do with the way the pieces are displayed and marketed. Video art is seen in galleries and museums; it plays in a loop rather than over a discrete stretch of time. The videos are produced in very small editions, like prints, and if you want to own one, you have to shell out. Experimental films, meanwhile, are screened in theaters or on DVD, and an inexpensive copy can often be found for every prospective buyer.

It's hard to say whether there are any real justifications for this distinction. Perhaps the act of putting the video on a gallery wall does the trick. (The would-be collectors of The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal might beg to differ.) Remember, though, that the artist's act of selection from his or her environment—that slightly musty justification for Duchamp's readymades or the impulse behind Yoko Ono's Sky TV, an early precursor of video art—occurs whenever a documentary filmmaker aims a camera. Moreover, a great deal of experimental film includes found components. You can see this influence in filmmakers active in the '90s, especially—McCormick scored his own trove of 16 mm film as a Portland-area ABC affiliate emptied its film archive and transitioned to video."

Ssay Yess to Ess

2008-01-15T10:43:00.000-05:00

Barbara Ess "Oblivion Call Me to Ya (Part III)" (5:22), 1982 from Live to Air: Artist's Sound Works

Y Pants - "Magnetic Attraction", 1980, Gail Vachon: ukulele; Barbara Ess: bass; Verge Piersol. drums, Vocals: all. (3:11) from Audio By Visual Artists Tellus 21

Y Pants - "Obvious" from s/t
Y Pants - Discography (!)

Commentary from Meshes of the Afternoon:

In 1979, the Y Pants came together out of a few impromptu jam sessions between filmmaker Gail Vachon and No-Wave mainstay Barbara Ess. Ess had previously played with The Static and Theoretical Girls, while Vachon found herself increasingly distracted by the soundtracks to her films. The two soon enlisted the help of Virginia “Verge” Piersol, who, despite never having played drums, would provide the rhythmic groundwork for all of Y Pants’ music. Vachon played a toy grand piano she found on the street, while Ess brought along a thumb drum and a ukulele. Piersol’s first drums were “a Mickey Mouse kit with paper heads, combined with a regular tom-tom.” The Y Pants were born.

Of course, everyone loved them. With their toy instruments and quotations from Emily Dickinson and Brecht set to music, by December of that year they were opening for Glenn Branca and would soon head to the studio with the No-Wave godfather as their producer. Summer of 1980 saw the release of their debut EP on 99 Records, Y Pants, and the trio was regularly playing clubs like CBGBs, Tier 3 and Irving Plaza. They were also big on the gallery scene: gigs at Franklin Furnace, White Columns, etc. The liner notes to Periodic Document’s 1998 discography collection, long out-of-print and now re-pressed for the first time, is filled with quotes from the likes of Kiki Smith and Dan Graham, confirming the fact that everything I know about punk I learned from art history. Graham even placed their “percussive primitivism and girl vocal teasing playfulness” in the same league as The Slits and The Raincoats. But soon after the release of their sole LP, Beat it Down (Neutral, 1982), the Y Pants broke up and quickly faded to obscurity. They weren’t featured on Eno’s No New York, nor did they morph into a new wave hit machine. They simply came and went, leaving some sixteen songs behind them.

The music is beyond reproach – otherwise I wouldn’t have already written so much.

As Above, So Below

2008-01-14T09:39:00.000-05:00

ABC network promos, 1969

Scott Bartlett, Off/On, 1968

That Grip

2008-01-14T09:32:00.000-05:00

Another tidbit from Jeff Krulik's archives: a comedy short by Gary Grieg from 1989 for your enjoyment. Must be watched to completion for full effect.

Light Entertainments

2008-01-11T07:54:00.000-05:00

Happier Than You and Me

2008-01-08T14:18:00.000-05:00

Dennis Cooper compiles a fantastic array of Bruce Conner films on internet-video, both whole and clipped, on his blog today, including Conner's 1978 meisterwerk Mongoloid.

(First person aside: Mongoloid is one of my own primal experiences of experimental film, though when I first saw it has become lost in the mud of memory: probably on television at some point, or perhaps a VHS. I have never tired of watching it.)

Wild Palms

2008-01-07T09:49:00.000-05:00

A set of British palmistry-themed cigarette cards from 1933 for sale on eBay.

One supposes that if one collected them all, one would be able to read one's own fortune, which likely said, "You will survive the Depression but die from a cancer, if the Blitz doesn't get you first."

Jeff's People

2008-01-04T09:58:00.000-05:00

In a few days I'll be giving a lecture on the video oevre of the redoubtable Jeff Krulik at Art in General. Below is a full press release for the event, which also includes experimental video programs curated by Hanne Mugaas and Thomas Beard, interspersed with fragments of Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

********

MEDIUM COOL
ART IN GENERAL'S 10th ANNUAL VIDEO MARATHON
January 10-12, 2008
Sixth Floor Galleries
Art in General
79 Walker Street
New York NY 10013
tel. 212 219 0473
www.artingeneral.org
info@artingeneral.org

Organized by Hanne Mugaas
Art in General's 10th Video Marathon explores the current state of video art, situated in-between institutionalized 'Video Art' and the work emerging from the flow and dynamism of the Internet. Taking the title of Haskell Wexler's film of 1969, which suggested a critique of Marshall McLuhan's distinction between 'hot' and 'cold' media, Medium Cool suggests that video is an idea rather than a technology – as an umbrella term for a particular set of practices, it promises democracy while at the same time threatening to reduce images to information. Through screenings, lectures, and a dedicated website, the Marathon looks at a range of video practices, including early experiments within the media itself, while dealing with issues of video distribution and copyright, the making of (art) history and legacy through moving images, and the general impact of technology on contemporary culture.

In keeping with this tenth anniversary of the Video Marathon, the screening Transitional Objects, curated by Thomas Beard, looks back on the past decade of electronic art as a way of thinking about a medium that has remained in flux—politically, aesthetically, and technologically—since its inception, while Artist Looking at the Camera, curated by Hanne Mugaas and Fabienne Stephan, includes the work of artists who use the medium to explore the creation and distributionof facts and history. The Marathon opens on Thursday 10th January with a lecture by Ed Halter, and ends on Saturday 12th with Art Since 1960 (According to the Internet) an event by Hanne Mugaas and Cory Arcangel, and Flipped Chips, an event curated by the artist collaborative LoVid.

ONGOING IN THE GALLERIES
Thursday January 10, 6.00- 9.00, - Friday & Saturday, January 11 & 12, 12.00- 6.00pm
Artist Looking at the Camera, curated by Hanne Mugaas and Fabienne Stephan
These screenings profile the work of artists who use the tools of re-enactment, appropriation and moving image manipulation to question how history is produced and how facts are modified and reinforced through distribution. From issues of social documentation and media distribution to copyright and the impact of technology upon culture, the artists question the status of moving images in collective memory and imagined future. Artists include Bad Beuys Entertainment, Lene Berg, Ida Ekblad, Haris Epaminonda, Sascha Hahn, Nate Harrison, Annika Larsson, Lars Laumann, Guthrie Lonergan, Anders Nordby, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, and Stephen Sutcliffe.

Transitional Objects, curated by Thomas Beard
The screening Transitional Objects looks back on the past decade of electronic art as a way of thinking about a medium that has remained in flux—politically, aesthetically, and technologically—since its inception. Whether the subject is dime store psychics or the return of the repressed, new loves or old regimes, all works raise the question: where is video going? Artists include Bobby Abate, William E. Jones, Eileen Maxson, Jennifer Montgomery, Michael Robinson, Phil Solomon, and Jennet Thomas.

EVENTS
Thursday January 10, 6.30-8.00pm
Regarding Jeff's People, lecture by Ed Halter
This lecture by writer and curator Ed Halter takes its starting point from the work of Washington, DC-based Jeff Krulik, maker of the legendary video Heavy Metal Parking Lot. In his talk, Halter addresses the utopian hopes and mundane realities of public access television, the question of fandom and subjectivity, underground VHS bootlegging as proto-file-sharing, criticism of art and comedy, and the challenge of defining the term "artist", and in particular, "video artist".

Saturday 12 January, 6.00pm-7.00pm
Art Since 1960 (According to the Internet), project by Hanne Mugaas and Cory Arcangel, performed by Cory Arcangel
For this event, Mugaas and Arcangel have sorted and collected videos from the Internet in order to discern where art and art history on the web is currently situated. Looking at how art production and art history are changed by the growing use of the Internet as a platform and resource, their project explores how search algorithms and the whims of users upset the usual control systems that govern how art is categorized—with sometimes surprising results. Mugaas and Arcangel's findings culminate in a video screening presented with a live directors' commentary.

Saturday January 12, 7.00-8.00pm
Flipped Chips, event by Lovid
Flipped Chips includes videos by artists who custom-make their own hardware video instruments. Dan Sandin, Nam June Paik, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Matthew Schlanger, Jim Wiseman, and Bill Etra represent a generation of pioneers who explored video and moving image synthesis during an era of idealism and utopian views of communication, where video and television were regarded as the ultimate new medium of cultural and social change. In this event, their work will be shown along with a new generation who approach technology with personal and global nostalgia, or as a reaction to the dominance of technology and media in mainstream culture, including Billy Roisz (NTSC), noteNdo, Jon Satrom, Paul Slocum, Karl Klomp, and LoVid.

WEB SITE
A website with an online exhibition and material relating to the project will be available from January 10 at: www.hanne-mugaas.com/videomarathon
--------------------
For additional information on the exhibition and events, please visit http://www.hanne-mugaas.com/my_work/a/
--------------------
Art in General's Video Marathon is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency and The Experimental Television Center's Presentation Funds program, which is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and mediaThe Foundation. Additional support is provided by Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA)

********

Top Ten American Feature-Film Releases of 2007 According To Length of Titles (Including Spaces and Punctuation)

2007-12-30T10:36:00.000-05:00

1. Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe
2. I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal
3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
4. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
5. The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
6. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
7. The Disappointment: Or, the Force of Credulity
8. The Boy Who Cried Bitch: The Adolescent Years
9. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10. Blood and Tears: The Arab-Israeli Conflict

(Vladimir Putin + Animals) + 2 Bonus Tracks

2007-12-29T01:35:00.000-05:00

A Brief History of Breakdancing in Europe

2007-12-21T09:39:00.000-05:00

Denmark, 1982-85
USSR, 1986
West Germany, 1992/3

The Hills

2007-12-21T09:22:00.000-05:00

Three videos by Gary Hill: Primary, Mouth Piece and Elements (all 1978)

Destroy, He Said

2007-12-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

Excerpt from T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G by Paul Sharits, 1968

Gunvor Nelson, My Name Is Oona (1969)

2007-12-17T23:55:00.000-05:00

update: originally from the blog for Bright Lights Film Journal

Oriental Electrical Psychology, or, Give Peas a Chance

2007-12-10T00:56:00.000-05:00

Things Kept Secret from the Foundation of the World

Copyright 1922 and Published by
THE SOCIETY OF TRANSCENDENT SCIENCE
Masonic Temple, Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.

A Thing I Picked Up Off the Street in the East Village in 2002 When 9/11 Was Still Freaking People Out

2007-12-05T22:24:00.000-05:00

Sandoverboard

2007-12-04T10:59:00.000-05:00

Recently read Alison Lurie's Familiar Spirits, her brutal memoir of couple James Merrill and David Jackson, on the suggestion of T----. Not a pretty picture. Even less pretty are these pictures from the video disasterpiece Voices from Sandover. Let me explain.

Lurie's account centers around the creation of Merrill's epic poem The Changing Light at Sandover, which chronicles and draws its language from a 25-year obsession the couple had with contacting spirits through the ouija board (including those of Auden and others they knew).

Late in their relationship, Merrill and Jackson began having affairs with younger men on the side. Merrill became entranced with one Peter Hooten, an actor from B-movies with poetical aspirations. Somehow Hooten finagled Merrill to spend some $800,000+ on producing a video-theatre version of Sandover, retitled Voices from Sandover, which would star--surprise--Hooten. (Hooten by this time had insinuated himself into Merrill's life to such a point that he would participate in the poet's live readings, having adopted his mannerisms and voice.)

Lurie's description of the video's premiere at the couple's home in Key West, to a small crowd of close notables:

The video lasted two hours, and seemed to last longer. There were moments of relief, notably when Jimmy appeared on screen to read his own lines, and (as always) read them brilliantly. There were also moments of pretentious silliness, as when David and Jimmy's first supernatural contact, Ephraim, appeared in the shape of a blond pussycat-plump young man classically draped in a white sheet, reclining on top of what was obviously a nineteenth-century dining room sideboard. He was a professional actor, as was everyone in the video with the exception of Jimmy. Peter, perhaps appropriately, played Mirabell, who had first been described as a black bat and later been transformed into a peacock. On screen, however, his face emerged from a starburst of lighting effects, suggesting that he was a divine being, and he spoke in echoing elocutionary tones. [...]

When the program was over, everyone was polite, even congratulatory, though I couldn't manage a more positive adjective than Jimmy's trademark 'remarkable.' I thought that the video of Sandover was both boring and embarrassing, that it had turned an intermittently fine poem into pretentious New Age nonsense.

There's deeper pathos to this story that I'm not describing here. I highly suggest picking up the book.

Of course, I had to search the webnet to see if the video had surfaced somewhere. No luck, but did find this set of video captures on a fine vintage site hosted by James Morrison, whom I assume is the actor Lurie describes as "pussycat-plump."

Hello My Name Is...

2007-12-03T10:36:00.001-05:00

Crix Nix Auschwix Pix

2007-11-14T10:10:00.000-05:00

"In 1945 who but a Variety reviewer could respond to We Accuse, a documentary compilation of concentration camp footage, with the cool suggestion that 'nearly twenty minutes could have been trimmed from the production to snap up its entertainment value'?" -- Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (1993)

Movie clips from Stage Door Canteen (1943)

Dogme et rituel de la haute magie par Eliphas Levi

2007-11-13T10:32:00.000-05:00

Dogme et rituel de la haute magie

Ouch My Subconscious Hurts

2007-11-03T08:42:00.000-05:00

Over at Action Items filmmacher Matt McCormick blogs about how his movie The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal has inspired at Flickr group (and an apparent rip-off artist as well.)

And, inevitably, a cadre of ignorant haters:

While that movie seems to have a bountiful fan base, there has always been a small, yet vocal, group of people who absolutely hate it. My assumption has been that these people are young graffiti dudes who have never actually seen the movie but have a very hostile, knee-jerk reaction to the title. You can find their rants in graffiti chat rooms and websites, and in the occasional nasty email that someone sends me out of the blue. They usually say something along the lines of "Removing art is not an art in itself. I'd much rather look at the hearts and souls of people on the wall than some shitty blotches. I've never heard of anything so retarded in my life. Fuck this video and all who support it's message." (is it me or is that just ridiculously dramatic?)

My Sister's Wedding

2007-10-29T10:13:00.001-05:00

re: Our Discontent

2007-10-24T17:15:00.000-05:00

This weekend I'm participating in Now is the Winter, a Russian-American symposium at Ithaca College in upstate New York. Part of the event will be a great experimental movie show "Together We Slope" programmed by Michael Robinson. Do not miss, those of you in or near Ithaca, New York!

Link: Cornell press release

Little Boys Blue

2007-10-22T17:37:00.001-05:00

Ace Star paperback, 1965.

Strangely, the book isn't much of a pulp read. Rather, the author parries various arguments religious, philosophical and psychological against homosexuality. The prefatory quote is taken from Karl Popper; peppered within are bits from S. I. Hayakawa, Bruno Bettelheim, Kurt Godel, Max Planck, and "Ernst and Gellner, two authorities on the chimpanzee." Quite a heady read for something that was probably taken home in a brown paper bag.

Vicious Circle

2007-10-22T16:14:00.000-05:00

This one is for Ed P. at The Dizzies.

From the inside of the book: "The ouroborous, the snake with his tail in his mouth, is the prototype of the vicious circle. What could be more vicious than to bite yourself, with a view, presumably, to eating yourself. Furthermore, this is impossible."

Wild Wild White Girls That Melt Into Nose Cream

2007-10-19T21:21:00.000-05:00

Negativland's "Our Favorite Things"

Earth's Crystal Tears

2007-10-19T20:32:00.000-05:00

1980

Crazy Rays: Science Fiction and the Avant-Garde

2007-10-11T18:53:00.000-05:00

For those of yiz all out in the Bay Area of California, tonight kicks off the beginning of the series Crazy Rays: Science Fiction and the Avant-Garde, which I programmed for the San Francisco Cinematheque. The shows take place at the Roxie Cinema.

Tonight's dedicated to Ed Emshwiller and features some rarely-screened films on glorious original 16mm! Here's the whole program and more will be blogged about each later...

Thursday, October 11 at 7:00pm
Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street
Ed and Peter Emshwiller
Ed Emshwiller won five Hugo awards for his science fiction magazine covers and involved notable science fiction authors in his moving image work. Carol is a short portrait of Emshwiller's wife, an award-winning science fiction writer. Image, Flesh and Voice, a feature-length experimental work, weaves together conversations by New Wave science fiction authors, including Damon Knight, Harlan Ellison, Keith Laumer, Gordon Dickson, James Blish and many others talking about society, politics and philosophy with carefully shot near-abstract monochrome images; Shot by the Emshwillers' then-11-year-old son Peter, Jr. Star Trek is an all-kid remake of the legendary TV show—complete with Ed himself as an alien monster.

Thursday, October 11 at 9:30pm
Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street
Max Almy / Roddy Bogawa
Combining an early-80s New Wave androgynous flair and a plugged-in proto-cyberpunk sensibility, Almy's delirious data-trip, Leaving the 20th Century, remains one of the most formidable experimental videos of its decade. For his 16mm feature, Junk, Roddy Bogawa turns to a later set of musical influences: the post-apocalyptic tendencies of post-punk noise.

Thursday, November 8 at 7:00pm
Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street
Anne McGuire's Strain Andromeda The
Anne McGuire re-edits Robert Wise's 1971 film The Andromeda Strain (based on Michael Crichton's novel) into Strain Andromeda The so the shots run backwards, end to beginning, creating an awesome and spellbinding film that throws everything from story structure to character motivation into question.

Thursday, November 8 at 9:30pm
Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street
Craig Baldwin / Ximena Cuevas
In Cinepolis, the Film Capitol, Mexican artist Ximena Cuevas, spins a video from the other side: a meta-metaphor of American economic imperialism, told through CGI multiplex trailers and masochistic Hollywood fantasies. Culled from Bay Area legend Craig Baldwin's infamous personal archive of obscure cinephemera—gladiator flicks, newsreels, travelogues, James Bond films, B-grade horror and Mexican thrillers—Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America implodes an SF universe into the hot core of the New World Order psyche.

Thursday, December 13 at 7:00pm
Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street
James Fotopoulos / Leah Gilliam
Leah Gilliam remixes the racial politics of The Planet of the Apes in Apeshit and a free-form sense of foreboding and invasion inhabits James Fotopoulos' ontological horror-film The Nest.

Thursday, December 13 at 9:30pm
Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street
Victor Faccinto / James June Schneider
James June Schneider's 1, 2, 3, Whiteout, making its US premiere, offers up a low-fi retro-futurist romance while in Victor Faccinto's last cut-out film, Shameless, is an underground-comix-inspired animation set in a multidimensional space pad; a pervy, groovy, adults-only, erotic romp.

The 90s Make Me Feel Dirty

2007-10-08T09:59:00.000-05:00

When the coffee table book on hand-made VHS paper sleeves of the 1990s gets published, Eric Brummer (aka "Slain Wayne") will need his own spread. Here's one I found in my moldering tape collection dated 1996. Eric's vids were shot on black-and-white super-8 and involved porn models and strange monstrous animation. He also did some great zines and catalogs for an event he ran called the Hollywood Sub-Cinema Conspiracy showing underground films in LA--almost all trace of it seems to be gone from the Internet.

Apparently Eric has of late been doing more straight-up porn...His old website Subvision Films now seems to be just your basic nasty Mucho-Not-Safe-For-Work amateur stuff, but also selling this freaky "damnation babes" dvd with a flying skull in it??

Thought of the Day

2007-10-05T12:55:00.000-05:00

"Consider: naturalistic fictions are parallel-world stories in which the divergence from the real is too slight for historical verification."
-- Samuel Delany, "About 5750 Words" (footnote 3), 1971.

La-Bas

2007-10-04T05:59:00.001-05:00

Staying Off-Track

2007-10-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

This Friday, I'll be on a panel at the Alliance Francais in New York as part of their series "The Best of Hors Pistes from Centre Pompidou." Among the works screening is a new video by Corinna Schnitt, the maker of the fantastic Living a Beautiful Life, which figured in one of my year-end lists.

More info on the series.

The Best of Hors Pistes from Centre Pompidou

Friday & Saturday, October 5 & 6 at 7pm
FIAF presents highlights from the second edition of Hors Pistes (Off-Track), Centre Pompidou’s picks of the most interesting outsider films, curated by Géraldine Gomez. A diverse collection of video works from around the world, these films use new and experimental approaches that defy conventional genres.

Friday, October 5 at 7pm

Once Upon A Time
Dir. Corinna Schnitt

Ode Pavillonaire
Dir. Frédéric Ramade

A panel discussion with French and American curators and directors will follow the screenings.

Saturday, October 6 at 7pm

Company of Mushrooms
Dir. Tan Chui Mui

Hear me children-yet-to-be-born
Dir. Sandy Amério

The Cost of Living
Dir. Lloyd Newson

Sur Place
Dir. Justine Triet

Presented in partnership with: Centre Pompidou.

Curated by Géraldine Gomez of Centre Georges Pompidou and Marie Losier of FIAF.

ESP Forewarnings

2007-10-01T18:51:00.000-05:00

Click on the images to enlarge them; it's definitely worth looking closer at those little illustrations of real individuals saved from disaster by the powers of ESP.

Twisted Sister

2007-10-01T09:35:00.001-05:00

Another find from the Housing Works sale: a first edition (tho' slightly banged up) of My Sister and I, the infamous forgery of Nietzsche's late-life diaries, which purported to support theories of the philosopher's incestuous relationship with said sibling. See a bit by philosopher Dennis Dutton on the kerfluffle.

But lo! What is this? Seems the book used to belong to renegade sociologist Ned Polsky, the author of counterculture classic Hustlers, Beats and Others. Did he pencil this annotation?

"$am Roth" refers to booklegger Samuel Roth, who famously pirated Ulysses in the US while it was still contraband. Roth, who was Jewish, also penned Jews Must Live, an anti-Semitic tract that, if googled, will today lead you to any number of white power websites, where it lives on in digitized samizdat, polluting a new generation of wingnutten sheissekopfs.

Smarties!

2007-09-29T14:39:00.000-05:00

Went to the Housing Works sale today with T_____ and brought back a couple of boxes of fine books. Among them was this gem from 1955: Keen Teens, 101 Ways to Make Money by Stookie Allen. Each page has a Ripley's Believe-it-or-Not style cartoon box with a bio of a real money-making teen from the 1950s...and look who turned up! It's none other than future feminist science-fiction author Joanna Russ!

Seems that Stookie Allen was also a noted WWII sketcher and illustrator of men's pulp mags.

Here's some other keen teens:

Babs and Marianne were the founders of Caedmon Records, which was profiled by NPR a few years back as pioneers of the audiobook industry.

Wilde Too Lazy to Write

2007-09-26T20:39:00.000-05:00

War on Moving Pictures

2007-09-26T19:39:00.002-05:00

Wrestler Brings Suit, Coffin Burns, Human Flesh Et

2007-09-26T19:39:00.000-05:00

Barnum's Baby Show

2007-09-26T19:33:00.001-05:00

Sick, As a Dog

2007-09-25T13:04:00.000-05:00

Over the summer Gawker ran a call for fake New Yorker cartoons. The one I sent in never was published—that is, until now!

Here's to My Sweet Satan

2007-09-24T07:40:00.000-05:00

Bird Is the Word

2007-09-22T10:23:00.000-05:00

Image from BibliOdyssey of Hermes Bird, an alchemical poem that also provides the title for a 1979 film by James Broughton. In Broughton's film, he "reads a phallic ode over the profile of a slowly wakening penis, bathed in an ethereal light that sets it out shimmeringly against absolute darkness."

Electronic Voice Phenomena

2007-09-19T19:10:00.001-05:00

Video from archive.org about a woman who experiences EVP or "electronic voice phenomena" (what she calls "non-local beings"), which manifest themselves as mysterious voices on her RCA digital recorder. You can learn more about EVP at AA-EVP, where you will also find a useful FAQ that includes such questions as "Beethoven did not speak English, so why would his ghost be able to?"

This little documentary is chock-full of strangely rendered images, the most awesome being this mysterious and potent symbol:

Recent Acquisitions & Updates

2007-09-18T18:58:00.000-05:00

Noted for their cover art.

Don't Give Up

2007-09-18T08:16:00.000-05:00

Found on the Q train.

Hypnotism

2007-09-16T21:12:00.002-05:00

As Is

2007-09-16T19:57:00.001-05:00

Found at my parents' house inside an old book this weekend; annotated by teenage me.

Correspondance Cinéma-Photo-Telégraphique

2007-09-12T11:50:00.000-05:00

Utopie - Villemard, 1910

The Definition of Beauty (Robert Herrick, 1648)

2007-09-12T09:56:00.000-05:00

Beauty no other thing is, then a beame
Flasht out between the middle and extreame.

Test

2007-03-10T11:29:00.000-05:00

"Our lives are programmed at conception and are endowed with purpose and meaning," she once wrote.