Ferienne is the third installment of an ongoing experimental study on fluid dynamics, magnetism and cymatics. These invisible forces of nature are then made visible through various liquids and mixtures, and they form patterns that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye.
Archive for the ‘Film/Video/New Media’ Category
My Name Is Janez Janša
May 16, 2012
“A proper name is a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about but not of telling anything about it”. ― John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic (1. ii. 5.)
A name. Everybody has one. Individuals, artists and academics from all over the world share their thoughts about the meaning and purpose of one’s name from both private and public perspectives. The problem of homonym and other reasons for changing one’s name are explored as the film draws references from history, popular culture and individual experiences, leading us to the case of a name change that caused a stir in the small country of Slovenia and beyond.
In 2007 three artists joined the conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and officially changed their names to that of the leader of that party, the Prime Minister of Slovenia, Janez Janša. While they renamed themselves for personal reasons, the boundaries between their lives and their art began to merge in numerous and unforeseen ways.
Signified as an artistic gesture, this particular name change provoked a wide range of interpretations in art circles both in Slovenia and abroad, as well as among journalists and the general public.
The film that inspires you to google your name again.
Text via MY NAME IS JANEZ JANSA
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“Drama” by Timo Kahlen
May 15, 2012
Drama, by Timo Kahlen, is generated as the viewer plays and re-plays the film, to create individual and always different endings based on chance outcomes of the film’s miniature drama, a struggle of life and death, always different, again and again.
THE EAGLEMAN STAG: A BAFTA Winning Stop-Motion Short Film by Mikey Please
May 15, 2012- If Peter could be anything, he’d probably be a beetle -
The 2011 BAFTA award winning short film from Mikey Please.
For full festival and awards info visit TheEaglemanStag.com
Atomic Clock
May 11, 2012A film produced by the NPL Film Unit in the 1950s explaining the principles behind the first accurate atomic clock, designed by Louis Essen and built at the National Physical Laboratory in 1955.
We are very grateful to Ray Essen, Louis Essen’s son-in-law, for unearthing this piece of NPL’s history.
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The Politics of Competitive Board Gaming Amongst Friends
May 8, 2012Jay Cheel: “Here’s a new short that I filmed with some friends over the past month. It’s a 10 minute documentary called “The Politics of Competitive Board Gaming Amongst Friends”; a title that pretty much sums up the content.
From a technical standpoint, I wanted to shoot this short as a sort of dry run for the recreations in my upcoming feature documentary, How to Build a Time Machine. Although the content and approach will be pretty different than what’s presented here, I just wanted to take on a small project that would allow me to play around with re-enactments. I shot this with the Panasonic AF100, using the following lenses: Nikon 50mm, Nikon 35mm, Panasonic Lumix 14mm. I didn’t do a whole lot for lighting aside from assisting some of the practical lights in Matt’s apartment (a 650 bounced off the ceiling), and stringing some coloured Christmas lights in the background for some visual points of interest. For the interviews, it was simply a single bulb cool light hung directly overhead the subjects.”
The way things go: Gecko eaten by ants, a timelapse.
May 5, 2012According to the “original” post German description, this video was shot in Malaysia.
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A Traveling Rube Goldberg machine that “writes” and stamps postcards
May 1, 2012
Conveniently built in two old suitcases, Melvin the Mini Machine is a Rube Goldberg machine specifically designed to travel the world. Each time Melvin fully completes a run, he ‘signs’ a postcard and sticks a stamp to it – making it ready to be sent.
Like its bigger brother, Melvin the Mini Machine also has an online non-physical side which he uses to connect to the people he meets. To keep things truly mobile Melvin uses a smartphone for his online identity.
Find out more about Melvin the Mini Machine at melvinthemachine.com
Concept, design and production by HEYHEYHEY
Starring Steye van Dam
Co-production and support: PostPanic
Camera: Diderik Evers
Music: “The wonders of the world” by Woody Veneman
Editing: Ine van den Elsen
Sound: Joris Tillmans
Styling: Annemiek Swinkels
Programming: Maarten Witteveen
Clothing by Magda
Smartphone sponsored by Blue Mango Interactive
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Signals: A Visualization of Cancer Protein Networking by Casey REAS
May 1, 2012Casey Reas: This is a 2x time-lapse sequence from software that constructs images from protein relationships within a cell. The image was translated into a mural for building 76 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Cell behavior is controlled by interconnected proteins operating in a network to actively transmit instructions. These networks become dysfunctional in cancerous cells. In this image, each graphical cluster represents signals between networked proteins in a cancer cell as they change over time. Individual arcs are signals from one protein to another; the size of an arc corresponds to the magnitude of the signal. Signaling data provided by the laboratory of Professor Michael Yaffe.
Casey Reas is an artist and educator. His software, prints, and installations have has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is a professor in the department of Design Media Arts at UCLA and the co-founder of Processing with Ben Fry.
Text via Casey Reas’ Vimeo
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Post-Mubarak Storytelling: Al Jazeera’s short-doc on performance artist Abeer Soliman
April 28, 2012A political performance artist must adapt her life and work to fit the realities of post-revolution Egypt. Via Artscape
“Artscape gives expression to the creative forces behind many of the world’s headline stories. Across the globe people are using their voices, their imaginations and their visions to break down powerful barriers in their communities. From a small backroom theater challenging a despotic regime, to the courage of individuals finding a voice; from the ancient traditions of the written word, to the power of photography; from the joy of expressing identity through dance and song, to those easing the pain of migration through music – Artscape brings us the rich colors and clear cadences of popular expression.”
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Kim Il-Sung’s Birthday Party
April 28, 2012Filmed & Edited by Patrik Wallner. He says: Traveling to the Hermit Kingdom is already bizarre enough, but when we heard that North Korea would be celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the Great Leader & eternal president, Kim Il-sung, there was no way to let such an epic birthday party slip through our hands.
Laurence Keefe, Kirill Korobkov and I flew over to Pyongyang for two days to witness the madness. While skateboarding within the DPRK was our main intention, it was overshadowed by the celebrations & the ‘no sliding’ anywhere rule.
For more info please go to visualtraveling.com
The three minute clip portrays a small insight into North Korea from the 15th of April 2012.
The beauty of gravity….Tape Generations by Johan Rijpma
April 26, 2012
“Large groups of tape rolls go through a long process of development and degeneration. The extremely slow paced life of these objects is being revealed within an isolated space where everything starts from a symmetric composition. From this orderly state deviations and differences in behavior slowly become visible through the force of gravity. Resulting in unpredictable shapes and movements that somehow feel familiar.”
Tape Generations | 2011 | 2 min. 39 sec. | 4:3 |
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Inventing the Future: On the Future Anterior and Philo-Fictions
April 26, 2012A lecture by Professor John Mullarkey titled Inventing the Future: On the Future Anterior and Philo-Fictions at Jerwood Visual Arts.
John Mullarkey is Professor of Film and Television Studies at Kingston University, London. He is the author of Bergson and Philosophy (1999), Post-Continental Philosophy: An Outline (2006), Philosophy and the Moving Image: Refractions of Reality (2010) and he edited, with Beth Lord, The Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy (2009). Mullarkey is also an editor of the journal Film-Philosophy.
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Real Estate 4 Ransom
April 25, 2012Real Estate 4 Ransom is a documentary by Prosper Australia, a not for profit organization devoted to economic justice for all Australians. Co-Directors Gavin Emmanuel and Karl Fitzgerald say:
“Real Estate 4 Ransom is a documentary about global property speculation and its impact on the economy. Real Estate 4 Ransom considers the changing motivations behind property investment and challenges the notion that the Global Financial Crisis was caused by bank lending alone.
Shot over 5 years, the film focuses an economics lens on many of the big picture issues world politics are grappling to deal with. The 40 min documentary looks at whether genuine freedom has been delivered by the democratic system.
We investigate the inefficiencies of the economic system and the impact this has on potential homeowners and small businesses. The documentary argues that with a simpler tax system, entrepreneurs have a better chance to succeed and the average Australian has a better chance of owning their own home.
What role did real estate play in the crashing of the global economy?
Co-Directors Karl Fitzgerald and Gavin Emmanuel have crafted a 40 minute documentary which features high profile economists, international guests, local home-buyers and renters, all who discuss their take on the state of Australia’s economy.”
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Werner Herzog on death, danger and the end of the world
April 17, 2012
Steve Rose talks to Werner Herzog about a new documentary on capital punishment, Into the Abyss.
Some years ago, Werner Herzog was on an internal flight somewhere in Colorado and the plane’s landing gear wouldn’t come down. They would have to make an emergency landing. The runway was covered in foam and flanked by scores of fire engines. “We were ordered to crouch down with our faces on our knees and hold our legs,” says Herzog, “and I refused to do it.” The stewardess was very upset, the co-pilot came out from the cabin and ordered him to do as he was told. “I said, ‘If we perish I want to see what’s coming at me, and if we survive, I want to see it as well. I’m not posing a danger to anyone by not being in this shitty, undignified position.’” In the end, the plane landed normally. Herzog was banned from the airline for life but, he laughs, it went bust two years later anyway.Herzog tells this story to illustrate how he’ll face anything that’s thrown at him, as if that was ever in any doubt. Now approaching his 70th birthday, the German film-maker has assumed legendary status for facing things others wouldn’t. He’s lived a life packed with intrepid movie shoots, far-flung locations and general high-stakes film-making. He has a biography too dense to summarize. But his tale also confirms the suspicion that he’s helplessly drawn to danger and death. Or vice versa.
Continue interview by Steve Rose at the Guardian
A different interview:
THE ONANIZER: Your Ultimate Masturbation Experience
April 15, 2012
The Onanizer is the root of Onania. Designed to mould seamlessly to the user’s body, the ‘limitless pleasure’ machine invites its users to a realm of singular focus on themselves. Sophisticated advertising tricks are played on our atavistic compulsions of fulfilling basic instincts.The Onanizer reflects the ultimate aim of Onania, which is the most perfect and heightened existence of blissful solitude.
Via Jan Manski
Starsuckers (full documentary)
April 15, 2012
A darkly humorous and shocking exposé of the celebrity obsessed media, that uncovers the real reasons behind our addiction to fame and blows the lid on the corporations and individuals who profit from it. Directed by Chris Atkins, BAFTA nominated for Taking Liberties, Starsuckers exploded into the news in October 2010 when it emerged that the team had been selling fake celebrity stories to all the British Tabloids. This became a news sensation in it’s own right, and was followed by the darker revelation that Atkins had secretly filmed four journalists for three Sunday tabloids trying to buy medical records.
Text via Starsuckers
Crack The Surface: Going where you “should not”
April 10, 2012
Crack The Surface takes a look at a small collection of explorers who risk it all to access and infiltrate closed or forgotten spaces, and focuses on their participation and experiences within their local and global exploring community.
Produced In Association With :
silentuk.com
sub-urban.com
placehacking.co.uk
allcitynewyork.com
shaneperez.com
Filmed Using :
Canon DSLR : 550D / 7D / 5D
Canon 24mm F1.4, Sigma 30mm F1.4
GoPro Hero HD
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Wannes Goetschalckx’s Toothpick
April 8, 2012I had an idea. I will make a toothpick. From a tree, by hand.
* Artist’s statement (letter of intention, January 2011).
The starting point for Wannes Goetschalckx’s Toothpick Project, was an immense poplar installed at the Casino Luxembourg, which was to be carved with his own hands into one toothpick. From September until December 20011, he has been harnessed to this colossal task.
Via WEST
Metachaos, by Alessandro Bavari (2011)
April 8, 2012
SINOPSYS
Metachaos, from Greek Meta (beyond) and Chaos (the abyss where the eternally-formless state of the universe hides), indicates a primordial shape of ameba, which lacks in precise morphology, and it is characterized by mutation and mitosis.
In fact the bodies represented in METACHAOS, even though they are characterized by an apparently anthropomorphous appearance, in reality they are without identity and conscience. They exist confined in a spaceless and timeless state, an hostile and decadent hyperuranium where a fortress, in perpetual movement, dominates the landscape in defense of a supercelestial, harmonic but fragile parallel dimension. In its destructive instinct of violating the dimensional limbo, the mutant horde penetrates the intimacy of the fortress, laying siege like a virus. Similar to the balance of a philological continuum in human species, bringing the status of things back to the primordial broth.
STATEMENT
METACHAOS is a multidisciplinary audio-visual project, articulated in a short film, a set of photography and mix-technique paintings. The purpose of the project is to represent the most tragic aspects of the human nature and of its motion, such as war, madness, social change and hate. An accretion of feelings that are metaphorically represented by specific visual forms, which are abstract conceptually, but concrete and tangible formally. The application of acid and monochromatic tints, besides the strong contrasts, makes everything intentionally more oppressive and tragic.
In order to obtain a more immersive and plausible version, the shot was taken adopting the camera live technique. The extreme and frenetic motion of the shoulder camera, similar to the subjective one, becomes a main constant, so that, along with the persisting cuts used to edit the video, create a bigger sense of instability and danger. In fact, thanks to the dissemination of Technology, it is possible to notice that the unconscious-esthetic potential of the shots available on Youtube, characterized by a pseudo-documentary and amateur approach, often offer an unexpected emotional involvement, which trigger an exhibitionistic-voyeuristic interchange between the author and the consumer.
The irrational gesture and action of the bodies, as if a collective form of madness controlled them, are inspired by artists like Bosch and Bruegel who, between the ‘400 and ‘500, produced an iconography where irrational images show sickly madness and pain.
The project has been realized using different techniques: live shots taken in discharged industrial sites, CGI animations, tracking and motion captures, besides various other analogical ones.
American Jeff Ensign, aka Evolution Noise Slave composed the original sound track, which has been progressively updated during the video production. The musical score was inspired by 6 separate pieces Jeff had previously created that were then combined into a hybrid. The composition was also based in part from a sonic interpretation of the ideas presented in Antonin Artaud’s the Theater and Cruelty overlaid on Bavari’s images.
Metropia
April 8, 2012
Metropia takes place in a not-so-distant future. The world is running out of oil and the underground train systems have been connected into a gigantic subway network beneath Europe. Whenever Roger from Stockholm enters this system he hears a stranger’s voice in his head. He looks to the mysterious Nina to help him escape the disturbing web of the Metro, but the further they travel, the deeper he’s involved in a dark conspiracy.
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Robot World – A Meeting with Your Alternate Double
April 5, 2012
Short synopsis: The non-verbal documentary ROBOT WORLD depicts the evolution of robots from a mechanical somnambulist to an autonomous sensorium. The neoclassical violinist Matt Howden emphasizes the film’s message: these artificial people are our alternate doubles.
About the film: ROBOT WORLD is a compilation. The source material for this one-hour film comes from robot laboratories at universities, from private footage at industrial fairs, military archives and corporate videos from the robot industry. Motion pictures of old 16 mm films from the 1930’s were added. This non-verbal documentary was recycled from far in excess of one hundred hours of raw material. ROBOT WORLD is the second film in the “Technology & Mind & Evolution” series of Munich filmmaker Martin Hans Schmitt. The first film in this series, HIGHWAY WORLD, deals with highway worlds and in 2008/2009 was successful at international film festivals.
Robot World – A Meeting with Your Alternate Double will be screened at Robots and Avatars
Text via Martin Hans Schmitt’s website.
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IOIC – Institute of Incoherent Cinematography
April 5, 2012
The Institute of Incoherent Cinematography promotes the image of silent film and its representation in the form of live setting to music.
Activities
The Institute domiciled in Zurich organizes an annual three-day silent film marathon with live music centered on a clearly defined theme, which will be treated extensively and in depth. Furthermore, the Institute organizes smaller events and film cycles in other Swiss cities and abroad, presenting the season’s highlights to a larger audience in various regions.
The live music performances take into consideration cultural and social variety and aim to consider musicians, sound artists, bands, ensembles and orchestras of various age groups and styles of music. This is, among others, intended to actively promote the exchange between the various genres.
The participating musicians largely hail from the Zurich region and to a smaller part from the rest of Switzerland as well as occasionally from abroad.
For the 2011/2012 seasons, events are intended in Zurich, Baden and Lausanne. For the following year events are foreseen in other Swiss cities as well as in Beijing and Shanghai.
Garbage Warrior [Full Length Documentary]
April 2, 2012
The epic story of radical Earthship eco architect Michael Reynolds, and his fight to build off-the-grid self-sufficient communities. If you haven’t seen it, here is the full length documentary.
Michael Reynolds, the “Garbage Warrior”, is an architect based in New Mexico and a proponent of “radically sustainable living.” He has been a forceful and controversial critic of the profession of architecture for its failure to deal with the amount of waste that building design creates. After graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 1969, Reynolds began his provocative work almost immediately. His thesis was published in Architectural Record in 1971 and the following year he built his first house from recycled materials. The structures built under his direction utilize everyday trash items like aluminum cans and plastic bottles. Instead of using conventional (and energy-consuming) recycling methods, however, Reynolds takes the discarded item and uses it as-is. His Thumb House, built in 1972, used beer cans wired together into “bricks,” which were mortared together and then plastered over. (The brick design was awarded a U.S. patent in 1973.) Reynolds calls this practice “Earthship Biotecture” and has dedicated his career to it. He cites as an epiphany the moment when he realized that any object, be it a pop bottle or an old tire, could become powerful and durable insulation when it was filled with dirt. He has written five books on the subject. Soon he was building and selling his experimental homes while continuing to use trial and error to improve them. The “Earthships” over time incorporated features designed to make them comfortable to live in while existing off the grid. Solar panels and geothermal cooling were added. The homes caught the imagination of celebrities and environmental activists. Actors Dennis Weaver and Keith Carradine each commissioned Reynolds to build high-end Earthships for them.
Text and image via Uniondocs
Beyond the Gardens: The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership
April 1, 2012
Most people know Kew Gardens as home of the world’s largest living plant collection but are not aware that it is also the location of an internationally important botanical research and educational institution. Going beyond the gardens as we know them, Lonelyleap produced two films for 2012′s Tropical Extravaganza Festival which showcase the behind the scenes work of Kew’s scientists whilst also exploring two of the festival’s themes, Earth and Air.
The second film in the series looks at the work of the the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership in Surrey, home to 10% of the world’s plant diversity, and how the Seed Conservation Department is helping to save wild plants and habitats for our future.
Text via LONELYLEAP’s Vimeo
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
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8-bit Google Maps
March 31, 2012
Google Maps is now available for 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES). Availability in Google Store is TBD but you can try it on your browser by going to http://maps.google.com and clicking “Quest” in the upper right hand corner of the map.
Thailand’s Floating Cinema
March 30, 2012
The drive-in movie theater may be a uniquely North American institution, but the icon of the wide-open American landscape recently experienced its most heroic revival in Thailand, leaping forth from its humble, grounded origins and into the clear blue waters of Nai Pi Lae lagoon on Kudu Island. For the final night of the Film on the Rocks Yao Noi Festival earlier this month, guests were taken by boat to savor a final screening on a floating cinema designed by Beijing-based architect Ole Scheeren. Scheeren’s Archipelago Cinema consisted of a floating screen, cradled between two towering rocks, and a separate raft-like auditorium, together offering a spiritual and vaguely primordial cinematic experience.
Scheeren described the project rather poetically as “A screen, nestled somewhere between the rocks. And the audience…floating…hovering above the sea, somewhere in the middle of this incredible space of the lagoon, focused on the moving images across the water: a sense of temporality, randomness, almost like driftwood. Or maybe something more architectural: modular pieces, loosely assembled, like a group of little islands that congregate to form an auditorium.”
Text and Images via Archetizer
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BMW Tate Live: Performance Room [Jerome Bell]
March 30, 2012
BMW Tate Live: Performance Room is an innovative series of performances broadcast viewable exclusively online around the globe, as they happen.
Five artists each present works for the BMW Tate Live Performance Room beginning with choreographer and dancer Jérôme Bel on 22 March 2012 and continuing monthly with Pablo Bronstein, Harrell Fletcher, Joan Jonas and Emily Roysdon. Audiences can pose questions to the artist and curators, and interact with other viewers via social media.
You are invited to enter the online BMW Tate Live Performance Room via Tate’s YouTube channel at 20.00 hrs in the UK and at exactly the same moment across the globe on the specified dates. So if you are on the East Coast of America, log on at 15.00 hrs for a mid-afternoon art break, if you are located in Europe then join us at 21.00 hrs for an evening performance and for those in Russia, needing some late night art at 23.00 hrs.
A second chance to watch Jerome Bell’s performance and see the conversation with the artist and curators captured live Thursday 22nd March 2012 at Tate Modern.
Text via TATE
See Pablo Bronstein on 26 April, Emily Roysdon on 31 May, Harrell Fletcher on 28 June and Joan Jonas later in the year.
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