Fun video from the Wooster Collective about the street artist Invader's exhibit at the Jonathan Levine Gallery. Invader became known by making and posting tile replicas of space invaders on city walls.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
So Much Testosterone
A former English professor of whom I'm greatly fond once wrote me,
I can't hear what happens in rock music. Indeed, it's as bizarre to me as watching a baseball game or a football game--it's as though I see people moving but I cannot begin to understand how anyone can appreciate what is going on, which seems to be bodies moving around in a blur.Rick Ernst's documentary Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal is unlikely to help him decipher these mysteries. But it goes a long way in explaining the mindset and passions of many young males in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Um ... myself included.
The All-Knowing BookSeer
There aren't many blogs that I like to read on a daily basis. One of these few is Lifehacker. They post about all sorts of fun things you can do or use to, um, "hack" your life. Free software, web services, and even new ways to use household objects to potentially improve your life. Anyhow, this post is not about Lifehacker. It's about BookSeer, which I found out about in a Lifehacker post.BookSeer is a really just a fun way to find books using a method you may already use. BookSeer asks you to simply type in the author and title of the last book you enjoyed, and it offers other books you may like using the recommendation services from Amazon and LibraryThing. I know what you're thinking. Why not just go search the book you read on Amazon and look at the recommendations there, right? Well, Amazon doesn't have a speech bubble coming out of a full screen sized woodcut portrait of some guy I'll probably be embarrassed not to have recognized. Also, you type in the speech bubble and the guy's got a huge beard. Where's your beard, Amazon?
The full Lifehacker post also links to other sites you can use to find new books to read, and they even surprised me by noting some I hadn't visited myself.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Bang-yao Liu's DEADLINE
This fantastic stop-motion film was created by a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design. The "making of" video is available here.
If stop-motion movies tickle your fancy, check out our documentary Monster Road, about animator Bruce Bickford:
Saturday, June 6, 2009
My three-year-old could do better than that!
Though we're all way too sophisticated to say it out loud, most of us have probably felt at least some sympathy with this cliche response when confronted by avant-garde art in one form or another. Can these people be serious? What's really going on, here?
Those are the questions addressed in our new film, Noisy People, or, 7 Portraits of San Francisco Bay Area Musicians: Improvising a Musical Life. Filmmaker Tim Perkis followed 7 "experimental" musicians for a year; the result is a revealing and endearing portrait of artistic life outside the mainstream.
All of the seven still have their day jobs. This is important. Professional musicians everywhere cringe at the idea of playing "just for the love of it" -- they need to eat, too, and music is an incredibly demanding endeavor. Music has always had a role as a product in the marketplace. But as the director says, "Not all lives are built around economic striving. The artists in my film remind us that there is another way to live: pursuing a passion directly, independent of its economic value. They exemplify an alternative political and social reality."
In fact, your three-year-old could not do what these musicians do, but they don't mind being compared to children as they actually strive to be childlike in terms of wonder, curiosity and spontaneity. At the same time, they are all very serious about their music. They have thought long and deeply about it and about the creative process and are perfectly articulate about what they are trying to do and why.
They are also a marvelously quirky bunch! The woman who says, "I realized that if I wanted to hear tree parts, I would have to do it myself" knows she is playing weird stuff. Avant-garde, experimental, improv, noise - call it whatever, it is meant to push boundaries and challenge the listener.
Those are the questions addressed in our new film, Noisy People, or, 7 Portraits of San Francisco Bay Area Musicians: Improvising a Musical Life. Filmmaker Tim Perkis followed 7 "experimental" musicians for a year; the result is a revealing and endearing portrait of artistic life outside the mainstream.
All of the seven still have their day jobs. This is important. Professional musicians everywhere cringe at the idea of playing "just for the love of it" -- they need to eat, too, and music is an incredibly demanding endeavor. Music has always had a role as a product in the marketplace. But as the director says, "Not all lives are built around economic striving. The artists in my film remind us that there is another way to live: pursuing a passion directly, independent of its economic value. They exemplify an alternative political and social reality."
In fact, your three-year-old could not do what these musicians do, but they don't mind being compared to children as they actually strive to be childlike in terms of wonder, curiosity and spontaneity. At the same time, they are all very serious about their music. They have thought long and deeply about it and about the creative process and are perfectly articulate about what they are trying to do and why.
They are also a marvelously quirky bunch! The woman who says, "I realized that if I wanted to hear tree parts, I would have to do it myself" knows she is playing weird stuff. Avant-garde, experimental, improv, noise - call it whatever, it is meant to push boundaries and challenge the listener.
But it also seeks to awaken and inspire. To quote the director again, these are musicians that understand that "all meaningful creation arises from engagement, generosity, and cooperation." And as Ornette Coleman said, "Every person, whether they play music or don't play music, has a sound, their own sound." Listen, receive, ponder: You may play nothing if you choose ... but do so with intensity!
Weird stuff? Check it out -- it's at your library!
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