Haruhiko Kawaguchi

I want to squeeze her, too. More at Oddity Central (thanks, Ben!)

"Ain't That Peculiar" Oddisee Remix

One of the coolest things I've seen lately

Pogomix's "Snow White"

Built from audio and video from the 1937 Disney classic; cf. the ultra-lame, official Disney trailer. As I understand, some of Pogo's best work remains unseen due to legal obstacles.

UPDATE: This post led to a pretty interesting discussion in a private forum, which I'm taking the liberty of copying here:

R----: Fagottron does some great remix compositions!

K----: creepy happy

S----: This remix is much better than the original.

c.: This was my intro to this guy; I think he's really inspired. Whether consciously intended or not, the thing reads eerily well as social commentary--mocking both the 50's & the hopey-changey thing, yet pointing out that (as stated in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,") "Nothing is inevitable, except defeat for those who give up . . . ." The transformation he wrought on the original music seems impt., too: from a somewhat more mournful, passive song wishing for someone to rescue her, to a more rockin'-yet-Zen-yet-proactive inspiration.

I----: I agree with the proactive presentation, however, its too slick and tinny....it seems to extol or satirize mechanization, industrialization....Huxley's hypnotic repetitious conditioning that turns human beings into automated robots...

I like real sound, real music and what is so wrong with 'hopey-changey'? It doesn't have to mean a denial of what is real, but to deny hope can lead to change is to me, the hallmark of oppression and the game of the oppressors. Thanks for the quotation and the video, food for thought.....

c.: I----, thanks. I think we agree more than not.

I.m.o., the only thing wrong with the recent hopey-changey was that it was NOT entirely based in reality, & did involve wishing for a hero who'd fix things for us, instead of us doing the work to understand & reform the system.

For me, the video does not at all deny hope; among other things, the whole chord structure strikes me as more "major" (as opposed to minor) or cheerful than the orig'l song, as well has having a much perkier beat. But at this point, we have our work cut out for us--among other things, to try to see through the "capitalism" and "socialism" brands & sort thru what actually does & does not work re- both, to understand the substance well enough that we don't throw out the good parts while the bad parts are simply re-labelled & re-sold to us (we know the t-party won't be the last experiment in conservative re-branding).

I totally agree re- the creepiness of the video, too--like the way Snow White claps her hands like an infant, with eyes swooning like Marilyn Monroe who, as Cynthia Heimel observed so acutely, became the ultimate sex object by acting like she was too dumb to realize she had a p*ssy. I'm thinking at least some of these aspects are revealing about expectations in the '50's, & feel the artist used them deliberately--that's part of what I find so fascinating about the piece--while leaving it up to us to decide what elements just seem weird now & what elements seem to have turned out to be enduring (e.g., Snow White's ability to love & enjoy a bunch of dwarves with major idiosyncracies that may limit them individually yet turn out to be complementary in a group).

Sorry to go on so long; guess this piece just really tapped into a bunch of stuff I've been thinking & feeling . . .

I----: Agreed...many of us have forgotten the spirit of self-reliance and individualism combined with respect for others that we grew up believing in...And, yeah, I remember the Class of 70's 'Fun Girls' rant...."Someday my prince will come, someday, I'll find the bum...." So, maybe there was less naivete then.....Thanks for engaging in this discussion. Enjoy your posts and your website!

I----: For some reason, not all of your post first appeared. My comment above only addressed the first paragraph.

I also agree with you, particularly your comments about re-brainding. The caricature represented by the exaggerated innocence of Snow White, for adults, is creepy, even in the original. However, it was meant for children, not for adults. The sad thing about child development is that around the ages of 3 and 4 we all learn about lies and deceptions....the Tooth Fairy....but to believe, to question whether what is wished can be real has motivated scientists, intellectuals and geniuses throughout human history. I love that serious physicists are developing theories of multi-universes; that social psychologists regularly refer to mind-reading as an activity of the brain which enhances brain function ie understand the perspective of the other person and your brain functions better, if you are competing, it gives you an advantage....these people, not too long ago, would have been 'branded', now it is state-of-the art...

I enjoyed the beat too, but synthesized, metallic beats remind me of a Wrinkle in Time and the fight with the 'Brain' that could only be won by calculating mathematical formulas....

Marilyn...oh, poor Marilyn...what women convince themselves, or rather allow others to convince themselves of, is tragically packaged in her story....

Have been thinking too much, perhaps about the women in Iran and Saudi Arabia, among other places, who are condemned to death by stoning and trying to understand how really intelligent people, people who seem concerned about others, can allow this....So, I guess your post hit on some things I have been coping with too....

Again, thanks for the post and your viewpoints!

Canon 7D vs. BarbieCam

I had to order my B-cam before posting this, of course.

David O'Reilly's "Please Say Something"

"[A] 10 minute short . . . contain[ing] 23 episodes of exactly 25 seconds each." O'Reilly's "TAGS: 30 Second Breakneck Heartbreak Uncut Turbodrama. Fatfree Ultraviolent Freezedried Shrinkwrapped Antiballet Timeline Easyopen Modern Unpunctuated Crass Clean Crisp High Definition Subversive Absurd Arrogant Loud Pretentious Sugarcoated Sincere Authentic Stories. Please Say Something, any answer will do." It's brilliant.

Please Say Something by David OReilly.

(Thanks again, Video Association!)

Hot Cars

(Those are German names for cuts of pork.)

Temporary Services, Art and Language, Etc.

I've been working on organizing some programs/events in Dallas relating to Temporary Services' Art Work issue. I'm excited about developments and hope to be able to let you know more soon.

Meanwhile, been trying to educate myself a bit about the aesthetic and other contexts for Temporary Services' project, and am amazed at how many trails I've been following for a long time, some through non-"art" contexts, seem to be coming together.

I won't inflict it all on you here, but I can't resist sharing, I've been looking for info online re- what the "Art and Language" movement (or whatever you call it) – at first not finding much; e.g. Wikipedia's entry contains little more than a string of names – and just found this great resource published by that splendid repository of aesthetic booty, Germany's ZKM. It's a text the Art and Language group produced called Blurting in A&L. Was ist das? Quoting ZKM's intro,

Blurting in A & L is a printed booklet whose content is a dictionary with blurts or »annotations«. The annotations were written by american members of Art & Language Ian Burn, Michael Corris, Preston Heller, Joseph Kosuth, Andrew Menard, Mel Ramsden and Terry Smith between january and july 1973. Michael Corris and Mel Ramsden chose terms as headlines for the annotations. The first letters of the headlines were used for an alphabetical ordering. In this order the annotations were numbered.

Anyway, what appears to be the complete, online version, is here, in a great, interactive format (the original was apparently similar in format to the image at right {which you can enlarge by clicking on it}, except I added the stripes in honor of Michael Corris's recent contro to Modern Ruin).

As John Hodgeman says, you're welcome.

Hoop

Came across this while looking for material for experiments. More heartbursts at sugarmagnolia72 and Bambi.

If you live in N. TX, Don't Miss "Performance/Art" at the DMA,

through March 21, 2010.

I esp. LOVED Eija-Liisa Ahtila's Talo (The House), 3-channel video installation, 14 min. loop (2002), and Yinka Shonibare's Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), video, 32 min. (2004).

More on Talo at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Shonibare discusses Un Ballo and his next film, a production of Swan Lake created in collaboration with the Royal Opera House, in an interview at Bombsite.

Eric White

At right, The One, oil on canvas (2008). The 'puted pop surrealist is represented by Sloan Fine Art.

Cecil Jones

9 years old.

Max Yasgur & Jimi Hendrix, 1969

The best in us keeps trying to come out. But since power (temptation) corrupts, the best often comes from the unpowerful.

[Update: the video originally posted below, which included both Yasgur's speech and Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner," has been removed; I've replaced it with the two videos below.]

Jenny Holzer Installation

I tried to resist blogging this but couldn't. At MoCA, from both ends of a huge room, poems by 1996 Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska are starkly projected. Giant beanbags dot the space like islands. On view through fall 2008; more at The NYT.

Holzer's is a great example of art I started out hating but quickly came to love. The first thing of hers I saw was a large, LED display of the text, "Money Creates Taste." The town I live in seems to refute that idea utterly. But the statement stuck in my mind in the same way something odd in Shakespeare sometimes does -- something that at first seems paradoxical or just wrong, and later seems so circuitously right (see Cleanth Brooks' The Well Wrought Urn).

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out . . . -- Act II, scene i, Hamlet