Today’s pairing explores contrast in form and feel with “Cells and Stalks” by Herb Theriault and “With Pluses and Minuses” by Mike Stoltz. Both use traditional film, but “Cells” compiles stills and “Pluses” is 16mm. Both use high contrast between light and dark. We can see a transition between organic and geometric, but also in overall feeling and emotional response: tell us how you react to them in the comments!

https://vimeo.com/56711838

Today’s pairing explores contrast in scale, from imagined organisms speaking to “bio-electric
communication and organic consciousness” in Colleen Keough’s “InLuma” (2009) to the more cosmic “visual data as it tracks interplanetary space for solar wind and CME’s (coronal mass ejections) heading towards Earth” in “Black Rain” by Semiconductor (2009). Both explore black-and-white tonal contrast in different ways, ranging from sharp edges to softened greys.

https://vimeo.com/47656182

Today’s first pairing is “Blue Movie” by Michael Morris (2016) and “Liquidator” by Karel Doing (2010). Both manipulate archival footage and use monochromatic palettes, but the end results span from romantic to sinister, vibrant to desaturated, and rounded to sharp. See for yourself and tell us how you think these two films work (or don’t) together!

https://vimeo.com/167962709

https://vimeo.com/105745564

#marvelousmoviemondays

Finally, my favorite video on the internet. Stairway to Stardom was a public access show which aired in New York from 1979 to the early 90s. Credited as a precursor to Star Search and American Idol, it served the local neighborhoods and gave anyone and everyone a platform to showcase their talent. I implore you to leave your irony at the door and consider the remarkable talent required to be brave enough to go on TV to broadcast your private passions, and playful enough to smile when you don’t get it quite right. There are superstars amongst us, and they show it in the smallest acts of kindness, the plain-sight artistry of everyday life and the humility required to be a part of a community. Let’s all try to inject a little Michael Daniel Baez into this crazy period we’re living through and love a song so much we have to sing aloud, to take pleasure in our voices and sing together in harmony (even if it’s a little off-key). Stay safe, everyone. <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRpV17JQTIk
#marvelousmoviemondays

Well, one day late but still good. Please forgive my tardiness, I was detained by a mild fever and a severe panic. As we all lockdown in our homes, we are streaming more than ever. Netflix is curbing the quality it streams videos across Europe to ease the sudden burden on the internet providers. What better time to reflect on the nature of Television than when we are fully immersed and more embedded in TV reality than our own?
Enter Jaime Davidovich, an Argentinian-American performance artist and public access television pioneer. From Wikipedia: “The Live! Show, a weekly public-access television program with a variety show format that appropriated the formal norms of television along with avant-garde performances, artwork, political satire, and social commentary. The program featured interviews and performance work by visiting artists, including Laurie Anderson, Eric Bogosian, Tony Oursler, and Michael Smith, along with musical performances, ersatz commercials, and viewer participation via live call-in segments. Presiding over the show’s disparate collaborative elements was Davidovich’s own satirical character, ‘Dr. Videovich, specialist in curing television addiction,’ whom the New York Times’ television critic John J. O’Connor described as ‘a persona somewhere between Bela Lugosi and Andy Kaufman.'” An early deconstruction of television and its role in the culture industry through the medium itself, below you will find a link to a clip from an episode, and after that a little doc about the man, the myth and the legendary show that is now pretty hard to track down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDA7ZCZ2mEw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZKURQ0sZ6o