art

American Business Adventures

I've been going through archives of old video work, trying to clear some space on some hard drives, and thinking about what I should upload to the website, since I can. I came across a piece that's still one of my favorites, from 2002, that was conveniently already encoded as an mpeg-1. It's about 10 minutes long and it's called American Business Adventures.

It's a collage piece that's all about the Afghan invasion and its relation to the United States' need for oil. I made it originally as a backdrop for live audio performance. Then later I took an audio recording of one of the live shows and layered that back onto the video, and did a bunch of other audio editing, to turn it into a finished work for linear video.

This is the first time I've put the whole thing online, I think, so if you haven't seen my DVD, "Videographist," or otherwise seen it in realspace, this will be new to you.

United We Stand - Europe Has A Mission

A new film about a war between the U.S. and China, with the EU trying to stop it, promises to be an incredible piece of cinema - if only it were real.

From an email I received today:

'United We Stand' is the title of the much-hyped spy/action movie wholly produced by Europe, a large-scale propagandistic stunt that has in the past few months stirred much controversy. Too bad the movie doesn't actually exist, but it is instead the latest insane provocation of the artists' couple Eva and Franco Mattes, better known as 0100101110101101.ORG. After Berlin, Brussels, Barcelona, New York and Bangalore, the gigantic performance has now landed in Austria and Bologna.

see more info about the artprank at http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/unitedwestand/intro.html.

Anarchist Love Song

An addendum to my post from a couple days ago: One of the songs sung 'round the campfire was a really amusing anarchist love song. I recorded a bit of it and now you can listen to it.

The Death of Reggaeton

Today on the NPR show Fresh Air there was an extensive segment about reggaeton - its 20-year history and how this year was its big break. All year long, especially when I was in Guatemala and Mexico, I've been hearing it and noticing what a big trend it was, and now I realize that everyone else has been, too. The penultimate nail in the coffin of any underground cultural development has to be mention on Fresh Air. Any day now there'll be a cover story in Time magazine.

It's funny also because the reviewer on Fresh Air sounds like just about the squarest, nerdiest, whitest, gringo-est guy to ever turn on a stereo. He's like Professor Frink from the Simpsons explaining the virtues of hip hop or something. Listen to it and you'll see what I mean.

File a Motion for Anarchy.

I have found my new favorite comic strip ever. What could be better than mention of anarchy and mojitos in the same frame?
(thanx, brian)

Mexican Artist Deported For an Internet Art Project

Luis Hernandez is a Mexican artist who participated in a recent border art festival in San Diego and Tijuana called inSite. Last week when flying home from Colorado he was stopped in the airport, searched, and ended up being deported to Mexico and barred from returning for 5 years. A message from him with many details, including a dialog with an FBI agent, is on the blog of fellow artist Ricardo Domiguez.

Absolutely crazy. Make a video game about border tunnels, get deported? This cannot be allowed.

Pate a Son

I was just referred to a really cool sound toy. Beware, you might find yourself spending a few hours playing with it before you know it. Check out the other work the creators have made, also.

(thanx jon!)

Syndicate content