GENTLEMAN REG - HOW WE EXIT from MOTIONEER on Vimeo.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Blogotheque - Beirut - Nantes
Beirut - Nantes | 'Cheap Magic Inside' edition from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
I never tire of watching and listening to this video. I think that I love every second.
Blogotheque - Seasick Steve - A Takeaway Show
Seasick Steve - A Take Away Show - Part 1 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
Seasick Steve - A Take Away Show - Part 2 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
beautifuly rendered and amazing sound. This is truly a gem. Make sure to watch both. Steve has some good stories
Texico Bitches
Broken Social Scene - Texico Bitches from Arts & Crafts México on Vimeo.
sweet sweet man love
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Chris Cunningham
From "flex" 2000.
Chris Cunningham has directed a view videos and commercials. The same curator (Yuko Hasegawa)who curated Pipilotti Rist into the the New York Digital Salon's tenth anniversary show Vectors in 2003. He chose Cunningham's video for Bjork's "All Is Full of Love":
"Chris Cunningham was born in Reading, England, in 1970. He now lives and works in London. Cunningham began as a teenage special effects expert, working on Alien III and Stanley Kubrick’s aborted AI project. With the help of digital technology, Cunningham reveals his extraordinary talents in the synchronization of sound and visual works that he mastered through MTV productions. His anatomical, inner analysis of human bodies and the expressions of their movement, combined with sound effects, provides visceral stimulation to viewers.
Cunningham’s obsession with anatomy is very specific. He began his career as an expert sculptor and model-maker for special effects; the theme of robots, or the genesis of new creatures, has been a consistent interest throughout his work.
All Is Full of Love is a music video created and directed by Cunningham in 1999 for Björk. This video is memorable for its stunning special effects and visual sophistication. A pure white robot is born on an assembly line. It opens Björk’s eyes and begins to sing All Is Full of Love. This video features Björk as a stunningly beautiful robot making love to a robot replica of herself. The image of the pair embracing on the assembly line represents not only the eroticism of lesbian love, but also the sensual relationship of love. After this video, Cunningham resigned from the music and commercial world and began working for the first time as a video artist."
(http://www.nydigitalsalon.org/10/artwork.php?nav=artists&artwork=66)
All Is Full Of Love (1999)
I also stumbled upon Cunningham's video for the Portishead song Only You. Apparently the technology used in this video was groundbreaking and now you can see it in cheesy hot tub commercials.
Only You (1998)
He has made other art films such as flex and Monkey Drummer and most recently the disturbing Rubber Johnny. Flex (2000) was an installation that Cunningham created for the Royal Acadamy of Art Apocalypse exhibition. This work features the music of Aphex Twin. Flex, is a video which aims to awaken one's senses through the sound of electronic music, unforgettable images of both sexual violence and breathtaking serenity.
Flex (2000)
Part one
Part two
This is an article I found online about flex and seems to best describe it.
Dublin: Chris Cunningham at 5th
Chris Cunningham: flex, 2001, video installation with sound; courtesy of
Anthony d'Offay Ltd, London who commissioned and produced flex
Sex and death sells. Apparently, this is something well-known in the commercial world of advertising but I am not sure what the logic is behind it (how could this be logical?). The human fascination with sex and death is well documented, however, and in the art world it was especially popular at the turn of the last century, in the era of the 'femme fatale'. In his book Femme Fatale: Images of Evil and Fascinating Women, Patrick Bade puts this obsession down to the prevalence of syphilis among Bohemian artists, and the romantic spirit of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.1
In flex at the Guinness 5th Gallery, Chris Cunningham deals with a variation of this theme, concentrating on sex and violence. Perhaps it is my own romanticism surging forth, but while Cunningham's variation is scarier to me, I believe it wholly relevant to the turn of the millennium: terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the ravages of AIDS form the backdrop to personal terror, as there is a growing awareness of abuse and the realisation that the 'enemy' is usually a trusted member of the community and/or family. Although I tend to be wary of exhibitions that come with a warning (as this one did), suspecting the artist and/or gallery of wanting to promote sensationalism, to be suspicious of flex would be to trivialise one of the most thought-provoking videos I have ever seen.
Before entering the gallery space, loud, electronic sound (created in collaboration with Richard D. James) is already heard. The video itself is projected onto a complete wall of the square gallery, so one is within a cinematic environment. There is a definite narrative too, so it is important to watch the complete video - which, while it emotionally may prove difficult, is visually stunning.
In a nutshell: from darkness a beam of light illuminates the naked forms of a man and woman who are first seen in the protective spoon embrace; on separating they are both overwhelmed by violence to each other, and the video ends with the woman crawling back to the embrace of the man. The video is filmed in such a way that the human forms are 'other' in that the perspective is distorted and details are too defined. What one hears is a type of hyper-realism (movement, breathing, the meeting of flesh on flesh) and the familiar Hollywood notion of a space vacuum - the impossible sound of the hollow scraping of air... While the video seems to be black and white (as a viewer I found some irony here as I thought of Guinness commercials gone terribly, terribly wrong!), there are subtle hints of colour: the man's ear and the woman's lips are pink. Both the man and woman have very fit, muscular bodies and their interaction is predicated by the white light - at some points they seem to be interrogated, their actions and violence towards each other seem to be caused by this light. Here I considered the effect of the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and with this in mind, it is no surprise that Cunningham has in fact worked with Stanley Kubrick. In art and literature 'the light' traditionally represents goodness and truth; in flex, while not necessarily malignant, the beam of light reveals nakedness and fear (like the apple of knowledge in the Garden of Eden).
Given time and space, I would be able to write a tome on Flex. Cunningham is an experienced maker of videos in the music industry who has brought his expertise and vision into the art world. Fabulous production and thoughtful work; no naval-gazing here, this is video as it should be.
Lorraine Whelan is an artist and writer based in Bray, Co. Wicklow.
Chris Cunningham: flex, Guinness 5th Gallery, November 2002 - January 2003
1Patrick Bade, Femme Fatale: Images of Evil and Fascinating Women, Mayflower Books, 1979
Article reproduced from CIRCA 103, Spring 2003, pp.72-73
The DVD for Rubber is Johnny accompanied with a book with graphic images that were refused to be published by some companies. The images are morphed and distorted parts of Cunningham's body. The book is considered an artist book by the company that produced the DVD. This video features the Aphex Twin song "Afx237 V7" from the album drukqs.
Rubber Johnny (2005)
Chris Cunningham has directed a view videos and commercials. The same curator (Yuko Hasegawa)who curated Pipilotti Rist into the the New York Digital Salon's tenth anniversary show Vectors in 2003. He chose Cunningham's video for Bjork's "All Is Full of Love":
"Chris Cunningham was born in Reading, England, in 1970. He now lives and works in London. Cunningham began as a teenage special effects expert, working on Alien III and Stanley Kubrick’s aborted AI project. With the help of digital technology, Cunningham reveals his extraordinary talents in the synchronization of sound and visual works that he mastered through MTV productions. His anatomical, inner analysis of human bodies and the expressions of their movement, combined with sound effects, provides visceral stimulation to viewers.
Cunningham’s obsession with anatomy is very specific. He began his career as an expert sculptor and model-maker for special effects; the theme of robots, or the genesis of new creatures, has been a consistent interest throughout his work.
All Is Full of Love is a music video created and directed by Cunningham in 1999 for Björk. This video is memorable for its stunning special effects and visual sophistication. A pure white robot is born on an assembly line. It opens Björk’s eyes and begins to sing All Is Full of Love. This video features Björk as a stunningly beautiful robot making love to a robot replica of herself. The image of the pair embracing on the assembly line represents not only the eroticism of lesbian love, but also the sensual relationship of love. After this video, Cunningham resigned from the music and commercial world and began working for the first time as a video artist."
(http://www.nydigitalsalon.org/10/artwork.php?nav=artists&artwork=66)
All Is Full Of Love (1999)
I also stumbled upon Cunningham's video for the Portishead song Only You. Apparently the technology used in this video was groundbreaking and now you can see it in cheesy hot tub commercials.
Only You (1998)
He has made other art films such as flex and Monkey Drummer and most recently the disturbing Rubber Johnny. Flex (2000) was an installation that Cunningham created for the Royal Acadamy of Art Apocalypse exhibition. This work features the music of Aphex Twin. Flex, is a video which aims to awaken one's senses through the sound of electronic music, unforgettable images of both sexual violence and breathtaking serenity.
Flex (2000)
Part one
Part two
This is an article I found online about flex and seems to best describe it.
Dublin: Chris Cunningham at 5th
Chris Cunningham: flex, 2001, video installation with sound; courtesy of
Anthony d'Offay Ltd, London who commissioned and produced flex
Sex and death sells. Apparently, this is something well-known in the commercial world of advertising but I am not sure what the logic is behind it (how could this be logical?). The human fascination with sex and death is well documented, however, and in the art world it was especially popular at the turn of the last century, in the era of the 'femme fatale'. In his book Femme Fatale: Images of Evil and Fascinating Women, Patrick Bade puts this obsession down to the prevalence of syphilis among Bohemian artists, and the romantic spirit of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.1
In flex at the Guinness 5th Gallery, Chris Cunningham deals with a variation of this theme, concentrating on sex and violence. Perhaps it is my own romanticism surging forth, but while Cunningham's variation is scarier to me, I believe it wholly relevant to the turn of the millennium: terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the ravages of AIDS form the backdrop to personal terror, as there is a growing awareness of abuse and the realisation that the 'enemy' is usually a trusted member of the community and/or family. Although I tend to be wary of exhibitions that come with a warning (as this one did), suspecting the artist and/or gallery of wanting to promote sensationalism, to be suspicious of flex would be to trivialise one of the most thought-provoking videos I have ever seen.
Before entering the gallery space, loud, electronic sound (created in collaboration with Richard D. James) is already heard. The video itself is projected onto a complete wall of the square gallery, so one is within a cinematic environment. There is a definite narrative too, so it is important to watch the complete video - which, while it emotionally may prove difficult, is visually stunning.
In a nutshell: from darkness a beam of light illuminates the naked forms of a man and woman who are first seen in the protective spoon embrace; on separating they are both overwhelmed by violence to each other, and the video ends with the woman crawling back to the embrace of the man. The video is filmed in such a way that the human forms are 'other' in that the perspective is distorted and details are too defined. What one hears is a type of hyper-realism (movement, breathing, the meeting of flesh on flesh) and the familiar Hollywood notion of a space vacuum - the impossible sound of the hollow scraping of air... While the video seems to be black and white (as a viewer I found some irony here as I thought of Guinness commercials gone terribly, terribly wrong!), there are subtle hints of colour: the man's ear and the woman's lips are pink. Both the man and woman have very fit, muscular bodies and their interaction is predicated by the white light - at some points they seem to be interrogated, their actions and violence towards each other seem to be caused by this light. Here I considered the effect of the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and with this in mind, it is no surprise that Cunningham has in fact worked with Stanley Kubrick. In art and literature 'the light' traditionally represents goodness and truth; in flex, while not necessarily malignant, the beam of light reveals nakedness and fear (like the apple of knowledge in the Garden of Eden).
Given time and space, I would be able to write a tome on Flex. Cunningham is an experienced maker of videos in the music industry who has brought his expertise and vision into the art world. Fabulous production and thoughtful work; no naval-gazing here, this is video as it should be.
Lorraine Whelan is an artist and writer based in Bray, Co. Wicklow.
Chris Cunningham: flex, Guinness 5th Gallery, November 2002 - January 2003
1Patrick Bade, Femme Fatale: Images of Evil and Fascinating Women, Mayflower Books, 1979
Article reproduced from CIRCA 103, Spring 2003, pp.72-73
The DVD for Rubber is Johnny accompanied with a book with graphic images that were refused to be published by some companies. The images are morphed and distorted parts of Cunningham's body. The book is considered an artist book by the company that produced the DVD. This video features the Aphex Twin song "Afx237 V7" from the album drukqs.
Rubber Johnny (2005)
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