video
Here is an interesting short documentary about a street artist in Montreal named Roadsworth who is being prosecuted by the city. He is a little like Banksy but without the inane political bullshit. There are some interesting clips from a local radio show - a caller to the show says "City property is private property...I don't care what anyone thinks"!
All of David Shrigely's animations are now up on Youtube. Some were already on there unofficially but he has now uploaded his other videos. Here is one called Laundry
Tank.tv have some of John Latham's films on view on their website at the moment including Britannica one of my favourite pieces from the exhibition Bookish at the Lewis Glucksman. Check it out here I found this via the news section of blackletter.ie
Update - Someone has put the Britannica film up on youtube. Here it is:
A video shot through a coin operated telescope at Wexford harbour.
Stills from Sofia Hultén's video Events with Unknown Outcome.
Some info on the work taken from the artist's website is below:
I placed various objects (beer crates, a blanket, ball and plastic bag) in the park surrounding the last border watchtower still standing since the GDR in Berlin. I secretly videotaped whatever happened to the objects from the vantage point of the tower.
More work by this artist can be found on her website
Here is a link to a website called factualTV where you can view various documentaries for free. In the art section there are videos on Tony Cragg, Anish Kapoor, Martin Creed, Michael Landy, Mona Hatoum, Mark Wallinger, Rachel Whiteread, Helen Chadwich, Richard Deacon, Vong Phaophanit, and others.
A documentary about William Kentridge.
History of the Main Complaint by William Kentridge
The TATE have 75 short videos about a range of artists on YouTube. A lot of them are based around interviews with the artists and provide some interesting insights into their creative processes. It's a good way to waste a day. You can view them here
via boingboing
Apple approached Christian Marclay to use his video Telephones for an iphone ad. He refused so they decided to rip-off his idea. Marclay's video used short clips featuring phone calls from classic Hollywood films. He decided it was unwise to sue Apple in part because he has used his clips without permission. But the obvious difference between the 2 cases of copyright infringement is that Marclay montaged the existing material together to create something new whereas Apple have just copied Marclay's idea. Here are two youtube videos the first showing a clip from Marclay's film from a documentary about his work and the other showing the rip-off ad.
This story comes from the ny times
Cornstarch mixed with water - made to "dance" by bass.
Today I visited the Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum in which is one of the venues for the Berlin Biennal. I have not been at all impressed by the Biennal though I enjoyed two pieces at the sculpture park - a sound piece by Susan Hiller and a video by Lars Laumann about a Swedish woman who is in love with the Berlin Wall and claims to be married to "him". Here they are pictured together.
At first I found Laumann's film a little funny. The subject of the film who refers to herself as Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer says things like "This is my husband...his job was to divide East and West Berlin. He's retired now." However as the film progressed I found my self feeling more and more uneasy and disturbed by what I heard.
I felt a mixture of pity and anger towards this woman. Pity because she has convinced herself that the Berlin Wall loves her and has closed herself to the possibility of being in a real, mutually loving relationship. This delusional relationship with the wall is perhaps motivated by fear of rejection or the trauma caused by a childhood rejection - a person can tell you they don't love you but a wall cannot.
The only other person in Mrs. Berliner-Mauer's life who is featured in the video is an American woman who she has met through the internet. This other woman is also in love with the wall. As you can imagine this caused some friction. They were able to justify their love for the same object as Ms. Berliner-Mauer fell in love with the complete wall in the 60s whereas the American woman fell in love with the wall post-unification. I imagine these woman are very good at justifying the illogical to themselves.
I felt angry when she spoke of the Berlin Wall entirely disconnected from its political and ideological function. She says she is "not interested in politics". She spoke of the distruction of the wall as a tragedy and showed complete disregard for the impact her "husband" had on other people's lives. I was also angered by the fact that she is deluding herself and missing out on an important part of life. Though in retrospect it seems unfair to be angry with someone who clearly has a mental illness.
She seems to be and claims to be happy with her situation. Maybe she is and maybe I should not criticise her for that. She says in the video that she is not hurting anyone with her love of the wall. This is hard to argue with though she may be harming herself with her delusions.
Her website can be found at http://berlinermauer.se/
There's more on youtube if you look (actually there's more there whether you look or not)
A documentary on youtube about Seamus Nolan's Hotel Ballymun project
