Documentary Arts Videos
newest 100 documentary arts videos / documentary arts widgets / media rss:

John Baldessari - I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art (1971, 135.3MB, 13:13) One of my favorite older pieces from legendary artist John Baldessari. Commissioned in 71 to make an installation piece, Baldessari couldn t make the trip and instructed students to write on the walls in his place. Inspired by their results - that they covered the gallery with this phrase - he made this video, following his usual path of pointing out irony in art. Look for follow-up pieces like Teaching A Plant The Alphabet if you have the time. Classic. Via the indispensable UbuWeb

Blackest Spot (2008, 18MB, 2:17 min.) A new installation by Jody Zellen at LA s Fringe gallery. The Blackest Spot is an interactive installation that uses Elias Canetti s seminal text Crowds and Power as its point of departure. Viewers step on floor mounted triggers to change images and sounds within the space.

Kinetocast - To Watch While Smelling Summer (2007, 8.2MB, 1:30) Kinetocast - To Watch With Any Spectacle (2007, 8MB, 1:21) Kinetocast - To Watch Feeling Betrayed (2006, 2.7MB, 0:35) Three from the wildly amusing, all too infrequently updated kinetocast. All based on the idea that these short videos can be watched as they are labeled appropriate to time or event, this entire videoblog is fairly genius conceptual work. Also worth checking out from Mack McFarland, The Portland That Was . More of these to come

MyStyle (2008, 73MB, 3:40 min.) Michael C. Place promotes MyStyle for Pritt in France. Michael is founder of BUILD.

Konono No 1 Promotional Video (2005, 14MB, 4:20 min) I was a bit wary of the rather glib Congotronics marketing surrounding the absolutely fantastic music coming from Konono No 1 and other bands (including the Kasai All Stars) from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo*** - there s so often a touch (or more) of paternalism in these things as western rock luminaries find some beautiful flower of music and well intentionedly but stupidly trample and traduce it as they make it palatable for western consumers. However I was completely won over by this article, which makes clear producer Vincent Kenis s deep knowledge of and devotion to the music and its performers. Furthermore it s the kind of scholarly yet readable account of something that one so often yearns to find on the net so rarely does. Watch the vid then read the article. I bet you end up buying some of the music. *** the much trumpeted comparison with avant-rock c is marketing horseshit of the highest order of course - why the hell should two things that have developed in virtually completely separate social, political, economic cultural circumstances be comparable in any meaningful sense simply because they share common surface features? Worse still, the comparison could be taken to imply that this music was somehow evolving towards the condition of western avant-rock..euurgh!

Lukas Blakk - Tough Enough (2006, 11.4MB, 3:41) Lovely, poignant film from Lukas Blakk, who always says such honest things, even if she s mostly too busy to post anymore.

Puppet Boy (clip) (2008, 5MB, 1:04 min.) For more than a decade, the artist and music video director Johannes Nyholm has been working on animated films about the little clay figure, Puppet Boy. In a claustrophobic chamber drama, the frustrated puppet is engaged in an endless battle against the agonies of everyday life. Nyholm’s most recent production, Puppet Boy, is a staged TV documentary. The arrogant cultural critic meets the pretentious artist, played by Nyholm, in his studio. For the final TV shoot, Nyholm dons his 40-kilo “puppet boy” outfit, impossible to take off without assistance. The atmosphere grows increasingly tense, and the TV team abruptly leaves the humiliated Nyholm, a captive of his own creation. Showing this month at the Moderna Museet - The Studio, a place for moving images and internet-based art.

Blandlands - Pressure Washer (2007, 12.1MB, 2:19) Blandlands - Roach Coach (2007, 2.9MB, 0:35) Blandlands - Collectors (2007, 11.2MB, 2:10) Three from Aaron Valdez s Blandlands.

Video Haiku - Four Frame Dance Project: Megan Mayer (2008, 22.4MB, 3:38) Second in a series of four frame dance videos from Video Haiku. Lovely, inspiring, and fun.

Pop Mantra Video Documentation #4 (2008, 51.7MB, 5:17 min) Pop Mantra Video Documentation #7 (2008, 50.5MB, 5:41 min) I like admire Curt Cloninger for his steadfastness of belief in both his religion his artistic work. He s also one of the best writers about new media around at the moment. In both theory practice he s curious, inventive, knowledgable, quirky and passionate. Unlike many in this sphere he s also not afraid to think aloud in public, to take risks. Even, (quelle horreur!), to risk appearing uncool. Recently he s been making work away from the web, some of it performative very interestingly so. Here ( I stress what you see here is the documentation, not the piece itself -a fine, but important, distinction) he repeatedly sings plays a single phrase from a popular song, in this instance Radiohead s Karma Police, for several hours. For me there are number of interesting resonances - minimalism, shamanism, the kinds of test that occur in many religious belief systems, a losing, dissolving of the self (In additon to the eponymous mantra ,there s an echo too, I think, of Sufism); but also there is the straightforward investigation*** of the mechanics of playing, of performing ( there s a fractal quality to the rather symmetric crystalline structure of popular song that makes this kind of extracting both possible immediately approachable -it s a world familiar enough to welcome us in.) The two extracts are from different ends of this marathon ( selecting typing that word just conjured another association - the dance marathons of the twenties thirties). I find this work fascinating. Fascinating affecting too. *** It s almost always a laughable misuse of the word to say investigation in an art-speak context. Here it seems correct natural.

Emergence - Locusts (2008, 233.8MB, 11:19) From celebrated MC Invincible, a docu-music-video about the history of gentrification and capitalism s destruction of communities in Detroit. Video features several local activists, including Grace Lee Boggs and (full disclosure) my good friend Ron Scott. This intense collaboration gives me chills every time I watch it. I ll let the rest speak for itself.

Grip (2007, 101 MB, 4:13 min.) Grip is a video clip for the band zZz. It is a one take, top shot video with trampoline gymnasts simulating video effects, and has been recorded live as part of the opening Nederclips , a showcase of Dutch videoclips at the Stedelijk Museum. The important criteria were that the audience at the opening would be able to witness the whole shoot, and that the videoclip would be added to the exhibition immediately after the shoot. The project developed by Roel Wouters AKA Xelor.

Morgan Schwartz - Toaster (2001, 7.3MB, 3:30) From Morgan Schwartz.

John Cage - 4:33 (2004, 47MB, 9:23 min) Wonderful video of the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Lawrence Foster giving a performance of John Cage’s notorious/ provocative/seminal/epoch-making 4:33.

3 of 7(2002, 74.7MB, 4:00 min) 4 of 7(2002, 105MB, 4:00 min) Two (from a series of seven) heartbreakingly beautiful, lump-in-the-throat-evocative lyric poems about being young, disguised as music video/documentaries. Dan Canyon is a natural filmmaker. He so is. What more to say, except nice to see Blackheef pronounced correctly? See all seven.