Sunday, August 31, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
National Center for Experiments in Television
"Machines that show the human organism itself as a working model may eventually destroy the need for psychology as we know it today." -Les Levine
"A medium is available. A very sophisticated, complex technology which human beings invested is available to us. It is dumb, inarticulate, contains no magic. It is available and manageable and probably stunningly beautiful when managed by graceful people who are bent on acts of expression.... This newer medium is swift in nature. It demands a new kind of perception. It moves like light sparked into life as through a nervous prism. It is another paint, another dance, another music of sound. Another message meant to catch the quick vision of the inner eye."
Brice Howard, Videospace, 1972
The above videos are parts 2 & 3 of a six segment video, all of which are available on youtube for your viewing pleasure if you're interested.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
you're gonna miss me.
edit: i just realized that this isn't the documentary that i watched but rather one from 1983. probably still interesting but i haven't watched it yet. still try to get your hands on the 2005 documentary if it's at all possible.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
This is the visual component to an article that seems interesting (I have only read the first page), but I wanted to post it before I forgot because this website is really great. I'm pasting it twice because I have yet to get links to work.
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/overview_of_media_art/massmedia/visualsummary/
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/overview_of_media_art/massmedia/visualsummary/
This video is a tribute to some men and one woman of the avant-garde (circa Fluxus). In my mind they are rock stars artistified, so I thought it would be a fitting post. Plus, towards the end it gets very TV heavy. I do have to say that among the others, Joseph Beuys seems to be the biggest rock star, and might be someone to look to for character inspiration...maybe for the Glue Boiler more than anyone else, though. Also, Charlotte Moorman was incarcerated for public indecency after Opera Sextronique (which is shown briefly), and became known as the Topless Cellist. Afterwards she went on several national talk shows to discuss the incident. I'm sure those interviews are hilarious, but again, I haven't been able to find any, so if you have any luck...get to posting.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
More on TV As A Creative Medium
The following are my favorite excerpts from the exhibition brochure, but if you have the time it is a very interesting read (). There are links to quicktime files of some of the videos that were at the exhibition, but neither Frank nor I could get them to work on our computaters. Maybe you guys will have some luck. I think all of this might be useful to think about in terms of manipulating people on a massive scale and through images and sounds, and in subverting that sort of mass control by exploiting the same mechanisms. In case you have not already checked it out, I am getting most of this information from , which is an informational goldmine. Anyways...
"Ever since Marshall McLuhan has become a household name, people have become aware of the tremendous force, both actual and potential; that TV is having and will have on their lives.
The machine is obsolescent. Magazines, books, newspapers and other publications making use of the written word as we have known it are threatened. The relationships of nations, classes, generations and individuals are deeply affected. Education will be revolutionized, schools transformed if not eliminated (why interrupt your child’s education by sending him to school?). TV is at the cause, or at least at the root of the cause, of all of these changes that are transforming our civilization.
Why has not art been affected by this pervading influence? Perhaps quite simply because, up until now the time was not right. Perhaps it had to await the maturing of the generation who were in their sub-teens in the 1950’s, those who were “brought up” on TV. They read 'do-it-yourself' books on how to make radios and TVs. They earned pocket money repairing the neighbor's broken sets. Or they were trained in the technology while they were in the armed forces. As in every generation, some were artists. These have been at work for two, three, five and even more years, scrounging around second hand shops for parts, working with TV because they were fascinated by the results they were able to achieve, and because they sensed the potential of TV as the medium for their expression." -Howard Wise
“The real issue implied in ‘Art and Technology’ is not to make another scientific toy, but how to humanize the technology and the electronic medium, which is progressing rapidly—too rapidly. Progress has already outstripped ability to program. I would suggest ‘Silent TV Station.’ This is TV station for highbrows, which transmits most of time only beautiful ‘mood art’ in the sense of ‘mood music.’ What I am aiming at is TV cersion of Vivaldi…or electronic ‘Compoz,’ to soothe every hysteric woman through air, and to calm down the nervous tension of every businessman through air. In that way ‘Light Art’ will become a permanent asset or even collection of Million people. SILENT TV Station will simply be ‘there,’ not intruding on other activities…and being looked at exactly like a landscape…or beautiful bathing nude of Renoir, and in that case, everybody enjoys the ‘original’…and not a reproduction…
‘TV Brassiere for Living Sculpture (Charlotte Moorman) is also one sharp example to humanize electronics…and technology. By using TV as bra…the most intimate belonging of human being, we will demonstrate the human use of technology, and also stimulate viewers NOT for something mean but stimulate their phantasy to look for the new, imaginative and humanistic ways of using our technology.’” –Nam June Paik
AC/TV (AUDIO-CONTROLLED TELEVISION)
“As a child I would often close my eyes and ‘see’ music as colored patterns. One day two years ago, I woke up in the middle of a dream with an intense desire to recreate this experience electronically. This developed into an obsession, and I created dozens of Audio Controlled lighting effects, culminating in a work in which the speed of a motor was controlled by music.
As soon as I became aware of the Color Cathode Ray Tube, I realized that the red, blue and green guns in the CRT were ideally suited for audio control by the low, middle and high frequencies of music.
I view the Color Television receiver as one of the highest technological achievements of mankind, and the fact that it is generally used to transmit sub-human material points out in dramatic fashion the imbalance between man’s technological and social progress. The AC/TV is radical art because it allows the viewer to turn off the endless stream of garbage and use his Color TV in a personal aesthetically satisfying way.” –Joe Weintraub
P.S. I don't think that any of the links I am adding are working. I'll figure it out eventually.
"Ever since Marshall McLuhan has become a household name, people have become aware of the tremendous force, both actual and potential; that TV is having and will have on their lives.
The machine is obsolescent. Magazines, books, newspapers and other publications making use of the written word as we have known it are threatened. The relationships of nations, classes, generations and individuals are deeply affected. Education will be revolutionized, schools transformed if not eliminated (why interrupt your child’s education by sending him to school?). TV is at the cause, or at least at the root of the cause, of all of these changes that are transforming our civilization.
Why has not art been affected by this pervading influence? Perhaps quite simply because, up until now the time was not right. Perhaps it had to await the maturing of the generation who were in their sub-teens in the 1950’s, those who were “brought up” on TV. They read 'do-it-yourself' books on how to make radios and TVs. They earned pocket money repairing the neighbor's broken sets. Or they were trained in the technology while they were in the armed forces. As in every generation, some were artists. These have been at work for two, three, five and even more years, scrounging around second hand shops for parts, working with TV because they were fascinated by the results they were able to achieve, and because they sensed the potential of TV as the medium for their expression." -Howard Wise
“The real issue implied in ‘Art and Technology’ is not to make another scientific toy, but how to humanize the technology and the electronic medium, which is progressing rapidly—too rapidly. Progress has already outstripped ability to program. I would suggest ‘Silent TV Station.’ This is TV station for highbrows, which transmits most of time only beautiful ‘mood art’ in the sense of ‘mood music.’ What I am aiming at is TV cersion of Vivaldi…or electronic ‘Compoz,’ to soothe every hysteric woman through air, and to calm down the nervous tension of every businessman through air. In that way ‘Light Art’ will become a permanent asset or even collection of Million people. SILENT TV Station will simply be ‘there,’ not intruding on other activities…and being looked at exactly like a landscape…or beautiful bathing nude of Renoir, and in that case, everybody enjoys the ‘original’…and not a reproduction…
‘TV Brassiere for Living Sculpture (Charlotte Moorman) is also one sharp example to humanize electronics…and technology. By using TV as bra…the most intimate belonging of human being, we will demonstrate the human use of technology, and also stimulate viewers NOT for something mean but stimulate their phantasy to look for the new, imaginative and humanistic ways of using our technology.’” –Nam June Paik
AC/TV (AUDIO-CONTROLLED TELEVISION)
“As a child I would often close my eyes and ‘see’ music as colored patterns. One day two years ago, I woke up in the middle of a dream with an intense desire to recreate this experience electronically. This developed into an obsession, and I created dozens of Audio Controlled lighting effects, culminating in a work in which the speed of a motor was controlled by music.
As soon as I became aware of the Color Cathode Ray Tube, I realized that the red, blue and green guns in the CRT were ideally suited for audio control by the low, middle and high frequencies of music.
I view the Color Television receiver as one of the highest technological achievements of mankind, and the fact that it is generally used to transmit sub-human material points out in dramatic fashion the imbalance between man’s technological and social progress. The AC/TV is radical art because it allows the viewer to turn off the endless stream of garbage and use his Color TV in a personal aesthetically satisfying way.” –Joe Weintraub
P.S. I don't think that any of the links I am adding are working. I'll figure it out eventually.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
TV is Art, or The Medium is the Medium
The first generation of "television babies" is now reaching maturity.
The average American home has one and one-third television sets; American homes have more television sets than bathtubs, refrigerators or telephones; 95 percent of American homes have television sets; portable video-tape equipment for home use is available to the general public right now...The generation which has grown up with television and other sophisticated media has evolved a new perception in processing information.
A process-level analysis of the art experience is concerned with art as a process of perception, a way of experiencing, how one sees rather than what one sees. Therefore the concept of art becomes an inclusive one, and everything is or isn't art, according
to one's experience...Looking at TV for fixed periods of time, as if in a theater of
movie, denies its function as a continuous flow of assorted information to be processed by the individual according to his perception. Television can become part of a regular like style, a fabric of individual perception, a super-real reflection or the city, country, world.
Television has made multiple focus acceptable; as a result we can see many different focal planes all at once. We can go from one focus to another and refocus all at once. When you focus your eyes from one thing to another, it’s necessary not to keep any one thing in focus too long, otherwise you can’t immediately change to another."
Art, therefore, becomes a two-step process-formulation or creation of an idea
and communication of this idea -- and the two steps are inextricable related. At the level of communication, the importance of the idea is linked to the number of people who can experience the idea. So it is quite logical for the artists to seek out the greatest audience possible, and to wind up in the field of television...In communicating information, television not only translates images, but transforms them into a unique and powerful superreality which has an independent life.
The above are quotes from TV-The Next Medium, by John S. Margolies(Full Article: ), which was a review of the 1969 exhibition, TV As A Creative Medium, which notably was the first show dedicated to television and video art in the US, and also marked the end of Kinetic Art. I thought it would be interesting to look at television specifically used for art in conjunction with all of the musical performances and bizarre televised interviews that we've been watching. More on this later, though, because I am being beckoned to watch If..., which I highly recommend if you haven't already seen it. Talk about a revolution.
The average American home has one and one-third television sets; American homes have more television sets than bathtubs, refrigerators or telephones; 95 percent of American homes have television sets; portable video-tape equipment for home use is available to the general public right now...The generation which has grown up with television and other sophisticated media has evolved a new perception in processing information.
A process-level analysis of the art experience is concerned with art as a process of perception, a way of experiencing, how one sees rather than what one sees. Therefore the concept of art becomes an inclusive one, and everything is or isn't art, according
to one's experience...Looking at TV for fixed periods of time, as if in a theater of
movie, denies its function as a continuous flow of assorted information to be processed by the individual according to his perception. Television can become part of a regular like style, a fabric of individual perception, a super-real reflection or the city, country, world.
Television has made multiple focus acceptable; as a result we can see many different focal planes all at once. We can go from one focus to another and refocus all at once. When you focus your eyes from one thing to another, it’s necessary not to keep any one thing in focus too long, otherwise you can’t immediately change to another."
Art, therefore, becomes a two-step process-formulation or creation of an idea
and communication of this idea -- and the two steps are inextricable related. At the level of communication, the importance of the idea is linked to the number of people who can experience the idea. So it is quite logical for the artists to seek out the greatest audience possible, and to wind up in the field of television...In communicating information, television not only translates images, but transforms them into a unique and powerful superreality which has an independent life.
The above are quotes from TV-The Next Medium, by John S. Margolies(Full Article: ), which was a review of the 1969 exhibition, TV As A Creative Medium, which notably was the first show dedicated to television and video art in the US, and also marked the end of Kinetic Art. I thought it would be interesting to look at television specifically used for art in conjunction with all of the musical performances and bizarre televised interviews that we've been watching. More on this later, though, because I am being beckoned to watch If..., which I highly recommend if you haven't already seen it. Talk about a revolution.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Moondog/Sun Ra
Do you like Moondog?
Ignore the visuals.
Do you like Sun Ra?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Un6pmJK_ZE&feature=related
^
i
i
i
i
This i is awesome, not allowed to embed it, but check it out.
Do you like football?
Ignore the visuals.
Do you like Sun Ra?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Un6pmJK_ZE&feature=related
^
i
i
i
i
This i is awesome, not allowed to embed it, but check it out.
Do you like football?
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Here is a great episode of Dick Cavett with the guys from Husbands. It's a bit long, but it's worth sitting down and watching it all. Also, it would be really helpful to watch this in conjunction with Husbands. So here it is, complete with commercials (which would be a nice addition to the film, commercials between False Media, any ideas?).
casual thursday
this video has nothing at all to do with Low basic. I just think it's creepy, weird and makes me giggle. let your hair down and enjoy some phil collins...
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
why are you bleeding?
i can't believe we haven't posted any iggy pop yet. here's a televised performance of the stooges playing TV eye at the cincinnati pop festival in 1970.
the announcer cracks me up. everyone in my office turned to see what i was laughing at when he says "that's peanut butter!"...
here's a great interview with tom snyder...
i think "if you toned it down a little do you think you'd have a wider audience...why are you bleeding?" sums up iggy pop perfectly.
this next one's a little on the long side and the video lags but it's interesting.
the announcer cracks me up. everyone in my office turned to see what i was laughing at when he says "that's peanut butter!"...
here's a great interview with tom snyder...
i think "if you toned it down a little do you think you'd have a wider audience...why are you bleeding?" sums up iggy pop perfectly.
this next one's a little on the long side and the video lags but it's interesting.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
I think the blog is really blossoming. There is some really great stuff here. One thing that keeps catching my attention is this juxtaposition between footage of live performances and televised ones. I know this is obvious, but the live ones are just explosive and the televised ones usually seemed contained, or neutered, even when the bands are trying desperately to bust through the screens.
I guess I've been thinking a lot about what does it really take to deliver a solid punk performance when you're trapped in a box with knobs on it, and there are a lot of guys who obviously don't understand you at all or have any idea how you work pointing lights and cameras at you, and some fat pervert has created these swirling checkerboard graphics on his computer to spaz out behind you, because he thinks it really captures what you;re all about. It just seems humiliating and likely knocks the musicians way the fuck out of their comfort zones.
I mean, I guess someone like Madonna or Dashbored are good at being on T.V., but that's sort of what they were made to do in the first place. How long can you go on like that and take yourself seriously? You'd probably have to be really good at denial. And then there are guys like Mudhoney who just look so uncomfortable it deflates whatever good music they make...it's just so insincere for them. There's this weird balance with performers between taking yourself too seriously and not taking yourself seriously enough. For example, the dude in Flipper, I get the impression he is trying too hard not to try, and he sucks because of it (in my opinion), but if you try too hard to look good on T.V. you also come off the d-bag, if you're Dashbored and you're talking about why it's so awesome working on Laguna Beach immediately nobody whose opinion is worth anything can ever take you seriously again, and you have to beg MtV to let you keep working on Laguna Beach for the rest of your life (incidentally I kept imaging a guy in a giant foam MTV mascot white gloves and all pointing a gun at Chris just off camera while he sweated and talked about why Laguna Beach rocks.)
What do you do in a situation like that? Do you turn down being on T.V.? Do you play along? Do you pretend like you are going to play along and then do your own thing? Sometimes seeing your favorite band on T.V. is almost like a subversive experience, the show is so contained and planned and well-rehearsed and then your band comes along and fucks the show hard in the ear so the brain squirts out the other side. This has only happened to me once or twice, and it's usually the first time of heard about that band (remember the days when you could learn about a band by watching the TV???). Usually watching your band play on T>v is a very deflating experience. What did that ant-semetic poet say, a whimper and not a bang or whatever...can you imagine deflating The Wipers of their bang, and reducing them to a whimper? I bet you T.V. could do it.
And what happens when the television comes at you wearing the skin of your friend, and convinces you that you can trust him? he controls everything, even reality, so even the truths you know inside yourself aren't true if he says they aren't.
Gonna start writing the latest draft tomorrow.
The Dark Knight is a masterpiece.
I guess I've been thinking a lot about what does it really take to deliver a solid punk performance when you're trapped in a box with knobs on it, and there are a lot of guys who obviously don't understand you at all or have any idea how you work pointing lights and cameras at you, and some fat pervert has created these swirling checkerboard graphics on his computer to spaz out behind you, because he thinks it really captures what you;re all about. It just seems humiliating and likely knocks the musicians way the fuck out of their comfort zones.
I mean, I guess someone like Madonna or Dashbored are good at being on T.V., but that's sort of what they were made to do in the first place. How long can you go on like that and take yourself seriously? You'd probably have to be really good at denial. And then there are guys like Mudhoney who just look so uncomfortable it deflates whatever good music they make...it's just so insincere for them. There's this weird balance with performers between taking yourself too seriously and not taking yourself seriously enough. For example, the dude in Flipper, I get the impression he is trying too hard not to try, and he sucks because of it (in my opinion), but if you try too hard to look good on T.V. you also come off the d-bag, if you're Dashbored and you're talking about why it's so awesome working on Laguna Beach immediately nobody whose opinion is worth anything can ever take you seriously again, and you have to beg MtV to let you keep working on Laguna Beach for the rest of your life (incidentally I kept imaging a guy in a giant foam MTV mascot white gloves and all pointing a gun at Chris just off camera while he sweated and talked about why Laguna Beach rocks.)
What do you do in a situation like that? Do you turn down being on T.V.? Do you play along? Do you pretend like you are going to play along and then do your own thing? Sometimes seeing your favorite band on T.V. is almost like a subversive experience, the show is so contained and planned and well-rehearsed and then your band comes along and fucks the show hard in the ear so the brain squirts out the other side. This has only happened to me once or twice, and it's usually the first time of heard about that band (remember the days when you could learn about a band by watching the TV???). Usually watching your band play on T>v is a very deflating experience. What did that ant-semetic poet say, a whimper and not a bang or whatever...can you imagine deflating The Wipers of their bang, and reducing them to a whimper? I bet you T.V. could do it.
And what happens when the television comes at you wearing the skin of your friend, and convinces you that you can trust him? he controls everything, even reality, so even the truths you know inside yourself aren't true if he says they aren't.
Gonna start writing the latest draft tomorrow.
The Dark Knight is a masterpiece.
checkerboard mountain
some interesting set design in this mudhoney video along the lines of the nirvana performance i posted a while ago.
there's something really intriguing to me about placing each band member on a different podium. it seems so divisive. the point seems to be to call attention to each member of the band individually rather than as a cohesive unit. the only other podium instance that came to mind was the final scene in that thing you do (shut up, i like that movie) so here's a crappy picture of that.
this design is an interesting idea to think about as a way to highlight the fractured relationship between me and thomas. mostly i just think it'd be fun to get worked up in the performance, jump off, destroy the set and start yelling "Low basic!"
there's something really intriguing to me about placing each band member on a different podium. it seems so divisive. the point seems to be to call attention to each member of the band individually rather than as a cohesive unit. the only other podium instance that came to mind was the final scene in that thing you do (shut up, i like that movie) so here's a crappy picture of that.
this design is an interesting idea to think about as a way to highlight the fractured relationship between me and thomas. mostly i just think it'd be fun to get worked up in the performance, jump off, destroy the set and start yelling "Low basic!"
Avengers and Flipper
Here are three videos by the band The Avengers and one by Flipper, both are late 70s SF bands. I'm especially intrigued by Flipper's lead singer, the way he spends most of his performance wandering the stage, back to the audience, smoking and drinking a beer. Does he not give a shit or is that just his shtick? The Avengers on the other hand seem like they're having a grand ol' time.
p.s. Thanks to Max for the Avengers tip.
Avengers
Avengers
Avengers
Flipper
p.s. Thanks to Max for the Avengers tip.
Avengers
Avengers
Avengers
Flipper
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
8 Miles High
So I ignorantly thought that the song "8 miles High" was written by this band called The Index (download their album HERE), but it turns out that they're actually covering a song by the Byrds who I hate, or thought I hated. The Index's version is better, but the Byrds have this sweet video. Then I discovered the video below: Husker Du doing the same Byrds song at the Pink Pop festival in 1987. Those dudes play it fucking loud.
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