Another
week filled with films, slowly consuming everything and anything in order to
regurgitate any scrap of useful information at a later interval. I’ve gotten
around to catching up on a bunch of films that I definitely should have watched
by now, but have continually put off, either due to knowing a particular plot
point already or to the extortionate length of said films turning the watching
into a commitment within itself.
For
art, it’s been a very slow week, with not a lot occurring. I’ve been looking
into purchasing a micro-computer, one that’s about the same size as a USB
stick, in order to create desktop assemblages. This could be looked at as an
extension of my Internet Surveillance,
Inc. series, but in contrast to printed material the works would comprise
of whole computer systems dedicated to the individual pieces. Cory Arcangel’s
use of the Mac mini inspired this idea, to have the art as a whole computer
rather than simply the .mov file or a jpeg image. This format would be used for
the ideas that I’m currently working on for the repetitive biking game video that’s
displayed alongside Samsara. I’m
currently considering what else would be in this assemblage, and whether to
just have one or multiple in a series of computer based works.
In
contrast to this, I could instead make very simple assemblages that come back
to the ideas surrounding the differences between the real and the virtual,
contrasting one video with another using the desktop computer as a meeting
space and medium for the files to function within. Maybe simple is the way to
go, whilst highlighting the various media players’ designs, making artwork
using found imagery and harnessing the inherent qualities of programs that aren’t
necessarily designed to be seen as art. Although having the beginning of a work’s
idea being that you simply want to explore the differences between how
something is portrayed in the real vs the virtual may be too simple? Off the
top of my head these could be various things, from walking around Los Angeles in
real life being contrasted with Los Angeles in GTA 5, chopping down trees in
games vs in reality, etc. I’ll have to think about it…
I
think that’s all there is that’s going on in the ‘art section’ of my life,
which is a shame. Fortunately, this weekend I’m going to the Berlin Biennale,
which I’m incredibly excited about. So hopefully when I get back from that I’ll
be full of ideas and inspiration.
The
rest of this will probably be running through all the films I’ve been watching.
The first film which was a simply lovely experience was The Secret Life of Pets. High quality voice acting and animations
alongside an interesting cast of characters, both subverting and conforming to
the stereotypes that are usually associated with anthropomorphic animals. A
really nice film…
I
was kind of disappointed in Blackhat,
all the fight scenes seemed really b-movie esque. Even though the story was
fine, the lacklustre camera work continually took me away from what was
happening on screen. By the end I was just bored and wanted it to be over; I
wanted it to be better.
In
terms of films that I’ve never seen before but should have; The Goonies. It has not aged well, or I
just should have seen it when I was 11. Either way, I was just bored by the PG
nature of the whole thing.
I
also finally watched The Machinist,
an interesting film. Obviously aesthetically it was quite awesome, with
Christian Bale’s transformation into a bag of bones something to be astonished
by. The story being a slow descent into madness, reminding me of Memento especially.
Continuing
onwards with my journey into absurdness, I watched another film in Roy Anderson’s
epic trilogy, Songs from the Second Floor.
Equally as beautiful and crazed as A
Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, I now only need to watch
the second in the series, You, the Living.
I realise I’ve watched them all in a very weird way, but if you’ve seen them
you’ll understand that it doesn’t really matter. I just recommend that you find
the time to watch at least one of these epic metaphorical masterpieces.
I
caught up with two films that have been continually spoiled for me due to referencing
in other films or tv shows. The first being The
Sixth Sense, which was vaguely okay. Although I knew the ending before I
even watched the film, I don’t know how anyone could have watched the whole
thing without realising ‘it’ by the end. ‘It’ was just so obvious. For me, as I
already knew the ending, it just reinforced my annoyance with the film. I did
enjoy how, as opposed to say in Fight
Club, the film allowed you to work ‘it’ out via clues, but the clues were
so obvious that anyone could have worked ‘it’ out.
Another
film that I should have watched before it was spoiled for me multiple times in
advance; Shutter Island, which was
slightly frustrating. It does allow you to watch the film a second time without
having watched it for the first time, if you get what I mean, but is that that
much fun anyway? The film was good, although I prefer The Ninth Configuration, a very similar film by William Peter
Blatty; a lot crazier and absurd than this ‘newer version’.
I
watched all of the Before trilogy,
another thing that I’ve been meaning to watch. I’ve been a big fan of Linklater
for a while, so in order to call myself that I thought I should at least watch
these series of films. They were quite beautiful, with my favourite being the
first of the trilogy, simply due to the blind naivety of the two characters
which was lost in the later films (which is as it should be), alongside the
roaming camera winding through those European streets. All three of the films
were simply lovely, full of intellectual dialogue and mindless bullshit.
The
Book of Life is another beautiful child friendly film that tells a ‘nice’
story, with colourful animations and a fairly exciting Romeo and Juliet type
sub plot. I enjoyed it for what it was.
There Will Be Blood is another of these films that I’ve always meant
to watch. The whole experience was breath-taking, watching Daniel Day-Lewis gradually
change and contort into a husk of a man, with capitalism slowly oozing and
infecting everything that it came into contact with, was simply astonishing; both
the beginning and ending scenes demonstrating what one will do for and in spite
of money. Quite incredible. I’ve now seen all of Paul Thomas Anderson’s feature
films, which just makes me wanting for another.
Black Swan
was quite good, I kind of wanted it to be more of a mind fuck than it was, with
only the ending just beginning to get seriously messed up. It does show that
Natalie Portman can be very good when she’s pushed to.
The Purge
was okay, more of an interesting concept than anything. I think I just wanted
more Ethan Hawke in my life after watching so much of him in the previous days.
I doubt I’ll be watching any of the sequels.
The King’s Speech
was very well done, making me care about what was happening which is an
impressive feat within itself.
Finally,
I managed to watch Son of Saul. A
deeply distressing film based in 1944 in an Auschitz concentration camp and centred
on a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of the dead. What I gained from the
film, rather than being incredibly horrified, was how rushed and hurried
everything was, how no one knew what the fuck was going on. For the majority of
the film the protagonist simply walks around, being forced into various jobs
whilst blindly walking into a conspiracy that he doesn’t seem to care one way
or the other about. It was a very good film and seemed to capture this terrible
moment in history very well whilst harnessing an interesting ‘over the shoulder’
filming technique.
In
terms of tv, I’ve been ‘shopping around’ for a new series to get into. I watched
a few episodes of Horace and Pete,
starring Louis C.K. and Steve Buscemi as bar owners in New York, which is
everything you’d expect from a comedy drama written by Louis C.K. based in a
bar!
I
also began watching Morel Orel, a
cartoon focused on a deeply religious child who inadvertently gets himself into
trouble as he takes various Christian sermons a little too literally. This
religious parody works well with the Claymation aesthetic, similar to Robot
Chicken but even more satirical as its focus is on religion. This is fun as a
little thing on the side.
Hannibal is
another series that I’m not fully into yet, at the moment it feels a little too
like Dexter, a series that I mostly
regret watching. Although you can’t not enjoy Mads Mikkelsen’s deadpan stare.
In
other, non tv related news, I finally have a house that I’m going to live in
during the upcoming academic year. This is exciting within itself, alongside the
fact that it’s in New Cross which is good; lots of things happening, etc…
As
mentioned earlier, I’m going to Berlin this weekend for the biennale which is
very exciting. So many of my favourite artists have work being shown; Jon
Rafman, Simon Denny, Timur Si-Qin, Hito Steyerl, Josh Kline… The list simply goes
on. I’ve also never been to Berlin, so it’ll be really interesting simply to go
and experience the city, alongside all this amazing art.
So
I think that’s my week of lounging around basically. Not a lot of stuff occurred
which was a bit of a shame, but as I keep saying, it is the holidays… Which is
very slowly dwindling away in front of my face.
Oh
and this week’s isthisit? went well,
featuring three artists and focusing on ‘the internet’ as a general theme.
Neale Willis’ video/sound piece was created from the sounds of deleted tweets;
which is interesting within itself! This was put together with a painting by
Stacey Davidson, who’s practice is loosely inspired by internet memes and
internet culture in general. They’re a mixture of found imagery attached to the
canvas alongside very subtle mark making. The final work to accompany these two
was a gif by Servgi Tan, a self-portrait of herself which to me looks as if she’s
blindly looking into her computer screen, watching a film or consuming her
daily dose of social media whilst slowly falling asleep. Is she tired because
of the endless memes and tweets? Or is it something else? I don’t know, but you
can see for yourself here: http://isthis.wixsite.com/isthisit
I’m
really enjoying this curatorial process, which is making me want to do
something else like this, be it curating an exhibition AFK or otherwise… Or
maybe just another internet based exhibition with more of a theme based
approach? Maybe I’ll look into it... Anyway.
Enjoi.
Instagram:
bob.bk1
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