Conceptual Videos

Stand-up comedian Chris Martin riffs on the hazards of sharing the same name with a famous rock star, Edgar Allen Poe, Ellen DeGeneres, Harrison Ford, Teddy Kennedy, Jesus and Twitter at the Chortle Barn in Mechanicsville, VA October 29, 2009. Distributed by Tubemogul.

10365282 (2009, 1 MB, 14 sec) 10366629 (2009, 7 MB, 1:26 min) Here s the blurb: In a wilderness at the heart of Berlin a strange apparition has landed. Simon Faithfull’s Mobile Research Station no.1 is a curious hybrid – half hi-tech Antarctic Research Station / half rusty-broken-dumpster. Using a standard building-waste container as its basis, the station nevertheless forms a luxurious designer-pod provided for an eccentric set of researchers. Rather than researching the frozen wastes of Antarctica or the moons of Saturn, the invited artist/researchers have begun their investigation into the surrounding wilderness and urban zones of uncertainty that still lie at the centre of Berlin. There initial findings and questions can be found in this blog as and when they happen. I really liked Simon Faithfull s recent show at the BFI. He does something genuinely witty engaging with the kind of play-acted science * that seems to be so in vogue with artists at the moment. This project has similar premises but it doesn t resonate in the same way. Of all the work up on the site these two little movies by Tim Knowles detained me the longest although it s a shame they weren t made with more care (perhaps, though, there s a deluxe DVD edition for sale somewhere along the line..) They do look nice though. * It sounds entirely dismissive but it s not meant to be. Well, not entirely. If I had to enlarge I d say it was an attempt to enlist a kind of sympathetic magic whereby some of the presumed authenticity of science rubs off on the artists work. But of course because we re all ironists now we re all quite aware that there s a kind of Tati-ish, childlike going-through-the-motions-of-science actually going on ( ooh those artists!) presumably it s in this disjuncture that the art purportedly emerges. With Faithfull (and Knowles) the results at least are visually engaging and to an extent affecting if not particularly deep. OK. Fine. But just how many times round do we go before it becomes the most painful of clichés?

You've seen how Java works, and you've seen your program as a network of roads. But how do strings work? How does Java "see" your strings? Learn all that and more in this visual presentation of strings.

As I shook a tree branch to capture Honey Locust Seed Pods rattling, a stranger stepped up and volunteered to shake so I could concentrate on my video making. For the full story, please visit: http://johnnordell.blogspot.com/search/label/Video

to the young, youth (195?/2008, 13 MB, 2:04 min) Poignant beautiful work from DVblog contributor Brian Gibson gently quirkily re-configuring footage shot by his late grandfather on a European visit in the 50s. Brian s work is always striking, always affecting, but the secret extra ingredient is the luminous intelligence underlying everything he does.