My sculptural video installation, titled capturing velocity, was included in the Montana Triennial this year. In the last week of the exhibition, my friend Doug Ness documented it for me. The final installation in the Missoula Art Museum looked like this.
Remember my post, the body as medium, Abramovic with a clip from the documentary about the artist, Marina Abramovic?
It plays for FREE (sponsored by HBO), TONIGHT at 6:30 PM at the Wilma Theater in Missoula, Montana and blazes the trail for a fantastic line-up of films at this year's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
Double Dare stars Jeannie Epper and Zoe Bell. The movie shows the strength, warmth and resilience of the women stunt doubles behind characters like Wonder Woman and Zena. Super heroes of their own kind, watch them totally kick ass and beat new paths in a male dominated industry while smiling and laughing along the way.
p.s. I did my own stunt work for a short movie we made on film. We did several takes that didn't end up in the final bit, of course. It was a total blast but I didn't know what I was doing. I'd like to do more stunts and before I do, I plan to learn about proper stunt work. Ouch!
I'm not recommending Sony Classics' The Lady and the Duke (released in 2001) for its story or directing (by legendary Eric Rohmer) or cinematography or performances. I couldn't even watch the movie in its entirety. I fast-forwarded. And that is something that I hardly ever ever do. I force myself to sit all the way through even the dullest of movies before I judge it. Sadly, I could not do it with this one. The tales of an Englishwoman's affairs during the French Revolution appeal to me, but this film did not bring that story to life with any strength. I didn't even hang onto the copy of the DVD to revisit the movie at a different time when I might be more in the mood. I popped it right back in the mail to Facets. And I feel vindicated for my disappointment by Stephanie Zacharek's review in Salon among others.
In the end, even though the movie overall fell short for me, I'm grateful the French New Waver, Rohmer, experimented this way, especially so late in his career. Apparently he was in his 80s when making the film.He made something smart, elegant and tempting to the eyesthat pushes the way we expect to see a motion picture.
To read more about the artist's thoughts when he, Jean Baptiste Marot, made the paintings for the movie and how they were incorporated technically (for example, note that the actors perform in front of green screens - not the actual paintings), follow this link.
For Friday Flicks, I usually post about older or obscure movies to dust them off and find what's fresh outside of the mainstream, but not this week. This Friday Flick is a black and white silent movie produced in 2011 and very hot at Cannes this year.
Hells yeah! I can't wait to see it.
Watch the trailer:
Starring Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, the cast also includes John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, and Missi Pyle. Written and Directed by Michel Hazanavicius.
Another Bill Nighy film for Friday Flicks this week, but this time with Emily Blunt, Rupert Everett and Rupert Grint and in a very different tone. A ridiculous and energetic one. The IMDB one line description: "A hitman tries to retire but a beautiful thief may change his plans." It's lightweight with several interesting and amusing turns.
This week and next we are shooting a commercial for The Love's Book of Answer's iPhone App. The fairytale story is by our wonderful intern, Cassi James. Here's some video clips of when the three of us scouted locations around Missoula. a few weeks ago Yesterday was a successful day of shooting. Even the train did it's job well. Stay tuned for the final short movie!
For the month of October, I have a show of new work titled fix yourself at The Brink Gallery in Missoula.
fix yourself features some of my efforts to pare down and seek clarity of knowledge - a moment that you look and hear and feel something that you’ve seen, heard and felt before but now you are convinced it’s a part of you.
integrating thoughts, LED lights, wire, ink and acrylic on butter papers
installing integrating thoughts
integrating thoughts, detail
the exhibition includes objects, pictures and video works. see more samples of my work here in the future and at my new blog for my artwork here.
All imagery has meaning. It's inherent, right? As does any object. Hiding messages inside imagery is as old as the hills of course. And it's everywhere, not just in art. We depend on symbols daily.
I am exploring communication through symbols and gestures in my studio. I recently discovered (from Bruce) one obscure way to turn text into symbols or hide a message called QR (Quick Response) barcodes. They won't be obscure for long, I don't think, plus they are already big in Japan (where they originate). I am seeing them more and more in the margins of magazines, as ads, signs and on the web. Have you?
Image is everything. Symbols and imagery as signage is so often more concise and simply more aesthetic than text, which so easily (and often) becomes clutter. (When text is done 'right', it is a different thing of course, but save that for another time please. And save for later another personal favorite - when symbols are more confusing than effective. Love that too.)
Today, I'm interested in how QR codes diminish text into clear tidy boxes. They aren't only to hide a message but to condense them.
In order to read the message, you need a QR reader which now is as cheap as um, freeee and as easy and portable as an iPhone app. (For any mobile device really.) There are about a dozen apps for this. I got the MAAD QR app and it works perfectly fine for me. You open the app, point the camera lens of your phone at the code and zap, it pops up a translation which could be text, a number or web link. It's super fast. So, imagine reading a magazine and instead of jotting down notes on a new solar-powered gadget or ripping out pages to save recipes, you just zap a QR code with your iPhone and you get the additional information. Plus it's handily stored so you can revisit it later. Love. This.
It's no surprise that artists are embracing the new method to add another layer of visual communication in paintings, music videos and fashion. Techno and Mod styles merge so well in QR codes. Beyond the standard bold black and white palette and hard edges, the concept alone can add a juicy layer to a piece for the avant-garde as well as Pop. Or domestically, how about hiding a message publicly in a chain-link fence? See below Kylie Minogue's video, All The Lovers, featuring some codes (and other more obvious symbols).
Beyond the artwork itself, galleries and museums (like the Mattress Factory) are using them to condense wall text - gawd isn't that refreshing? As well as use them to track art pieces just like your basic bar code does. Educators are finding handy ways to utilize them in the classroom. This site has a list of tips for creatively using QR codes. A downside for luddites is that without a reading device I can't see how a person would translate the messages with their eyes alone. So those people miss out. However more and more even luddites carry a cell phone.
The appeal of QR codes is more than just being relatively new. They offer a wonderful aesthetic compromise. They have just the right ratio of high contrast portions that a person could ignore them if they choose, and say, appreciate the art nearby, be it natural or artificial. And conversely, they are eye-catching enough to easily spot them among the clutter of the world. Can't you just see them on t-shirts?
You can put a phrase into a QR generator at this site and make your own code.
