Videos for the weekend
The first of this week’s videos – which, by the way, is totally delightful and should be watched now – is discussed by the academic Jason Mittell in his post The Scared is Spread at his essential blog Just TV:
My perspective on this video is unique, as it was made by my student Bianca Giaever as her final project at Middlebury before graduating last week, and I was the project’s adviser… The bulk of [Bianca’s] creative background was in audio production for radio, and oral storytelling… In the fall semester, she made Holy Cow Lisa, an excellent project in her Video Production course that took an audio interview and ‘visualized’ it through creative & playful video footage. She wanted to see if she could make another project in that vein as a kind-of ‘proof of concept’ that illustrated audio stories could work as a format – the result was…
At the time of writing, The Scared is scared has attracted more than 230,000 views on Vimeo and, as Mittell details, extensive discussion and highlighting on other blogs. He continues:
I also watch it spread from the meta-perspective of a scholar of digital media, which raises numerous questions. What does it mean to traditional educational hierarchies to have a student’s work seen & enjoyed by thousands of people? Does spreadability matter when assessing and grading students’ work? Should we encourage students to seek spreadability as a goal, or just facilitate it as a potential byproduct of creative success? How do such accomplishments impact the reputation of the department and potentially benefit other students’ opportunities? And most immediately, how will this success help Bianca make a living after Middlebury?
2.Fabbri racconta – Un pittore alla settimana – Guttuso
For my class this week with the Critical Writing in Art & Design course at the Royal College of Art I asked students to present a film or other engagement with the visual arts that they had found online – and this was one of the highlights. It is an two-minute Italian television spot advertising Fabbri Senior brandy that simply shows the social realist painter Renato Guttuso at work on a mural. It is surprising in all sorts of ways, not least because of the Communist Guttuso’s seeming celebration of the bourgeois life-style. Apparently Fabbri made a series of such films with prominent cultural figures during the 1960s.
3. How to make an art
This is another true treat for which I have to thank the RCA students: Hennessy Youngman’s Art Thoughtz. Watch and enjoy!
4. La traviata in Graz
Peter Konwitschny’s stripped-back production of Verdi’s La traviata for English National Opera divided the critics this week (I have tickets for the end of the month). The show was first seen in Graz and this is a richly interesting Austrian television report about its presentation there, including rehearsal footage – and subtitles (with thanks to Intermezzo).
… here (in what can’t be an authorised posting) is – for the moment, at least – the show from Graz in full.
5. New Games
Part one of an engaging documentary about social and pervasive gaming filmed in the UK by the Australian Pop Up Playground‘s Robert Reid and Sayraphim Lothian…
… and this is part two.
6. Guy Bourdin location footage
The Guardian is featuring this minute-long fragment of 8mm footage shot in 1974 by photographer Guy Bourdin which is also being screened in Tate Liverpool’s newly-opened Glam! The Performance of Style exhibition. Nicola Roberts used some of this 8mm in her 1996 Dreamgirls film made for Illuminations’ BBC series Tx. Frustratingly, the footage which was shot 4:3 has been stretched here to fit a 16:9 frame but it is still fairly astonishing.
7. Obey
There is definitely a touch of Adam Curtis in this 52-minute collage doc from Studiocanoe made by artist Temujin Doran entirely from footage found on the web. ‘This is a film about you, me and the theme of obedience,’ says the opening narration, and on the film’s Vimeo page there is fuller explanation (below). The music is by Warp Records’ Clark and there are scenes that some viewers may find disturbing (via @brainpicker).
This is a film based on the book Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges. It charts the rise of the Corporate State, and examines the future of obedience in a world of unfettered capitalism, globalisation, staggering inequality and environmental change.
8. It Felt Like a Kiss
And here’s the work of the man himself, Adam Curtis’ remarkable 2009 video essay about America’s post-1950s rise to power (via The Seventh Art). This was originally commissioned for an immersive theatre work with Punchdrunk at the Manchester International Festival.
9. A Year on the New York subway
Between 1938 and 1941 Walker Evans took a series of photographs on the subway and then – because he was worried about legal concerns – he kept them hidden for years. Finally published in Many Are Called in 1966, these Subway Portraits – or at least a selection of them – can be found here, courtesy of untappednewyork. This simple and charming three-minute film by Rebecca Davis is the modern-day equivalent (via Slate’s culture blog browbeat).
10. Honest Trailers: Skyfall
And finally, you’ll love this…
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