art
Look up
Wow, I did not expect to be linking to a Quicktime VR (??!) movie, but here you go: a lovely scene from Kozyndan. Via @drawn. Look up!
Making music without a mask
This is, no question, my favorite new genre: the production-as-performance video. This is Pomplamoose’s Single Ladies cover, which is probably the paragon of the form so far:
Characteristics of the pro/per video:
☑ Normal duds, normal environment. No spandex, no fog machine.
☑ Gear. Lots of it.
☑ Subdivision of the video frame: overlapping tracks visualized as overlapping views.
☑ Performance! This isn’t just a hidden camera in the studio. It’s natural, it’s unpretentious—but it’s still a performance.
(In some ways, this newer Pomplamoose video is an even better example of the pro/per form, but the music is not as perfectly ear-tickling, so stick with Single Ladies.)
What I love about the approach is that it’s showing us a complicated, virtuoso performance, but making it really clear and accessible at the same time. It’s entertaining, but it’s also an exercise in demystification—which of course is exactly the opposite objective of every music video, ever. Their purpose has been to mystify, to masquerade, to mythologize in real-time.
Even live performance videos mystify in their own way: “Jeez, how did they get so good?” What I appreciate about the pro/per, at least in Pomplamoose’s hands, is that it acknowledges: Yes, to make music, you need a lot of tools, and you need a lot of tries. And I really like (maybe even need) the notion that things can be assembled. They can be built from parts, improved piece-by-piece. You don’t have to do it right the first time through. That’s what Pomplamoose seems to be saying, and showing.
I know I’ve seen some other videos in this genre, but I can’t dig any of them up… and, ha ha, searching for “production as performance” on YouTube doesn’t get you anywhere. Can you think of any?
Machine with concrete
I’ve heard this piece, created by Arthur Ganson, described several times—and every single time it makes my head spin:
He showed a video of “Machine with Concrete.” On the left an electric motor drives a worm gear at 212 revolutions a minute. A sequence of twelve 50-to-1 gear reductions slows the rotation so far that the last gear, on the right, is set in concrete. It would take over two trillion years for that gear to rotate. “Intense activity on one end, quiet stillness on the other,” Ganson said. “It’s a duality I feel in my own being.”
Also, here’s a smile-bringer. The setting is the latest Long Now lecture, and…
During the Q&A, Alexander Rose asked the full-house audience how many of them of were makers of things. Ninety percent raised their hands in joy.
Buildings and Their Not-So-Secret Identities
The Walker Art Center recently concluded a spectacular exhibit called “Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes” (they’ve helpfully catalogued the whole exhibit in a wiki; oh Walker, how I love you). Among the highlights of the exhibit was this photo collection by Paho Mann, images of former Circle K convenience stores that have been transformed into other types of businesses — tattoo parlors, Mexican restaurants, tuxedo rental places — all taken from the same distance in similar light, all bearing the Circle K’s suprisingly distinct form. (Also available as a Google Maps mashup, natch.)
I mentioned this to an architect friend, and he pointed me to the delightful NotFoolingAnybody.com: “a chronicle of bad conversions and storefronts past” — photos of former chain restaurants lightly altered to house new businesses. (Such as “China Hut,” the bastard offspring of — what else? — Pizza Hut.)
OMG I love the Web sometimes.