Outer and Inner Space is a 16mm film of Edie Sedgwick sitting in front of a television monitor on which is playing a prerecorded videotape of herself. On the videotape, Edie is positioned on the left side of the frame, facing right; she is talking to an unseen person off-screen to our right.
Outer and Inner Space is a groundbreaking multimedia document. Edie Sedgwick appears to have a conversation with herself. Time is compressed into the moment and we read a face in four parts which seems to be communicating with itself.
"As spectacularly beautiful as it is a fascinating spectacle, Warhol’s spatially dynamic and dramatically lit film-and-video portrait of Sedgwick, Outer and Inner Space, 1965, is perhaps his most brilliant articulation of the schism between private self and public image, as well as a further exploration of the serial imagery in his paintings. Shot during the summer of 1965, publicly screened in 1966, and recently rescued from oblivion, this was his first double-screen film—The Chelsea Girls would follow in September 1966—and his initial foray into video. Given the chance by Norelco to experiment with a prototype home-video recorder, Warhol used the camera to create a half-hour portrait of Sedgwick (as well as other Factory denizens). He then shot two thirty-three-minute 16 mm reels of the actress sitting in front of a television playing her videotaped image. In the final product, the two reels are shown side by side." ArtForum
Milk & Serial is a 62-minute, found-footage horror by YouTuber Curry Barker, and it manages to be at once ruthlessly effective and wonderfully authentic. Racking up 348,000 views in the two weeks since its release, its popularity has been supercharged by raves on Reddit that have since crossed over into traditional media. Bloody Disgusting called it “one of the year’s best-kept secrets” and this week Barker found himself being interviewed by no less than Variety.
Alice is a 1988 dark fantasy film written and directed by Jan Švankmajer. Its original Czech title is Něco z Alenky, which means "Something from Alice". It is a loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll's first Alice book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), about a girl who follows a white rabbit into a bizarre fantasy land. Alice is played by Kristýna Kohoutová. The film combines live action with stop motion animation, and is distinguished by its dark and uncompromising production design.
For Švankmajer, a prolific director of short films for more than two decades, Alice became his first venture into feature-length filmmaking. The director had been disappointed by other adaptations of Carroll's book, which interpret it as a fairy tale. His aim was instead to make the story play out like an amoral dream. The film won the feature film award at the 1989 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
Film by David Blair. It's the first independent feature film to have been edited on a digital non-linear system. It is also the first film (independent or otherwise) to have been re-formatted as hypertext and posted on the internet.
"Wax: Or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees," had to be reduced from full color to a blurry black and white. And true, the spotty audio occasionally went silent. But coming as companies in the cable TV, telephone and computer industries are hot on the trail of 500-channel, all-digital TV, let history record that Saturday night marked the first baby steps in that direction.
The movie, an 85-minute feature by David Blair about a beekeeper who ends up being kept by the bees, has attracted a cult following since its release in 1992. Mr. Blair transmitted it Saturday night from a film production studio in midtown Manhattan. He played it on a VCR and fed it into a computer that converted it into digital form and fed it into the Internet. Promises, Promises
Mr. Blair's effort demonstrated that while information industry giants like Tele-Communications Inc., A.T.& T. and Time Warner are tantalizing the nation with promises of hundreds of channels of ultra-high-resolution interactive pictures transmitted via fiber-optic superhighways, the technology is still in its infancy.
Indeed, it was not until halfway through the digital network premier of "Wax" that the engineers gathered at an office of Sun Microsystems Inc. in Mountain View, Calif., were even able to find the movie signal in the Internet datastream and direct it to play on their color work stations. - New York Times
These are a series of remixes of tape and film experiments made by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin in Paris and London in 1962-63.
The Final Academy was a 1982 tour in Britain, organized by David Dawson, Roger Ely and Genesis P-Orridge. The project was based on, featuring works of and was inspired by William S Burroughs. The Final Academy Documents is a DVD of edited highlights from the tour, including Burroughs's public appearance in 1982 and reading from his work at Manchester's Haçienda club, a performance by John Giorno and includes the experimental film collaborations with Anthony Balch, Brion Gysin, and others - Towers Open Fire and Ghosts at No. 9.
Track 1 from 16mm film - a "cut up" by P.T.V. from their archives.
Tracks 3 to 7 video taped on October 4, 1982 in The Haçienda, Manchester. Shot, edited and produced by Ikon.
Also included are previews of other DVD releases by Dead Kennedys, Divine, Johnny Cash, Johnny Thunders, Nico and the "Groupies" documentary.
From the end credits:
Ikon and P.T.V. wish to thank the following..
James Grauerholz
Rita Jarvis
Savoy Books
Howard and Mike (Hacienda)
Tony Martin (lights)
OZ P.A. (Sound)
All material on both sections used with kind permission of Brion Gysin, John Giorno and William S. Burroughs
"The cinema of the avant-garde represents a number of different approaches to the mainstream and is informed by a contrasting set of ideological models. In terms of production, the avant-garde has a history of private sponsorship and state subsidy, as its relationship with the audience is usually one of artisanal self-expression rather than commodity-based economic exploitation. These forms of self-expression run from individualism (as championed by Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage) to collectivism (Surrealism to the various filmmakers' co-ops the world over)". - Rob Bridgett
Un Chien Andalou
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929) is a silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 with a limited showing at Studio des Ursulines in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months.
The film has no plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the initial "once upon a time" to "eight years later" without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.
L'Age d'Or
L’Age d’or (The Golden Age) (1930) is a French surrealist comedy directed by Luis Buñuel about the insanities of modern life, the hypocrisy of the sexual mores of bourgeois society and the value system of the Roman Catholic Church. The screenplay is by Salvador Dalí and Buñuel. L'Age d'Or was one of the first sound films made in France, along with Prix de Beauté and Under the Roofs of Paris.
Meshes of the Afternoon
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a short experimental film directed by wife-and-husband team, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular and repeats several motifs, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper–like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean. Through creative editing, distinct camera angles, and slow motion, the surrealist film depicts a world in which it is more and more difficult to catch reality.
In 1990, Meshes of the Afternoon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going into the registry in the second year of voting. Towers Open Fire
Towers Open Fire (1963) is a short film written by William S. Burroughs and filmed by Antony Balch. It was released in 1963 and the cast features Antony Balch, William S. Burroughs, BBC presenter David Jacobs, British sex film producer Bachoo Sen and Scottish writer Alexander Trocchi. Parts of the text read by Burroughs such as the Shitola excerpt is from The Soft Machine. It includes an example of practical magic with Burroughs reciting a curse he composed against the Moka Coffee Shop, for ‘outrageous and unprovoked discourtesy and poisonous cheesecake’ ("Lock them out"). Towers Open Fire uses looped images and audio, sound effects and footage of The Dream Machine device created by Brion Gysin ("Flicker administered to large areas of the brain"). Moroccan music is also included in the mix.
The Cut Ups
The Cut Ups (1963) Directed by Antony Balch. With William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin. The Cut Ups was completed in 1963 but played much later at the Cinephone Academy Moviehouse in Oxford Street in 1966. Audience members are reputed to have walked out complaining that the film was "disgusting" and then were referred by cinema staff to the "U" certificate it had been granted. It ran for a fortnight and eventually had to be shortened from 20 minutes to 12 minutes because staff and manager couldn't stand running it five times a day. Roy Underhill, the assistant manager at the time, told Balch that during the performances an unusual number of strange articles such as bags, pants, shoes, and coats were left behind, lost property, probably out of complete disorientation.
Emergency Broadcast Network is the name of a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post and Brian Kane (author of the Vujak VJ software). Kane left EBN in 1992. The EBN Live Team included DJ Ron O'Donnell, video artist/technologist Greg Deocampo (founder of Company of Science and Art (CoSA), and founding CTO of IFILM.com), artist/designer Tracy Brown and technologist Mark Marinello.
Josh Pearson, EBN's charismatic front man and principal performance artist, was also EBN's music composer and main video editor. The music and video editing techniques he personally developed and refined have been hugely influential on a generation of advertising and music video editors.
The first EBN video project was a musical remix of the Gulf War, created in 1991 as the war was still ongoing. The VHS tape of the remix project, which contained the George H.W. Bush "We Will Rock You" cover, became a viral underground hit, and was distributed widely by fans as bootleg copies. In the summer of 1991, EBN traveled with the first Lollapalooza tour, distributing tapes and showing their videos on a modified station wagon with TVs on the roof. The group also became well known for their media sculptures and stage props which were created by Gardner Post.
The EBN modus operandi was to take cable television broadcasts and remix them with a funky beat, often having the lyrics "sung" not by a singer but by half-second sound clips from TV, spliced together. For example, the lyric "electronic behavior control system" would be created with a clip of Ross Perot saying "electronic", followed by a clip of George H. W. Bush saying "behavior", then Ted Koppel saying "control", and finally a clip of Bill Clinton saying "system". This technique has been named video scratching.
Among their videos are "Get Down and Electronic Behavior Control System" from their 1995 album Telecommunication Breakdown, which mocks the way television controls our lives. Another was a cover of "We Will Rock You" by Queen, with a vocal track made up of remixed clips of George H. W. Bush making announcements about the Gulf War. Bono of U2 took notice of their work and hired them to provide visuals for their Zoo TV Tour. EBN's video work featured prominently into the show, and their "We Will Rock You" cover was played at the beginning of each show. EBN also produced visuals for The Edge's performance of "Numb" on the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. In addition to the visuals, audio from those clips were featured in the live performance to create rhythmic effects.
Brian Kane has since worked a number of times with British AV artists Addictive TV on many of their projects, both live and recorded - including Mixmasters and at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Greg Deocampo continues his video remixes independently today, using footage from the 2003 invasion of Iraq (which he refers to as Gulf War II). In 2006, Deocampo started working with a trio of London video turntablists, Eclectic-method: Jonny Wilson, Ian Edgar, and Geoff Gamlen.
MARVOMOVIE (1967) taken from GAZWRX: The Films of Jeff Keen (Out Feb 23)
An extract from an early Jeff Keen animation (1962) with a soundtrack recorded (by keen) in 2007 using an old Wasp synth and shortwave radio.
An extract from Jeff Keen's breakneck Artwar series last performed as a multi-projection event at Brighton's Phoenix gallery 2006.
'Jeff Keen has been collecting props from dumpsters and toy shops, spray painting them, setting fire to them and animating the results for forty years. His underground films pre-date Warhol, his fans include some of the most notorious and legendary figures in the world of cinema. Forget the so called greats of the silver screen, the true cinematic visionaries are elsewhere, hidden away, woefully neglected by the bulk of historians, working like alchemists with their old super 8 cameras, chocking refrigerators full of nearly out of date stock and bizarre props made from scrap or purchased in bulk from the pound shop. Jeff keen is one such figure, a true great of the avant-garde, experimental and underground film...' Jack Sargeant
Born in 1923 and having served as a soldier in World War Two, Jeff Keen began making films at the age of 37, prompted by a dearth of screenings at the local art-school film society. So began over 40 years of unique, imaginative, irrepressible film-making that has outlived the various scenes in which it thrived: the 60s counter-culture, punk and beyond. Featuring animated cut-outs and paintings, and populated by friends and family in a variety of guises, including The Cat Woman, Silverhead, Babyjelly and many more, these frenetic films reveal Keen's deep love of comics, B-movies and pulp novels while also making darker references to wartime experience.
Using various film stocks, though always preferring 8mm - as more oppositional, more disposable, less of a sell-out - this self-taught artist and pioneer of independent film impresses a very personal and highly individual stamp upon all his work. Often dubbed ‘pop art', these explosive films conjure all manner of associations: graffiti art, surrealism and home movies from the future...
Drawn from the various phases of his output - from his turn-of-the-60s beatnik movies through to the apocalyptic beauty of his multi-layered videos of the 90s - these four programmes offer a new and long overdue opportunity to explore the alternative cinematic world of Brighton's very own Dr Gaz.
"Whether by design or chance Jeff Keen's filmmaking activities have been dominated by random factors from the start. His initial involvement grew from an association with a Brighton art college film society, which acquired 8mm equipment: 'I was almost like a film factory...I was just turning out movies to justify the existence of the film society.' His earliest extant film, the second version of 'Wail' survives only in an out of focus 8mm dupe and an even more visually bizarre 16mm blow-up taken from it. By 1965 he had made a twin screen 8mm movie 'The Pink Auto' that by its very nature can never be shown identically twice. In 1967 overcoming a reluctance to unite one particular image track with one particular soundtrack in perpetuity, he added sound to his first 16mm film Marvo Movie..." Read Full Article (6 pages)
My friend Amanda had never seen a whole Star Wars film. When I asked her if she wanted to watch the original trilogy she said that she would, but that she already knew what happens. So I took out my voice recorder and asked her to start from the top. I then created some very basic animation in Final Cut to go along with her narration.
Sweded: The summarized recreation of popular pop-culture films using limited budgets and a camcorder. The process is called sweding. Upon completion the film has been Sweded.
Origins: In the Michel Gondry film BE KIND REWIND, the character Jerry accidentally erases the videotapes at Mos Def's rental store, and the pair remake all the movies themselves. These versions become popular with customers, who are told they take longer to arrive and cost more because they come from Sweden. Hence, the films are referred to as 'Sweded'. Many versions of Star Wars Sweded can be found on the internet.
The Housing Bubble bursts on a speculator. Parody using a clip with Hitler as the real estate investor. He bought a house to flip, faces foreclosure, and now wants to get bailed out.
Music from "Landing Talk" (Studio Azzurro) and others bizarre compositions. Alberto Morelli (prepared piano, sanza, piffero, bendir, darabuka, objects), Stefano Scarani (electronics, live electronics, stuzzicadenti, mechanics monkeys).
Studio Azzurro is an artistic research studio, that bases its expression on the languages afforded by recent technology. It was first set up in 1982 by Fabio Cirifino (photography), Paolo Rosa (visual arts and film) and Leonardo Sangiorgi (graphics and animation). In 1995 Stefano Roveda, an expert in interactive systems, joined the group. For over twenty years, Studio Azzurro has been investigating the poetic and expressive potential of these systems that have had such an impact on relations in this age. Through video-environments, sensitive and interactive environments, theatrical performances and films, it has blazed a trail that is now acknowledged worldwide, by countless major artistic and theatrical institutions and events. In addition to experimental work, the groups activities are also tied in with more formative experiences such as the designing of museums and theme exhibitions whose cultural value has been recognised at all levels. In both cases, Studio Azzurro has taken care to create communicative environments that require an active and significant participation on behalf of the spectator who is part of the narrative structure, inspired by a use of multitextual approach and a continous shift between virtual and real elements.
Manifestoon - The Communist Manifesto illustrated by Disney like characters. Manifestoon is an homage to the latent subversiveness of cartoons. Though U.S. cartoons are usually thought of as conveyors of capitalist ideologies of consumerism and individualism, Drew observes: "Somehow as an avid childhood fan of cartoons, these ideas were secondary to a more important lesson—that of the 'trickster' nature of many characters as they mocked, outwitted and defeated their more powerful adversaries. In the classic cartoon, brute strength and heavy artillery are no match for wit and humor, and justice always prevails. For me, it was natural to link my own childhood concept of subversion with an established, more articulate version [Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto]. Mickey running over the globe has new meaning in today's mediascape, in which Disney controls one of the largest concentrations of media
HWY: An American Pastoral was made by the singer songwriter Jim Morrison of the famous late 60s Los Angeles band The Doors and his friends, drinking buddies and drug pals. As a film HWY is a fairly boring way to spend 51 minutes and 7 seconds. It is, as Morrison himself said, not really about anything. It features the familar image of Morrison waking up in the semi-desert (Charlie Manson style) beside a lively stream, he stumbles over the rocks with the grace of a wounded armadillo and then makes his way to the city by hitchiking. At 22 mins a dying dog is encountered on the highway by Morrison who is so moved by its howls he steals a car and drinks a beer (or has he killed a person..hard to know). Screaming as he drives away.
As a historical document it is today interesting. HWY embodies the late 1960s loose, counter culture with its chauvenistic masculinity, romantic naturism, car worship, flavored with visual appreciation of landscapes and the perceived freedoms of the open road. The sound track is a good with some nice remixes present, including Morrison's spoken words that later were used on the An American Prayer album. The film itself has a remix feel to it with random sequences shot as Jim and his firends drive through the desert towards LA, stopping as gas stations and taking in the views, graffiti and general decay and extreams of the city. Late hippie flowers baking in the sun.
HWY: An American Pastoral, a project he started in 1969. Morrison financed the venture and formed his own production company in order to maintain complete control of the project. Paul Ferrara, Frank Lisciandro and Babe Hill assisted with the project. Morrison played the main character, a hitchhiker turned killer/car thief. Morrison asked his friend, composer/pianist Fred Myrow, to select the soundtrack for the film. Wikipedia
I must confess here that when I was 19 years old I was a Doors fan. That was long time ago, although I still listen to them now and then.
Very Nice, Very Nice is a 7 minute long avant-garde film made by Arthur Lipsett in 1961. It was completed with funding from the National Film Board of Canada. While working at the National Film Board, Lipsett collected pieces of audio and pieced them together as a hobby. When his friends heard the product of this they suggested that he add images to it. This film is the result. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject in 1962. This film brought Lipsett much acclaim and for a time allowed him great freedom in the Canadian film industry, however, his follow up films were less mainstream and the public quickly lost interest in him. By 1970 this film had 200 prints in circulation. It is often shown at film festivals and in film schools.
