artcodex reblog

»One Hundred Things With Handles« by Simon Lewandowski.

Originally by mail from VVORK on May 12, 2007, 1:21pm

While researching another post I hope to write soon, about Franz Kafka and a small room in San Francisco, I stumbled upon something else that seemed worth putting up on the blog; it’s from Kafka’s Diaries: 1910-1923.
In an early entry, from 1911, Kafka describes the “unhappiness of the bachelor,” an unhappiness that, for him, seems less dependent on loneliness or personal abandonment – or even on some catastrophic sense of being overlooked by the world, always – than on space: a bachelor never has enough of it.

A bachelor is alone, after all, which means that “so much the smaller a space is considered sufficient for him.”
One could perhaps say that, for Kafka, a bachelor is never spatially respected…
In any case, looking for space – or for the proper space, the one that feels right and “has a few panes of glass between itself and the night” – our bachelor finds that he “moves incessantly, but with predictable regularity, from one apartment to another.”
This goes on – and on – for the rest of his isolated existence until “he, this bachelor, still in the midst of life, apparently of his own free will resigns himself to an ever smaller space, and when he dies the coffin is exactly right for him.”

Originally by Geoff Manaugh from BLDGBLOG

Image from The Film Company

It’s interview city at AFC lately, a forum I’m sure you’ll all be sick of by the end of the week since we’re hosting yet another artist discussion this Friday. With Joy Garnett of NEWSgrist as our upcoming feature and my conversation with Guy Maddin at the Reeler this week though it’s hard to go wrong. Today, I talk to Maddin about his latest film Brand Upon the Brain!. I’ve included a slightly larger clip of the piece than usual so that you can get a sense of what the conversation and film is like, but you’ll need to click through to read the whole piece.

“The Past! The Past! The Past!” reads the repeating text in Guy Maddin’s latest film, Brand Upon the Brain!, which opens theatrically Wednesday at the Village East. The words imply the narrative structure of a semi-autobiographical work focusing on the tortured adult recollections of childhood experience: A grown man named Guy returns to the island where he was raised to paint a lighthouse at the request of his dying mother. As he does this, memories flood back forcing him to relive the iron-fisted rule of an orphanage below the lighthouse; his unrequited crush on young detective Wendy (who in turn falls in love with Guy’s sister); and Wendy’s subsequent disguising herself as her sleuth brother Chance in the hopes of seducing Sis. Chance soon discovers small wounds on the necks of the orphan children, and dark family secrets in the form of perverse sexual and emotional relationships come to light as the movie unfolds.

The narrative represents the most linear thread Maddin has put together in a while, especially compared to recent titles like Cowards Bend the Knee and The Saddest Music in the World (neither of which can be described as abstract). Such aspects are secondary, however, to the mounting buzz about the screenings’ live sound effects, onstage castrato and special guest narrators including Isabella Rosellini, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Crispin Glover and TV on the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe. Not having experienced these elements in my press screening, though, I recently spoke with Maddin about the artistic decisions that shaped Brand Upon the Brain! — beginning with how he felt about his first filmmaking experience outside of his native Canada. “It felt kind of good,” he told me. “I felt like a real gun for hire — my first foreign film.”

The Reeler: I saw that on a trailer this morning — you talking about it being a foreign film. It seemed really awesome to think about a film made in America that way.

Maddin: Yeah, that was exciting, and I also welcomed the chance to step (away from) my regular collaborators in Winnipeg. You know, it felt like I was having an affair. We did end up using one Winnipeger though; John Gurdebeke is my regular editor. I work with him all the time. The task of editing in two different cities was just too modern for my sensibilities. It could have been done e-mailing the files back and forth; it’s just that you need to be close with your editor. I was going to say, the editor is the filmmaker almost. It’s really important, and it’s the one craft that’s least valued in the public. It’s just something that speeds by at Academy Award time, and I’m even convinced that peers can’t even judge the impact another editor brings to his or her own project.

Click here to read the complete piece.

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Originally by Art Fag City from Art Fag City on May 8, 2007, 5:49am

Image from The Film Company

It’s interview city at AFC lately, a forum I’m sure you’ll all be sick of by the end of the week since we’re hosting yet another artist discussion this Friday. With Joy Garnett of NEWSgrist as our upcoming feature and my conversation with Guy Maddin at the Reeler this week though it’s hard to go wrong. Today, I talk to Maddin about his latest film Brand Upon the Brain!. I’ve included a slightly larger clip of the piece than usual so that you can get a sense of what the conversation and film is like, but you’ll need to click through to read the whole piece.

“The Past! The Past! The Past!” reads the repeating text in Guy Maddin’s latest film, Brand Upon the Brain!, which opens theatrically Wednesday at the Village East. The words imply the narrative structure of a semi-autobiographical work focusing on the tortured adult recollections of childhood experience: A grown man named Guy returns to the island where he was raised to paint a lighthouse at the request of his dying mother. As he does this, memories flood back forcing him to relive the iron-fisted rule of an orphanage below the lighthouse; his unrequited crush on young detective Wendy (who in turn falls in love with Guy’s sister); and Wendy’s subsequent disguising herself as her sleuth brother Chance in the hopes of seducing Sis. Chance soon discovers small wounds on the necks of the orphan children, and dark family secrets in the form of perverse sexual and emotional relationships come to light as the movie unfolds.

The narrative represents the most linear thread Maddin has put together in a while, especially compared to recent titles like Cowards Bend the Knee and The Saddest Music in the World (neither of which can be described as abstract). Such aspects are secondary, however, to the mounting buzz about the screenings’ live sound effects, onstage castrato and special guest narrators including Isabella Rosellini, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Crispin Glover and TV on the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe. Not having experienced these elements in my press screening, though, I recently spoke with Maddin about the artistic decisions that shaped Brand Upon the Brain! — beginning with how he felt about his first filmmaking experience outside of his native Canada. “It felt kind of good,” he told me. “I felt like a real gun for hire — my first foreign film.”

The Reeler: I saw that on a trailer this morning — you talking about it being a foreign film. It seemed really awesome to think about a film made in America that way.

Maddin: Yeah, that was exciting, and I also welcomed the chance to step (away from) my regular collaborators in Winnipeg. You know, it felt like I was having an affair. We did end up using one Winnipeger though; John Gurdebeke is my regular editor. I work with him all the time. The task of editing in two different cities was just too modern for my sensibilities. It could have been done e-mailing the files back and forth; it’s just that you need to be close with your editor. I was going to say, the editor is the filmmaker almost. It’s really important, and it’s the one craft that’s least valued in the public. It’s just something that speeds by at Academy Award time, and I’m even convinced that peers can’t even judge the impact another editor brings to his or her own project.

Click here to read the complete piece.

Digg This    Save to Del.icio.us

Originally by Art Fag City from Art Fag City on May 8, 2007, 5:49am

a few projects that have visually translated the 16 “illegal” digits comprising the AACS key, which is a series of pseudo-random hexadecimal numbers that allows users to back up HD-DVD discs on Linux. it was the subject of a recent online revolt, as a group of companies that use the copy protection system demanded the code be removed from several Web sites.

one visualization simply translated the numerical code by their hexidecimal encoding, while warning no-one to use these colors together. another visual representation can be bought online as a decoration on a t-shirt.

[link: t3knomanser.livejournal.com & hd-dvd-tee.com|via boingboing.net|thnkx Rebecca!]

see also digg’s revolt visualized.

Originally from information aesthetics, ReBlogged by ericsoco on May 3, 2007 at 09:57 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on May 3, 2007, 7:57pm

Magnetosphere is the iTunes plugin that slams together magnetism and gravity to deliver an insanely psychedelic iTunes music visualizer. Neon infused Jackson Pollack plugin triggers drippy dots and loops on your desktop, kiss your productivity goodbye. Oh, and one last thing today, British designer David Newton animated a tracking shot of the Bayeux Tapestry (which tells the story of the Norman invasion of England in 1066) VSL describes it as; “The latest must-see Internet video turns the 230-foot-long Bayeux Tapestry into the Middle Ages’ equivalent of a spectacular popcorn blockbuster.” Find out more and watch the film at Very Short List.

this must be some of robert hodgin’s work. i just installed it and it’s making my head spin like the girl in the exorcist… –ES

Originally posted by Jocko from Jockohomo Datapanik, ReBlogged by ericsoco on May 3, 2007 at 10:15 PM

Originally by Jocko from Eyebeam reBlog on May 3, 2007, 8:15pm

Magnetosphere is the iTunes plugin that slams together magnetism and gravity to deliver an insanely psychedelic iTunes music visualizer. Neon infused Jackson Pollack plugin triggers drippy dots and loops on your desktop, kiss your productivity goodbye. Oh, and one last thing today, British designer David Newton animated a tracking shot of the Bayeux Tapestry (which tells the story of the Norman invasion of England in 1066) VSL describes it as; “The latest must-see Internet video turns the 230-foot-long Bayeux Tapestry into the Middle Ages’ equivalent of a spectacular popcorn blockbuster.” Find out more and watch the film at Very Short List.

this must be some of robert hodgin’s work. i just installed it and it’s making my head spin like the girl in the exorcist… –ES

Originally posted by Jocko from Jockohomo Datapanik, ReBlogged by ericsoco on May 3, 2007 at 10:15 PM

Originally by Jocko from Eyebeam reBlog on May 3, 2007, 8:15pm

jimray : Helpful distortion - Design is knowing what not to include as much as what to include. In the case of subway maps, is it more important to know how the tracks actually bend - or to know how to get from one place to another.

Tags : brilliant design maps travel tumbl usability

Originally from HotLinks - Level 1, ReBlogged by ericsoco on Apr 26, 2007 at 11:58 PM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on April 26, 2007, 9:58pm

Xeni Jardin:
Here’s an illustrated poem about death-hamsters, attributed to an 8-year-old Atlanta child named Shecky. Link. (Thanks, LLA)

elegant, spare, emotive. i give it two gold stars. –ES

Originally posted by Xeni Jardin from Boing Boing, ReBlogged by ericsoco on Apr 27, 2007 at 02:39 PM

Originally by Xeni Jardin from Eyebeam reBlog on April 27, 2007, 12:39pm

WillPate : 0.2% could make or break your community

Tags : community

Originally from HotLinks - Level 1, ReBlogged by ericsoco on Apr 27, 2007 at 12:02 AM

Originally from Eyebeam reBlog on April 26, 2007, 10:02pm