Avail Video

Filminute Shortlist Winners Announced

2006-09-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

Filminute, the International one-minute film festival, has just finished its judging and the shortlist winners have been announced. Go to their site www.filminute.com to see the films and vote for your favorite film for the People's Choice award. Voting will continue until September 30th and in October, the awards will be announced.

Congratulations to all of the great films that made the list (and all the great ones that didn't)

8 Minute Digital Performance Piece @ Tate

2006-08-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

The above picture was taken from the 8 minute live performance that was commissioned at Tate, London. Presented by United Visual Artists and commissioned by Vamp, the piece uses camera systems, LED screens and newly developed software to create a fairy-dust-like re-creation of the dancers movement on the screen above them.

The only real way to understand this is to watch the video HERE.

Also, "we make money not art" has an interview with the team.

Pigeons Are The New Bloggers

2006-08-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

Now a days, anyone can be a blogger. According to Beatriz da Costa, Pigeons can blog things that even humans can't. As part of the ZeroOne Symposium, Art on the Edge, Costa will release a pack of homing pigeons attached with a global positioning system unit for tracking their latitude, longitude and altitude; a pollution monitor for gauging carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides; and the fundamentals of a cellphone for sending this data to a Web site. The website is up and running and when you click on MAP it actually shows you the birds and the pollution information in real-time. Check it out.

Pretty neato, let me tell you. The NYTimes agrees.

Nam Jun Paik Tribute Video

2006-08-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

Emmy Award-winning producer Skip Blumberg has been an influential figure in the evolution of the independent video documentary. As a tribute to his late friend and fellow filmmaker Nam Jun Paik, he made a short video. Filled with effects-ridden interviews and snippets from some of Paik's peers, and even a shot of the memorial service, the video is a sweet tribute that Paik would have enjoyed.

Watch The Movie Here

Just to give you an idea of how influencial Paik was/is, here are a few events that have gone on in his memory:

Asia Society, New York: Projected Realities: Video Art from East Asia, dedicated to the memory of Nam June Paik. Through August 6, 2006.

Kunsthaus Zurich
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
Nam June Paik Videos at The Expanded Eye
June 16-Sept 3

Tate Gallery, London UK
Magnetic Memory: A Day-Long Video Tribute to Nam June Paik
Saturday 10 June 2006, 10.00

Rio De Janiero Institute of Television Studies
RIO DE JANIERO, BRASIL
Nam June Paik Video Tribute
June

Doug Aitken to Create Work for MoMA's Exterior

2006-08-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a major public art project to be presented at MoMA in January 2007. The Museum and Creative Time have jointly commissioned Doug Aitken to create the artist’s first large-scale public artwork in the United States, which will be the first to bring art to MoMA’s exterior walls. Continuous sequences of film scenes will be projected on the 53rd and 54th Street facades of MoMA’s building as well as those overlooking the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden.

Inspired by the densely built environment of New York’s midtown, the artist will create a multiscreen cinematic art experience that will directly integrate with the architectural fabric of the city while simultaneously enhancing and challenging viewers’ perceptions of public space. The project, filmed in New York City, will be shown daily from January 16 to February 12, 2007, from 5:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m., and will be visible from many public vantage points adjacent to the Museum.

Video Installation at Former Concentration Camp

2006-08-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

(via e-flux)

"How can the power to imagine historical realities be retained when the survivors of the National Socialist concentration camps are dying out? Who or what will take their place in speaking within the great silence? Among other things, the objects, their objects, that remain / have remained in the soil of the camps. The refuse – which is not refuse at all because it bears the traces of the people in the camps to which the objects belonged. More than twenty thousand objects have been recovered from the soil of Buchenwald – shreds, fragments, evidence of the break in civilization, tangible memories of annihilated existence, but also testimony to attempted self-preservation and resistance. On five monitors, Esther Shalev-Gerz shows five people who have become very close to these objects, five people speaking about their encounters with the objects. In exemplary fashion, she thus gives scope to words evoked as much by the material presence of history in the objects as by the irreco verable absence, the irreversible loss, which surrounds them. Paradigmatically she explores the form post-memorial memory could take.

A native of Vilnius, Lithuania who grew up in Israel, Esther Shalev-Gerz has lived and worked in Paris since 1984. She is internationally recognised for her seminal contributions to the field of art in the public realm and her consistent investigation into the nature of democracy, cultural memory and the politics of public space."

"The Human Aspects of Objects," will open on Friday, August 25, 2006 at 5:00 pm in the depot of the former Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Avail Video Partners With Filminute!

2006-08-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

The Avail Video program has recently been selected as a “By Invitation” partner for Filminute - an international one-minute film festival devoted to developing, celebrating and showcasing one-minute films by creative professionals from around the world. Select works from the Avail Video Library will be considered for Best Feature Minute (live action), Best Documentary, Best Animation, Best Fan Film (inspirations and mashups), and the audience-awarded People's Choice.

Filminute's jurors represent the worlds of Contemporary Art, Film, Literature, and Advertising and include Oscar, Booker, Pulitzer, and Clio award winners. Avail Video is very excited for this collaboration and the opportunity to get video artists involved in this wonderful festival.

“Talented artists working with video and digital technology should be well represented among the filmmakers, architects and other creative people submitting films to Filminute,” said Sabaa Quao, Executive Director of Filminute. “Avail Video will play an important role in our call for entries drive by bringing the world’s most interesting and compelling films by video artists to our audiences around the world.”

For more information about Filminute visit their blog at www.filminute.blogspot.com and website at www.filminute.com.

Read the full press release on our website www.availvideo.com

We Feel Fine

2006-07-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

"I get the feeling that I am stranded in the wrong time" -someone in Mississippi at 1:56 p.m.

The anonymous person above is one of 4,234,137 feelings that has been collected since August 2005 on the interactive weblog We Feel Fine. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day.

Now the above may sound a little technical, but the website is just the opposite. When you launch the We Feel Fine website, you are bombarded with thousands of bright dots scattering around the page. Looking like a rainbow exploded - each one of these dots contains the unfilitered feelings of bloggers all over the world. The site is very detailed, letting the user search feelings by gender, place, time etc. A truly unique concept, explore the site for yourself.

We Feel Fine

Achieving Peace Through Video Games?

2006-07-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

Now-a-days, anyone can try their hand at creating peace in the Middle East. At least that is the vision of the people behind ImpactGames.

Asi Burak (a former Israeli intelligence officer) and Eric Brown are the creators of Peacemaker a one-player game in which the player can choose to take the role of either the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President. The player must react to in-game events, from diplomatic negotiations to military attacks, and interact with eight other political leaders and social groups in order to establish a stable resolution to the conflict before his or her term in office ends.

Read the NYTimes article.

Marina Zurkow Talks

2006-07-11T06:20:00.000-07:00

Marina Zurkow is an artist who works with character and narrative in animated cartoons, interactive installations, print and pop objects. I first saw her at the MOVE3 Conference this year where she showed us segments of her 7 screen animated video installation, Nicking The Never (above clip). It was amazing. So greatly impressed by Marina at the conference, I approached her for an interview. She kindly abided.

How did you first get involved with animation and what tools do you use?

I came out of fine art installations, very pre-computer, and went into set designing for horror movies and producing for Japanese TV shows in the US. Then I made several live action, experimental and narrative 16mm films, and quite a few music videos. Then I fell into the web. Out of that work, and out of the development of Flash, I found animation as a perfect vehicle for the way my brain works. I started animating around 1995, very simplistically. It took a long time to find my chops and my patience.

Your work is very beautiful, fantastical and colorful – what were your influences for “Nicking the Never” and what does that title mean?

Nicking the Never is a large-scale, animated, seven channel DVD installation that charts a course through youthful female imagination, psycho-sexual fantasy, and desire. Composed as a set of allegories about a young girl stuck in a kinetic world of emotional pitfalls, this kaleidoscopic trip into the self is based on the structure of the Tibetan Wheel of Life, a Buddhist teaching tool developed in the 7th century, whose images luridly and vividly articulate the human struggle with need, jealousy, complacence, aggression, desire, ego, and stasis.

The title came from the idea of trying to scratch at infinity, chip away at the impossible. In this case, that impossible refers to the prospect of getting off the emotional Wheel.

Most of your work is done with the aid of a computer – however a lot of your content deals with elements of nature; animals, the outdoors, the human body. How does nature affect you and your work and how do you feel about relying on technology for your art?

I always try to mix the digital and the analog. I draw with a large wacom tablet, and let a lot of the work remain ugly, imperfect. I am really interested in all the liminal spaces- between man-made and natural, deliberate and accidental, pop and darkness, and so on. As for the animals, the cartoon legacy of anthropomorphism and cute metaphor is what drew me to the medium in the first place.

What projects are you currently working on?

I have two new large-scale projects. The first is Karaoke Ice, on which I'm working with two collaborators, Nancy Nowacek and Katie Salen, and with composer Lem Jay Ignacio. It premieres at ISEA/ZeroOne festival in San Jose in August 2006. It's a pop culture mash-up, an ice cream truck-turned-mobile-karaoke-unit, deployed to unite people through the singing, battling, and recording of pop songs rendered in twinkling ice-cream-truck-song vernacular. Participants perform for an audience from the transformed rear of the vehicle, using a customized karaoke engine. Free popsicles lure prospective performers to participate, creating an economy of exchange: the truck gives you icies, and you give it a song. Remedios the Squirrel Cub distributes the pops while choreographing enigmatic rituals of his own. He is the truck's best friend, poor magician and master of ceremonies. The resulting mix is one that celebrates the power of music to entice and inflame, as well as the sense of community that can be fostered among strangers trapped in a terrestrial network.

The second project is a science fiction 'thing' called "Funnelhead: Adventures in Psychotropia." It'll be a series of comic books, a novella, an installation pieces made of 3D wireframes come to life, in which are embedded tiny video monitors and speakers. I'm just starting this one. But
there's a commemorative plate already for "Adventures in Psychotropia." It's for sale at o-matic.com :) I like making tributes to the unfinished.

Is most of your work done solo or do you collaborate with other artists?

I collaborate often. All of the single channel work since 1999 has been done alone, but many of the interactive projects have been collaborative. PDPal was a 2 yr suite of projects I made with technologist Julian Bleecker and architect Scott Paterson. It took the form of narrative map making tools, used via the web, PDA, and cell phone. Pussy Weevil I also made with Julian
Bleecker. And on my "solo" projects, I always work with composers, primarily with the ultra-talented Lem Jay Ignacio.

Which work of yours are you most proud of - if you had to pick one?

Oh, gee. I won't answer that. That's a bit like answering which child of yours you love the most, or which ex-boyfriend you hate the least. in other words, it's a bit fraught, and I'm fickle at worst.

Check out Marina's website at www.o-matic.com to see more of her work.

Central Asia, meet New York.

2006-06-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

Gulnara Kasmalieva and Murjatbek Djmaliev have their debut NY solo show currently at Plus Ultra Gallery. This duo from Kyrgyzstan have become quite popular as they bring intimate images of destruction, change and beauty from their country to American eyes. As Central Asia has not had much exposure in the art world, Kasmalieva and Djmaliev are getting much attention - much remote attention, since they still reside in Kyrgystan.

Recently I attended their show at PlusUltra and watched their dual-channel video installation “Into the Future.” (from the gallery) Filmed in Siberia, “Into the Future” offers a direct and thoughtful verification of the effects of change and transformation. Through the juxtaposition of slowly changing images of industrial wastelands and the matter-of-fact recording of people boarding a ferry, they offer a complex, non-ironic look into that ambiguous point at which the future becomes the present and how we cope with that.

The video is definitely worth checking out as well as their photography. The exhibit will be at Plus Ultra through July 29th.

Perpetual Art Machine

2006-06-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

The above diagram describes the way that PAM works. Perpetual Art Machine (PAM) is exactly what it says it is: a perpetual art machine. PAM is run by the community where artists can upload their videos, which in turn get curated and assigned to categories within PAM. The content works together at exhibition venues displaying art simultaneously and individually. The works play off each other, informing each other by association or differenciation, highlighting through the display system their individual qualities.

A truly inventive idea, PAM has been showing up to many art and technology events lately. PAMs next stop is the DIGIT 2006 Festival in Sullivan County, NY.

Check out the video of how PAM works here on their website.

Calvins World Clip

2006-06-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

Calvin Graves is a 6 year old boy who is the first person in his family that can hear for three generations. This clip is from the short documentary about his life. Calvin's World has played numerous film festivals and continues to be screened across the U.S.

MOVE3 Conference PT.1

2006-05-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

The MOVE3 Conference started off strong with two of the behind-the-scenes guys from Adult Swim. Joking that they were not qualified to be at a design conference, Michael Cahill and Jacob Escobedo proceeded to show their amazing grassroots animation paired with a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm and heart. Scanning the short lifespan of Adult Swim - the now immensely popular, offbeat, and over-the-top animation channel suprisingly got their start from those sickenly cute cartoons at Hanna Barbera. They premiered in 2001 showing only on Sunday nights. Now, only a mere 4 years later they have 35 + shows and run almost everyday. Cahill and Escobedo blame their success on luck and a few brilliant, slightly disturbed minds.

Adult Swim has not only been a pioneer of television, essentially turning the industry on its head, but it has also brought a new mode of advertising to the forefront. In the beginning, their advertising was guerilla-esque. Going to college campuses and throwing parties was what it was all about. They wanted people to watch and if that meant going to kids' dorm rooms and dragging them in front of the t.v. then thats what they did. Eventually Adult Swim decided to tweak their mode of advertising. Michael Cahill came up with the brilliant idea of bumps in between shows. These consisted of black screens with white text. Although the design was simple, the premise was brilliant. "Sometimes we would just say what was on our minds," said Cahill. And thats exactly what they did - they created a dialogue with the viewer through their ads. They would even post comments from their online message boards. These ads brought the viewership even closer, almost too close. After a year or two of successful, simple ads, things are about to change. Cahill and Escobedo took a good portion of their presentation to talk about their new advertising design that is about to launch. Mostly influenced by Russian military posters and Asian advertising - the new look is a definite 180 from the b&w bumps. The new ads are bright and big and have very little English. They are great. (So keep your eyes open.)

“Look at what everybody else does and do the opposite,” seems to be Adult Swim's motto. And that is exactly what they do. Their shows are silly and ridiculous and smart. They take chances by using their imagination in different ways then our reality-saturated television mainstream. They make people think outside the box with shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a show about a french fry, a soda can and a meatball who all live together in New Jersey. And then there is Squidbillys, a show about hillbilly squids that live in the north Georgia mountains. And that is only the beginning of it.

I have always enjoyed Adult Swim, but seeing all of the hardwork and imagination that is poured into that studio everyday makes me appreciate it just that much more. But check it out for yourself.

Graffiti Research Lab

2006-05-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last night, at the not-for-profit technology & arts center Eyebeam, there was a presentation by the Graffiti Research Lab. The artists not only presented their own work and work of their students at Parson's, but they focused on teaching the audience how to emulate their projects. If the presentation would of had a title, it would be "How To Stop Dull People, Before They Take Over The World."

They taught us everything from making babies out of tape to making rainbows from concrete.

Afterwards a man was arguing that the group was not using its power for anything substantial - that there were not enough politics or statements. But, is that really true? Maybe adding color to our public space and making people think outside the box is more powerful than we realize.

Jenny Holzer Video

2006-05-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

Local public art gurus Creative Time have just released a video of Jenny Holzer's work on their website. Holzer is an artist and self-described "multi-disciplinary dweeb," that has been working in the public realm for many years. Focusing on projecting ideas to the public through different means, she started off using street posters and written text. However, in the most recent years, her method of projection on buildings and other public objects, has become a consistent element within her work.

Watch the video here.

Asian Video Art Week

2006-05-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight kicks off Asian Contemporary Art Week here in NYC, an event that showcases Asian Art at 25+ galleries and spaces throughout the city. This year, ACAW has devoted a special section of the event to Asian Video Art. These single channel video works were selected through a process of nomination and juried by Melissa Chiu, Asia Society Museum, Yu Yeon Kim, Independent Curator and Barbara Londong, Museum of Modern Art.

This is the schedule for the week, which you can see is packed with events and exhibitions. Below I have highlighted some of the videos that should prove to be interesting.

White House, Lida Abdul
Wednesday, May 24th, 3-5 pm, Brooklyn Museum
In her home town of Kabul, Afghanistan, Abdul paints the ruins white. "I wanted to create a kind of sculpture that was supposed to be an answer to those who only see destruction, and that could also indicate the possibility of solving problems far more difficult..."

SARS, A Love Story , Mathieu Borysevicz
Saturday, May 27, 4-6 pm, The Bronx Museum of Arts
A short documentary about a newly wed couple forced to deal with SARS on their trip to visit family. The film examines love in crisis and the international media's desparation for thrilling news.

Enclose , Bea Camacho
Tuesday, May 23, 5:30-8 pm, Japan Society
This video documents an 11 hour performance where filmmaker Bea Camacho crocheted herself into a cocoon with red yarn. "When I started this project, I was interested in hiding spaces and creating my own environment. I wanted to refer to ideas of fear and protection by slowly producing a safe space for myself."

Andy Forever, Emily Chua and Rutherford Change
Saturday, May 27 2-5 pm, Queens Museum of Art
This video is comprised of every death scene in the history of Andy Lau's acting career, played chronologically. The movie star becomes 'immortalized' in a monotonous loop of make-believe death and cinematic reincarnation.

Very Fantastic, Man Yee Stella So
Thursday, May 25 6-8:30 pm, Thomas Erben Gallery
Very Fantastic transforms the traditional Chinese nine square calligraphy papers into a poetic story of where the “suite of the good ghosts” (Chinese name of the video) is situated. The video explores the possible of space, identity, and preservation of Hong Kong unique heritage.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kota Ezawa
Friday, May 26, 6-9 pm, Gallery Arts India
A short animated film version of the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Abraham Zapruder's famous 8-millimeter film footage is the source of the Kennedy imagery, while scenes from D. W. Griffith's film ''The Birth of a Nation'' inspired the Lincoln segment.

MOVE3: Under The Influence

2006-05-18T06:38:00.000-07:00

Currently in its third year, the MOVE3 Motion Based Design Summit begins tomorrow. Showcasing special guest legendary photographer/filmmaker/artist Jean Paul Goude, the conference is jam packed with some amazing talent. But of course, that is what this conference is all about: rounding up a group of cutting edge artists, mix them with the creative community, provide a few computers and video screens and BAM! everyone gets inspired. Its a wonderful concept really.

Look forward to the scoop on people like:

- Miranda July
- The Adult Swim folks
- Marina Zurkow
- Casey Reas
- Laurie Anderson
- Nexus Productions
- Current TV
- Cory Arcangel
- Psyop

Check back here for coverage.

The Avail Video Blog.

2006-05-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Bringing to you:

- Video Art news
- Artist interviews
- Conference low-downs
- Upcoming events
- Video Clips

And lots more.