Young video warrior Maya isn’t the most exciting performer out there and she certainly isn’t someone whose music I turn to, but she and her crew have gone a bit beyond. This new video of hers has a bit more of a kick to it than what I’m used to from her; what makes it interesting to watch, though, is how she has constructed a world that escapes the boundaries of culture. What I mean by that is Maya has given birth to an apostatic abomination that history is threatening to vomit into a wormhole. Actually, this video is so beautiful that I don’t know how to describe it so I will once again shut up.
UPDATE! After doing a little research I’ve discovered that this is no fantasy world; this is the reality of modern Arab life. Witness the following videos and know that find more you need only go to youtube and type ‘arab drifting’ or ‘sandal skating’.
Last weekend I was part of a ritualized public reading of Bataille’s ‘Guilty‘ out at the Smoke Farm complex. Photographer Dan Hawkins made a time-lapse video of our 7 hour adventure…
Guilty is the edited diary of George Bataille written during World War 2. Bataille explores the guilt and anger he experiences at not being able to join the war effort due to illness. It is at times funny, philosophical, pornographic, yet always high-minded even in the midst of literary excess.
There were four of us and we each took turns reading from the text. When one of us finished their section they’d fill our glasses with wine. Taking our glasses, we’d all rise and toast one another. Then we’d sit and some of us would light cigarettes. The next person would start reading where the last left off.
By the end of the reading we were shivering and drunk having consumed 7 bottles of pink wine. We stripped naked in the dark and folded our clothes leaving them sitting on our chairs. Each of us lay down in the frigid river. I screamed when I did so as the chill of the water was too much to bear. Then I ran to the shore and dried myself; put on my street clothes. Returned home to our camp having only thrown up twice during the entire evening.
Remember that name. Spoek is a musician and designer in South Africa.
His cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” came into my world last night via the ever perverse homolandia (NSFW).
It’s a beautiful take on an old anthem; both are dismal yet somehow joy inducing. They both make use of minor chords to get their message across. Spoek changes the lyrics to “he’s lost control…” and I haven’t attempted to parse why.
On vimeo I found an interview with him and perhaps some clues lie there; I’ll leave that up to you to decide. The changes are atmospherically delightful. The sound of steel drums. The downward pitch-shifting of the vocals.
The video brings nods to initiation ceremonies. The chanter in his white suit. The white dust blown into the faces of the young petitioners. These children being ridden by loas, spirit horses.
Skygazer over at Metafilter has an interesting reading on it that dovetails nicely into my own. He sees the movements of the young bodies as tributes to the epilepsy of Ian Curtis, the author of the song and it’s first vocalist. Actually, the chances that the director was looking at making connections between the epileptic’s movements during a seizure and the actions of the ridden/possessed are probably close to 100%.
It’s been written that epilepsy was viewed as both the hand of the devil and the pose of the shaman. Both versions of the song function as trance music; if only Spoek’s cover were longer. If there’s anything I can summon quickly to resonate with the imagery of the video it’s the popular take on Voodoo in Louisiana’s New Orleans. Every image I can imagine of the male practitioners involves white suits and top hats. The voice being the central power of this religion, and perhaps of all human endeavor, it is only fitting that our protagonist carries a megaphone instead of a magic wand or a whiskey bottle.
a little more info from blackdownsoundboy; be sure to snatch the ok zharp mix at the end of the interview.
drops.walks is my first attempt at serious film making. it’s a short meditation on sexual chimerism and waning consent. or maybe it was just an excuse to make out with a lot of people in one day.
drops.walks was created for the tubs film challenge, an event sponsored by the northwest film forum of seattle, washington. Constructed with the creative assistance of sara murat and steven miller acting as camera people, cinematographers and providing onsite documentation. a lot of photographs were taken and a few have been used here and there in my work. check out the post ‘the end of all flesh‘ to see a few.
at present i’m working on more films. i have this idea that i’d like to have 5 to a dozen short flicks produced by the end of 2009. none of them will be more than 5 or so minutes long. each will will be inhabited by a single theme or motif. dialogue free and purely expressions of art. well, they’ll be art in so much as they can’t be called anything else…