A new video piece by Yoshua Okon called OCTOPUS involves a performance with day laborers who act out their Guatemalan soldier past in a Home Depot parking lot. No permission was asked and Okon shot freely as Home Depot business as usual took place.
Yoshua Okon’s OCTOPUS is currently screening at the Hammer museum in Los Angeles.
Latest cut up piece from Buzz Coastin, channeling fellow familiar Absurdists, i.e Heck Boyd, Goat Worship mashed with Buzz’s private stash of collected video absurdity.
GOAT WORSHIP has been a bitch to track. A prolific video making experimental absurdist outfit, they used to have nearly all their work on YouTube and then in some sort of fit of rage or frustration they would take down their whole channel, delete all their videos. Then months later it would re-surface under another channel, then, once again it would be gone; either again self inflicted or YouTube inflicted.
In their hometown in Canada they apparently have been banned from various venues.
In 2010, in the U.S., they were featured as part of the Absurdist Film Festival.
And then, some sort of inner turmoil disbanded the whole Goat Worship acting troupe.
But the ringleader has returned, and has turned to animation (SIMS characters) to further spread the hive mind goat gospel.
The animation approach works great. I sat through 35 minutes of the “first dream” no problem and eager to get into the second dream series.
The incredible new website offers new work, plus all the classic GOAT WORSHIP videos, and also music.
Here’s a blog article on Jon Mortisugu scoring a Comcast cable deal as well as his thoughts on getting over the nostalgic past (punk) and embracing the new (wave).
Many Absurdist Video Artists are either on their second YouTube channel, the first having got banned, or else they have strikes against their existing channel with threats to close it down.
Recently American Films (on their second channel) received the standard issue warning/6 month suspension watch, for their piece PRAIRIE GIRL and the piece itself was deleted.
This is a good look at Absurdism at work, using simulation for effect, and the grounds for video banning. (You can go through this piece and note that the first simulation is obvious in delivery but not exact, the second is obvious and exact, and the third, and most extreme, is obvious but is absent of any sound effect and has very little set up; In context we know what’s happening, but in delivery the argument can be made that the line is blurred – i.e. maybe she really did have a melting chocolate bar up her skirt?)
In any event, American Films appealed the banning of their video. In an extremely rare instance, YouTube quickly turned around and reinstated Prarie Girl!
Perhaps the tide is changing for Absurdist Art on YouTube and most of our artists here can relax a bit and not be worried about their channel going poof due to their next upload.
But most likely the regular night shift staff at YouTube was on early Summer vacation, and a third string intern was given a shot at the appeals wheel that night.
Here’s Prairie Girl. American Films piece on (wo)man and nature. Movements and matter. Through our various orifices; all as natural as the fields and wildlife around us, many of which perform the same actions. Instead the resulting clench faced, unwatchable nature of this video is proof we place our creature selves on a higher, and a very much imaginary, pedestal.
The first ever Fuck the Earth Night went down on Earth Day in Bosie Idaho with a full fledged evening of live theater, live music, video collage, and short films. It was 3 acts of satirical absurdity, and likely the most bizarre Earth Day event on the planet.
The film of the night clearly went to “Squirrel Mommy”, a short film by American Films starring Kelly Broich as a woman named Neena who becomes overwhelmed with a fit of jealousy over her best friends news, delivered in stereotypical fashion by actor Casey Broich, “I’m pregnant!”
The friend, Wendy, waits for the expected canned congratulations response which usually is something along the lines of “I’m so happy for you, you are going to be such a great mommy..I can’t wait to see your baby bump..you will be glowing.” And blah blah blah. But Wendy receives none of the typical girlfriend to girlfriend response and instead Neena becomes sad, then ferociously jealous, as she is unable to bear chidren and adorn herself with the “Mommy label”.
At first glance one may wonder where the satirical Earth day angle exists in a jealous child birth scenario. But when you realize that one American child has 55 times the carbon legacy as a child born in India, you can see that the environmental connection with Squirrel Mommy may be the most relevant satire of the night as it plays on the hypocrisy in so many who think they are making huge environmental strides by putting bottles in recycling bins, yet don’t question for a moment the impacts of bringing a child into the mix , which actually negates other efforts while in the bigger picture painfully questions their “I’m so green” status.
Conveniently we forget, and certainly don’t want to admit, that it’s overpopulation that’s the real culprit behind planetary destruction. Global warming and peak oil would both be much less non-factors if it weren’t for overpopulation which in part is encouraged by the child bearing attitude and addiction which poor jealous Neena portrays as she reveals the lengths she will go to fill this ingrained desire.
“A baby will fill me, with self-worth.. a new purpose and vitality..i want a baby..to call my own” (Neena transitioning into song)
Squirrel Mommy shows the ridiculous glorification of “child birth desire” and “being a mommy” which is so ingrained in our culture, starting with little girls and their baby dolls. After nailing the absurdity of Mommy desire, we are left to cringe with the piss and shit pureness of nature in it’s primal form.
SM concludes with Neena finding solace in her child bearing desires, while conquering her jealously by implementing the classic and destructive “more is better” solution.
While a live screening of this short is ideal to share and experience the varied guttural howling reaction, American Films promptly uploaded it online to share with all.
In celebration of the acceptance of allowing oil to spill into Earths oceans, pollutants to fill the air, nuclear plants and their inevitable radiation disaster and waste to be built everywhere, plastics to be our commonday, fracking and the resulting igniting tap water, and the many more pollutionary fecal’esque dumps on our Mother that we don’t think twice about taking, it seems that the real party on April 22nd should be more about our obsession for fucking the earth over rather than a “put on your green party hat for a day” swaray called Earth Day.
Alas, there is one organization that is celebrating the chemical toilet that we call home with the first ever “Fuck The Earth Night”.
While the money lovin excess obsessed cavalry converge in Idaho for the Sun Valley billionaires conference in preparations for their own future planetary dumpings, the counter current artists and co-conspirators of Collapse Theater are converging not too far away in Garden City in preparations for their own celebration for the night of April 22nd where a variety of films and live theatrics will go down at the Visual Arts Collective.
It used to be you had to wait over a decade or so to make fun of marketing videos put out by companies and corporations. Only then could you see them in proper context; observing their ridiculous nature and the failing content that they poorly delivered.
The other time issue was lack of viewing access. Now days these old VHS tapes from the 80’s and 90’s found in thrift stores and dumpsters have been digitally transferred to the web, re-appropriated by video artists and collectively mocked in their original forms online.
But no longer is there a need to rely on these old marketing vids, nor do you have to wait decades for current absurdity to be recognized. There is a plethora of material from modern day companies currently out there that are so abusrdly mundane and fitting to mockingly watch, that despite their attempts at appealing to the target demographics with flashy visuals and quirky edits, they still come off as flat out phony and manipulative. On top of that we can now see how the promotion of big box corporate consumption has contributed to the mentality that drove the U.S. into the bottomless sinkhole it’s currently spiraling down.
And of course there’s the let’s try to be avant garde angle pushed by some of the most corrupt conglomerations today.
But there’s more. Unique to this day and age, are not just the finished corporate product but now available online are actual marketing videos from and for the actual marketing agencies themselves.
Even worse, and even more telling of how this mentality get’s propagated, is the whole marketing racket itself. Not only are there horrible videos being made for corporations, but there now exists actual marketing videos for the actual marketing/ad agencies themselves.
These are equally as terrible and surprisingly readily available on YouTube by the marketing outfits own channel. Adding in the wannabe experimental glitch editing and varying camera angles in an attempt to convey how cutting edgy they are, while offering performances where it’s actually hard to discern whether the piece is actually a joke – “mock job” – or a real video by the agency. And as mentioned oftentimes these are much more telling as to how the mentality of trying to fool consumers into believing your lifestyle depends on “the brand” gets propagated to such an insane degree.
The key is branding. Branding the consumer, similar to branding cattle.
Now days they, ironically yet accurately, call the practice “branding”. And a slew of “branding agencies” celebrate this supposed ingenious form of marketing.
Given the marketing/ad agency environment, coupled with all the “marketing lingo” that these people LOVE using (“lifestyle segmentation, subliminal perception,etc.) it has to be assumed that someone came up with the branding term as simply a bad joke, yet everyone at that particular meeting were all unsure if they were supposed to laugh or not; to play it safe the ego sensitive minions decided it best not to chuckle at the seemingly obvious joke, and hence the branding banter got tossed around enough to actually be taken seriously.
This latest angle involves “marketing the experience”, and the lifestyle. In other words branding the consumer. The brand becomes you.
American Films, constant mockers and proliferators of the whole corporate whorehousing and marketing racket, write in regarding the whole branding angle:
Scary. The BRAND IS YOU shit.. It’s all about streamlining yourself.. Pretty much doing away with complexity and HUMANNESS. And putting on a facade.. We watched YOU ARE THE BRAND videos for an hour straight last night.. They’re all saying the same thing… It’s like the gurus read the same book And are now peddling speaking, coaching, consulting services on YouTube. Total BULLSHIT.
LIKE ANY RACKET, PONZI, OR PYRAMID SCHEME, there becomes a “peak” where major money is being made, more and more con outfits are in operation, and the game seems to be going full throttle. And then, eventually, “the jig is up”. The fraud no longer works, too many people catch on to the deception, money ceases to be made. Such is the case, and the likely fate for the branding racket. It simply cannot continue on to this utterly absurdist degree, and when future people look back, the amazement and befuddlement that it actually went on for as long as it did will be absolutely unbelievable.
But surprisingly, in a time where the “great recession” is now accepted, and “recovery” is promised, yet nowhere to be seen, these con outfits are still kicking it big time; going strong as perhaps last gasps for corporations to sizzle the seal, the brand, on as many consumers as possible.
What the fuck is wrong with us? Why are we here? Why do these kinds of videos exist? It’s time to COLLAPSE the fucking corporate paradigm.
Clearly there’s a need to cut this shit. It has no future and the more people that can be peeled away from the branding iron, and the corporate dependence which the conglomerates seek, the more that can start localizing themselves towards situations which will be vital for future survival, and simply more fulfilling for existing as an actual human being.
On Feb. 19th, American Films in association with Collapse Theater will be premiering “Corporate Night” which will include live theater, performance, film and video art, tearing down the curtain of corporate marketing absurdity, revealing the buck naked peddlers of branding smut, while providing optimistic nuggets of hope that another mentality is definitely possible, and a hell of a lot more healthier.
ABSURDIST VIDEO ART 