Great work out of Mexico, and great piece here profiling Yoshua Okon who culture jams with his camera, both bringing out and creating, the cultural absurdities which exist.
Watch the 15 minute documentary here:
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/art_talk_episode_yoshua_okon/
“Back in the 80s and 90s the art scene in Mexico was filled with boring, solemn, abstract work. But then video artist Yoshua Okon and his buddy, the painter Miguel Calderon made it fun again. “
Classic American Films, new bits from Boyd, an Elliott, and Tykylevits breaks the 1000 online video mark, celebrating with nylons and a pigs mask.
A holiday performance art piece by Eli Elliott, likely made for video, though possibly part of a live performance; unclear. Nevertheless, “one of the most obnoxious characters created” by Elliott was a social networking comment received on this piece with an urgency for more along these lines.
Drink in some holiday headache cheer, as Elliott wraps himself up in the crazed spirit of fulfilling the commercialized gift giving never ending saga of seasonal tidings of absurdist joy.
Prolific video artist “tykylevits” hails out of the northern part of Finland; seemingly in a secluded homestead filled with outsider art sculptures, Harley Davidson motorcycles, various animals, and a number of fishnet stocking wearing women who willingly, and gladly, perform for the camera; from cross country skiing in miniskirts in the harsh Finnish winters to rolling around in muddy swamps during the summers.
Due to the language barrier, the history, backstory, and details on “tykylevits” remain a mystery to this blog at the moment. Though a quick translation from a Finnish colleague revealed “tykylevits” to be an artist, known for his wood carving pieces. He’s also in a motorcycle club. And involved in politics to some degree.
But it’s his absurdist video work which clearly occupies his time and artistic preference. This guy lives it. Ranging from absurd fetish videos, to improv music performances, to experimental pieces, “tykylevits” pumps out work continuously. Subscribe to his online channel and you’ll get a new piece in your subscription box almost daily.
One thing absurdist video artists all have in common is the need, desire, almost obsessive addiction to create consistently in their absurdist voice of choice; clearly this be the case for “tykylevits”. This drive for many often causes perfected polished works to become secondary to the immediate regurgitation of work. Nevertheless “tykylevits” provides a decent mix of both the immediate, yet still having an eye on experimentation and editing to further drive the absurdism over the top.
A new feature is on the way from Jon Moritsugu called PIG DEATH MACHINE. A sneak peak trailer was just released and it appears to be an absurdist horror movie of sorts, Moritsugu style, with regulars Victor of Aquitaine and Amy Davis who’s also the co-creator. Here’s the trailer:
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Announcing the much needed, much waited for coalition of absurdist film and video makers under one umbrella, on one screen, as part of one festival.
The first ever Absurdist Film Festival is set to go down November 6 outside of Boise, Idaho.
A bit of history is being made here with the first ever absurdism based cinema fest, which essentially solidifies the movement, as a movement.
Cinema in one form or another has always existed on the fringe; the avant garde in the 60’s-70’s, the Cinema of Transgression in the 80’s, the Underground film fests of the 90’s; and the lost decade of no representation in the 2000’s now ends, and begins with late 2010 marking the period for fringe cinema to take on the absurd; a state of being that is currently encompassed on all levels and as always it is those working in the margins calling it out and creating the rear view relevant art that the future co-opters salivate over.
American Films is behind the scenes on this one, and rather than exclusively crash the party, looking at their line up they chose to ease into history by including the outsiders from the 80’s and the 90’s right alongside of current troublemakers. Nick Zedd is showing, as well as heavyweight Damon Packard (and there’s a rumor floating that Packards powerhouse REFLECTIONS OF EVIL may get a screening after the regular roster of films play).
The lineup also features many who have been written about here at the AVA blog, and those on the burner to be featured in the near future.
While this cinematic historical event is going down in IDAHO, there are plans to have it play around the U.S. in various venues. Contact or comment if interested in hosting an AFF screening in your area.
It’s time.
On YouTube that is. Brian Bress started posting videos back around 2006, opening up the online world to the performance art world. The expected, and at times awesome, responses ensued:
“you are not funny. you look like a fool.”
“choke. please do. you wouldn’t notice talent if you bit you on the genitals.”
“Are you supposed to be avant garde? There are 5 year-olds on You Tube with more talent. Hopefully bankruptcy might stop you.”
Thankfully bankruptcy didn’t. Apparently he was featured at the Getty museum in L.A. sometime in 2008, and continued to post work online up until last year, but now put up his latest work today. And despite the genital biting crowd, he has a strong following for YouTube, with already a smattering of comments appearing for his latest uploaded 19 minute piece, STATUS REPORT.
Great performance art pieces with sets it seems he created himself; Different characters, jumbled dialogue, wild and awkward movements, Bress does it all, creating a flurry of absurdity. A recent comment said it best:
“man this dude can put together some nonsense”!
Here’s his latest STATUS REPORT, followed by some earlier works.
“You are one of the more absurd heroes! Thank you for what you have put forward; it makes things a little easier for all of us…”
-Ted
Bress website – http://BrianBress.com
“Life has changed greatly since 1995 and so should the logic of storytelling and the look, structure and creation of the moving image. I use manners that relate and challenge current life, and that meditate on future possibilities. I would argue that the word professional is slowly becoming harder and harder to understand or evaluate.” – Ryah Trecartin
I first saw Trecartins art sculptures featured some years ago in a small, new Los Angeles gallery.
Accompanied was an amazing video piece, 45 minutes or so long if I recall, which was a lo-fi, frantic, manic, absurdist masterpiece.
Many “gallery based” video artists don’t have their work online, and usually resort to the “brief clip” or excerpt. But Trecartin has a wonderful and full selection on his YouTube channel – http://www.youtube.com/user/WianTreetin
Here are some random Ryan Trecartin pieces:
“There’s a purity of vision when what you are doing is being done for fun, as a learning experience, which is the essence of amateurism, a much maligned term. Every child knows this. Adults try to beat it out of them. The amateur is the one who makes the discoveries and advances all human thought . This has been demonstrated throughout history.” -Nick Zedd
“German and Russian seem to have done somewhat better in preserving it (the term amateur) to simply mean “lover” in the non-erotic sense. The word’s relatively high standing in France can be seen in the titles of two fairly recent books, one, L’Amateur du poeme, celebrating poetry for the sake of poetry, the other honoring the donor of a huge art collection to the National Museum of Modern Art at the Pompidou Center: Donations Daniel Cordier: Le regard d’un amateur. But in America it is on the defensive. The association of Amateur Chamber Music Players not long ago polled us members about whether we shouldn’t drop the word “Amateur” from our name. Too many people, some were saying, see only the dismissive definition in the word. Many of us fought to retain it, and by now we who love the word seem to have won our battle to keep it in the title. But who knows what will come?” -Wayne Booth
“Coppola ended the conversation by educating us on the true definition of amateur, stating it’s about real passion for something. Then he declared, “I want to be an amateur filmmaker, because I love films.” Indiewire.com
MIL: “Your films often seem as if they are shot from a mobile phone or a handheld video camera rather than by a professional filmmaker. How do newer video technologies influence your work?”RT: Life has changed greatly since 1995 and so should the logic of storytelling and the look, structure and creation of the moving image. I use manners that relate and challenge current life, and that meditate on future possibilities. I would argue that the word professional is slowly becoming harder and harder to understand or evaluate.” -Ryan Trecartin
“Professionalism is a curse; a straightjacket stifling innovation, and the dependence upon it by artists, politicians and and those in power has left us bereft of excitement, surprise or joy. My work is an antedote to this malaise.” -Nick Zedd
LINKS:
Zedd interview – http://www.zoom96.com/nick-zedd-king-of-underground-films-8
Wayne Booth – http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/065863.html
Coppola interview – http://www.indiewire.com/article/coppola_auteur_aspiring_to_be_an_amateur1/
Ryan Trecartin interview – http://moreintelligentlife.com/blog/whitney-ford/qa-ryan-trecartin
Amateurism Exhibition – http://www.academievanbouwkunst.nl/nl/nieuws-en-agenda/capita-selecta/2007-2008/amateurism/
I had thought the whole “I made a movie for 100 dollars” angle had run it’s course. 10 years ago that seemed something, but now, not so much. And what’s with 100 dollars. How about 10 dollars. How about 10 cents. Would that make a film even more special, appealing?
“Shot entirely for $96 in a 220 square foot studio apartment in Manhattan, it was adapted, directed, filmed, acted, designed, and edited by one man.
FLOODING WITH LOVE FOR THE KID has received a lot of attention. The LA Weekly gave it a whole column write up recently.
It’s a feature length, one man cinematic show…
“Actor and filmmaker Zachary Oberzan, performing all two dozen characters himself, created this monumental, transgressive film as a testament to the animal ingenuity and triumphant spirit of the lone artist with no money, no resources, no nothing.”
Based on early Rambo…
“Meticulously adapted from David Morrell’s novel First Blood, which introduced the world to a kid named Rambo waging a one-man war against a sheriff and small town..”
It’s supposedly serious while looking pretty horrible but then is sort of admirable, and then feels like what the fuck and why, yet it doesn’t seem to work, and all this is just from viewing the trailer below, so then maybe there is some merit.
Link to LA WEEKLY article –RAMBO FIRST FILM
Zachary’s website where a DVD can be purchased (out of stock as of this writing it appears) – http://www.zacharyoberzan.com/
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ABSURDIST VIDEO ART 