“Event”

“Genesis”

“Approach”

“Propagation”

“Response”

by Jeremiah Johnson

“Past Lives takes Amano Kunihiro’s Lost Past 4 as a starting point, deconstructing the work into a series of computer drawings and animations produced for the QR/ART exhibition curated by Krystal South at the Portland Art Museum.”

More:

Jeremiah Johnson

Null Sleep

Related posts:

1. Guiding Our Lives
2. Sleepy (2009) by Rafaël Rozendaal
3. “Computer” by Chelsey Hoff

“Empty Window” by Kim Asendorf.

No related posts.

by Jack Kentala

It gives me great pleasure to say, in all earnestness, that Haywire (2011 or 2012 depending on the source) is Steven Soderbergh’s best film since Contagion. And the latter came out last September.

I don’t know what the fuck happens in Mission: Impossible – Shitty Title, but I guarantee this is a better film by several magnitudes. While Soderbergh is no stranger to fringe genre filmmaking – Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and, uh, Thirteen, as well as the still-underrated Out of Sight and the film-school staple/revenger The Limey – here he tackles an action/spy/thriller mashup that plays far better to his sensibilities than, say, Paul Greengrass or David Fincher.

Much fuss has been made about the casting of Gina Carano, well versed in the world of MMA (mixed martial arts, e.g. punching someone in the face until they lose consciousness…in a steel cage!) and someone you definitely want on your side in a bar fight. Many feared that a non-vet wouldn’t carry a film or, more importantly, stand her ground against phenomenal actors like Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor. And she pulls it off completely, with a quiet verve that, for whatever reason, reminds me of Richard Jenkins in The Visitor (or, dare I say, the lead in French Resistance piece Army of Shadows, but with a shade more emotion). Carano also looks like she could double for Rachel Weisz; wouldn’t be surprised if unwitting filmgoers mistook the two.

So that’s probably a good departure point between comparing the real-life exploits of Carano versus pornstar Sasha Grey in Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience. It’s not like Soderbergh hasn’t used non-pros before. Anyone remember Bubble? I sure do, and not just because it was fantastic. I think it’s definitely the fact that sliding Grey into the role of an escort and Carano into a physically-lethal operator in Haywire that led to this dubious comparison. Depending who you ask, the question is either “Who’s the worse actor?” or “Who’s surprisingly excellent?”

I think I’ll leave it at that.

Haywire is also very special because it’s a Soderbergh trifecta: he directed it, shot it (as DP Peter Andrews, as per guild rules), and cut it (as Mary Ann Bernard, also because of guild rules). It’s not as rare as a Soderbergh quadfecta (Solaris, which SS directed, shot, cut, and adapted [very liberally from Stanislaw Lem's book rather than Tarkovsky's film]) or the quinfecta (Schizopolis, with the man as director, writer, DP, lead actor, and music [sort of]). There’s a school of thought (actually a film school of thought that was drilled into my head [by a certain institution] and brashly discarded when I set about both my student shorts and no-budget features) that you should only do one thing on a film, somehow reasoning that if you, say, direct and shoot, you can only concentrate on one or the other. Haywire proves counter to this argument. Contagion (which SS “only” directed and shot), which everyone absolutely loves (right?), proves that the man can wear many hats and still deliver an unfairly-consistent film. (Wish I could do the same!)

I’m working off an outline written on a napkin, so you’re going to have to bear with me. This was also supposed to just be a bulleted list.

I’m mentally going back to Salt, starring Angelina Jolie as a woman spy who can beat the shit out of people. But in that I didn’t once really think about gender roles in action movies, mostly since Jolie has done a lot of those. For a hardcore MMA fighter, Carano is miraculously easy on the eyes (yeah, I’ll trot out the Rachel Weisz comparison again), but she’s not as impossibly beautiful as Angelina Jolie. (If nothing else, Carano’s lips aren’t the size of those wax ones you used to buy as a kid.) So while Jolie has operated largely in the capacity as eye-candy-that-fights (Exhibit A: In Wanted, yeah, she kicks ass, takes names, etc., but also steps nude out of a bathtub while two dudes look on and pop hidden boners.), Carano doesn’t have the burden of having to look too pretty to sell her character because, hell, if her character was too pretty we’d want to check her resume. A colleague and I have an ongoing debate about Haywire, in which he insists Carano is far too low-key to play the lead. I countered saying that this sort of “realistic” spy film (aka not the sort of film with Bourne-esque miracle stunts) exists in the “real world” where a spy’s best asset is their ability to melt into a crowd. Granted, for a film, you have to strike a balance. I thought that Carano made that balance work; my friend didn’t.

(Aside: Just remembered that Salt was actually written with Tom Cruise in mind before they switched it to Jolie with nary a difference.)

And while Soderbergh has dabbled in pretty much everything, he’s fairly new at action outside of some scenes in the Ocean’s, Out of Sight, and a little in The Limey and Traffic. Well, Che is about dudes with rifles and grenades, whereas there are probably less than twenty gunshots in the whole of Haywire. Soderbergh (or screenwriter Lem Dobbs) wisely stuck with close-quarters combat, which is absolutely brutal. It’s much moreso brutal because Soderbergh lets David Holmes’ score completely drop out during fights; all we hear are body blows, things breaking, and gunshots. (Another aside: Gunshots in movies are “movie gunshots” that sound nothing like what actual gunshots sound like. I’ve fired many guns in real life and the sound is more of a singular, blow-out BLAM than a “movie gunshot” that sounds like twenty different things happening at once.) Soderbergh also wisely keeps the shots as wide as possible, which is akin to kung-fu films and early Jackie Chan (like Police Story or Druken Master II, not his American bullshit, back when Jackie Chan could fall three stories onto hard ground [as he did in Project A] and not die), which showed that the actors actually had some skill. This was long before the What The Fuck Is Happening? It’s Cut Too Fast! trend that’s been going on in Hollywood for a while, which was first used to hide the stuntmen and now is employed for reasons that are beyond me. (As much as I love exactly 41% of The Dark Knight, I hate their obtuse, obstructed, dark-as-fuck, edited-so-fast-it-could-induce-a-seizure fight choreography. And it extends far beyond just that film.)

Unfortunately, while scenes with Carano and random dudes (most likely stuntmen) duking it out are kept whole with longer and wider shots (since Carano can easily hold her own), her bouts with Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor are cut a little faster because, presumably, those guys needed a double lest they wanted a broken skull.

While I’m grinding out minor quibbles, here’s another: The whole framing device for about 75% of the story is lame. To summarize: Carano gets out of a hotspot by carjacking a car and its driver. For a private-ops spy, she sure spills her entire narrative to her passenger, and even though it’s in the spirit of trying to clear her name, it’s a tad convenient and cuts up the past and present at not-always-perfect points. Also: The carjacked man looks and sounds so much like Edward Norton (especially through windshield glare) that I had to double-check IMDb that it wasn’t him. Here‘s what I’m talking abut, though he looks a lot less doughy in the film.

One last caveat: The film seemed too short. That’s actually probably the biggest compliment I can offer up. It’s just that the spy genre has trained viewers to expect acts 1 and 2 to plot out the final “job” that unfolds in act 3. Here, the two main “jobs” blend into each other and, individually, don’t last that long. If you see Haywire, you’ll know what I mean when, near the end, Channing Tatum has a somewhat dumbing realization and says, “I was in Barcelona seven days ago?”

Much like I gushed in my thoughts on Contagion, it’s astounding how many great players are in the film given its $15 million budget. Carano probably came in on the cheap, and the rest must owe Soderbergh favors for dogsitting or driving them to the airport at 5 a.m. one morning or something. It’s like the starting lineup for badasses past and present: Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton (not Pullman), Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas. All that was missing was a Matt Damon cameo. (And Che Part 2 showed that Damon can have a minutes-long cameo without derailing the film and making everyone say, “Hey!… Isn’t that Matt Damon?” Probably because he was wearing a hat and speaking Spanish, albeit Matt-Damon-sounding Spanish.)

Haywire was great. It’ll be great again when it hits DVD in two months and I can watch it again, most likely with the always-excellent commentaries by Soderbergh. But no matter how hard I try, all these recent Soderbergh films are depressing because the man insists that he’s retiring after Magic Mike (let’s just all pretend it’s not about male stripping so we won’t feel weird getting tickets), his HBO-miniseries biopic on Liberace, and a 2013 film currently titled The Bitter Pill. I feel like I’m pre-eulogizing, but even if Haywire is derided as a subpar genre pic (most likely by those whose palette is more used to Mission: Impossible – Shitty Title, the schizo Bournes, and whatever turd the next James Bond turns out to be), Soderbergh threw his full force (or at least the trifecta) behind a new genre, a first-time lead, and a non-sexy (read: non-Ocean’s) style. And it came together. And I want more.

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on The Informant!
2. Thoughts on Contagion
3. Brief Thoughts on Drag Me To Hell

I have not seen every film that was released in 2011, but I’ve seen a good many, and here are my reflections on the most notable films of 2011.

10.
DRIVE
directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
written by Hossein Amini (screenplay), James Sallis (book)
stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston

A dirty neon, LA love story, wherein a real taciturn hero (Ryan Gosling), and a winsome young mother (Carey Mulligan), meet under unfortunate circumstances.  Do people make the circumstances, or do circumstances make the people?  Seemingly this is the thematic question underlying the film.

The casting is a success: Gosling and Mulligan are the best part of the film.

Drive is a soundtrack film, this is made apparent after an enthralling opening chase scene when Kavinsky’s “Night Call” plays over the opening credits.  Driving motifs have always been a part of Kavinsky’s music, so this is a fitting choice for the film.  Along with the Kavinsky track, “Under Your Spell” by Desire and “A Real Hero” by College are a perfect musical fit.  In many ways the soundtrack augments this moody love film — but perhaps sometimes the film is too reliant on its soundtrack for emotional cues — but it still works well, and Cliff Martinez does a fine job laying down the sonic bed of suspense.

On the outside, Drive has a candy-coated shell of action, nuanced-suspense, and retro aesthetic; at heart, the film is a love story, a love story of forlorn hope, where we wait for the people we love, where we commit crimes for the people we love.

9.
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
directed by Woody Allen
written by Woody Allen
stars: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates

Midnight In Paris definitely is Woody Allen’s best film since Match Point (2005).  Owen Wilson plays Gil, a screenwriter vacationing in Paris with his uptight fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams).  The two spend more time with McAdams’ pedantic friend, Paul (Michael Sheen), than they do alone. Pedantic Paul sets the table for some funny art humor.

Wilson is a screenwriter having trouble with his first novel.  Luckily, he stumbles upon a magic hot-spot where at the strike of midnight, he is carried back to an earlier period marked with creative fecundity and intellectual glamor, where he meets and falls for a beautiful and charming woman (Marion Cotillard), and hangs with artistic heavyweights like Pablo Picasso, Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, and is introduced to a famous publisher (Kathy Bates) who proof-reads his novel.

The film also features a lovely soundtrack, which is highly recommended.  According to iTunes, I’ve listened to “La Conga Blicoti” by Josephine Baker over 40 times since the film hit the theatre.

The film is a halcyon fantasy filled with love, creativity, and magical elements of time-travel.

8.
THE TREE OF LIFE
directed by Terrence Malick
written by Terrence Malick
stars: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain

Much like the title denotes, The Tree of Life is an art house epic, and many words could be written about it.  You could write essay on it, a treatise — a tome.

Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography is glorious.  Malick is a great director and there’s no arguing his dedication to this project and to his vision.

A very literal way of interpreting this abstract thing called life.

7.
MELANCHOLIA
directed by Lars von Trier
written by Lars von Trier
stars: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland

Amongst my friends, Melancholia is the most polarizing film of the 2011, which makes sense, because the film itself is bipolar, dark, apocalyptic, and toned with abject depression — but it’s also a dark comedy.

Part 1 of the film features the pulchritudinous Kirstin Dunst as a despondent bride on her big wedding day, a wedding so big that a professional wedding planner (Udo Kier) is on the floor and commanding the events.  The bride makes some outlandish decisions, deviates from the fastidious schedule, and hilarity and absurdism ensues, but in a very fragile and dramatic sense.

Part 2 of the film deals with the characters’ varying expectations, interpretations, and actions pertaining to the oncoming contact with a mystifying planet named Melancholia.

Melancholia deals with absurdism and celestial catastrophe in a very dark and beautiful way.

6. (TIE)
Two gems of American independent cinema.

6. (TIE)
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE
directed by Sean Durkin
written by Sean Durkin
stars: Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson, John Hawkes

Marcy May Mary Marlene is a winner in the storytelling department: despite its prosaic cinematography, its slow-and-steady approach to non-linearity works surprisingly well and allows the viewer to walk in the shoes of a very fragile character experiencing psychosis; it illustrates the cause-and-effect relationship and harrowing aftermath of mental abuse.

Elizabeth Olsen gives a strong performance; director Sean Durkin builds a strong arc of rising action up to a very strong ending — an impressive first feature film effort — great storytelling with little budget.

6. (TIE)
MEEK’S CUTOFF
directed by Kelly Reichardt
written by Jonathan Raymond (screenplay)
stars: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano

Meek’s Cutoff — probably Kelly Reichardt’s best film to date — is a realist and minimalistic period drama.  Did you play the oregon trail computer game in school growing up?  Well, this pensive film is like that, insofar as its action involves rationing your food and water, and fixing supplies like busted wagon wheels and axles.  The film is based on a historical event involving a certain frontier guide named Stephen Meek back during the mid 1800s.

Kelly is a homie: she makes films on a scant budget: 2mil for Meek’s Cutoff, an estimated 200,000 budget for Wendy & Lucy (2008), Old Joy (2006) definitely had lesser, and her first feature River of Grass was shot on 8mm (saw River of Grass recently at the Nightingale).

5.
THE INTERRUPTERS
directed by Steve James
stars: Ameena Matthews, Jeff Fort, Cobe Williams

Kartemquin makes many great documentary films; The Interrupters is one of their best.  Directed by the illustrious Steve James (Hoop Dreams, 1994), the film examines the pervasive problem of senseless violence in Chicago, focusing on the benevolent women and men — the interrupters — who obviate the violence by forming relationships with and watching out for those with a short fuse.

Some of the Eddie Bocanegra scenes in the film were shot in/around the neighborhood I live in.  You see the Ceasefire stickers around here, you see the Ceasefire signs around here, sometimes you hear the gunshots late at night.  Senseless violence truly is a problem in Chicago . . . and not just in Chicago, it’s a ubiquitous problem, as we all surely know.

It’s sad, very sad.  It seems every time you watch the local news you see a new story about an innocent kid — walking to school or waiting for the bus — who gets killed by a stray bullet related to gang violence or some senseless altercation.  The Interrupters examines certain stories like these.

I saw this film at the Gene Siskel Film Center; one of the interrupters, Cobe Williams, was at the screening.  He provided great insight during his Q&A.

Fun fact: for those that have seen the film, Cobe said Flamo now lives in Minnesota and is pursuing stand up comedy.

This film deserves academy recognition and wide distribution. Hey PBS, pick it up.

4. (TIE)
SHAME
directed by Steve McQueen
written by Abi Morgan & Steve McQueen
stars: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale

A Manhattan neorealist story (with two magnificent professional actors: Michael Fassbender & Carey Mulligan) about the strife of life and the imbalance of relationships, love, and family.

4. (TIE)
THE SKIN I LIVE IN
directed by Pedro Almodóvar
written by Pedro Almodovar & Agustin Almodovar
stars: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anya, Jan Cornet

A madmen will go to great lengths for love.  Almodóvar at his best.

3.
UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES
directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
written by Phra Sripariyattiweti (inspired by the book of), Apichatpong Weerasethakul
stars: Thanapat Saisaymar, Jenjira Pongpas, Sakda Kaewbuadee

The film’s sublime beauty is enchanting.  Whether it be by dint of a red-eyed monster, a human, a ghost, or a talking catfish, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives channels the Life Force with profound imagery and allegory, expanding the cinematic ambit with the supernatural and other forms of life foreign to our own known existence.

FACING THE JUNGLE,
THE HILLS AND VALES,
MY PAST LIVES AS AN ANIMAL AND OTHER BEINGS
RISE UP BEFORE ME.

2.
TABLOID
directed by Errol Morris
stars: Joyce McKinney, Kent Gavin, Dr. Hong

An impeccable documentary film by Errol Morris, a master of documentary cinema.  Arguably, this is Morris’ quirkiest film to date, and it’s a love story, a very bizarre love story.  A madwoman will go to great lengths for love.

The motion graphics, titles, and animation are supreme.  Right up there with I.O.U.S.A. (2008) for best graphics in a documentary.

Joyce McKinney is a very intelligent and eccentric person, a true romantic; her commitment to true romance is — to say the least — fascinating and admirable.

1.
A DANGEROUS METHOD
directed by David Cronenberg
written by Christopher Hampton (screenplay), John Kerr (book)
stars: Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen

Perfected success.

A glorious story of young woman’s mental liberation and the profundities of true love, the conjugal life, work, friendship, and the conscious and subconscious life.

Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, and Viggo Mortensen gift superlative performances as Sabrina Spielrein, Carl Jung, and Sigmund Freud, respectively.  Howard Shore creates a deeply moving musical score (sample “Galvanometer,” or “Siegfried,” or “Letters,” or “Sigfried Idyll”).  Cronenberg directs and orchestrates a marvelous slice of biopic.  A Dangerous Method clearly is 2011′s cinematic best; a perfect success.

The mental fight is a harrowing thing; freedom of the mind is a powerful and beautiful thing.

— A. L. R.

TOP 10
1. A Dangerous Method
2. Tabloid
3. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
4. (tie) The Skin I Live In
4. (tie) Shame
5. The Interrupters
6. (tie) Meek’s Cutoff
6. (tie) Martha Marcy May Marlene
7. Melancholia
8. The Tree of Life
9. Midnight In Paris
10. Drive

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Certified Copy

BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM
Slow Action by Ben Rivers

BEST 3D FILM
Mercurial Madness by Kerry Laitala

Related posts:

1. DINCA: Favorite Films of 2009: Part I
2. DINCA: Favorite Films of 2009: Part II
3. Jack Kentala's Three Most-Favorite Films of 2010

Obliteration Room by Yayoi Kusama: an interactive happening between colored stickers, children, and a white room canvas. Part of Kusama’s major solo exhibit “Look Now, See Forever” at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia.

Yayoi Kusama, 2005

“Look Now, See Forever” from 19 November 2011 to 11 March 2012.

More:

(intro) Look Now, See Forever

Obliteration Room

Yayoi Kusama’s website

Hey Bubbles’ photos of Obliteration Room

“Before The First Dot”

Related posts:

1. Dotted Diffusion: The Art of Yayoi Kusama
2. Video Interview: Peter Hutton, Robert Gardner, the Screening Room (1977)

Following the truism of “sex sells,” Maria Zendre‘s prurient new media project “Woman Not Included” experiments with salacious methods of selling second-hand electronic goods via the online marketplace (marktplaats.nl). The three items for sale:

• Blue acer aspire netbook
• Mac mini
• Sampler Roland SP-404

Screenshot of “Woman Not Included” on Marketplaats.nl

(45 cm x 33 cm) and 3 lightboxes with the respective photographs (98 cm x 24 cm) C-print in Duratrans, wood, plexiglas, daylight tubes (FOTO: Nico Verkerk):

Related posts:

1. TLVSN #3, 11 April, 2011, at Maria’s
2. TLVSN #2, March 7, Chicago, Bridgeport, at Maria’s
3. 2011 IFFR Trailer XL

— David Cronenberg

Related posts:

1. Cronenberg on Technology
2. Cronenberg on Writing
3. Portrait: David Lynch

Captcha, Gabrielle de Vietri, 2010, video, 5 min, color, sound

Using captcha vocables as poetic fodder, and guided by Vietri’s acerbic wit, Captcha recounts the meta-mythical tale of ‘Desmodowe’ and the ‘redlemutes.’

More:
Gabrielle de Vietri website
Gabrielle de Vietri on vimeo

Related posts:

1. One-Minute of BEADS (2010)
2. Review: Cry When It Happens (LLORA CUANDO TE PASE, 2010) by Laida Lertxundi
3. Ben Russell's Trypps Series, 1–7, MCA, September 18, 2010

2012 DINCA stickers are here. PMS 802C ink on clear vinyl. Stix printed by VG Kids.

If you want a sticker, email your mailing address to AR@dinca.org.

   _   _   _   _   _
  / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
 ( D | I | N | C | A )
  \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ 

   _   _   _   _
  / \ / \ / \ / \
 ( 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 )
  \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/

Related posts:

1. A Stick of Orange 4 U
2. Mont Blanc, Chamonix, France, dinca time
3. DINCAssociates in Brooklyn

by Jack Kentala

2011: I finished the picture edit for my second feature film (with a sound overhaul in its late stages for an early ’12 release); wrote a very long book; started prepping my third feature; seriously considered getting a dog and/or getting engaged; and I saw none of the movies that has caused nationwide critics to cream their pants.

I take a bit of that last part back. It’s rather thrilling to see The Tree of Life tentatively making the top of giant amalgamating Best-Of polls, and it’s a huge victory for director Terrence Malick, who has started a late-career Renaissance that will probably kill him. (I “reviewed” this fine film and own it. I’ve watched the universe-creation sequence roughly fourteen times. No comment on how many of those times I may or may not have cried.)

And now I’m slowly remembering my point: I didn’t see enough awards’ bait to feel like I can make any sort of definitive statement on 2011 as a whole. I didn’t like Drive nearly as much as everyone else. I refuse to see The Artist (and don’t get me started). Hugo gave me my first 3D headache. Shame is playing two states away. I’ve got Tabloid and Margin Call in my Netflix stack (right underneath a disc of Justice League Unlimited cartoons). I’d rather spend the ticket price on an actual racetrack bet than see War Horse.

I did, though, see a fair amount of middling fare, like the unreasonably-enjoyable Fast Five, the oh-god-they’re-probably-going-to-turn-this-into-a-franchise Battle: Los Angeles, and director Zack Snyder lost all his cred with his better-than-it-deserved Watchmen adaptation with the fetish flop Sucker Punch.

I also saw pretty much every superhero film released and, these days, that’s no small feat. So in keeping with the time-honored tradition of making pointless lists at calendar year-end, here are the three worst superhero films from 2011.

The Worst

Captain America: The First Avenger

Let’s get the title out of the way. I’m sure the studio marketing hit squad pulled their hair out over this one. Sure, anyone with a passing knowledge of Marvel’s stable of superheroes knows Captain America (especially after his much-publicized comic-book death). But given that Captain America: The First Avenger is set back in that quaint time of the 40s, Marvel must’ve thought we’re all too stupid to see the fast-incoming Avengers films (set in the present day), so they tacked on “The First Avenger” so we mouthbreathers wouldn’t get too confused between scenes of horrid CGI and Hugo Weaving’s ghastly German faux-accent. (In his defense, he was probably having fun while getting paid.)

A lot of my problems with the film (which are also problems within the film itself) have to do with the framing narrative. It’s World War II. The US is at war with Germany. There’s a reason why so many videogames go back to this era: It was arguably the last time our nation faced off against an adversary that could be considered unredeemably “evil.” It was also a halcyon era sandblasted by the idea of an America owned by middle-class whites, and just off every Main Street there were pies gently cooling on windowsills and pretty girls who’d get “serious” by holding hands.

We all know it’s total fucking bullshit, though, but Captain America’s world is that fantasy world. All the more fantastic because the titular Captain, in his European scrapes, only fights a weird branch of the German Army that spouts lame, just-off-the-mark chants of “Hail HYDRA!” and gear up for war wearing big masks. The latter lets our heroes murder as many HYDRA drones as possible without that pesky PG-13 rating climbing up into the R realm. It’s one of those MPAA tricks: You can murder as many people you want as long as it’s historical (Saving Private Ryan) or you can’t see their human faces (here), but if you say FUCK more than twice, it’s an R for you, sir. (And never mind that Captain America is nowhere near an R-rating. Just saying.)

There’s also the typical Superhero Movie problem in that the Captain America mythology is so huge it has to include some of the bare bones of his band of hooligans. They barely get any screen time beyond Howard Stark (e.g. Iron Man’s dad) and the Captain’s gee-gosh love interest, the criminally-underused Hayley Atwell. (See AMC’s pretty-good miniseries remake of The Prisoner to see her do more than give teenage boys boners.)

So Captain America is dragged down by the central tenets of the genre, though it’s certainly not the first to befall its fate. Simply put, the running time can’t cram in the Captain’s origin story, a love interest, hooks into The Avengers (other than in the title), and any substantial fear wielded one of the worst villains in 2011: Hugo Weaving as a Voldemort lookalike, both missing their noses, though Weaving’s Red Skull is, yep, bright red.

And I didn’t even get around to the creepy-as-fuck scrawny version of Chris Evans, who looks like he desperately needs to find the visual effects supervisor for Benjamin Button. At least Evans won’t need to play a weakling for the planned 2014 sequel.

The Second-Worst

Green Lantern

Hal Jordan, hero of Green Lantern, is given a ring of power by a dying pink fish-man. He plays the reluctant hero and becomes part of the weird-alien collective called the Green Lantern Corps. And with his ring, using sheer willpower and imagination, he can create any solid object. Well, as long as it’s bright green.

So during the first public need for using his power, Jordan is faced with a helicopter about to crash. With his ring, it’s obvious he can easily save it. He could make a giant pillow for it to land on. Or rebuild the broken parts of the helicopter with juicy green energy. Or, hell, do it like the goddamn cartoons and encase it in a giant stasis field and slowly bring it down to land.

But what does Jordan do? He turns the rest of the helicopter into a Formula-1-style racecar and builds a winding track for it to drive on and slow down.

This is what we’re dealing with.

A college friend was big into comics, and he and I saw Batman Begins the day it came out. He was blown away by the film which, while far from perfect, wasn’t as shit as the other Batmans before. Through him I learned a passing knowledge of comics and, like all comic nerds, he always argued that a Green Lantern Corps ring is inherently overpowered. I actually remember getting a rather long treatise on the Justice League and how Hal Jordan is considered to be the greatest Lantern in the Corps.

I’m really glad I wasn’t with him when he saw Green Lantern.

Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the fantastic casting of the original Iron Man. Robert Downey, Jr. was already Tony Stark. Ryan Reynolds is still best known as Van Wilder and Scarlett Johansson’s leftovers (good thing the Marvel Avengers and DC Justice League stay separate lest there be some awkwardness between Reynolds’ Jordan and Johansson’s Black Widow). He’s not a strong actor, and while his reluctant-hero shtick works, he doesn’t have the necessary gravitas to step into the role of a badass whose power comes from a ring that looks like it was made from melted-down Ring Pops.

Also, I may have spoken too soon when dissing Weaving’s Red Skull as the most laughable villain, since Peter Sarsgaard’s elephant-man Asperger’s-syndrome-suffering troglodyte might beat out silly red makeup.

What’s interesting about Green Lantern, though, is that the studio and DC Comics aren’t pushing for a Justice League movie yet, so we’ll have to suffer through Green Lantern 2 first.

(Note for all three of you interested: Granted, Marvel had a big lead on its superhero-ass-kicking-ensemble with two Iron Man films, Thor, Captain America, an appearance by Black Widow in Iron Man 2 [though neither Ang Lee's Hulk or the Ed Norton-starring The Incredible Hulk will use that Hulk], but DC seems to be having a tricky time assembling their Justice League. While it’s confirmed that there won’t be standalone films for Avengers Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Hulk, only Green Lantern has a “canon” Justice League movie with the other six either in the making or being rebooted. What’s somewhat sad is that after the will-probably-be-very-good-but-not-brilliant The Dark Knight Rises, there will be another Batman that has nothing to do with Chris Nolan’s Batmans, since this rebooted Batman will serve on the League. Zack Snyder is already on damage control, erasing all memories of Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns with the upcoming Man of Steel. If DC goes the route of Marvel and only makes three standalone films before venturing into an orgy of superheroes, there still has to be a sensical way to exhibit the “classic” Justice League lineup of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and the Martian Manhunter without confusing filmgoers insofar as to dry up the box office. In other words: There will be a lot of probably-shitty superhero movies coming out for the next foreseeable, uh, decade.)

The Least-Worst

Thor

Look up the plot synopsis of Thor if you haven’t seen it or want to spoil it or just want to follow along with the few zingers I have left because, my dear Dincanauts, you do realize it’s almost Christmas, right? This writer has to make dog-treat cookies for my favorite canines without typing my fingers off.

Why Thor gets the backhanded compliment of being the least-worst of this honorable three is because, despite unwisely splitting its narrative between fantastical Asgard and boring-as-fuck New Mexico, the film is loaded with brownie points. First being that the early parts of Thor work splendidly as a fish-out-of-water tale, with godly Thor crashing down to Earth and, despite speaking remarkable English, doesn’t quite figure that things don’t work the way here than in Asgard. It speaks enough that I can remember a scene where Thor downs a cup of coffee at a diner, breaks his mug on the table, and shouts for more, confused why everyone else is confused because it’s apparent common in Asgard to smash your drinking object when finished. And I saw this movie back in May whereas the rest were DVD viewings within the last two months.

Thor’s crippling identity crisis stems for aforementioned narrative splitting. We have Asgard and its Shakespearean betrayal (which is probably the exact phrasing they used to attract director Kenneth Branaugh and actor Anthony Hopkins), all rendered in vivid color and crazy CGI. But then Thor quite literally crashes to Earth; and not just Earth but New Mexico, which is where all of America’s unwanted sand goes. I’m sure the disconnect was intentional, but it simply does not work, especially when the Earth story was far more compelling than the boring power struggle in Asgard; it’s like we, the viewer, are being punished for wanting to see candycane Asgard but only in very, very boring scenes, while all the interesting stuff is happening on Earth.

Thor also suffers from having too much talent that all seem like they’re slumming it for a paycheck. Natalie Portman is just shy of being too hot for portraying an astrophysicist, but she could pick better projects coming off her Black Swan Oscar win. (Never mind Portman’s appearance in the lame stoner fantasy Your Highness.) And while Chris Hemsworth effortlessly charms, the story lazily has Portman going all dreamy-eyed for Thor without reason. Stellan Skarsgard kind of flits around, since he doesn’t have breasts or big muscles. The Wire’s Idris Elba must be the first black guy after Asgard relaxed its Jim Crow laws or started equal-opportunity employment for dudes guarding a big galactic wormhole gate thing. Kat Dennings continues her career-long role as a semi-apathetic smartass who gets most of the one-liners (regardless of whether or not they’re funny).

There’s a common thread here: None of these films – and pretty much every superhero or action film released within the last decade – seem particularly-fulfilling because we know there’s something on the horizon. In the past it’s been a sequel, but now we have these unwieldy superhero-posse affairs threatening to consume the brains of our male youths. There’s already a trailer for The Avengers, despite Marvel confirming Captain America 2, Thor 2, and Iron Man 3 (the latter of which director Jon Favreau is as confused about as am I, because what the fuck can Stark do without his Avenging buddies?). So logic also follows that, at some point in production, someone had a great idea for the film but, nope, we need fodder for the sequel. It’s like climbing the hill of a rollercoaster only to find that there’s no big drop at all; just a low-speed, no-thrill ride through pretty scenery.

Related posts:

1. Film Still and Song: America is Waiting (1982), a film by Bruce Conner; a song by David Byrne and Brian Eno
2. 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival Poster
3. Film Posters of the Russian Avant-Garde

The joy is in the journey. There’s nothing wrong with occasionally sounding nebulous, so let us ooze, let us ooze our best juice. The energy of time w1ll balance. Enjoy the simple pleasures, like coffee talk, super birds, real history, the sunset on the bay, city parking spaces and office parking spaces, having a glass of W4T3R, origami, music, discovery, hats, and of course, h0t w1sp3rs in the night. Pardon me.

People all over the world, it’s time to problem solve with teamwork; what is the best way to work with the moving gyre? We need to innovate; make our best move forward. We need to move forward pari passu with nature. Are you ready to get busy? Our unknown friends will help us, if we clean up our dirt.

OK, it’s time for the collection of t0p5 embeddable web videos. T0p5 is a DINCuratorial series featuring guest participants that curate five embeddable internet videos. There are no guidelines for their selections, other than participants are encouraged to reflect upon their choices in however many words they deem necessary.

Congratulations, this fifth installment of t0p5 is curated by Theodore Darst, a Chicago-based new media artist. His work has exhibited at the MCA Chicago, GLI.TC/H, 319 Scholes, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Kunsthalle New, and he has projected visuals for many musicians, including Bullet Hell, Jerome Baez, Xina Xurner, and at the Neon Marshmallow Festival. Theo recently finished his undergraduate studies at SAIC.

Without further ado, here is Theodore Darst’s t0p5.

in the last post for this top 5 series, chris culler wrote, “some of the most boring videos ever made are actually just disguised audio uploads.” this is true, but the staying power of this genre is really impressive to me. 4 of these 5 videos are “videos” made out of .jpgs of rap cassettes. they are really boring as videos, but they are the most consistent reason I go to youtube. — Theodore Darst

Dj Screw UGK – Tell Me Something Good

i could probably do a whole list of dj screw (http://screweduprecords.com/) tape video tracks. same with ugk. i do a lot of stuff with the good people from gli.tc/h and other people who misuse audiovisual equipment for a whole myriad of reasons, but i’m still floored every time i revisit one of these dj screw tapes. i remember accidentally downloading a chopped and screwed bone thugs n’ harmony cd off naptster in fifth or sixth grade and i couldn’t even comprehend how people could listen to this music. i think my capacity for chopped and screwed music mirrors the mainstream since i was only able to get into it after the houston rap scene started getting popular. watching dj screw tape videos on youtube is really awesome since he was so prolific and it seems like there’s an infinite amount of his music out there you can stream.

North Memphis Playa Click – Mack’s About His Hustle (1996)

i just found this track a week or two ago. this dude souldjahfromthenorth has one of the best collections of rare ’90s memphis (or at least primarily memphis)  tapes that i’ve seen online. i bookmarked his page a few months back but totally forgot about it for a while. i can’t find out too much information about the north memphis playa click but they’ve got a whole bunch of tracks that embody what i love about the ’90s memphis sound.

Lost Tapes 1997-2000: spaceghostpurrp – 12 18 08

this is a new track and it definitely never existed in cassettete format so I guess its a fake tape video, which makes me happy. i’m a pretty diehard spaceghostpurrp (http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceeGhostPurrpMJ23) fan and one of my favorite things about him is that he really pushes this interesting hybrid between lo-fi ’90s houston/memphis mixtape culture and 2011 hip hop production/distribution.  the weird digitally compressed tape hiss effects, cryptic song titles, and photoshopped tape video fakery make this one a classic for me.

Juicy J – Get Buck Muthafucka Supermix (1993)

i’ve been listening to Hypnotize Mindz (http://triplesix.com/) stuff pretty consistently since 7th or 8th grade, but a lot of the horrorcore stuff was blah for me. After the VH1 shows they did, it was hard to justify liking them but I figure it’s just sort of like how you’re a freshman you’re all about Cory Arcangel and then everyone tells you he’s a fraud and passe and embarrassing but you still sort of like him anyway. This song is the type of thing that would pop on Kazaa or Napster back in the day and you might download it by mistake when you were trying to get “Tear the Club Up”. These songs would just seem endless to me since they’d always clock in at 8-15 minutes and so grimy and so minimal. When I first heard them they always seemed like filler to me, but now I really only go back to juicy j and dj paul for these tracks and rarely the hits.

Bullet Strapped Memphis Mix Buckin/Jookin (Produced by D.B.X)

this isn’t a tape video, but it goes way hard and i’ve watched it about 100 times in the past week so I’m including it. i can’t remember where I first found the link for this. I think it was on thefader.com but it might have been cocaineblunts. i don’t know. either way, this definitely deserves more plays and exposure. the first and second guys who dance are really incredible and i think the mix straddles memphis rap and that more electro Justice shit pretty well. DBX’s  ( http://soundcloud.com/dbx-revelationbeatz ) soundcloud is a good thing to check out.

More:

Theodore Darst

Theodore Darst on Vimeo

Related posts:

1. GLI.TC/H 2011 Bumper by Theodore Darst
2. earth.art (2011), 1–5, by Theodore Darst
3. Jon Cates’ t0p5

Dec. 13, 2011 — Vimeo, the amiable filmmaker and artist friendly video-hosting service, opened submissions today for the second Vimeo Festival + Awards, “which celebrates the most creative and original videos online and the individuals that make them.”

Beginning today through February 20, 2012, filmmakers can submit their works for consideration in one of 13 different judged categories.

Last year, the judge panel was impressive — David Lynch judged the “experimental” category — and this year the judges will be equally impressive; however, the judges are to be announced sometime in early January.

Submit your work to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards ———> click here.  Vimeo will award Grants of $5,000 to all of the 13 category winners, as well as awarding a Grant of $25,000 for the Grand Prize winner.

Jeremy Boxer, the Director of the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards, spoke with us yesterday. Mr. Boxer explains now, more than ever, is a propitious time to be an artist producing work that’s disseminated on the internet.

(1) Why should a filmmaker submit to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?

The main difference from traditional film festivals is we only accept work that has premiered online — anywhere — not just Vimeo. The majority of film festivals do not accept work that has premiered online.   Our hope is that in the future every festival will accept work that has premiered online.

(2) What categories/genres are in competition in the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?

There are 13 categories.  Experimental, which is of course of interest to your readers. Lyrical is a new category this year. The Lyrical category encompasses poetic videos based on a personal world-view. These are personal representations of the way the creator looks at the world. For example, travelogues or time-lapses of a local neighborhood.  Captured is a category not based on filmmaking technique but more on what is being captured by the video, for example, a performance based work or projection art.

The other new categories include Advertising, Action Sports, and Fashion and returning categories from our inaugural Vimeo Festival + Awards are:

• Narrative
• Animation
• Original Series
• Motion Graphics
• Music Video
• Documentary
• Remix

(3) Will David Lynch return to judge the experimental category?

We are announcing a few of the judges now.   The remainder of the judges will be announced January. The judges will be equally as impressive as in 2010.

(4) Filmmakers can submit their work using Vimeo via the Internet; are there post-internet distribution/exhibition opportunities in place for the winners? Will there be a time to P-A-R-T-Y?

We will have an Awards ceremony, talks, workshops and a bunch of screenings as part of the festival.   As we are 6 months out, we’re currently in the planning process and are open to ideas.   As we get closer to making that announcement, we’ll reach out to you with all of those specifics.

(5) Last year, Chris Beckman won the Experimental category award for his film OOPS.

Shortly thereafter, Beckman’s film was named an official selection of the corporate-industry-driven 2011 Sundance Film Festival and Beckman directed a commercial for Motorola, for whom he made a branded short film directly inspired by OOPS.

What potential professional opportunities are available to a filmmaker submitting to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?

Our intention is to provide filmmakers with opportunities they would never have had before. We want to provide the gold standard for what you can find online and in so doing provide filmmakers the potential to be seen by a much wider audience which could lead to their big break. Because of Vimeo’s reach, we can put a filmmaker’s work in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands.

After its discovery at the Vimeo Festival + Awards, Chris Beckman’s Oops was chosen as an Official Selection at Sundance Film Festival 2011.  Chris then went on to direct for such brands as Motorola. Sundance reached out to me directly to ask for Chris Beckman’s information for him to be entered into the festival. This was great, as it was the first time I heard Sundance was accepting films that had premiered online.

Another inaugural award winner was Onur Senturk, he had just graduated university when he entered the Vimeo Festival + Awards.  After winning for his film Triangle, due to the Festival’s exposure, Paramount asked him to create the motion design title sequence for Transformers: The Dark Side of the Moon.

The Overall + Documentary winner, Eliot Rausch, has been showered with media attention that landed him a spot on the Carson Daily Show and more commercial work than he ever expected to see in his lifetime.  He’s in post- production on his latest documentary — a film he was able to produce with the grant money he received from winning the 2010 Vimeo Festival + Awards. He has gone on to be offered more work than he knows what to do with.

To give you a sense of what Vimeo can do for filmmakers, here is another very recent example.  A few weeks ago, James Curran, a 28 year old from UK, put up his own homage credit sequence for “Tin Tin.”   The beautiful animated piece came to the attention of Steven Spielberg who hired him for his next film.

You never know who might be watching.

(6) If you could send a submitting filmmaker one special message, what would it be?

The goal of Vimeo Festival + Awards is to expose your film to a much wider audience.   We welcome you to submit and we wish you all good luck!

(7) Anything else you want to add?

We’re just hoping that more filmmakers will submit so that more of them have a chance at all of these incredible opportunities in existing and new categories added for 2012.

More:

————> Submit

2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards

Jeremy Boxer on Vimeo

Submit : : 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards

Related posts:

1. Five Question Interview with Blake Whitman, Vimeo Founder
2. Seven Question Interview with Matt McCormick, Portland-based Filmmaker and Artist
3. Interview with Tami Yeager of Tribeca

1.

Screenshot of Pleaselike.com taken October 27th 2011

Pleaselike.com is a browser-based artwork by Rafaël Rozendaal made in 2010.  The website consists of an entirely white page with an embedded Facebook classic-blue thumbs up ‘Like’ button positioned in the center.  To the button’s right is an ongoing tally of people who have clicked the button. As of this minute—October 27^th,2011 at 9:55 PM—18,085 people[1] have liked the website.  I have yet to participate by clicking ‘like’, a fact Facebook has made quite apparent by urging me on with the following sentence:

Be the first of your friends. 

The website first presents the user with an encouragement to submit to a seemingly interstitial request.  Nothing appears to be at stake in the user’s relationship to this request; either she clicks or she doesn’t click.  The consequences bear no apparent reward or punishment—in fact, there is a marked absence of both.  The confrontation quickly becoming slightly idiotic when prompted with the thought of not clicking.  So the user—ideally, without such prolonged apprehension—clicks and accepts, enlisting in Rozendaal’s playful game.  However, the relationship concludes at this point.  The user clicks ‘Like’, perhaps proceeds to check her Facebook profile to witness the immediate result of her action, then proceeds onto the next website in her surfing queue.

Suppose, though, that the user doesn’t click. What happens then? First, why wouldn’t someone click ‘Like’? One reason may point to the user being of the ‘private’ type, not wanting the results of her click to show up on her Facebook profile. However, anyone can hide stories like this from their profile by configuring a simple setting in their privacy settings (or alternatively the ‘Hide this Action from Profile’ option).  Pleaselike.com would still receive the user’s ‘like’, but none of her Facebook friends would see her activity.  Another reason may point to the user’s unwillingness to forgo privacy, though again this tactic is thwarted: even if the user abstains from clicking, her information will still be accounted for and collected by Facebook for merely just visiting the page[2].  Why else, then, wouldn’t someone want to click and make Rozendaal’s work ‘complete’?

1. They aren’t familiar with the site and never actually cross paths with it.
2. They simply put, just don’t care, moving on without further dispute.
3. They express disdain for the artist by refusing to ‘participate’.
4. They wonder what it means not to click.

The point here is that no one will not not-like the website and this may very well be the point of this Rozendaal work.  The user confronts the webpage with really an absence of choice, that is, the Like’s button absence of relationship to content outside of itself has already created the user’s decision for her.  Without a clear accompaniment of content (an article, an image, a video, etc.) for what the Like button is existing to support, the user has really nothing to do but to follow the authority of the website and click because of the void of other options.  The lack of harm in doing so and because of the briefly satisfying—if not mediocre—moment it offers (the chance to be a ‘part’ of an artwork, to join your peers and not feel left out, etc.) only solidifies the motivation to click.  The user here then ‘likes’ to fulfill the site’s only existence, bridging the gap of intention the artist has built.  The user clicks, not to confirm and share her taste for a specific brand, aesthetic or event, but to ‘like’ both the website and to confirm the action of liking itself; a recognition of a recognition.  The title, Pleaselike, suggests a modest tone and creates in the user an equally modest response:  “It’s no problem, really, I can click”.  Pleaselike, with no comma separating the two words is a command devoid of a command, an implication that the user do something on the page; and what is there to do but to click the only clickable thing?

Pointing to nothing but itself, the website composes an accumulation of numbers, representations of other users who also did as the user did.  There are no direct repercussions or ramifications, there is no disdain or disapproving face and no celebratory one; liking here is a seemingly empty meta-gesture. And thus Rozendaal’s critique appears to reveal itself: through the absence of any detrimental circumstances, the Like button is but a compliant form of support, producing affirmation from users and peers without requesting further textual articulation or clarification.

Just as Rozendaal’s title, Pleaselike blankly justifies its clickable implications by asking nicely, so too does the Like button and Tumblr Note carry seemingly modest and quiet but highly anticipatory requests.

2.

The Facebook Like button is a politely constructed symbol, simultaneously begging to be clicked and not to be clicked.  With no perceivable authority implied in its design and function, it never actually forces the user to engage with it. It is clicked because the user does so on her own symbolic behalf.  However, the Like button must proceed onwards under such passive-neutral pretenses, for its reliance on the user is an important determinant in the advancement of its own business model.  The Like button must exert a non-threatening interface so its users can comfortably continue to activate and integrate it into their online routine.

Besides providing a limited amount of insight to the button’s embedder, its ongoing application outside of the Facebook website, embedded into websites and blogs across all disciplines acting as basic promotional tools and neat suggestions for ‘support’ marks the convenient constructions of a self-referential Web 2.0 business strategy consisting of the employment of walled gardens[3] and financial sustainability through willingly provided user voluntarism. The walled gardens of Facebook—along with paralleling social networking sites striving for similar types of web dominance—entail that user activity is consolidated and performed through one centralized service ultimately suggesting a scarcity of ‘freely’ provided user information to those other websites and companies outside of the monopolized domain of one single, concentrated website [collecting, housing and eventually selling immense amounts of data over a supposedly fixed period of time].  These motives especially highlight themselves through the perpetual use of the Facebook Like button and of seemingly non-existant equivalents i.e. the continuation to Like using the Facebook Like button because there are no other options.  Or under similar logic, to paint a more vivid and encompassing picture (but in response to the often disregard of the expensive, fetishized computer hardware allowing for seemingly ‘free’, ‘immaterial’ social interactions and content consumption), Gene McHugh points out,

“Go on, keep chatting with your friends, watching videos, listening to music—it’s all fluid and immaterial now and that’s great—just so long as you do so through the iPad.”[4]

Though the Like button can exist off of Facebook, it never actually quite does as all action and information channels itself back into the social network.

What is of primary concern here is not the Like button’s use within the lounge environment of Facebook (liking friend’s images, statuses’, etc.) or the mining of user data for profit, but its application and accompaniment onto websites, images, articles, etc. (that today approximately 905,000 websites employ)[5] which often require and warrant an expanded critical consideration of content from its users, rather than a summarized one.  The Like button as is does its job by acting as a visual log of peer endorsement.  But what is the value in these confirmations other than providing the button’s embedder with a temporary relief from a project’s potential failure, from a user’s online alienation, from friendlessness? As well as existing as mere stepping stones in a user’s ongoing performance in self-branding? Maybe the Like button is not worthy of critique or contemplation because its utility is so specific, obvious, non-threatening and narrowly-bound.  However, a hidden, subtle conflict emerges in such evaluative scenarios that is worth noting, one that surely many users have experienced: an emptiness, a going-nowhere skewed resolve of content, of appreciation, and of understanding. 

3.

Though in many ways conceptually equivalent to the Facebook ‘Like’, the Tumblr ‘Note’ is considerably more animated and lively in form.

A white blank heart sits in the center of a small grey box at the upper right hand corner of a .tumblr.com webpage.  When clicked, the heart turns red, coming to life to represent a user’s ‘like’.  This action then generates a ‘Note’ affirming that such and such user ‘liked this’.  The note generally finds its location underneath the content that was liked and accumulates by number.  Interestingly enough, the heart ‘note’ icon doesn’t symbolize a ‘love’, as its symbol connotes. Instead, it represents something more indecisive and uncertain.  Love, in this instance, becomes far too committal of an act to exist in such a transient environment.

Nicholas liked the image of the landscape.

Nicholas loved the image of the landscape.

Even in reading it on the page or repeating it out loud, ‘love’ appears overly enthusiastic and may actually perpetuate certain doubtful behavior, causing a user to question the validity of her own taste or preference as well as placing more emphasis on decisiveness, rendering more time taken in arrival of a judgement.  A Tumblr note (or Facebook like) is safer, more multiplicative, approachable and effortlessly applicable because it doesn’t require too much commitment or head-dwelling from the user.  The ‘note’, also referencing a type of office or research/archival environment, creates exactly that, a note, a bookmark of sorts for the user; signifying that a ‘noted’ piece of content is merely just part of an ongoing growing collection of even more.  The ‘note’ isn’t meant to be permanent or committal.  Besides the fact that a user can quite literally, ‘unlike’ something at any point in time, the note suggests a constant process or perpetual construction of the self.  By serving the ever-changing mood of the user, the accumulation of notes demonstrates the malleability of her identity.

When clicked, the heart turns red, coming to life to represent a user’s 'like'

The declarative moment of a user’s reaction to content is consolidated into a visual summarization online.  A ‘Like’ or ‘Note’ represent the rapid symbolic acknowledgement of content that is conveniently and effortlessly employed within the accelerated environment of the internet.  However, this type of acknowledgement and its symbolic equivalencies do not necessitate that an actor really ‘like’, ‘kind of like’ or really even ‘love’, something, but rather that their attention be momentarily diverted and briefly concentrated enough for her to become weary of time and respond to the moment, confirming this ‘moment’ through clicking.  In this way, both the Like button and Note button at best can only be illustrations of a generalization. Both buttons seemingly discourage the user to extrapolate, discuss, or review; but only to coldly confirm, index and performatively grow.  Employing Likes or Notes as an option for evaluating, understanding and collecting content creates an increased likelihood in the continuation of its use as a method for contextualization that never escapes from the user.  Of course, the active user will trudge beyond these buttons to make her articulations, but how does the existence of these buttons influence the growth and progress of a niche, burgeoning community of potentially undefined, uncertain users? Of users who aren’t inclined to go beyond clicking things they kind of like?

The State, for example was an online platform based on Tumblr that featured work from artists ‘who use the internet as a primary element in their work’. For each featured work, there was also a textual accounting of the critical/theoretical underpinnings each explored or encapsulated, written by the artist herself.  The goal of The State was to ‘engage a more substantial online viewership and initiate critical dialog.’[6] Embedding a DISQUS comment box allowed users to potentially do just this [initiate and circulate conversation surrounding each featured artists work and subsequent text].  However, though now defunct and ceased from publishing, one will find upon visitation of the site to be nearly void of any commentary or discussion.  Jumping from work to work, the comment section contains either nothing or a few short-winded afterthoughts (usually complimentary words or sentences):

‘a huge AVI? is this on Vimeo or streaming somewhere?’

‘<3’

‘INTENSE.’

‘!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11’

‘amazing sense of atmosphere in this space you set up’

i dont get it’

‘radical’

In fact, what one will quickly notice is the number of notes each artwork received.  While The State obviously had admirable intentions in attempting to assist peers in ‘speaking up’, its problems can be less easily discerned.  Is the lack (or dead absence) of discussion a problem of the users or, consequently, of design?  We can postulate here four potential theories:

1. The State featured text alongside artwork. However, the text was mostly ornamental, merely a clarification or contextualized defense of the artwork featured.  The lack of criticism here could be attributed to the lack of argument or opinion found in each artist’s own texts.
2. The State was merely a burgeoning platform.  Its audience and network were limited and small and thus the site couldn’t circulate the volume of conversation that a site like Art Fag City, for example, cultivates.
3. The State was based on Tumblr, primarily an image based micro blogging platform.  The audience for such was thus limited to users accustomed to a ‘note’ and ‘reblog’ system (perhaps, WordPress would have been a better alternative).
4. The pace and massive availability of content online encourages and prioritizes a consumerist approach to content.  Clickable visual symbols replace textual response online.

Though an answer could likely be found in all of the above, it is here we see a clear example of how the employment of a ‘Note’ and ‘Like’ system creates only a vague notion of valuability and understanding of content, creating not an expansion of understanding within a community but merely a consumption of it.    Notes are an indexical tool and in this aspect they become a private gesture, providing the user an archive only for themselves.  Whatever interest, thought, research, etc. is contextualized with the click of the Note is lost within the individual’s privacy of mind and in her Tumblr dashboard of collected ‘Likes’.  All justification and defense remains with the user, because there exists no output for such intentions other than her own Tumblr blog (which will either textually clarify her content or further abstract it).  Likes are, on the other hand, almost more ephemeral in that they aren’t meant to be indexed and accessed later on; they are momentarily supportive and become of no direct use to the user after the button is clicked.  Without a clear alternate option offered within the design of these platforms, certain behaviors and social interactions perpetuate themselves due to the very design the website initially proposes and promotes.  The fact that a comment box wasn’t an option on Tumblr (until recently through DISQUS) points to the original intention and purpose of the website itself: a platform of pure image aggregation.

An archive of 'liked' posts in a user's Tumblr dashboard

4.

Online, the value of content culminates and accrues in a series of confirmations.  The Facebook and Tumblr ‘Like’ and ‘Note’ button are employed as measured representations of a user’s concentrated attention to multiple interests.  Likes and Notes are beneficial and may seem integral to maintaining and measuring the ‘success’ or ‘impact’ a company, restaurant, writer or artist has on its customers, supporters, fans, admirers, etc. because it may gauge the appeal and relevancy an entity has on its intended audience, revealing its niche target.  Both the Like and Note button hold a seemingly neutral ground to ensure comfort and control in the liking process.  Liking—on both Facebook and Tumblr—always signifies a taste and activity, a performative in-process construction of one’s own personalized brand, encapsulating a user’s style, politics, and philosophy.  Liking something is always found in conjunction with a declaration of individuality followed by either the celebratory identification of the individual within the crowd  or the dousing of identification through the suffocation of it.

Facebook: Sofia likes The Office, Sofia is The Office, 9,567,948 others like The Office

Tumblr: Evan likes the 3D rendered paint stroke, Evan is the 3D rendered paint stroke, 100 others like the 3D rendered paint stroke

Again we realize here that liking only represents a part of a whole. When Evan likes the image of a 3D rendered paint stroke on Tumblr and gives it a ‘note’ what can be accounted for in his gesture?  Why does he like it? How has he contextualized it? Understood it? Consumed it?  It is these clickable symbols that replace textual responses online and justify consumption without dissertation, ultimately encouraging a type of passive consumerism where things are merely nodded at and popularized through formal evaluation and understanding.  Buttons like the Like and Note firstly exist to cater to producing an aesthetic impulse within the user.

5.

A common 'feedback' button found on many websites and blogs online

The Like and Note button represent only the lowest common denominator of support.  If we are really to offer our deepest convictions, support and criticisms to our peers and institutions, let us actually actively communicate them–not merely click them.  As a mass that is already so disorganized and fragmented in both politic and philosophy, we cannot afford to have concerns so uncritically affirmed and so passively consumed.  If we are to value depth and progress in ourselves, in our peers and projects we must begin to articulate in order to actually comprehend and enact any kind of ideal cohesive organization.

Artists, designers and thinkers must begin to conceptualize new forms of establishing value online—ones that are more demanding and more ‘inconvenienced’.  But it is through these delayed methods and considerations that over time we will soon develop to perform and demonstrate criticality in faster inclinations with a contextualized acceleration.  Criticality manifests only in its continual use.  Current platforms like Facebook and Tumblr are far too basic and undemanding to represent any real content evaluation system.  Their existence is formed not within the domain of contemplation of content but in reaction to it and thus limited to the impulses and immediacy that accompanies brief encounters and assessments.  Current online value systems exist merely on a surface level and greatly dilute the motivation to expand the consideration of what we consume.

How is value created online?
How do we assign and ascribe value to content online?
How are our current online platforms lacking?
How can we rectify our disappointment or dissatisfaction with these online platforms?
Are we dissatisfied with the quality of content these online platforms are creating or influencing?
What can we create to expand these platforms?
How can we create more critical platforms?

These are the types of questions we should seek to be concerned with.  Only by experimenting with alternative methods of presenting, designing and circulating content and conversation will we create an even more flourishing and creative active user environment.  Everyone must write, create, speak and design.

If this last proposal is vague it’s because I cannot offer any concretized solutions.  I only encourage anyone interested to experiment and play.  Serious consideration of the above questions will create new platforms and specify new questions and conflicts.  We must pay attention to the architecture and politics of the website.

BuzzFeed.com's 'alternative' rating system

Related posts:

1. Notes on a New Nature at 319 Scholes, Brooklyn, Nov 10–Nov 20, 2011

Here is an abridged video recapitulation of GLI.TC/H 2011, Chicago, by Marta Blicharz & Bram Timmer.

It’s even replete with the typical Cloud Gate Chicago “film yourself in the ‘Bean’” trope. Lovely!

Music: “La Nuit” by Manuele Atzeni

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“Water Rug/Portal” by Kate Staciw, 2011, photo rug, 60"X48"

It’s great to see a rug that acts as a portal. If you had a portal, where would you go?

Kate Steciw is a NYC-based artist, who studied photography at SAIC, and was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

It was a pleasure to see her “Water Rug/Portal” in person earlier this year, which was on the floor during the “A Small Forest” show at the Kunsthalle New, Chicago, July 2011, a show co-curated by Bea Fremderman & Nicolas O’Brien.

More: Kate Steciw

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“Colored Pencil Techniques 4”, 2010, oil on canvas collaged onto oil and acrylic on canvas, 24” x 32”

“Colored Pencil Techniques 3”, 2010, oil on canvas collaged onto oil and acrylic on canvas, 24” x 32”

“Colored Pencil Techniques 2”, 2010, oil on canvas collaged onto oil and acrylic on canvas, 24” x 32”

“Colored Pencil Techniques 1” 2010, oil on canvas collaged onto oil and acrylic on canvas, 24” x 32”

The “Colored Pencil Techniques” Series, works 1–4, by NYC-based painter, Greg Parma Smith.

Greg Parma Smith (born 1983), a Swiss-American artist, lives and works in New York. He received his MFA from Columbia University in 2007. Group exhibitions include A Great Delicacy, Taylor de Cordoba Gallery and Desired Constellations, Daniel Reich Gallery. — Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York

More:

Greg Parma Smith

Greg Parma Smith: Adult Learning: Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York

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“Science, Classicism, Lycanthropy” by Greg Parma Smith, 2007, oil on panel, 30" x 40"

Warm, holiday fire * yuletide vibrations.

by NYC-based artist, Greg Parma Smith.

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Paper Rehabilitation Project, Series 1
Detroit Blank Book Launch
December 9, 2011
6 – 8 pm
Museum or Contemporary Art Detroit Store
4454 Woodward Ave (map)

Nowadays, in our world that is rife with profligacy, it’s nice to see an effort to glean abandoned paper for blank book-binding purposes. Orchestrated by the International Typographical Union, series 1 of the paper rehabilitation project will officially launch on December 9th, 2011, in Detroit, Michigan, at the MOCAD store.

If you’re in Detroit, the books are currently for sale at in Detroit at City Bird, MOCAD, and Signal-Return. If you’re not in Detroit, the books can be purchased online through the MOCAD website.

Recycle, reduce, reuse.

Only 600 books available.

162 pages; 81 sheets
5.25 x 8.25 inches
7 oz

The blank books in this first series of the Paper Rehabilitation Project are made of stock found at a warehouse of excess, rejected and damaged paper. Each book contains four different sheets – Rolland Enviro, Oxford White, Cougar Natural Opaque, and Royal Cotton, manufactured by Cascades, Neenah, Domtar, and Wasau paper companies. We found three different stocks for the covers – blue and gray with a linen finish, and a plum, with a sort of faux-leather finish. They were bound by Janutol Printing on Detroit’s East side.

The paper in these books was probably originally purchased by printers for their clients, but for one reason or another it was not used as intended. Perhaps it was damaged in transit, or the sheets were jamming the machines, or the job was cancelled altogether. The printer might have made the case to the mill that the paper was unusable in order to try to recoup some of their investment. It ended up on the scrap market at a high-volume paper recycler, where there was a small chance it would be bought by another printer, or more likely it would be shredded and sold (by weight) to a paper mill where it would become the recycled content in a new sheet of paper.

It took us a long time to learn of the existence of this paper. Printers, paper distributors, and even many paper recyclers are reluctant to speak of this kind of surplus paper, perhaps because it threatens the commodity status of ‘clean’ paper. We had the feeling that by having it bound into a book we were causing a minor disruption in the circulation of paper. We captured these sheets at this particular moment in time, while they were available, and made 600 books that we will never again be able to reproduce.

More:

MOCAD Store

International Typographical Union

Related posts:

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The Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art commissioned Jen Stark to create a large outdoor mural on their building. The Mural, titled “Acid-Free,” is 90 ft long by 35 ft wide.

Dock your yacht and check it out.

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POWER: On and Off the Grid
8:00 PM, $5 suggested
@ the Nightingale
1084 N. Milwaukee  Ave, Chicago, IL, 60642 (map)
Tonight! 15 November 2011

“The YouTube assembly consists of screening web-based video for a live and participating audience. Each YTA features 2 hosts that use YouTube to elaborate on a point of interest relevant to their artwork or creative practice. After the “talk” the assembly opens for dialog, giving audience members the opportunity to pull up videos in response or that are relevant to the topic. It’s halfway between an artist talk and film screening; yet goes beyond their conventions by channeling the social possibilities of the medium. The series is sponsored by Homeroom Chicago and is held at the Nightingale

Deborah Stratman is a Chicago-based artist and filmmaker interested in landscapes and systems. Her films, rather than telling stories, pose a series of problems – and through their at times ambiguous nature, allow for a complicated reading of the questions being asked. Many of her films point to the relationships between physical environments and the very human struggles for power, ownership, mastery and control that are played out on the land. Most recently, they have questioned elemental historical narratives about freedom, expansion, security, and the regulation of space. She has exhibited internationally at venues including the Whitney Biennial, MoMA, the Pompidou, Hammer Museum and many international film festivals including Sundance, the Viennale, Ann Arbor and Rotterdam. pythagorasfilm.com

Daniel Tucker has worked as a cultural and political organizer in Chicago for over ten years, initiating a number of large-scale local projects and events. His particular focus has been on documenting social and cultural movements and the places from which they emerge. Most of his work exists in a blurry line between documentary, advocacy, journalism, curating and art-making and deals with themes of political imagination, localism, hidden history, economy and community. All of his projects utilize careful consideration of audience and distribution and involve significant research and relationship building to have effective and lasting impact. miscprojects.com”

Related posts:

1. 2009 Interview w/ Filmmaker Deborah Stratman
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3. 7 Frames: Shrimp Chicken Fish by Deborah Stratman

“Window Series” by Sara Ludy

Notes on a New Nature
Curated by Nicholas O’Brien.
Opening: November 10, 7:00pm – 10:00pm
November 10 – November 20, 2011

@ 319 Scholes
319 Scholes St.
Brooklyn, NY 11206 (map)
Gallery hours: Friday and Saturday, 2:00pm – 6:00pm and by appointment

If you’re in or around Brooklyn tonight, this is an event not to be missed.

For me the Internet has always been a physical space. Working as a sculptor, the first moment I started experimenting with HTML code and viewed the results in the browser, I witnessed a physical installation.
— Jan Robert Leegte talking to cont3xt.net

“Notes on a New Nature is a physical manifestation of an ongoing research project conducted by artist, writer, and curator Nicholas O’Brien. The research critically examines and compares the relationships that contemporary artists working with digital media have to practices started in Modernist Painting – specifically the pursuit of capturing the virtual qualities of what constitutes a landscape. How does an artist depict a space faithfully enough to show its affect on a subject? Can art capture the space between the viewer and the horizon, and where does that horizon reside now that we can digitally circumnavigate the globe? Can the digital reconcile the physical?

One way that we know how to understand the natural is through the domestic spaces of our daily lives. The interior shelter allows for reflection on what is “outside,” and as a result positions civilization away from the natural. However, as various digital and virtual landscape permeate the domestic space, our notion of what constitutes the natural has become more complicated than a simple inside/outside dichotomy. We use all forms of digital and analog technologies to simulate the natural world daily, and artists in this show point to how these tools affect the ways in which the “realness” of the natural is no longer as simple as locating it outside your window.

This newfound complication highlights the central argument of Notes on a New Nature: our varied notion of what constitutes the natural is shaped by technology, which is a narrative that can be traced all the way back to the advent of agriculture and the dawn of civilization. Through employment of various digital approaches, artists in this exhibition reference this long-standing problem we face when attempting to represent landscape and acknowledge the ways in which digital technology has forever changed our understanding of nature.”

Participating artists include:

Duncan Alexander
Mark Beasley
Chris Collins
Petra Cortright
Theo Darst
Marjolijn Dijkman
Paul Flannery
Joe Hamilton (aka Hypergeography)
Jan Robert Leegte
Sara Ludy
Garrett Lynch
Michael Ray-Von
Sherwin Rivera Tibayan
Nicolas Sassoon
Rick Silva
Pascual Sisto
Kate Steciw
Wes W Wilson
Krist Wood

RSVP on Facebook.

–> Live-streaming Notes on a New Nature Gallery Tour
Friday, November 11, 2011, 3:00pm EST

Mark your calendar for a live-streaming gallery tour of the Notes on a New Nature exhibition. This tour with curator Nicholas O’Brien offers visitors the opportunity to view and ask questions about the exhibition. Just tweet your questions with the hashtag #NoANN or email your questions in advance to info@319scholes.org.

Notes on a New Nature, an Introduction for 319 Scholes from Nicholas O’Brien on Vimeo.

A video introduction for “Notes on a New Nature” exhibition at 319 Scholes in Brooklyn, NY

November 10-20, 2011

Related posts:

1. 319 Scholes Presents: DUMP.FM IRL: October 22 – October 30, 2010
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3. Art|Basel Most Wanted, Nov 30 – Dec 17, 2010, Amy Alonso Gallery, Miami

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