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Posts Tagged ‘Ben Russell’

Ben Russell's Trypps Series, 1–7, MCA, September 18, 2010

17 September, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

Trypps#7 (Badlands) (10:00, Super 16mm on HD, color, sound, 2010)

Trypps 1-7: Seven Films by Ben Russell

Saturday, September 18, 8 pm, MCA Theater, $8, $6 MCA members
Black and White Trypps Number One (6:30, 16mm, b/w, silent, 2005)
Black and White Trypps Number Two (9:00, 16mm, b/w, silent, 2006)
Black and White Trypps Number Three (12:00, 35mm, color, SR, 2007)
Black and White Trypps Number Four (11:00, 16mm, b/w, sound, 2008)
Trypps #5 (Dubai) (3:00, 16mm, color, silent, 2008)
Trypps#6 (Malobi) (12:00, 16mm, color, sound, 2009)
Trypps#7 (Badlands) (10:00, Super 16mm on HD, color, sound, 2010)
TOTAL RUNNING TIME 65:00 minutes

“Using a fabricated Old English word as its guiding principle, this ongoing series of (mostly) 16mm films is conceptually organized around the possible meanings that its title elicits – physical voyages, psychedelic journeys, and a phenomenological experience of the world. Begun in 2005 in a somewhat vain attempt to hold cinema up as a mirror to the live and fully embodied reception of the crazy noise music scene in Providence, Rhode Island, the TRYPPS films quickly expanded their formal and critical language to include the various poles of action painting, avant-garde cinema, portraiture, stand-up comedy, global capitalism, and trance-dance a lá Jean Rouch. While the form of these works varies radically from one to the next, when taken as a whole they can be seen to enunciate what their maker calls “psychedelic ethnography” – a practice whose aim is a knowledge of the Self/self, a movement towards understanding in which the trip is both the means and the end.” – Ben Russell

Visit Ben Russell’s website: http://dimeshow.com

Posted in avant-garde, documentary / ethnography, experimental film, film
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7 Question Interview with Ben Russell, Chicago-based Artist

15 September, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

Ben Russell is a Chicago-based filmmaker, artist, art instructor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, curator, and a great keynote speaker. Perhaps he may be considered a terminologist, for he seemingly has coined the term/genre “psychedelic ethnography,” judging by his writings and recent inspiring lecture at the MCA.

Mr. Russell’s recent three-hour ethnography Let Each One Go Where He May (2009) won a FIPRESCI award at the 2010 International Film Festival Rotterdam. It is a pioneering film in the ethnographic sphere of cinema: an experimental ethnographic film “shot almost entirely with a 16mm Steadicam rig in thirteen extended shots of nearly ten minutes each.”

In the past, Ben developed stimulating relationship with east-coast-Providence-Baltimore-area noise/punk/underground music scene, whence Black Dice was a hardcore band, a period whence he documented the live-event of a Lightning Bolt concert, slow-motion live-action action that is Mr. Russell’s first documentary/ethnographic film, Black and White Trypps Number Three.

In this interview, Ben talks about how he made an underwater remake of the 1991 cinematic classic, Boyz n the Hood.

Trypps #5 (Dubai), (3 min, 2008, color, silent)

Trypps #5 (Dubai), (3 min, 16mm, color, silent, 2008)

(1) HEADS AND TAILS (as a metaphor for your filmmaking career): what are your words on: the heads/leader (your start), where you are now, and your tails (however you interpret tails).

HEADS:

I ran away from home when I was six or seven because my parents wouldn’t let me watch Superman on TV; Aliens (1986) was my first R-Rated movie; I had nightmares for weeks from overhearing the sountrack to The Shining (1980). I grew up in the suburbs of Southern California where I got to watch five hours of television a week and would spend my weekends in triple features at the Mission Viejo Mall. I remember watching everything I could, liking all of it. I played Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981) and sometimes Dune in my backyard, made out with a girl named Kim during the credits of Neverending Story 2, made an underwater video remake of Boyz N Tha Hood at summer camp. I don’t remember watching foreign films or documentaries, or at least I didn’t search ‘em out – MTV [i.e. "I want my MTV"] and Max Headroom (1987–1988) and TWIN PEAKS were the bits of media that really blew my mind. “Welcome to the Jungle” totally freaked me out – that image of Axl Rose screaming in an electric chair = proof of image-power.

I went to college to make art and be a marine biologist. I made emotionally fraught photographs of my first girlfriend, lived in Australia for a year and learned about Flaherty, ethnography, Foucault, and conceptual art. I studied with an anthropologist whose research was on Easter Island, I went to Papua New Guinea for 50 minutes, and some time later I returned to Providence, USA, where I made videos under Gregg Bordowitz’s watch and three 16mm films under Leslie Thornton’s quiet stare. Public art, falling asleep during Dead Man (1994), wheatposting, video installation with bark chips, BADLANDS projected in the Fort Thunder parking lot, Wend Kuuni (1992) and cinema-time, Black Dice as a hardcore band. Time passed and I traded Providence for Suriname – two years in the Peace Corps, the only movies I saw in the Paramaribo theater were out-of-focus (Saving Private Ryan, 1998) or burning in the gate (70s GERMAN PORN). Those theaters later became churches, then casinos. I lived in a jungle village, learned an obscure language, wrote a letter a day on a missionary’s typewriter, shot three rolls of super-8 and decided to be a poet.

(more…)

Posted in avant-garde, documentary / ethnography, experimental film, film, interview
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UBS 12 x 12 Artist Talk: Ben Russell

14 September, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

Ben Russell and a 16mm Projector

The Artist’s Talk as Illustrated by a Selection of Moving Images

MCA Theater, FREE

220 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611

I haven’t seen Children’s Magical Death (1974), but I have seen Asch and Changnon’s Magical Death, and that’s a fantastic film, and Ben Russell is fantastic, therefore tonight’s program at the MCA will be fantastic. The program is tonight and is not to be missed. Programme information posted below. Originally posted by the MCA here.

As part of his UBS 12 x 12 artist’s talk, Ben Russell presents films from his past curated programs in order to expand on themes that lie within his newest work, Trypps #7 (Badlands). “From early cinema to psychedelic mind-melt, ethnographic study to hand-processed portrait, and occult attraction to aquatic flicker film, this is a media map of analog influence that locates curatorial practice as a critical component to art-making today.” — Ben Russell

The Red Spectre by Ferdinand Zecca (7:00, 16mm, 1903)
A dazzling hand-colored black and white film from the Pathé studios at the turn of the century. In a strange grotto deep in the bowels of the earth a coffin uprights itself, dances, and opens to reveal a demonic magician with skeletal face, horns and cape. He wraps two women (who appear to be in a trance) in fabric, levitates them, and causes them to burst into flames and disappear… – Ben Russell

Invocation of My Demon Brother by Kenneth Anger (11:00, 16mm, 1969)
A mind-bending collage of sonic terror and subversion and fast-paced ritual ambiance founded in the union of the circle and the swastika, a swirling power source of solar energy. Mick Jagger contributes a suitably eerie soundtrack with a newly acquired synthesizer. — Ben Russell

Children’s Magical Death by Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon (7:00, 16mm, 1974)
Pretending to be shamans, a group of young Yanamano boys imitates their fathers, blowing ashes into each other’s noses and chanting to the hekura spirits. — Ben Russell

Marsa Abu Galawa by Gerard Holthuis (13:00, 35mm, 2004)
An impression of the underwater world in the Red Sea. The film is a bombardment of images and features the music Abdel Basset Hamouda, an Egyptian performer. The structure of the film is based on the so-called “flicker films” in which the unconscious experience of the images is much more important than the actual images. — Ben Russell

This Is My Land by Ben Rivers (14:00, 16mm, 2006)
A portrait of Jake Williams, who lives alone within miles of forest in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jake always has many jobs on at any one time, finds a use for everything, is an expert mandolin player, and has compost heaps going back many years. He has a different sense of time to most people in the 21st Century, which is explicitly expressed in his idea for creating hedges by putting up bird feeders. — Ben Russell

My Name is Oona by Gunvor Nelson (9:00, 16mm, 1969)
“But the revelation of the program is Gunvor Nelson, true poetess of the visual cinema. MY NAME IS OONA captures in haunting, intensely lyrical images fragments of the coming to consciousness of a child girl. A series of extremely brief flashes of her moving through night-lit space or woods in sensuous negative, separated by rapid fades into blackness, burst upon us like a fairy-tale princess, with a late sun only partially outlining her and the animal in silvery filigree against the encroaching darkness; one of the most perfect recent examples of poetic cinema. Throughout the entire film, the girl, compulsively and as if in awe, repeats her name, until it becomes a magic incantation of self-realization.” — Amos Vogel, the Village Voice

Posted in avant-garde, documentary / ethnography, film
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Workers Leaving the Factory (Dubai) (2008) by Ben Russell

13 September, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

Workers Leaving the Factory (Dubai) from Ben Russell on Vimeo.

(8:00, 16mm, silent, 2008)

“115 years later, a(nother) remake of the Lumiere Brothers pseudo-actuality film La Sortie des usines Lumière. This time around our factory is a job site, a construction site peopled by thousands of Southeast Asian laborers, a neo-Fordist architectural production site that manufactures skyscrapers like so many cars.” — B. R.

Posted in documentary / ethnography, film
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This week: Ben Russell Week

12 September, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

Hi dudes! This week is so totally Ben Russell. It’s very mondo. With so many upcoming Ben Russell events, it’s like only mondo appropriate. Shred the magenta!

There’s like the galleria: (multiple events at the MCA)

Its like so bitchen cuz like everybodys like
Super-super nice…
Its like so bitchen…

And there’s other events: (UBS 12 x 12 Artist Talk: Ben Russell)

Stay tuned for more Ben Russell. We’ll keep you posted. Super soon!

Posted in experimental film, film
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NYFF 2010 Views from the Avant-Garde Film Schedule

23 August, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

30 SEPTEMBER–3 OCTOBER 2010

2010 is yet another fantastic year for avant-garde film; yet another fantastic New York Film Festival: Views from the Avant-Garde film program. With this post, I will try my best to provide an organized, comprehensive schedule for the 2010 NYFF: Views from the Avant-Garde.

Straight verbatim from the 2010 NYFF 2010 Views from the Avant-Garde Website:

Curated by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith. For its 14th year, Views offers an expanded edition, presenting four nights of New York and world premieres from the frontiers of innovative moving image making. Highlights include Robert Beavers’s The Suppliant, James Benning’s Ruhr, Nathaniel Dorsky’s Pastourelle, a restoration of Manoel de Oliveira’s Rite of Spring, and Phil Solomon’s three-screen American Falls. Also expect new work by Thom Andersen, Ute Aurand, Stephanie Barber, Mati Diop, David Gatten, Janie Geiser, Lewis Klahr, Dani Leventhal, Jeanne Liotta, Matt McCormick, Tomonari Nishikawa, Michael Robinson, Fern Silva, Deborah Stratman, Peter Tscherkassky and many others, plus nightly special Furman Gallery projection performances by Paul Clipson and Bruce McClure.

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THURSDAY SEPT 30

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6:30pm in the Furman Gallery
Pierre Clémenti: Inédite Bobines
“lost” reels from the 16mm films of actor-director Pierre Clémenti
France, c. 1965-75; 104m.

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FRIDAY OCT 1

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Noon
JEAN-MARIE STRAUB
O somma luce Jean-Marie Straub, France, 2009, 18m.
Corneille–Brecht Jean-Marie Straub & Cornelia Geise, France, 2009, 80m.

9:00pm
JAMES BENNING
Ruhr Germany/U.S., 2009, 120m.

2:00pm
HELGA FANDERL
Super 8 to 16mm blow-ups

//////// I ////////
Birds at Checkpoint Charlie (Vögel am Checkpoint Charlie)
East Berlin (Ostberlin)
Tunnel
From the Empire State Building (Aus dem Empire State Building)
Tortelloni
Wild Waters (Wilde Wasser)
Polar Bear (Eisbär)
18m.

//////// II ////////
Porte St. Denis
Columbus Circle
Rue Labat Mourning (Rue Labat in Trauer)
Mirrored Café (Spiegelcafé)
Hut (Hütte)
Tropical Garden in Spring Time (Jardin tropical im Frühling)
15m.

//////// III ////////
Portrait
Tea Time (Teetrinken)
Red Curtain (Roter Vorhang)
c. 7m.

//////// IV ////////
Dancing Water II (Wassertanz II)
For M. (Für M.)
Butterflies (Schmetterlinge)
After the Fire II (Nach dem Feuer II)
Sculpture and Water (Skulptur und Wasser)
15m.

//////// V ////////
Mist II (Nebel II)
Winklerweiher
Dancing Water I (Wassertanz I)
Mist I (Nebel I)
Künettegraben short (Künettegraben kurz)
Ingolstadt at Night (Ingolstadt nachts)
Oranges, Moon and Sun (Orangen, Mond und Sonne)
Cobwebs and Fishes (Spinnweben und Fische)
13m.

3.30pm

HISTORY IS HOMEMADE AT NIGHT: THE CRAZY, BEAUTIFUL WORLD OF JEFF KEEN

Marvo Movie, U.K., 1967, 5m.
Cineblatz, U.K., 1967, 3m.
Meatdaze, U.K., 1968, 10m.
White Lite, U.K., 1968, 3m.
Wail U.K., 1961, 5m.
Rayday Film U.K., 1968-1970/1976, 13m.
White Dust U.K., 1970-72, 33m.

phil solomon, American Falls USA, 2010, 55m.

7:30pm
PHIL SOLOMON (philsolomon.com)
American Falls U.S., 2010, 55m.
What’s Out Tonight Is Lost U.S., 1983, 8m.; new print – preservation by the Academy Film Archive

5.30pm
JENNIFER MONTGOMERY
The Agonal Phase U.S., 2010, 42m.
Transitional Objects U.S., 2000, 19m.

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SATURDAY OCT 2

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Photofinish Figures, Paolo Gioli, Italy, 2009, 9.12m., 16mm, b&w, silent

12 noon
MIRROR OF SHADOW AND CINDERS
Photofinish Figures (Il finish delle figure) Paolo Gioli, Italy, 2009, 9.12m.
A Thousand Julys Lewis Klahr, USA, 2010, 6.30m.
Marie Karen Yasinsky, USA, 2010, 5m.
Dissonant Manon de Boer, Netherlands/Belgium, 11m.
Ape of Nature, Peggy Ahwesh, USA, 2010, 24m. double-screen version
The Soul of Things Dominck Angerame, USA, 2010, 15m.
Destination Final Philip Widmann, Germany, 2010 9m.
Valleys of Fear Erin Espelie, USA, 2010, 22m.
SHU (Blue Hour Lullaby) Philipp Lachenmann, Germany, 2008, 12m.

Jeanne Liotta U.S., 2010, 19m.; 35mm, b&w/color, sound

2:30pm

STATION TO STATION
Crosswalk Jeanne Liotta, USA, 2010, 25m.
Servants of Mercy Fern Silva, Portugal/USA, 2010, 14m.
Rite of Spring (restoration) Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal, 1963, 99m
Print courtesy of Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema,
presented in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art.

Trypps #7 (Badlands), Ben Russell, USA, 2010, 9.30m., 35mm, color, sound

5:30pm

VISIBILITY UNKNOWN
The Flight of Tulugaq (O Voo de Tulugaq) André Guerreiro Lopes, Brazil, 8m.
New Year Sun Jonathan Schwartz, USA, 2010, 3m.
Trypps #7 (Badlands) Ben Russell, USA, 2010, 9.30m.
Burning Bush Vincent Grenier, USA, 2010, 9.5m
Materia Obscura Jürgen Reble, Germany 11.29m.
a loft Ken Jacobs, USA, 2010, 16m.
Mamori Karl Lemieux, Canada, 2010, 7.44m.
Union Paul Clipson, USA, 2010, 10m.
Parties visible et invisible d’un ensemble sous tension Emmanuel Lefrant, France, 2010, 7m.
Drifter Timoleon Wilkins, USA, 1996-2010, 26m.

Cry when it happens, Laida Lertxundi, U.S., 2010, 14m., 16mm, color, sound

8:15pm
SINCE YOU WERE HERE …
Dust Studies Michael Gitlin, USA, 2010, 9m.
Washes Norbert Shieh, USA, 2010, 8.40m.
Get Out of the Car Thom Andersen, USA, 2010, 35m.
Obscurando el Apartiemento Rosario Sotelo, USA, 2010, 3m.
Cry When it Happens (Llora cuando te pase) Laida Lertxundi, USA, 2010, 17m.
Night Shift Gretchen Skogersen, USA, 2010, 5m.
Future So Bright Matt McCormick, USA, 2010, 30m.

10:30pm in the Furman Gallery
NIGHT GALLERY—TURN ON THE HIGH BEAMS I
two projection performances
Untitled Galaxy Paul Clipson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, 2010, 30m.
FIST I – IMPROPER FRICTIONS Bruce McClure, 2010, approx 30m

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Sunday October 3

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blue mantle, Rebecca Meyers USA, 2010, 34m., 16mm, color, sound

blue mantle, Rebecca Meyer, USA, 2010, 34m., 16mm, color, sound

12 noon
SEA SCROLLS
Atlantis Pieter Geenen, China/Netherlands, 2008, 11.18m.
Dining Cars Arianne Olthar, Netherlands, 2009, 15.5m.
Sea Series #7: Naufrage aux îles de Madeleine John Price, Canada, 2010, 3.39m.
Atlantiques Mati Diop, Senegal/France, 2009, 11m.
Distance Julie Murray, USA, 2010, 12m.
Travelogue Vincent Grenier, USA, 2010, 8.8m.
Shrimp Boat Log David Gatten, USA, 2010, 6m.
Blue Mantle Rebecca Meyer, USA, 2010, 34m.

Deborah Stratman, USA, 2010, 7m., 16mm, color, sound

2:30pm

LANDING ON THE EDGE (view website)
Place for Landing Shambavi Kaul, USA, 2010, 6m.
Hearts are Trump Again Dani Leventhal, USA, 2010, 14m.
Ray’s Birds Deborah Stratman, USA, 2010, 7m.
In the Absence of Light, Darkness Prevails Fern Silva, Brazil/USA, 2010, 13m.
Slave Ship T. Marie, USA, 2010, 4m.
Someone Should Be Happy Here April Simmons, USA, 2010, 5m.
THE HUNCH THAT CAUSED THE WINNING STREAK AND FOUGHT THE DOLDRUMS MIGHTILY Stephanie Barber, USA, 2010, 1.53m., 4.5m.
Razor’s Edge Stephanie Barber and Xav LePlae, USA, 2010, 44m.

Bust Chance, Stephanie Barber, USA, 2010, 7m.; DV, color, sound

4:30pm
SÉANCE (view website)
bust chance Stephanie Barber, USA, 2010, 7m.
Love Rose Bobby Abate, USA, 2010, 13.7m.
Kindless Villain Janie Geiser, USA, 2010, 5m.
So Sure of Nowhere Buying Times to Come David Gatten, USA, 2010, 9m.
April Snow Lewis Klahr, USA, 2010, 10m.
Facts Told at Retail (after Henry James) Erin Espelie, USA, 2010, 7m.
Ghost Algebra Janie Geiser, USA, 2009 7.5m.
Tokyo–Ebisu Tomanari Nishikawa, Japan, 2010, 5m.
Possessed Fred Worden, USA, 2010, 8m.
These Hammers Don’t Hurt Us Michael Robinson, USA, 2010, 13m.

Crescent, Paul Clipson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, 2010, 30m. Super 8, color, sound

10:30pm in the Furman Gallery
NIGHT GALLERY—TURN ON THE HIGH BEAMS
two projection performances
Crescent Paul Clipson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, 2010, 30m.
FIST II – INTO A SOTSPOT Bruce McClure, 2010, approx 30m.

Gestures, Peter Herwitz, USA, 2010, 7m., 16mm, 18fps, color, silent

6.30pm
SONG CYCLE (site)
Pastourelle Nathaniel Dorsky, USA, 2010, 16.5m.
Ouverture Christopher Becks, France, 2010, 5m.
The Suppliant Robert Beavers, USA/Switzerland, 2010, 5m.
Hanging upside down in the branches Ute Aurand, Germany, 2009, 15m.
Film for Invisible Ink, case no. 323: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST David Gatten, USA, 2010, 20m.
In a Year with 13 Deaths Jonathan Schwartz, USA, 2008, 3m.
One Eve Heller, USA/Austria, 2010, 4m.
Shibiyu-Tokyo Tomanari Nishikawa, Japan, 2010, 10m.
Beneath Your Skin of Deep Hollow Malena Szlam, Chile/Canada, 2010, 3m.
Gesturings Peter Herwitz, USA, 2010, 5m.
Day Dream Jim Jennings, USA, 2010, 7m.

Those Blaezing Starrs, Deborah Stratman, USA, 2010, 14.4m., 16mm, b&w, sound

8:30
FATAL ATTRACTIONS: AN INTRODUCTION TO BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC (site)
These Blaezing Starrs Deborah Stratman, USA, 2010, 14.4m.
Tranquility Sigfried A. Fruhauf, Austria, 2010, 6.30m.
To Another Josh Mabe, USA, 2010, 48sec.
Sugar Slim Says Lewis Klahr, USA, 2010, 7m.
Sorry Luther Price, USA, 2010, 14m.
Shutter Alexi Mani, Canada, 2009, 7m.
Floor of the World Janie Geiser, USA, 2010, 8m.
Toads Milena Gierke, Germany, 1997/2008, 6m.
Pigs Pavel Wojtasik, U.S., 2010, 7.45m.
Shadow Cut Martin Arnold, Austria, 2010, 4m.
Coming Attractions Peter Tscherkassky, Austria, 2010, 23.40m.
Total running time: 105.5m

More:

2010 NYFF Views from the Avant-Garde website

Posted in avant-garde, documentary / ethnography, experimental film, film, video art
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MAZES at the MCA, Chicago, Ben Russell and Joe Grimm

15 August, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

Ben Russell + Joe Grimm – Mazes / La Casa Encendida, Madrid

September 3 · 8:00pm – 9:00pm

Museum of Contemporary Art

220 East Chicago Avenue

Chicago, Illinois

Chicago premiere. Presented in conjunction with the UBS 12×12 Exhibition: BEN RUSSELL (free to those attending the First Fridays opening):

After touring extensively through Europe with PEACE NOISE and appearing at festivals in Bordeaux and Madrid in their newest incarnation, light-noise duo MAZES come to the MCA for their first Chicago performance. Positioned behind a fistful of audio circuits and a pair of 16mm film projectors,… media artist Ben Russell sprays white light in pulsating patterns onto your optic nerves, shaping sound and eyebeam with fingers/hands that intercede between lens and screen. A photon’s throw away, sound artist Joe Grimm weaves a tangle of hand-built electronics into a skin of noise, a further manifestation of light pattern and intensity as real time audio. Light is sound is light, cause and effect and chaos and hypnosis, again and again and again. — Ben Russell

Posted in avant-garde, experimental film, film
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Trypps #5 (2008) by Ben Russell (a sign of happiness)

26 July, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

Trypps #5 (Dubai) from Ben Russell. | (3:00, 16mm, color, silent, 2008)

Happiness.

Posted in avant-garde, documentary / ethnography, film, text
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A Music Video Like None Other: Black and White Trypps Number Three by Ben Russell

13 July, 2010 by Andrew Rosinski

This post embeds two lovely music videos by Ben Russell, an eminent Chicago-based experimental filmmaker, known for his Black and White Trypps series and the recent experimental ethnopgraphy, Let Each One Go Where He May (2009). There are a number of reasons why these two films defy a classification, namely, they are captured on film, not video. Black and White Trypps Number Three (2007, embedded below) was shot on 35mm; Rock Me Amadeus by Falco Via Kardinal by Otto Muehl (2009, embedded above) was shot on 16mm film. Whether it be 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, black/white or color, a music video shot on film looks volumes better than a music video shot on video. Film captures sunlight on celluloid; film is warm.

The above video is an avant-garde kareokee performance between filmmaker Ben Russell and Celeste Neus. The film observes the sticky-synergy between the two as they rock to Falco’s lengendary 1983 hit “Rock Me Amadeus.” This film ponders humiliation of some sort — preparation, then humiliation — other than that, it’s strikingly similar to the original Falco video. Five Stars, verily.

Black and White Trypps Number Three captures a live-performance from Providence-based band Lightning Bolt. Although we’re at the show, we only catch a glimpse of the two-piece band, that being the neck of a bass guitar. We don’t see the band; we see the audience, we hear the music, and we see how the music affects the audience.

They say film can only capture sight and sound; however, these films capture more. Plus, music can speak louder than words. If you haven’t heard Lightning Bolt, try listening to the mp3s below — they bring the light from above to the below. It’s a heavy feeling in a good whey.

Posted in avant-garde, experimental film, film
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Posts Tagged ‘Ben Russell’

Ben Russell's Trypps Series, 1–7, MCA, September 18, 2010

7 Question Interview with Ben Russell, Chicago-based Artist

UBS 12 x 12 Artist Talk: Ben Russell

Workers Leaving the Factory (Dubai) (2008) by Ben Russell

This week: Ben Russell Week