DJ Spooky speaks about his album 'the secret song'

DJ Spooky speaks about his album ‘the secret song’, a music and film project, he says that 'the album is inspired by philosophers, is inspired by economists, and history of jazz, dub, rock, and above all a will to be bring them all together. If you think about what sampling is, it’s essentially about collage, it’s an art practice based on centuries taking out text out of context...'
DJ Spooky defines the process of working on the album. On a personal note, it's a turning point from the loops mode to the sampling mode and the use pre-existing footage is essential when narrating a certain era, using the footage as witness material must be present.

Dr. Riley Crane (MIT) and the 10 Red Balloons DARPA Contest

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Laura Marks and the theory of 'Haptic Visuality'

In Laura U. Marks's words, in the book entitled 'The Skin of Film' 'Much of intercultural cinema has its origin in silence, in the gaps left by recorded history. Filmmakers seeking to represent their native cultures have had to develop new forms of cinematic expression. Marks offers a theory of “haptic visuality”—which functions like the sense of touch by triggering physical memories of smell, touch, and taste—to explain the newfound ways in which intercultural cinema engages the viewer bodily to convey cultural experience and memory. Drawing on almost two hundred examples of intercultural film and video, she shows how the image allows viewers to experience cinema as a physical and multi-sensory embodiment of culture, not just as a visual representation of experience.'

I will be looking at Laura U. Marks at this point for her theory channels me into a direction in my research where I could think the medium and the end form of my project, that is V.J.ing in nightclubs, in deep dark rooms...

here's how I linked the whole:

Burroughs and Gus Van Sant

‘On William Burroughs and Beyond’ is a video screening that took place yesterday on the theme of Burroughs, the American poet.
Among the videos played, 2 were directed by Gus Van Sant, one a 2 minutes video ‘Thanksgiving Prayer’ dating from 1990 and another of a 9 minutes video ‘The Discipline of D.E.’ dating from 1982.
The first one is based on the poem ‘Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986’, written by Burroughs for the book Tornado Alley, ‘Thanksgiving Prayer’ shows Burroughs reciting an accusation ballad, critical of all political and social groups in America, to include for instance the KKK, the America that never allows anyone to mind his own business, the betrayal of the human dream, and so on…
The second video, it was a narrated version of a short story by Burroughs where the spectator learns the laws of "Do Easy" which is the quickest and easiest way of doing things. The video also discusses the complications that can arise from the quest to perfect each movement in order to find the most efficient way of doing everything - even nothing. Mastering the D.E. for instance requires repeating the same sequence the same way actors repeat the same shot to take it right.

What interested me is the style Burroughs uses in the different videos, in the first video he's sharp, sarcastic, a little bitter for those who might contradict him on his political statements, and in the second video he plays a game, he's got the elegance and focus to lead the spectator (or reader in the case of the book) into his sequential maze of thoughts.

I thought that I could propose this to myself: try to master the skill of trying to say what is to be said in serenity, even if the content of the sentence is sharp, try that in life and while wrapping up the narrative of the project, see where it could take me.

Decode: Digital Design Sensations

The exhibition ‘Decode: Digital Design Sensations’ at V&A explored the themes of Code, Interactivity and Network. But most importantly was the emotional aspect of the works displayed. Looking around what is happening in the Digital Arts field makes you believe in the supremacy of technology and the immensity of art in this context. One cannot start describing, so instead here’s the link!

http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/Decode/

This exhibition is a great demonstration of beautiful Digital Arts projects, a complete manifestation of the theory in books.

107 women is too much women.

In Sophie Calle’s images, texts, videos, in brief narratives, she exposes her private experience to the collective. In the exhibition running at the Whitechapel Gallery Prenez soin de vous or Take Care of Yourself, she invites 107 women from different professions to decode an email in which her lover breaks up with her. The reactions were very much different; each is interpreting in her own way. In general the idea of this exhibition was appealing to me, but when I started plunging into the artworks, I realized that I was thinking about the artist’s lover, what would be his reaction when he discovers this parade happening all around him? I thought of how far in intimacy would artists go showcasing their personal life. Sophie Calle’s approach is always a push to the extreme, I was annoyed by the bombardment of the women’s judgments, I sympathized with the artist's lover and pitied the artist.

Indie Film 'The Girlfriend Experience' by Steven Soderbergh (2009)

The film, now showing on the big screen, made during the 2008 USA presidential elections, discussing issues like money, work, the economy, and set up around a Manhattan call-girl, is far from being a sex film, rather it is a political film about prostitution in the contemporary term, the economy and ethics of that subject matter.

The style of the film is playing on docu-fictional cinema, it is a beautiful sweet masterpiece free from add-ons and extra long shots. The after taste of the screening for me was: 'why do we keep busying ourselves with trying to figure out the more specific and the bigger picture, spontaneity and condensing thoughts might be a solution, the solution.'

1W13 Damien Hirst's No Love Lost

With the will to return to his 'solitary practice of painting', Damien Hirst reveals a series of 'Blue Paintings' at the Wallace Collection, a family assortment always displaying old paintings, furniture, porcelain, armour, and sculptures in their villa like museum.

Hirst’ theme of mortality is portrayed through a series of blue painted floating skulls, framed with classical wooden edges, placed against wallpaper covered walls in between the Wallace Collection’s rooms and corridors.

A ‘radical departure’ from the artist’s established working practice’, Hirst is figuring out new ways of showcasing his artworks. For me, this exhibit demonstrates how an artwork could be imposed on a museum instead of being displayed in a museum.

1W13 Janet Murray and the Incunabula Days of the Narrative Computer

In Janet Murray's words, 'it would be a mistake to compare the first fruits of a new medium too directly with the accustomed yield of older media'. As an example, she uses Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1405 and the 50 years of experimentation after this event that led to more established conventions, legible typefaces, proof sheet corrections, page numbering and paragraphing, title pages, prefaces and chapter divisions. What Gutenberg invented was the 'incunabula', a Latin word for swaddling clothes and that is used to indicate that these so called books are the work of a technology that is still in its infancy. The 50 years of experimentation lead to the published book as a coherent means of communication. Murray concludes that we are now living in the incunabula days of the narrative computer, we can see how the 20th century novels, films and plays have been steadily pushing against the boundaries of linear storytelling. Looking at the narrative in the VJing playground, V.J.ing being considered an eye candy so far, I find peace reading Murray's words, an assurance that pushes me in the direction of exploring the narrative and the technology that will contain it.

1W13 The times that remains

'The Times that remains' of Elia Suleiman (2009) is a 'semi biographic film', about the director's family, archived since 1948 until recent times. The scenario is based on the director's father diaries and his mother's letters to family members who have left Palestine to other countries, escaping the Israeli occupation. Arab-Israelis is the main theme of the film, the film is neither a documentary nor a fiction but somewhere in the 2 playgrounds at the same time; And the film does not follow a traditional form of narration, It is based on archival matters to which the director added his sense of irony and melancholia, and shaped the whole in a series of short scenes, each could be a short on itself, but when placed together, the scenes constitute some sort of a narrative flow, or a continuation.