It seems that, no matter how many times we are warned about them, human beings cannot resist a creepy, dark, and empty storefront. We appear hardwired to look into the dusty and grimy abyss of a shop devoid of another person (or, at best, one so wizened that they may as well not be human at all) and immediately ascertain that, yes, indeed this is a place we must enter. Ladies and gentlemen, please, stop doing this. Should you be presented with such a choice, let me assure you that you will only bring upon yourself a swift, painful, and perhaps ironic end. Really, just walk away.
Alma, the titular main character in the short film by Rodrigo Blaas, received no such lecture, I’m afraid. Her parents were negligent in educating their child about the dangers of unmanned counters and stores with a distinct lack of helpful salesmen. Alas, Alma is naive and tragically ignorant of such places, a combination that, as previously mentioned, can only get one into trouble. All the more so when dolls are involved. No, dear reader, no good can come this. No good at all.
Saved for a rainy day or, decease in this case, cheap one in a long line of bitterly cold days, thumb I present for your inspection, these animated promos for two Parliament-Funkadelic albums, the surprisingly literal The Motor Booty Affair and Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome. P-Funk always had a great sense of mythology in their music, meaning that both Dr. Funkenstein and his arch-nemesis Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk are in attendance here; more like the chapters of a sci-fi serial than albums. They appear almost alien in contrast to the slick, overproduced (and quite limited) promos that are shown on, say, MTV between episodes of People Acting Awful Towards One Another.
Sit down right now. I don’t care that mail has to be delivered. N- no, seriously, you can change that ink cartridge later. Ju- just, shhhhhhut up. Shut up and sit down, because it’s FAM Time.
Today’s very special FAM is Shinya Tsukamoto’s unmatched 1989 cyberpunk film Tetsuo: The Iron Man. To explain this movie can only be done in the very simplest of terms: The man (or The Metal Fetishist) sticks an iron bar into a wound he has made in his leg. Soon it is festering with maggots. He runs, screaming into the street and is hit by a car, driven by the Japanese Salaryman who decides to hide his crime by dumping the body in a ravine. What follows is one of cinema’s more bizarre experiences as the Japanes Salaryman, haunted by the spirit of the Metal Fetishist, begins to undergo a startling transformation wherein his entire body metamorphoses into a shambling heap of scrap metal. This is a movie in which a man’s girlfriend fucks herself to death on his penis, which by that time has changed into a giant drill bit. No, I’m not making that up and, no, telling you that it happens won’t diminish its impact in the slightest.
At first blush this all probably seems fairly pedestrian and in the context of the torture porn/special fx demo reel trash turned out these days you would be forgiven for thinking so; but Tsukamoto’s film is never about mere grotesqueries. Tetsuo is a superb audio/visual experience, its stark, moody black and white images set to Chu Ishikawa’s pounding industrial score. Many have compared it to David Lynch’s Eraserhead but it is mostly a superficial one, insomuch as, like Lynch’s seminal film they both share the same, high contrast black and white, industrial aesthetic. Tsukomoto’s presentation leaves the (purposefully) monotonous dirge of Eraserhead far behind, instead opting for a frenetic and, one might say, decidedly anime-like pacing epitomized by its multiple chase scenes, making for a frantic, fever dream of a movie.
What Tetsuo is about — the subtext, if any — is much more difficult to pin down. One interpretation is that the entire film is a metaphor for being homosexual and while it can be read that way I’m not entirely convinced that that was the intention. For certain, sex is a central component in Tsukomoto’s oeuvre, serving as a catalyst for metamorphosis, but the nature of that sexuality — homo or hetero — appears irrelevant or, at least, equal opportunity, although the final scene may convince you otherwise. Regardless of how one chooses to interpret it, however, Tetsuo: The Iron Man remains a much watch. It’s a powerful, beautiful, and confusing film, one that I find myself revisiting long after my initial viewing and it always sticks with me long after the “GAME OVER”.
Directed by Sugimoto Kousuke. Music by Manabe Takayuki. (via Ben Morris)
“The TV Show” animated short is one of those super condensed, frantically paced, ultra action-packed, hall-of-mirrors-ish, infinite-loopy, style-mashing, color-clashy, genre-fusing, worlds colliding, fractal braingasm-inducing kinda sorta thingies that most folks will probably need to watch multiple times in a serene, zen-like state before they begin to absorb everything that’s going on.
It was independently produced by director Sugimoto Kousuke, who sees many things. He sees plans within plans.
These hypnotizing animated collages were created by Greek animator Aggeliki Vrettou. Her biomechanical creatures appear to be propelled into motion by everything from electric kitchen appliances to living doll parts. In many cases, the animals’ anatomy is completed by other augmented animals, such as the rat “tail” of the horse above and the breathing apparatus on the muzzle of her animatronic seahorse. Her web presence consists of a MySpace page, where this series can be found, and a YouTube channel where she hosts some mesmerizing animated music videos created for the Greek indie electronic band Ion. Vrettou’s stunning animations vaguely remind me of the haunting animation/artwork associated with Mer’s musical project, The Parlour Trick, created by Scott Spencer (this itself may appear reminiscent of a Beats Antique cover, but predates it). If you’re looking at this post in an RSS reader, the images may not appear to be animated. Click here to see these animals (and others from this series) in full swing!
Happy birthday, comrade Nadya. Can you believe it’s already been a whole year?! So much has happened in that time. You endured intense hardship and celebrated huge victories, moving from LA to London to San Francisco. You collaborated with remarkable people and accomplished admirable feats. Hell, you even manged to stop biting your nails! Congratulations.
Every single day, your efforts and encouragement continue to hold Coilhouse together. You really are our tiny, sexy tube of superglue. We’re stuck on you like clock gears hot-gunned to a cosplayer’s cotton poly-blended bloomers.
Now, we realize it’s not much (certainly not a $53K Lady Yu porcelain action figure), but still, we wanted to make a concerted effort to celebrate your birth properly this year, with vaguely unsettling Russian animation…
Plenty of cake…
…and of course, party hats.
Now blow out the candles! (Hint: they’re under the shar peis.)
Videogioco by Donato Sansone reminds me of something that you would find on MTV during the mythical Time When It Was Cool/Played Music Videos; an era that took place sometime in the 80s or 90s depending on your place on the generational timeline and how curmudgeonly you are. Crude, drugstore violent, and imaginative, it is a meticulously crafted piece of work. I cannot imagine the planning that goes into something like this; the individual frames laid out in such a way as to allow Donato, hunched over them, to reveal each picture as needed.
Every boy needs a hero. Someone he can look up to. Someone whose life he can model his own after. Someone to give him hope. In a far off land in an unspecified time, health young Billy is going to bed. But before his grandfather turns off the light he decides to tell they boy a story. The story of Tarboy, an amalgam of all the poor robots crushed and driven before the implacable greed of their robot masters. Down there, in the black depths of the tar pools into which they have been discarded, their consciousnesses become one. A single mind bent on revenge wielding sticky, onyx fists.
Tarboy, created by James Lee and Hania, is a sterling example of flash animation. A brisk, epic short film, it is a perfectly packaged capsule of awesome. A fantastic robot flavored, afternoon pick-me-up.
Watching these guys do their thing is like drinking a beaming cup of liquid joy! Many of you will recall their video, 1 WEEK(which went ultra-viral back in 2006), and subsequent video offerings. R.E.’s creative philosophy seems to be one of cheerful detachment and organic/anarchic teamwork. They favor process over result, flux over permanency:
Instead of focusing on the finished project, we believe the process of creation itself is where art comes to life and our videos and live art aim to engage our audience in that process. Many people ask us how we can stand to erase the artwork we have worked so hard to create, but our focus is on the process of making art, not the end result. The good news is that the videos we make become a permanent record of the spontaneous artworks created during the filming.
This emphasis on non-permanency is reminiscent of Andy Goldsworthy‘s “nature sculptures”, Julian Beever‘s sidewalk trompe-l’oeils, the SRL/Black Rocky City ethos of building epic artworks and destroying them upon completion, any number of public “temp installation” programs cropping up worldwide, and every perfect sandcastle ever built at the beach during low tide, only to be destroyed by the rising breakers.
Rinpa Eshidan now offers a full DVD of their various time-lapse performance pieces available at high res, just email them for purchase info. Several more video clips after the jump.
