Latest video reviews
The Altruist by T. Carmi
A moving tribute to the power of poetry from Israeli filmmaker Avi Dabach and PTSD-sufferer Micha Shalvi, who describes how the poem by T. Carmi — which he reads at the end — saved his life.
graffiti angel / infinity part 1 by Kathy McTavish
This is by far the most beautiful and successful example of computer-generated videopoetry I’ve seen. I recommend expanding it to full screen, putting on headphones, and immersing yourself in the flow. Here’s the description from Vimeo:
kathy mctavish, sound, text, code and moving images – part of the holy fool project – funded by the jerome foundation and the minnesota state arts board – code generated using open source semantic web gears / pulleys / bolts / html5 / xml / css3 / javascript. This video is a screen shot of a computer-generated session.
Graffiti angel premiered at Zinema 2 in Duluth, Minnesota on September 13, according to McTavish’s website, which also includes video embeds of a number of shorter sketches.
As for the Holy Fool Project of which this is a part, according to an event description on Google Plus,
Holy fool is a live performance & multimedia installation. It is the culmination of a year-long project by cellist, composer & transmedia artist, Kathy McTavish.
On November 9th she joins forces with Sheila Packa (poet), Cathy Podeszwa (illumination), Cecilia Ramon (the infinite line), Anton Jimenez-Kloeckl (voice), Molly Tillotson (iron bells), and Carla Stetson (the map) to create a multi-sensory, immersive reflection on our times.
Tickets are available for $10 through the Sacred Heart Music Center
…which is on 201 West 4th Street, Duluth, Minnesota. Here’s their website. The performance/installation will take place on Friday, Nov 9, 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM EST.
The Herrin’ Trail by Rita Bradd
Alastair Cook writes about his 24th filmpoem:
The Herring Trail was commissioned by North Light, based on the poem The Herrin’ Trail by Rita Bradd as part of my summer residency at McArthur’s Store in Dunbar. I spent 3 months there over the summer, working with the fishermen using wet plate collodion (a photographic process from 1851), 120 film and shooting with 8mm and 16mm. This film has scant relation to that, as I’ve used film given to me by the British Council, which is deliberately digitally extrapolated.
To be able to find such a wonderful poet in Rita was inspiring and I asked her to compose for the filmpoem on the Clarsach (or Lever Harp, if you’re not in Scotland) and I read the poem so that she might play. We premiered this at Sally Evan’s Callander poetry weekend in early September 2012 to a full house, with Rita playing live while i read over the film. Lovely to read in my native Scots, though not quite in my natural Galloway Irish/ Ulster Scots brogue!
Judging by North Light Dunbar’s news blog, Alastair has been very busy there indeed. They also have a page about his residency. I like the bio:
Alastair works predominantly with lens-based media as an analogue photographer concentrating on antique technologies and as a filmmaker using 8mm and 16mm film, combining these with digital technology to great effect. His award winning film and photography is driven by his knowledge, skill and experience as an architect: this mercurial work is rooted in place and the intrinsic connections between people, land and the sea. Alastair trained at the Glasgow School of Art then fled the country, returning after a dutiful spell in London and a more relaxed time in Amsterdam; he now lives and works in Edinburgh.
(Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a good webpage for Rita Bradd.)
I-poem 6 by Vangelis Skouras
http://vimeo.com/49758673
Pablo Lópes Jordán directed, filmed and composed the soundtrack for a text by Vangelis Skouras. Jordán noted at Vimeo:
Daily thoughts can be a form of poetry even if, or assisted by the fact that, they are not expressed face to face. Images of real life help these words gain further substance and depth.
I like the leisurely pace at which the text fragments are shared, and how well that contrasts with the more frenetic image-stream and (excellent) soundtrack.
Walking Around (excerpt) by Pablo Neruda
http://vimeo.com/49642786
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know how much I appreciate unlikely combinations of text and moving image. In this case, I think the filmmakers may have gone a bit too far. But the result is so entertaining, I had to share it anyway. This is the Samuel L. Jackson reading of Neruda’s poem from Il Postino. Alessio Cuomo and Sander de Nooij of ColdSun Productions, a Dutch production company specializing in documentaries, indicate on Vimeo that this was
a little video we made just to celebrate the end of summer.
We came across this footage while doing some hard disk cleaning.
For a more serious take on the poem, see Four Seasons Productions’ interpretation of “Walking Around”, which uses footage from classic silent horror films. Unfortunately, though, the reading there (by Robert Bly, I think) isn’t as good as Jackson’s here.
