The King of Sentences

Jonathan Lethem

The New Yorker

This was the time when all we could talk about was sentences, sentences—nothing else stirred us. Whatever happened in those days, whatever befell our regard, Clea and I couldn’t rest until it had been converted into what we told ourselves were astonishingly unprecedented and charming sentences. "Esther's cleavage is something to be noticed" or "You can't have a contemporary prison without contemporary furniture" or "I envision an art which will make criticism itself seem like a cognitive symptom, one which its sufferers define to themselves as taste but is in fact nothing of the sort" or "I said I wanted my eggs scrambled, not destroyed." At the explosion of such a sequence from our green young lips, we’d rashly scribble it on the wall of our apartment with a filthy wax pencil, or type it twenty-five times on the same sheet of paper and then photocopy the paper twenty-five times and then slice each page into twenty-five slices on the paper cutter in the photocopy shop and the scatter the resultant 625 slips of paper throughoutt the streets of our city, fortunes without cookies.

skye

studio a

skye

thorns

come on come on come on come on

come on come on come on come on

SKYE

decimus burton

a summer house

picturos

those are some photos of my last investigation. i shone light through a plastic bit i found on the floor and it made some pretty surprising and uncontrived spectacles. it was far better than i imagined because it was an accident, or at least an experiment. thank you to whoever made light

peter gidal

"Demystified reaction by the viewer to a demystified situation; a cut in space and an interruption of duration, through (obvious) jumpcut editing within a strictly defined space. Manipulation of response and awareness thereof: through repetition and duration of image. Film situation as structured, as recorrective mechanism" (Notes from 1969). -P.G.

HALL

Peter Gidal
1968/9 
10mins B/W 16mm

stills from hall

Vasulka

decay.

woody and steina vasulka

In their early collaborative work, the Vasulkas examined the electronic nature of video and sound, developing specialized imaging tools and strategies while also using the medium to document the city's expanding underground culture. "We were interested in certain decadent aspects of America, the phenomena of the time—underground rock and roll, homosexual theater, and the rest of the illegitimate culture. In the same way, we were curious about more puritanical concepts of art inspired by [Marshall] McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller. It seemed a strange and unified front—against the establishment." In 1971, with Andreas Mannik, the Vasulkas founded The Kitchen as a media arts theater. In the same year, Steina and Woody organized A Special Videotape Showat the Whitney Museum and established the first annual video festival at The Kitchen. Working with skillful and innovative engineers, the Vasulkas invented and modified video production instruments for use in performances and installations as well as single-channel tapes. They were among the first wave of artists to participate in the residency programs offered through the public television labs. Steina has explored the use of sound in creating and altering video signals (Violin Power, 1969-78) and the orchestration of video in an installation context. In 1975, while teaching at the Center for Media Study in Buffalo, NY, she began Machine Vision, a "continuing investigation of space via machine systems and electronic images."

The B as A S OF C R

I accidentally ignored my blog throughout the b as a s of c r, so from now on i will be more diligent in my posting and publishing... i've put up some photos i took of my pieces after the project, i realized the images took on a different meaning after the project, with the manipulation of the material previously representing my own futile attempt at using the body as a canvas, now they look different, incorporating the space into the material. due to the photos being taken from inside the 'body'

The body as a site of cultural representation

Bruce Nauman

Video installation by Bruce Nauman.

In Live/Taped Video Corridor, you walk down a long, very narrow corridor. At the end of the corridor there are two monitors on top of each other. The lower one shows a video tape of the corridor, the upper one shows a live (CCTV) video of the corridor, shot from a camera at a height of about 3 meters, at the entrance of the corridor. The effect is that as you walk down the corridor, you see yourself from the back, and as you approach the monitor you get further away from the camera so you never really get any closer to “yourself”.

CCTV hacked by video artists

here is a still from a cctv film 'The Commercial' by david valentine. it consists of people holding signs in front of cctv cams sayin 'won't pay' and 'can't pay'. he used existing cctv footage in order to obtain these images, but hacked into them using some sort of hacking device that apparently you can buy on ebay... he also made a film called 'The Duellists'(click to see vid) which was shot in the arndale shopping centre in manchester, after opening hours, all in one take. david valentine had control of the cctv room with access to 180 cameras.

The Surveillance Camera Players

Anyway, i found a group called The Surveillance Camera Players, and what they do is adapt plays (Orwell's '1984', Poe's 'The Raven') as well as their own material, for performance, IN FRONT OF CCTV cameras, as a form of PROTEST. Here is the header from their website:


''Only someone completely distrustful of all governmentwould be opposed to what we are doing with surveillance cameras.'' NYC Police Commissioner Howard Safir, 27 July 1999.

the Surveillance Camera Players:completely distrustful of all government.


so basically they completely mistrust the government, but also protest that the use of cctv infringes human rights, and that the use of cctv did nothing to prevent the 9/11 attacks. pretty radical.


Here is footage, actually a still image of a play they wrote. it was choreographed so the signs held up correlate at the same time to make sense. there was also a script on the website:

God's Eyes Here on Earth

Note: this play, which was written July 2000 by Art Toad, is designed to be performed in front of surveillance cameras used to monitor church property. If need be, this play can be performed as pantomime, without the use of any printed boards. Simply pray to the surveillance camera.
Someone holds up a board that says, Why are there surveillance cameras at the church? and shows a church surrounded by surveillance cameras.
This same person holds up another board. It says, Doesn't God see everything? and shows two large eyes.
Another board is held up. It says, Daddy says the cameras are God's eyes and shows a parent kneeling next to a child and pointing something out to him or her.
Another board is held up. It says, Now I pray to the cameras and shows two hands united in prayer.
One more board is held up. It says, I want God to see me and shows a stick figure with the word "ME" next to it.
Note: at this point, the play can either end or continue in the following fashion: the board-holder and, if there are any, other actors take turns making gestures commonly associated with prayer or worship in front of the surveillance cameras: i.e., crossing themselves, etc.

what if students put on a show for the guys in the security bit in the mac? not so much a form of protest, more just for their entertainment? what if it distracted them while on another camera feed someone was stealing a car or something else bad, then what.

loo cctv

in stockholm at the moderna museet, i experienced a very peculiar form of toilet anxiety. outside the loos was a tv screen flashing cctv images of urinals, sinks, and even the inside of a toilet cubicle. i felt a bit nervous as i went in to the loo, thinking it was some sort of lottery whether people outside would see ME on the toilet, then persuading myself that i was (wo)man enough to be seen on cctv, on the toilet, by other toilet goers. or maybe in Stockholm thats just part of regular toilet etiquette, watching each other do toilet... weird. anyway, all these thought came flooding to me in about 5 seconds, and soon a wave of relief came as i began to see little models of toilets sinks and urinals in little display boxes on the wall with a camera pointing in. It was so funny i pissed myself.

sight Place conTEXT

from the start of this mac orientated exploration i gravitated toward the presence, or lack of CCTV in different places around the building. i chatted to the security guards and realised they don't want to know what the students get up to, they're looking out for bad boys and girls who are graffiti-ing the side of the mac or rolling down the CCA hill drunk or stealing bikes from the front of the vic or having sex/sleeping in various doorways after a thursday night.



so i thought what would be funny was to place some cctv cameras in places the security guys couldn't care less about, but might produce some interesting footage. then i realised i can't really go around recording unsuspecting and unwilling students, so the idea of DIY CCTV seemed like the best plan... i am going to choreograph some likely or unlikely situations in likely or unlikely places within the mac, just for laughs.