Friend or Foe?

This has absolutely nothing to do with Kino05 or video in any way-- but when I saw it I laughed out loud:

You can see more here.

15 Glorious Seconds

For a little while now I've been working on a series of videos starring, CockNose, a character I created based on a fucked up halloween costume I got from a 7-11. These videos have been pretty campy, sometimes a little gory and always feature the lowest production quality ever. I've never been sure where to locate the aesthetics of these little videos. I always hoped they at least nodded (admittedly, from far far away) to Colin Campbell and Jack Smith--but, recently I think I finally came across a more likely influence: The Great Kat!


For example, let's look at The Great Kat's "Paganini's Caprice #24" and the beginning of "Nobody Nose the Trouble I've Seen":





See what I mean?


But the Great Kat is not only about fire, blood and monster shredding-- she's also got some political opinions (many of which may be quite suspect...). Despite this, I've really been inspired by this work, and I think that I'd like to steer the CockNose series in this direction.

I'm still working on my latest Great Kat inspired video, so I'll leave you with 15 glorious seconds of her 'political' work. Enjoy!

i just ate an entire package of bacon

so i saw this new video by mgmt and i thought that it was visually neat. kinda like this neo-pagan trip. i'm totally all for it! and i wish that i could afford to live such a fabulously derelict lifestyle but i'm not an american university student with hundreds of thousands to blow on models, travel, blow and bernhard wilhelm outfits! oh, the dream .... instead i wait. i'm waiting for this stripper to get to my house already. i wait for emails to be replied so i can feel like i've done something with my seemingly useless day. i wait for my arteries to congeal cause i know deep down in my clogged heart that consuming a whole package of bacon along with the rice that i fried in it's drippins, is not good for my health. 

waiting isn't either!

it's like 'trapped in the closet' ... you wait and wait 

like some sufferable longing, pulling at your short hairs. 

it's so ridiculous and necessary

Why does John Greyson want to sing about AIDS?

On Februay 4th John Greyson chaired a discussion at The Powerplant on video art and AIDS activism. I missed this talk. But, this week I was granted a second chance and had the unique opportunity to attend a colloquium on Greyson’s research for his MA thesis. This thesis consists of a 90 minute video-opera, entitled “The Queen’s Sore Throat or Why do we sing about AIDS?,” accompanied by a framing text. This work engages and extends many of the themes Greyson is best known for, including issues such as the social perception of AIDS, gay rights, and how to be an activist.

“The Queen’s Sore throat” is part opera and part documentary—it sings the life stories of AIDS activists Zackie Achmat and Tim McCaskell—but its main interest lies in exploring polyphony, collectivity and resistance. These issues are addressed through an exploration of the operatic form, particularly through playing with opera’s usual insistence on the soloist and its reputation as “la forme fatale.”

Greyson introduces polyphony in a number of ways. This piece is structured around the dialogic possibilities of an operatic voice encountering a documentary voice encountering various biographies of figures within AIDS activism. All while referencing Four Saints in Three Acts—and, I can imagine, much more that this when the video-opera takes its final form. In addition, this is an opera that moves away from solos and arias and instead looks to choral forms to convey its libretto. Multiple voices abound.

Grayson then uses opera’s morbidity (think of any of Maria Callas’ heroines) to critique the unstable position of the martyr within AIDS discourse. He argues that his video-opera is a transgressive subversion of both the operatic and documentary forms, put in service of a political and aesthetic refusal of martyrdom.

While Greyson was only able to show a few work-in-progress clips that speak to this position, it was the “Motet For Four Voices” that seemed to best articulate his multiple concerns—and therefore offer a good sense of direction for the finial piece.

In this piece the lives and stories of Nkosi Johnson, Gugu Dlamini, Simon Nkoli and Christopher Moraka are staged as a coda to the lives of Achmat and McKaskell. In this brief section Grayson is able to communicate each activists’ “principaled refusal to be a martyr” while making an argument for collectivity and resistance.

Visually, this section is quite stunning. The screen is divided into four sections, with actors portraying the four activists seen from the neck up. These heads are positioned above record players and they spin around like records as each actor sings. On each actors neck is a tattooed musical staff showing the notation for the motet. Below the record players words selected from each biography appear, punctuating the libretto. In this brief section Greyson is able pack in references to the classical notion of the martyr as one who witnesses or give testimony, to the importance of registering/recording polyphonous history to any activist work and to the need to reject the sentimentality that characterizes some popular notions of living with AIDS (think Tom Hanks in Philadelphia)—just to name a few.

Greyson says that his aim with is piece is to turn both operatic and documentary forms inside out. If the final form of “The Queen’s Sore Throat” can achieve even half of what the Motet does, Greyson will certainly reach this aim. I look forward to one day seeing the final version of this piece.

I Remember Things By Yelling Them

I love watching people die horrible deaths on tape. I love seeing fake blood pour out of an open wound. I love seeing unidentified viscera, concocted from mashed up toilet paper and ketchup, pulled from unintelligible parts of the human body. I love oozing pus. I love picked over scabs. I love Robert Rodriguez’s special effects. I love sores and abrasions of all kinds. I want to see skin ripping, eyes bulging, bile spewing—and I want it to look (simultaneously) as real and as fake as possible.

For a long time I thought that my love of guts and gore began and ended with B-movie-style horror. I couldn’t move beyond gunshots, stabbings, stigmata, etc., when imagining and representing death. Then I found YouTube.

I ‘m a late-comer to YouTube. It was only about a week ago that I really began to understand what an excellent resource it can be. After a little poking around, I finally discovered that YouTube is not only a place for me to watch Chris Benoit and JonBenet Ramsey tributes, nor is it a place where people only post shitty videos of their dog, their baby, or their band , etc.—it is also a place for teenage boys to post DIY weapons videos!

This discovery has radically altered my video making. On YouTube it is possible to get instructions on how to make a whole range of weapons (click, here, here and here)—including my all time favourite: DIY tasers.














These videos not only offer timely information on how to arm yourself, should you, for example, have the misfortune of ending up in a Vancouver airport, but they also offer a plethora of new and creative ways to kill someone off—on tape.

Using everyday materials, such as pens, paper, elastics, batteries and tape, bored teen and tweenagers have found ways to create cheap, accessible and (most importantly) functioning weapons that can be easily brought into any film or video production no matter the budget.