Two men in adjoining duplexes, good friends, are enchanted by the song of a bird. One buys a small harmonica and learns to play it; he keeps his neighbor awake. The neighbor buys a larger harmonica, and an arms race ensues; the instruments get larger, until it's a piano vs. a pipe organ, and then they start bringing in larger groups of friends until an entire orchestra is playing the 1812 Overture. The houses collapse from all this, atop the dueling orchestras, and on their way up to heaven, the man puts his small harmonica up for sale.
A surreal musical comedy set in a world where the avant-garde and the mainstream are reversed.
A trippy pop-art collage of phallic objects, naked women and American icons, most notably Elvis Presley.
Various life performances by Japanese Noise acts: Aube - Low Spin Drift / Incapacitants - Live At 20000V / Dislocation - Writing And Masturbation / Masonna - Live At Bears And La Mama / Seed Mouth - Twilight City / Violent Onsen Geisha - Night Of Unlcean Water / Solmania - Live At Living Room / Merzbow - Piss For Yves Klein / C.C.C.C. - Loud Sounds Dopa / Hijokaidan - Live At La Mama.
A young girl’s fiery dance, accidentally caught on 16 mm film in the street. The viewer is confronted by the sacrificial and the passionate, the strong and the fragile, the fleeting and the eternal. These are the faces of femininity.
This fantastical movie inspired by the music of Michael Jackson features imaginative interpretations of hit tracks from the iconic 1987 album “Bad”.
La Maison en Petits Cubes tells the story of a grandfather's memories as he adds more blocks to his house to stem the flooding waters.
Beneath towering Brutalist architecture, a man is driven to do what must be done.
CREMASTER 5 is a five-act opera (sung in Hungarian) set in late-ninteenth century Budapest. The last film in the series, it represents the moment when the testicles are finally released and sexual differentiation is fully attained. The lamenting tone of the opera suggests that Barney invisions this as a moment of tragedy and loss. The primary character is the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress). Barney, himself, plays three characters who appear in the mind of the Queen: her Diva, Magician, and Giant. The Magician is a stand-in for Harry Houdini, who was born in Budapest in 1874 and appears as a recurring character in the Cremaster cycle.
As technology accelerates, our species' collective imagination of the future grows ever more kaleidoscopic. We are all haunted by temporal distortion, perhaps no more than when we attempt to remember what the future looked like to our younger selves. As the mist of time devours our memories, the future recedes; each of us burdened by the gaping mouth of entropy. Yet, emerging technology provides a glimmer of hope; transhumanism promises a future free from mortality, disease and pain. Does our salvation lie in digital simulacra? We're here to sell you the answer to that question, for the low, low price of four hundred and seventy seconds.
Experimental short film by Michio Mihara.
An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.
Part of a collection of restored early works by Nam June Paik, the haunting Beatles Electronique reveals Paik's engagement with manipulation of pop icons and electronic images. Snippets of footage from A Hard Day's Night are countered with Paik's early electronic processing.
Abandoning the Abaddon-loathed abandoner opens plenty of reclaimed... everything(s).
Donald gets off the bus and heads home hoping to get a good night's sleep. At first, his plans for rest are disturbed by an open window shade which lets light from a flashing sign in. After that problem is dealt with, Donald is kept awake by a persistently dripping faucet. Donald tries to ignore it but after a while, it becomes aggravating to put it mildly. Donald makes several attempts to stop the dripping and finally at least is able to keep it under control via a Rube Goldberg contraption. At this point, Donald receives a call from his water company telling him he hasn't paid his water bill so they're cutting off his water!
Enigma is something of a more glamorous version of White Hole, with a wide variety of elaborate textures (often composed of iconographic and religious symbols) converging towards the centre of the screen.
Global Groove was a collaborative piece by Nam June Paik and John Godfrey. Paik, amongst other artists who shared the same vision in the 1960s, saw the potential in the television beyond it being a one-sided medium to present programs and commercials. Instead, he saw it more as a place to facilitate a free flow of information exchange. He wanted to strip away the limitations from copyright system and network restrictions and bring in a new TV culture where information could be accessed inexpensively and conveniently. The full length of the piece ran 28 minutes and was first broadcasted in January 30, 1974 on WNET.
Dislocation in time, time signatures, time as a philosophical concept, and slavery to time are some of the themes touched upon in this 9-minute experimental film, which was written, directed, and produced by Jim Henson. Screened for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in May of 1965, "Time Piece" enjoyed an eighteen-month run at one Manhattan movie theater and was nominated for an Academy Award for Outstanding Short Subject.
A short film recounting the travels of a lonely astronaut confronted by the unknown. Unfolding as a mystery, it becomes a carefully subtle, autobiographical examination of the feeling of loneliness and the existential issue of not understanding life on earth and ones place among it.
A visual interpretation of the poem by E.E. Cummings about the life cycle of a townspeople and of one ignored couple.