A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
On June 13, 1978, the punk bands the Cramps and the Mutants played a free show for psychiatric patients at the Napa State Hospital in California. We Were There to Be There chronicles the people, politics, and cultural currents that led to the show and its live recording.
A homeless musician finds meaning in his life when he starts a friendship with dozens of parrots.
This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007 and for an entire year, as indicated in the title, a large public (the artist's friends, as well as unknowns) were invited to view a diary of short films of various lengths (from one to twenty minutes) on the Internet. A movie was posted each day, adding to the previously posted pieces, resulting altogether in nearly thirty-eight hours of moving images.
Throughout three decades, Bill Laswell has been a constant innovator, fusing seemingly disparate genres into a whole new sound. Touching upon everything from worldbeat, funk, rock, hip-hop and jazz, there are no limits to his experimental approach. Among his many talents is his ability to bring together well-matched singers and players to create a distinct style that defies easy classification. His Soundstage episode embodies his unique approach, transcending any genre boundaries and delivering an engaging performance. From the World Beat of Tabla Beat Science, to the jazzy flavors of Pharoah Sanders backed by Material, it’s an exciting mix. Other surprises include a rocking Buckethead set that includes a little breakdancing and songs by Praxis. The show culminates with an all-star performance, funked up by Bootsy Collins.
The theme of death is heavily interwoven in Smolder’s surreal salute to Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz, a Hieronymus Bosch-type artist whose work centered on humans in various stages in torment, as depicted in expansive canvases with gore galore. Smolders has basically taken a standard documentary and chopped it up, using quotes from the long-dead artist, and periodic statements by a historian (Smolders) filling in a few bits of Wiertz’ life.
"This tape is an exploration of my latent heterosexuality with porn star / performance artist Annie Sprinkle as instructor and sage. After assuaging my fears that I can have sex with a woman & still maintain my gay identity, Annie warms me up with some playful, sensual wrestling. She then instructs in the use of a tampon while relating men's need to make war with their inability to menstruate. For the rest of the tape, she guides me through the specifics of sexual exploration, positions of coital congress as well as post- coital ritual."
An exploration of Rodez Cathedral and its stained glass windows: praying figures and scientific imagery. A study on color, repetition and flickering consisting of 292 photographs.
Originality in a time of poorly made copies, a filmic inventory of a strange time, a kaleidoscope of images, in a constant game of ruptures and continuities. All this from 365 videos published on an Instagram page in 2018, added to an original soundtrack and a text adapted from Dürrenmatt's play Dialogue of a Vile Man, a text that synthesizes our time well.
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Eyeballs features a brief history of the Dead Kennedys' early years up to their first UK tour, never before seen live performances, interviews with Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray, comments by music journalists, and insights from the key people involved with the recording of the DK's first album. Jello Biafra's 1979 run for mayor is also highlighted.
In the fall of 1967, intermedia artists Ture Sjölander and Lars Weck collaborated with Bengt Modin, video engineer of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation in Stockholm, to produce an experimental program called Monument. It was broadcast in January, 1968, and subsequently has been seen throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. Apart from the technical aspect of the project, their intention was to develop a widened consciousness of the communi - cative process inherent in visual images. They selected as source material the "monuments" of world culture— images of famous persons and paintings.
A bed of flowers.
Film is made out of gelatin that comes from horses. They’re waiting to be slaughtered, so that pictures can be made. Many years ago we learned the language of our masters. Though we couldn’t help wondering why so few of you bothered to learn ours. Three scenes featuring horses, remembering Jacinto. The first is a daytime forest haunting that winds up at a carousel, the second a rainy street in Portugal, the finale a nighttime vigil of fire and water.
Edeltraut Hertel - a midwife caught between two worlds. She has been working as a midwife in a small village near Chemnitz for almost 20 years, supporting expectant mothers before, during and after the birth of their offspring. However, working as a midwife brings with it social problems such as a decline in birth rates and migration from the provinces. Competition for babies between birthing centers has become fierce, particularly in financial terms. Obstetrics in Tanzania, Africa, Edeltraud's second place of work, is completely different. Here, the midwife not only delivers babies, she also trains successors, carries out educational and development work and struggles with the country's cultural and social problems.
Porn stars Sharon Mitchell and Tigr navigate the ups and downs of being in love while working in the sex industry.
Completely topless. Completely uninhibited. The craze that began in San Francisco is now exploding across the USA and Europe.
The mute documentary-experimental film "Ten Minutes of Silence" is a film expression of the trends embodied in the painting "Black Square" by Malevich and J. Cage in music.
Eva-Maria works as a secretary at a teacher training college. A position she is very proud of. It was not easy to get this job, because she has been dependent on a wheelchair since her childhood due to spastic cerebral palsy. However, Eva-Maria has never let herself be intimidated. She knows what she wants and how to get it. Without compromise, she wants to create the life she has always dreamed of. One of her biggest dreams: a child of her own. With the help of in vitro fertilization, she now wants to fulfil this wish for herself. Supported by her family and accompanied by her assistants, she tackles "the child project". But her situation is unknown territory for everyone. The peculiarities of her body present new and unfamiliar challenges to both medicine and her assistants. Documented by one of her assistants, this film provides an unusually intimate insight into a life beyond conventional family planning.
At least forty films have been made about the Living Theatre; it remained to the American underground filmmaker Sheldon Rochlin (previously responsible for the marvellous Vali) to make the 'definitive' film about one of the most famous of their works, Paradise Now, shot in Brussels and at the Berlin Sportpalast. Made on videotape, with expressionist colouring 'injected' by electronic means, this emerges as a hypnotic transmutation of a theatrical event into poetic cinema, capturing the ambiance and frenzy of the original. No documentary record could have done it justice.
Video accompaniment to the book of the same name released by RE/SEARCH magazine, featuring interviews with Survival Research Lab's Mark Pauline, Joe Coleman, Karen Finley, Boyd Rice, and Frank Discussion. "Five Fabulously Funny Interviews with Fiendishly Flamboyant Pranksters discussing diabolical (and sometimes illegal) deeds. Dazzling deceptions and put-ons from some of the most outrageous artists living today."