http://www.r243g197b208.net/

Number three from the adicolor video podcast series. PINK by Charlie White, director & fine art photographer Surrender to pink's seduction again and again.

         

www.r243g197b208.net for the big MOV file.

         

Much better than the last two...

         

Heh, Pink Man Group? :P

Too much pink for this girl. I know this female coworker who made her desktop all pink. Ugh!

         

         

reminds me somehow of matthew barnaby's works.

         

i really like this one. perfect exploration of what pink is (to so many). great teddy. great track. everything just right.

         

simply amazing piece of artwork. charlie white rocks my socks off.

         

"It reminds me of Barnaby" except this is cool and Barnaby is pretentious crap...I cant believe how many people worked on this 30 second piece...almost the same as a feature.

         

Heh. "Barnaby" [sic].

         

this is excellent.

         

Don't think it's there yet. So interesting to have the conch shell bleed juice but the rest feels too nonsensical. I think the simple transformation would have more place if maybe that juice touched her first.

Our girl chats chatty on the tele. The furry sees the conch bleeding.
Juice spills on floor and hits girl's foot.
She transforms. Furry watches. Girl becomes a pink diamond cacoon as the furry caresses her.
End with shot of shell, juice returning within.

         

lusk81: she's having an orgasm. the 'bleeding" conch is a metaphor for her anatomy.

         

I could have done it better bla bla bla .yawn

         

Lusk: I think this might be more effective because it doesn't make perfect sense. It has a dreamlike quality and is more or less a really cool visual piece.

         

I'm not really wanting to call anyone out here, but Lusk Im a bit surprised that it took luminal spelling it out to explain what was happening. While the event is not portrayed so literally.. like it or not, it would be pretty hard to read it any other way. But anyhow, since you "could have done it better" maybe you should. I think we would all very much look forward to your version of an execution on Charlie White's concept.

         

I liked it. I'm glad to see adidas giving some real budgets to these people.

And I associate Barney with more of salmon color.

         

QUIX: Since the earliest days of my posting, people have feigned my nick. I do not believe I could have done it better for this is his thing, not mine. And yes ISSA, I do agree that this is a cool visual piece and the best of the adidas shorts thus far.

I picked up the visual cues as relating to an orgasm, but the syntax is very scifi ish and suggestive of 'something else' going on. Remember, before the transformation, the girl looks at the phone as if she's been delivered the news of death. Girl then turns to an already manufactured room as one of her toys comes to life and her physiology morphs into a caccoon of sorts.

Essentially the entire process, the syntax we see; girl hears something on the phone, conch bleeds, furry comes to life, the transformation from pink to pink diamonds, this has more of a scifi lean than anything else, I'm thinking bodysnatchers or carpenter's the thing.

I can see how this is an orgasm piece for the bleeding conch is obviously vaginal, but again, I do believe that could've worked into the concept a little more. The gap between conch shell and transforming girl feels a little too disparate for me. And certain details (the phone for instance) is strange considering the idea of an orgasm.

         

This is an interesting dicussion.

I have to agree with Lusk -- if this is about an orgasm it's far too disjointed to work.

This woman is having her first period, not an orgasm (though for either legal or asthetic reasons they cast a woman who looks 18 though she should be much younger).

This is about puberty and more over puberty as seen through the gaze of a consumer culture.

Let's not forget Addias is paying for this, which means a lot more to me than budget size.

The director is either trying to be subversive or is uncounsciously engaging in an Orwellian fable about the loss of self to the glittering world. What the system is particularly good at is selling the glamour of a zombified life -- a tyranny so deft you do not know it even exists but for that strange feeling of emptiness at the center.

         

BTW: Having your first period, while chatting happily on the phone with a friend, makes a whole lot more sense then spontaneously having an orgasm.

         

YES! Some good conversation about work and content.

Definitely some interesting points about puberty here. Charlie's photos often deal with teenagers and themes of awkwardness and awkward stages, so I definitely buy into elements of puberty. Perhaps something orgasmic? Perhaps something related to menstruation? Maybe all of the above? To me the lack of anything concrete is what sustains my level of interest. Coady consumer gaze is a very interesting point especially when we consider the patron.. I do agree. Im not so sure that not making "sense" is per say a bad thing.

Totally different topic. I'm curious what we are all thinking of the popularity of corp sponsored ad art. Obviously there are plenty of pros and cons. I for one would like to see a new talent pool tapped. Which is not to say that I don't appreciate many of the usual suspects, but it is beginning to feel a bit silly when the same people are always commissioned, as though there are tons of talented people out. Thoughts?

         

re: lusk81 - "Remember, before the transformation, the girl looks at the phone as if she's been delivered the news of death."

to me it looks more like that cliched existential moment, where one sees ones hands for the first time. i don't think she heard anything over the telephone.

it doesn't hurt that the way the slick pink liquid covers her reminds me of neos' quicksilver awakening in "the matrix".

         

I think you're all reading way too much into this. This just turned into a Donnie Darko message board.

         

THE MENSTRUATION THEORY:

AGREES: The little bear is a symbol of her youth, innocence & childhood. He realizes the transformation A.K.A. loss of his best friend. As the pink (adulthood) consumes her, he joins her in the fetal position trying to hold on to innevitably fleeting adolescence.

DISAGREES: Im pretty sure chicks dont have boobs before they get their period.

         

         

isaacrentz: you think we're reading too much into this, but when you have a visually stunning piece that is on the border of coherence and is sponsored by a sneaker company I think it bares some thought.

quixoticnyc: personally I think corporate sponsored art has more cons than pros. everywhere I look in NYC I see empty eyes staring out at me from billboards and magazines.

What our culture always sold us was that the shapeless blob was the Soviet Union because apparently clothing choice is what defines us as people.

Our culture has turned into the shapeless mass -- not because we are not different, but because we have been trained not to see each other. our eyes have been removed. recognition is saved for the very very few who live in a gilded cage as we are separated because the more isolation you feel the better consumer you are, the less likely you're willing to sit down and eat pasta you made with 20 people for a grand total of 15$, the more likely you're gonna need your own snowblower for those 15 minutes every winter rather than share it with you block.

And, of yeah, we're gonna put your front porch in your back yard because isolation is the feeling you've got to live with in exchange for this shallow sense of will received by buying new sneakers every three months.

As an artist myself I would like to see our priesthood returned to the church. The lender's table need to be overturned and art severed from currency and become again a pyshic force.

As for reading too much in this little piece, I'll go overboard: what you guys are watching when you watch movies like this is the new berlin wall and that is the invisible line between consumption and community.

         

Hey coady,

'everywhere I look in NYC I see empty eyes staring out at me from billboards and magazines'

This is where I think we need to change. What I enjoy about these commissioned works is that it satisfies both the qualifications of 'commerce' and the qualifications of 'art'. Commissioned art is a centuries-old (maybe millenia-old) practice. I think commerce went really overboard in the 20th century, and we're starting to get back to that balance that flourished so well during the Renaissance. (Good lord I'm no art history expert though)

The models may be selling you something, but look at the inspiration (the people!) behind the specific ads. Often there is little, but what RES and other people espouse (partially, inherently) is that we can combine these and satisfy everyone's needs.

I don't have time to respond to the rest.. Lotsa topics to discuss in there.

         

charlie white is on some shit. i am interested to see where he is going as a film maker. even though the ending is a bit soft, its cool that she kind of looks like a shoe. art and commerce has a complicated relationship but film is expensive.

         

the very notion of art that satisfies, as you so neatly put it, kev, is troublesome to me.

coady: thx for that.

pest: "she kind of looks like a shoe". that cracked me up.

         

by the way dudes. this was made for 40k inclusive.

         

prog: Good point. I was implying that artists would get to be artists, nearly unencumbered, and get paid for it. What the art is about is a different story. (Still room for non-commissioned art)

         

I really like the dialogue, guys.

As for commerce, the #1 event that has happened to the media in the last decade is not just the remarkable distribution of it, via the web, but just how inexpensively you can make an effective video, song, etc. The factories (logic, after effects, photoshop) have been turned over to us, so what impresses me is when I see a piece and know that it didn't cost much to make and then is not as tied down to a govt, a corp or a church.

Kev, I think we're not really far off from one another and I agree work will continue to be comissioned and that in of itself is not bad -- it's just that this piece, which is remarkably effective, is also real subversive -- against us or for us? I think that's the question.

         

I've watched this video so many times. It's so short, yet there's enough content in it to get my head really going. I have no clever insight into it. I love the music, it fits.

         

1. Does everything ever done that has a trace of surrealism have to be Matthew Barney's domain? What about Breton? What about Max Ernst? etc...

2. It's fairly obvious like in all of White's work that there is the fascination with biological change, the transformation of the tawdry and suburban into something verging on supernatural or spiritual, etc. I don't think it needs a deeper explanation, just the experience of watching it.

3. Coady - did you see how many people worked on it? We're not any closer to having the facotires handed over to us.

4. Charlie White is awesome, though I prefer my Cronenberg. I like he's writing a monthly column in Res.

5. No one accuses classical painters of being sellouts for having been patroned.

If we can take capital, and utilize it to make works like this, that's a good thing.

         

otaku -- I did see how many people worked on it and I take your point.

But the best short film I've seen in years was called Terminal Bar, about a bar across from Port Authority and it was, essentially, made by one guy. The credits were one line.

If you want to do crazy special effects like this, and you want enter the machine and be a part of the infrastructure, than staff comes with that. If you want to make an effective movie image, or audio track, staff is opptional and depends on the effect you're trying to achieve.

You don't think the factories have been handed over to us? Research what it used to take to lay out one page of text & images thirty years ago, something you can now do in Photoshop/Indesign in about 5 seconds.

I stand by my original statement about being impressed by how far creators stretch their 1000 dollar machines.

In defense of people who quoted Barney, I just saw Drawing Restraint 7 (I'm a huge fan of Barney & Bjork and I can't recommend it) and the conch shell is a specific reference to DR7 as is the use of rhinestone (Cremaster 2, saddle), which I'm pretty sure Breton and Ernst didn't have to play with.

As for Capital, you can take it but we are free to critique it. I'm no arbiter of cool, but I know what cool is for me and it ain't a shoe company.

         

COADY: You're hurting me here! Terminal Bar is another short that belongs in a category I've termed: the sundance symptom. A sloppy exploration of gay hipster themes that barely (or bluntly) tries to use said themes to reflect either the filmmakers' or filmmakers' subject's struggle with homosexuality. Always devoid of both inspiration and tact.

Piece begins with an awesome concept: In the heart of nyc, there's a bar about to close due to looming rent prices. Inside is a bar tender that photographs his customers for he knows the street will completely "eat these people up". It suggests some kind of really interesting sense of false permanence, a capturing of the transient so to speak -- BUT! --

The film has no interest in this (it tries to lure you in this way with such an opening). But instead, the piece wants to paint the story of a gay bar (cue bells, whistles, constantly annoying muzak, and flash frame editing) with the interest to watch the filmmakers gay father talk about blowjobs while uttering the word "gay" (literally 100 times) as if to recite some kind of claim to the underbelly of a tumultous city, cause in here, it was ruthless! Fart.

The whole thing is hipster junk. The film's movements include:

Hey look at this gay guy. Hey look at this wino fucker. Hey look at this junkie. He always wanted to fuck.

All the while flashing us portraits of feral looking men. But the piece doesn't paint a portrait - not of the bar, nor the bartender, nor the city (refered to at the end so cheaply as if making a point, "new york shitty") - it displays a filmmakers annoying and unfocused interest in (again) techno muzak and the punk rock fuck cool jump kick smash flipness of being, and talking about being, well, hemosexual.

Most of it is just embarassing. And overall, so very much not a documentary. Man...

If you're a fan of great work made with minimal resources, I recommend an incredible recent short that was the bees' kness a few years back: FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING. Peter Sollet's big award winner that can be found on the dvd of his debut feature (among other places):

www.amazon.com

Not for everyone, but so slight and so classy.

         

Holy Mountain, Love it

Alejandro Jodorowsky

"Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles."

         

Lusk81: why, brother, are you sending me flack on whether it's 9 or 7 DR, when I bailed you out in the first place whether this was orgasmic/period or something altogether different? It's you who's killing me with these cosmic tangents.

You didn't like Terminal Bar? Fine. That wasn't my point. My point was that I enjoyed it and it didn't take a huge crew to produce it.

Barney's Cremaster's 2, 4, & 5 are beautiful creations. Do they borrow from a bevey of surrealist & avant garde theatrists and a whole mess of other creations? Yeah. Of course they do.

Let's be friends. And let's stick to the point that I was making. Fuck the self. The whole trajectory of the last ten years and the next hundred is not Barney or Breton is GB & Ram. Deal.

         

BTW: Despite the difference of opinion, thank you, lusk81, for these links, I'm looking forward to seeing what you're sending me to and feel like it's the whole point of this site and this dialogue.

         

this is the best piece of filmmaking I've seen in a long time.