July 2009 Archives

"What if we shrank it down and put it all on a table?" asked Brick Maier a couple of years ago. The former middle school teacher earned a Fullbright in 2004 and spent three years abroad researching and developing a video production methodology to use in K-12 schools as a way of enhancing not just media literacy, but reading, writing and oral skills. "Having taught digital video production for a while, I was looking for a faster way to integrate digital video into learning contexts," says the LA-based Maier, who will host the "Film Festival in 90 Minutes" workshop for students, ages 10 - 14, at the Hammer Museum this coming Sunday, July 12. "Walking through a museum at some point and seeing the diorama theater displays from Europe was where it all clicked: we could shrink the whole thing down and put it all on the table," he explains. The result of Maier's research and epiphany is Tabletop Moviemaking, which unites reading and writing with digital video by scaling the production process down to the top of a table. Participants - starting at age 5 - work with miniature sets and cut-out characters, devising a script, then shooting and editing, and adding titles and credits. "Media literacy skills are important," Maier says, "but rather than starting with analysis, I wanted to work from an active and participatory point of view, so we start with authoring, with writing, orality and language." Maier adds that this emphasis was strategic. "It comes out of developing a model that would be sustainable in schools where I know from my own background that language arts are so important," he says. More significantly, however, Maier's melding of writing and production obviates the all too common complaint that digital video ignores reading and writing. Indeed, while Maier has held numerous workshops both nationally and internationally, he currently hosts frequent events at 826LA, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center with sites in Echo Park and Venice. The Hammer's "Film Festival" starts at noon, and requires pre-registration. Visit the 826LA site, or call 310-305-8418 to register.

"It's like, noooo, it's like, grabbing, it's like, uhhhh... Uh, it's like a spiral, ssss sorta spiraling colors in it. And its trying to spiral me all in it with it man. Oh. Uh uh. Ahhhh."

So begins Brody Condon's 2006 video Without Sun, a compilation of video clips documenting people under the influence of psychedelic substances. Condon, whose art practice began in the late 1990s in Southern California when he was studying at UC San Diego, will return to Machine Project on July 18, where he will present Without Sun, and then recreate the video with an actor and dancer in a series of live, repeated performances.

Condon's early work was inspired by SoCal media theory and the writing of thinkers such as Katherine Hayles, who was then at UCLA, and Lev Manovich, as well as the DIY ethos of video game hobbyists, who were cheerfully modding games such as Quake, Doom and Half-Life by altering the gameplay and then sharing their ideas in online communities. "Being triangulated between these two," the artist says, "so that I was taking the technical skills from the hobbyists and an articulation of ideas through the theorists, was a way of stepping outside the boundaries and trying to do something else." That "something else" has resulted in a series of compelling media and performance projects that explore the intersection of material bodies and immaterial spaces...

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What does a sip of smooth vodka look like? Maxim Zhestkov, who lives in Ulyanovsk City, Russia, and works with the London-based design group Universal Everything, offers a pretty accurate portrait of the tasty 42 Below in a video titled Onedreamrush, using his trademark black-and-white palette. The video hurtles across rough and unfamiliar terrain, somersaults into a magical geometry that explodes into rich color before a brief sigh, and then a moment of peacefulness. The symmetry between the visuals and the evolution of sensation you experience with the vodka is quite thrilling. 42 Below has launched a campaign to have 42 different directors create 42-second videos based on the vodka, with an impressive array of participants lined up, including David Lynch, Jonas Mekas and Gaspar Noe. And how about gin? LA-based firm Motion Theory just finished production on a piece titled Paris for Tanqueray that opens on lovely images of angelica, juniper and coriander, some of the liquor's ingredients, before moving into a narrative about hipsters in Paris. Turn off the sound and watch for the flower graphics that blossom around the edges of the story, pretty embodiments of gin's ability to infuse the world sensually.

Three years ago, in the bathroom: Jean Douchet's French New Wave with the sumptuous image of Bridget Bardot on the cover. Among the stacks of books piled in the living room: a text by Sophie Calle, known for her voyeuristic fascination with the objects left behind by hotel guests. And on the wall leading upstairs: a hand-drawn sign with a sketch of a rumpled old dog and a cautionary note: "careful: confuses affection and aggression."

This is Mike Mills.

Or it's a beginning, a collection of objects that suggest who Mike Mills might be. One could add biographical details: born in '66, raised in Southern California, addicted to skateboarding, lives in LA. His likes? Ozu and Jarmusch. Dislikes? Pretentiousness and attitude. Career? Make that "careers." He's an artist, illustrator, graphic designer, commercial director, blogger and filmmaker. He's the co-founder of the Director's Bureau, a collective of Los Angeles-based directors, and founder of Humans, a company through which he showcases various design projects. And his work? There are t-shirts, printed ribbon ("Not how or when or why but yes," says one) and bags. There are music videos for (among others) Air, Yoko Ono and Moby, and commercials for (among others) Volkswagen and The Gap. Mills is also a filmmaker. In much of his work, Mills relishes detail, moving in close on faces, hands, eyes and hair. His work is full of the small bits of the material world that make up everyday life. So it's no surprise that a new book - edited by Aaron Rose - based on his work presents not a chronological history, but an eclectic collection. What does the recently published Mike Mills Graphics Films tell us about this artist?

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