Snow Play

We enjoyed the figid weekend in Steamboat Springs - snowshoeing, hot springs, sledding, and good friends. Check out this awesome video of our friend Sally on the sledding ramp we built (perhaps a little too high)...

Here's a couple other images from the weekend:

 Snowshoeing in Steamboat Springs

 rural protest (Steamboat Springs, CO)

Me tubing over my friend Matt - then eating a lot of snow

Keltie Ferris Has A Show

Keltie Ferris Has a Show | "New York Close Up" | Art21 from Art21 on Vimeo.

I've watched this a few times. Some of my favorite abstraction right now.

"Do It" Exhibition Video

RMCAD Do It exhibition from John Roberts on Vimeo.

My work is part of this complex exhibition - featured briefly in the video at the 5:04 minute mark.

There are no others

Wildfire Timelapse

Timelapse - Los Angeles Wildfire from Dan Blank on Vimeo.

Slow Motion Thunderstorm

The Sky Below and the Ground Above

found at the nequest flickr stream

The Art Collector

"this guy goes into a bar somewhere, you know...he's watching guys play pool...and the next thing you know - he's painting dogs playing pool! I mean, that's a gift!"

"highly skilled air traffic controller"

"highly skilled air traffic controller"

Jeremy Blake's video for "Round the Bend"

One of my personal favorite video artists is the late Jeremy Blake. I've posted about him before. Every time I listen to Beck's Sea Changes album or watch Punch Drunk Love, I'm reminded of his work again. I'm going to briefly touch on video art in my art appreciation class this week and I decided to break down one of Blake's videos and examine all of the references or similarities to painting. Some of these were more obvious than others...

Still from Jeremy Blake's video for Beck's song "Round the Bend"

Barnett Newman

Still from Jeremy Blake's video for Beck's song "Round the Bend"

Andy Warhol

Still from Jeremy Blake's video for Beck's song "Round the Bend"

Helen Frankenthaler

Still from Jeremy Blake's video for Beck's song "Round the Bend"

Morris Lewis

Still from Jeremy Blake's video for Beck's song "Round the Bend"

Morris Lewis

Goodbye, 20th Century

Patte Loper, "Goodbye, 20th Century"
2006
Animated Video
9 seconds, shown as a loop

This video is based on a scene from a
David Attenborough nature documentary in
which a deer is filmed with infrared
light while walking in a completely dark
cave. The original unpublished video
contains audio of Steve Reich's
Composition for Three Microphones
performed by Sonic Youth .

None More Black

This afternoon:

Tonight:

The new painting is nearly done. It's hard to tell in this photo, but the black is a really warm, rich, dark-brown-black right now. Tomorrow I'll put a deep blue oil glaze over the painting and that will really make that black more black. I'm sure by tomorrow night it will be like that scene in Spinal Tap:

"none more black"

Decorate Your Device

"Laika" by Juan Marín at Poolga

Several websites have made a variety of artistic backgrounds and videos availble for free download to put on your zune or ipod/iphone. Zune-arts in particular is a great resource for videos, music, and tons of backgrounds for your desktop and zune. Also check out Poolga for more. Customizing is fun. If you don't have a digital device like a zune or ipod/iphone - you can download desktop backgrounds from the Zune-arts site too. Everybody wins. There's a great blog with tons of videos here too.

New Website Update

I've been improving and updating my new website. This site has several new features that were not a part of my last website including; exhibitions (documentation, press, installation views), new categories of photography (aerial abstractions, light glare series, and other noteable photos), a very thorough documentation of my press and blog coverage, and video. This will be my dot com in a few weeks. In the mean time you can find it here;

http://nathanabels.wordpress.com

In memory of Jeremy Blake

Beck's "Round the Bend" video with art by Jeremy Blake



from "Punch Drunk Love" color wash scenes by Jeremy Blake



Excerpt from "1906" by Jeremy Blake

From the September Issue of Art in America:

"Jeremy Blake, 35, video artist, is believed to have taken his own life by drowning at a beach in the Rockaways in New York on July 17. A New York police department spokesperson said that his body was found 4 1/2 miles away in the waters off Sea Girt, N.J., on July 22. Blake's death followed the suicide on July 10 of his girlfriend of 12 years, filmmaker Theresa Duncan. The final entry on her blog, The Wit of the Staircase (theresalduncan.typepad.com), was posted the day of her death. The artist was thought to be devastated by Duncan's death. His clothes, wallet and a note referring to Duncan's suicide were found on the beach on July 17, and witnesses reported seeing him walk into the water.

The couple was described by friends as extremely close. In February they returned to New York from Los Angeles, where they had moved about five years earlier. They had collaborated, with Karen Kilimnik, on the 1999 animated film The History of Glamour, which was written and directed by Duncan. Blake also created sequences for the 2002 film Punch-Drunk Love, and at the time of his death was working with Rockstar Games as an in-house designer."

I know I'm not the first to report this, but his absence is a real loss to film and art. I've always loved those color washes in Punch Drunk Love, and the beauty of the music videos for Beck's "Sea change" album.

Fulgurites and Lightning Art

I try to relate this blog to whatever has been notable to me of late - and last night there was a major thunderstorm. So this morning I learned about fulgurites - according to wikipedia - "Fulgurites (from the Latin fulgur meaning thunderbolt) are natural hollow carrot-shaped glass tubes formed in quartzose sand or soil by lightning strikes. In the right kind of sand the extreme heat generated will form silica glass shapes that trace the path of the lightning. These structures are also sometimes referred to as petrified lightning." So keep an eye out for them next time you're hiking a mountainous area or walking the sands of Egypt.

photos from this fulgurite website - click photos for link

Artist Allan McCollum made an installation/conceptual project based in fulgurites, called, "THE EVENT:
Petrified Lightning from Central Florida
(with Supplemental Didactics)"

you can read this very interesting work here.

And just to mix things up - here's a short video I made of lightning I recorded on my little digital camera in Indiana - with an overlay I took of the moon being passed by clouds:

Miranda July video for Blonde Redhead

Artist Miranda July ("Me, You, and Everyone We Know") did a video titled "Top Ranking" for the band Blonde Redhead that can be viewed (or downloaded) here from the Directors Bureau. Found via Fette's Flog.

Also - check out her web project Learning to Love you More - with various creative assignments like "Record the Sound that is Keeping You Awake" or "Make a Flier of Your Day" among many others.

Recent Youtube findings

a couple of youtube videos I stumbled upon:



mono, "holy"



a video of a golden eagle cam

also my friend Kevin started a youtube group with a statement of purpose that reads "A group for those of us finding physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical or artistic moments of transcendent greatness on YouTube. Themes could include (But are certainly not limited to): subtext, quiet reflection, self-consciousness and unself-consciousness, simulacra, intertextuality, terror, awe, abjection, introspection, beauty ... " here.

also of recent youtube interest: r/c zeppelin cams and kite videography

New Media Monday : Projection

Amazing "Laser Tag" - c/o the Graffiti Research Lab - watch the video to get the full effect:

Jenny Holzer's word projections in London

"At night projections from moving cars are shone on the buildings downtown. Each car projects a video of a wild animal. The animal’s movements are programmed to correspond to the speed of the car: as the car moves, the animal runs along it speeding up and slowing down with the car, as the car stops, the animal stops also. " created by Karolina Sobecka from her Wildlife Project - go to the website and watch the video - it's pretty amazing.

other resources:
Urban Projections
Wooster Collective

And now big-budget movies are getting in on the action; like this projection in Brazil for TMNT:

Screen Filler

Sometimes when we have company over, I like to just put on a DVD with nice images. It warms up the room and isn't as distracting as putting on a movie that people might actually watch with intent. I usually put on the Beck "Guero" DVD - because it is essentially V-J video noise, and although the music is great, sometimes its nice to put on and turn off the volume. I've seen the "colorcalm" DVD at a travel shop and it has interesting premise - you can select the color of skies and several other options and have your ambient video match your room or mood. They have another video comprised of ambient video called "by Design." I also found this DVD by Brian Eno called "14 Video Paintings," which by its description should serve the same purpose. None of these videos would be very good for entertainment, but all should work well for video background and should be more interesting than the video aquarium or fireplace. Click images for links.