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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
Digital Media Tree this blog's archive OVVLvverk Lorna Mills: Artworks / Persona Volare / contact Sally McKay: GIFS / cv and contact |
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Cory Arcangel is an interesting artist who has popped up only a small bit on this blog (he's been touring with Beige and Paper Rad and Dr. Doo, for instance, mentioned earlier today.) Tom Moody has written about him quite a bit, and rightly so. Cory and his sister, Jamie Arcangel, often work as a team, sometimes performing live and in video. At the moment they are co-curators of a show called Infinite Fill in NYC. Tom Moody is compiling a sort of blog-scrapbook on the show, with images and bits of criticism. Those of you interested in art criticism chit-chat should have a look at today's post and follow the links.
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It is with extreme regret that I must report I can only find one of my old Rudy comics. A sample panel (dream sequence) is here on the left. Toronto artist Mark Connery drew Rudy throughout the 90s and distributed his comics at zine and small press fairs. I have always been a huge fan, and went looking for my stash when Dr. Doo's zine (see today's earlier post) reminded me of Rudy's oblique yet precise psychedelic humour. |
Below is a reprint of a review I wrote of Rudy in Lola 4 (2000): Rudy was my very first favourite zine. Rudy is a sort of cat. His friends are Phil (a triangle), and Ken (a fish with legs). In one issue Rudy got a cartoon eye in the mail. He could see what it saw, so Rudy sent it over to spy on Phil and was thus able to rescue him from a psycho-troll who hated triangles. Another time a male cigar-smoking duck from the Bureau of Missing Time turns out to be the mother of four vampire ducklings. Rudy and Ken end up driving a stake into the mother duck but Rudy builds a statue to memorialize her because "a mother is a special thing..." In another issue, Phil the triangle has a new power. He can suck things (in this case a dot) inside the perimeter of his head. Rudy has to help him get the objects out again. The creator of Rudy is Mark Connery. I ran into him recently and he told me he has been sticking his newest drawings under windshield wipers. Makes me almost wish I had a car. | |
I recently attended a swell evening of entertainment in Toronto when Paper Rad, Beige and friends came to town. My highlight of the evening was (again...saw him once before in NYC) Dr. Doo. This long-haired, trucker-hat wearing dude (so Canadian yet not) plays live drum-kit to recorded tunes and wacked out animation. Sounds dumb. It is. It's also a rush and a lot of fun. For one thing Dr. Doo is a damn good drummer. For another, the mix of an intense physical live act with boldly dumb computer graphics is a cyborg brain teaser. The iconography is psychedelic and spins into states of consciousness trippiness (pyramids and corridors and flying carpets) while staying close to simple themes (big faces, dogs and cats). I scored a free zine and comp cd in my shameless fandom. My favourite panel from the zine, Black and White and Read, is here above. I am not 100% sure that the zine is made by Dr. Doo, but I think so, especially because he and the dog character, Tux, share a rather strong resemblance. [UPDATE: thanks to Tom in comments...zine is by Paper Rad collectively]
Update: the Miss Mouse and Miss Teapot video is now available through Youtube.
Above is a mini, .gif-style version of a 6.5 minute video I made* that is going to Hungary, Albania and Serbia with Kiss Machine's Girls and Guns show (details below). Click here for the soundtrack made with Garageband. This software is frighteningly easy to use. For one thing it takes care of tuning and tempo. The samples they provide are funny and also (at least in this case) useful. This tune (with the working title "First Try") is made up of the following:
guitars ��acoustic � country � "Accoustic Picking 08"
guitars ��acoustic � country � "Accoustic Picking 17"
bass � dark � "Distorted Finger Bass 02"
bass � dark � "Distorted Finger Bass 03"
beats � urban � "RnB Beat 08"
beats � electric � "Club Dance Beat 002"
guitars � electric � "Modern Rock Guitar 09"
guitars � rock/blues � "Spacious Guitar 04"
I don't have the faintest idea what this stuff means in terms of the history of sampling or the future of music. Very puzzling. I do know it helped me out lickety-split when I was stuck for an appropriate and copyright-free soundtrack.
* I made...with help from Miss Teapots Maogosha Pyjor and Jean McKay; camerawork by Carma Livingstone, Paul Hong, and Ben Smith Lea; timely advice from Von Bark and a leg-up from Kristin Lucas of Simulcast.
The first exhibition of Kiss Machine's Girls and Guns touring project opens at the Dorottya Gallery in Budapest, Hungary, on August 10, 2004.
The art show premiered at Forest City Gallery in London, Ontario, and was originally created for the sixth issue of Kiss Machine (http://kissmachine.org/sixth.html), which featured the dual themes of girls and guns. In September, the Girls and Guns show moves to the Lindart Cultural Center in Tirana, Albania, and in October it will be featured at the Videomedija Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia.
EXHIBITING ARTISTS:
Sheila Butler, Nina Czegledy, Michelle Kasprzak, Sally McKay and Paola Poletto (Canada).
Roza El Hassan (Hungary).
Tuesday, August 10 to Saturday, September 4, 2004
Dorottya Gallery (Budapest, Hungary)
Michelle Kasprzak will perform at the opening.
A roundtable discussion will follow, moderated by Emese Suvecz.
The Dorottya Gallery show is supported by the Hungarian National Cultural Fund, the Canadian Embassy, Budapest, the Municipal Government of Budapest and the Nadasdy Foundation.
For further information: http://www.ernstmuzeum.hu/dorottya_a.htm
Contact: paola@kissmachine.org
been absent due to workin' on a video full tilt. It's not done yet. Above still is a sneak preview.
