Friday, December 05, 2008
Elevator Phone Sex from Second City
In this reporter's opinion, the video would be nothing without the reactions from the guy behind the caller.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
What is Comedy?
From their post on YouTube:
A long-forgotten 1951 classroom film from Medium Large's educational library ("Bake Your Way to Marriage!" "How to Cripple a Bully" "Polio: God's Judgment Against Gays" ), this short exposes the chilling, horrifying, alarming truth about comedy in a fun, fact-filled format. The movie was made possible with a grant from "Buick: The Cadillac of Cars."
Written, drawn and directed by Francesco Marciuliano. Edited by Sara Benincasa.
http://www.medium-large.com
http://francescoexplainsitall.blogspot.com
A long-forgotten 1951 classroom film from Medium Large's educational library ("Bake Your Way to Marriage!" "How to Cripple a Bully" "Polio: God's Judgment Against Gays" ), this short exposes the chilling, horrifying, alarming truth about comedy in a fun, fact-filled format. The movie was made possible with a grant from "Buick: The Cadillac of Cars."
Written, drawn and directed by Francesco Marciuliano. Edited by Sara Benincasa.
http://www.medium-large.com
http://francescoexplainsitall.blogspot.com
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Banana Slips on a Human
There is so much going on here in terms of humor. The first thing that comes to mind is the obvious frame shift. The shift may come late after the banana falls, realizing that it has slipped on a human. This then creates the association of parody on the timeless slipping on a banana peel joke. Added associations for more comic effect are the suitcase and umbrella the banana is holding. This frames the banana in our world which Echoes the theories of Henri Bergson:
"You may laugh at an animal, but only because you have detected in it some human attitude or expression. You may laugh at a hat, but what you are making fun of, in this case, is not the piece of felt or straw, but the shape that men have given it,--the human caprice whose mould it has assumed. It is strange that so important a fact, and such a simple one too, has not attracted to a greater degree the attention of philosophers. Several have defined man as “an animal which laughs.” They might equally well have defined him as an animal which is laughed at; for if any other animal, or some lifeless object, produces the same effect, it is always because of some resemblance to man, of the stamp he gives it or the use he puts it to."
Food is no different. Now with the rise of analytical comedy, a lot of weight is put on laughter in the question, "Why am I laughing at this?" which leads to "Why was this video even produced?" which may lead to another frame of laughter. The incongruity of the scenario lends itself extreme to the release of laughter. Banana's slipping on humans doesn't make sense, and this is a basic form of laughter that even the youngest human can cognitively understand.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Jared Medeiros "Go Get Your Mule"
A few years ago Jared Medeiros released (on the internet) a few videos that remade some old media. The remakes are filled with humorous subtlety thats speak about the mediums they're emulating. These are some of the most honest, creative, timely remakes on the internet. And we know how swamped the internet is with remake culture. This is one of the few times I support remake culture in art.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Inciting Humor
In regards to the Jews developing humor in German Culture, refer to the book Inciting Laughter by JeffersonS. Chase.
I haven't read it. It's on my "to read" list.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Addressing the Germans
This website reaches a lot of the intellectualcommunity. One of those communities is
called Germany. Recently, I have had numerous
hits from numerous towns in the great country
of Germany.
I always wish to show my appreciation for anyting
that deserves my appreciation. I felt this warrants
that appreciation. Here is a video addressing the
German population that has found interest in the
research done here.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
BYOTV
March 19-April 27th
New American Art Union
922 SE Ankeny
Portland, Oregon 97214
http://thevideogentlemen.wordpress.com/
In February 2009, the United States will add Dead Air to the acres
of accumulated Dead Media, pulling the plug on analog television
broadcasts. Subsequent waves of electronic waste are predicted
as consumers junk their abruptly obsolete receivers in favor of HDreadied
consoles.
Pre-empting the scheduled program of obsolescence, The Video
Gentlemen's BYOTV network launches a six-week season of
special reports in March 2008 engaged with this technocultural
turn.
Low-wattage transmissions emanate from an array of reconfigured
electronic detritus distributed around the gallery.
Telecommunication, and the distance implicit in its operation is
countered by a physical proximity prescribed by the limited range
of the BYOTV transmissions. Visitors are encouraged to "bring
their own TV," or borrow one from the gallery, intercepting
transmissions from their immediate airspace.
Awash with analog-only communiqués, the BYOTV airspace is
engineered for rabbit-eared receivers.
Reception March 22 New American Art Union 5-8 p.m.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Tony Conrad - Cologne Germany 2006
The people who shot this video are friends of Tony. I asked what the story was behind the video originally uploaded on YouTube. The following is from that correspondence:
Tony's a friend of a friend so we get to spend time with him every now and then...he had an opening for his "yellow movie" paintings at walter bucholz gallery in cologne a few winters ago and we happened to be in germany at the time so we went. the day after the opening tony bought and stuck the canvasses to his feet and walked to the gallery with them on and gave them the canvasses as kind of a funny gift for having the show...
Monday, March 03, 2008
The Lion & the Twins - Emily Geanacopoulos & Avi Paul Weinstein
Based almost entirely on incongruity, The Lion & the Twins, leads you through no familiarity whatsoever. It's a piece of humor similar to the Mothman Proficies (maybe) when you think you've got it, you don't, then you don't again. From the brains of Emily Geanacopoulos & Avi Paul Weinstein
Friday, February 29, 2008
George Kuchar Hold Me While I'm Naked - 1966
Click To Play
"A very direct and subtle, very sad and funny look at nothing more or less than sexual frustration and aloneness. In its economy and cogency of imaging, HOLD ME surpasses any of Kuchar's previous work. The odd blend of Hollywood glamour and drama with all-too-real life creates and inspires counterpoint of unattainable desire against unbearable actuality." - Ken Kelman
"This film could cheer an arthritic gorilla, and audiences, apparently sensitized by its blithely accurate representation of feelings few among them can have escaped, rise from their general stupor to cheer it back." - James Stoller, The Village Voice
"This film could cheer an arthritic gorilla, and audiences, apparently sensitized by its blithely accurate representation of feelings few among them can have escaped, rise from their general stupor to cheer it back." - James Stoller, The Village Voice
I remember my first film class. It was a Super 8 class with Luther Price. I was a snotty nose teenager wanting to make comedy films. Luther taught us how to process our own film and put emphasis on the straining the batch of chemicals to it's last potential.
Well we saw a lot of experimental films in that class. At the time a lot of them past through my memory. Except Hold Me While I'm Naked from George Kuchar. There was a lot of talk about the way George used light and color and exploited the 16mm saturation of color. Although that was very important to the film, I was more interested in the delivery of the film. George Kuchar was filming a melodramatic sequence which pulled you into the drama effectively. He also showed you his directing techniques in the form of a performance within the film. George combined music and his fantastic exploitation of his directing to execute a hilarious pathos on both himself and his talent. Key scene: George holding the bird on his finger. Cinema's greatest capture of the pathetic nature of sniveling poetics.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Patrick Rock
Patrick Rock
Rock's Box Gallery
Judging by what Patrick Rock's artist statement: "I am not prepared to make a statement at this time." leads me to believe the work is open for interpretation. Which is the way great art should be, and Rock's work leaves enough for us to contemplate in the short amount of time he gives us in his videos? performances? videotaped performances? The lines are not defined, nor should they be. Rock's work breaks form in a lot of traditions of humor, performance art, and video art which is why the work stands out. It's an honor to have his video pieces on this site, as I've been admiring his work, nearly, once my foot landed in Portland. He's an Oregon native who studied in San Francisco only to come back to Portland to start his gallery Rock's Box. If you're an artist coming back to Portland, starting your own gallery is in my opinion "doing it right".
Monday, February 18, 2008
On Being Funny by Adam Giangregorio
Adam Giangregorio animates some of the process of allowing oneself to be funny. In this process Giangregorio creates art and humor out of nothing. While analyzing the psychology, the nuts and bolts of a cognitive process many people go through in considering humor, he creates the laughter within the frame of the analysis.
Or doesn't at all.
Or doesn't at all.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Danzig's Book Collection (J.O'B ReMake)
James A. O'Brien gives us a tour of his high profile book collection.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Karl Stevens' Whatever - analyzed
This weeks strip of Stevens' Whatever has an excellent example of frame shifting in humor. Where the frame of what is happening takes a turn while in another frame. (literally in the panel and as a cognitive metaphor) This happens a lot in joke telling and metaphor.
Since Stevens starts the punchline at the beginning of the strip, the frame has to shift to the expected congruency, when it is not presented, the viewer rethinks the panel, then re-observes the strip. All of this is the cognition of the reader making congruent out of the incongruity setup within the narrative. This in itself can deliver a laugh.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Nine Month Old Laughter
I think of humor development, humor education, and learning through humor when I watch this video.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Blue Noses Group-Americanizer
From: Art of Russia
In the art of the group "Blue Noses" are embodied the innovatory trends of Russian modern art – the communicatory and the comical. The artists work in zones, borderline for the aesthetic and social response, and with the most poignant problem for these zones and the general social state. The art of "Blue Noses", as a worldview, tends sooner to the Rabelais-like simple-hearted clear thinking, than to social criticism. Frequently their works represent video-documentation of some absurd and hilarious actions, performed by the artists as improvisations based on pre-prepared roles. The works of "Blue Noses" elegantly balance on the edge of the everyday and artistic phenomenon, reminding one of a half-professional, half-amateur video, where the intended fiasco is indistinguishable from a dilettante blunder. The model of the world of the "petty man" is affirmed through parody in diverse ways of ridiculing the fetishes of mass consciousness. "Blue Noses" mockingly imitate the high art of the XXth century, mass culture, television, glamour, the joy of leisure, the spectacle of sport, the sacred rituals of everyday life etc. The whole existential state of the petty man appears in their works in an energetic, sympathetically-idiotic manner.
Alexander EVANGELY
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Congratulations, James Arthur O'Brien
Congratulations to myself for being the Best of 2007 in Germany. Spreeblick.com the pop and politics blog voted a bunch of songs and the Phil Collins sing-a-long hour the coveted Best of 2007.
People have been asking me, "Best of what?"
"2007." I tell them.
I hope everyone has been having a wonderful 200GR8 so far.
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