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Tag Archives: documentary

Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke, Lewis Mumford and others

‘The City‘ (1939) is a pioneering short documentary film which attempts to contrast the evils of the industrialized city with the idyllic conditions one finds in small-town America.

It was adapted by Lewis Mumford from the story by Pare Lorentz, and was directed by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke, with music by Aaron Copland. According to Peter Oberlander and Eva Newbrun, the film was the idea of Catherine Bauer. It was produced for the 1939 New York World’s Fair as part of the “City of Tomorrow” exhibit.

By mh | Posted in Composition | Also tagged aaron copland, american, catherine bauer, city, evil, film, idyllic, industrialization, lewis mumford, pare lorentz, public space, ralph steiner, romance, the city, town, unknown, willard van dyke, world fair | Comments (0)

Philip Lorca diCorcia

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Philip Lorca diCorcia, from the series ‘Street Work’ (1993-97)

By dd | Posted in Composition | Also tagged 90s, fiction, flash, life is life, New York, people, philip lorca dicorcia, photograph, spontaneous, street, surreal, the everyday, unaware, work | Comments (0)

Harun Farocki

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Stills from Harun Farocki‘s ‘Die Bewerbung’ AKA ‘The Interview’ (1996)

Clip here

By mh | Posted in Composition | Also tagged attitude, bewerbung, collection, german, Harun Farocki, interview, mirror, qualifications, reality, text, video | Comments (0)

Sarah Morris

‘Los Angeles’ (2004) by Sarah Morris.

By sk | Posted in Abstraction | Also tagged abstract, cinema, city, film, los angeles, movie, oscars, Sarah Morris, video | Comments (0)

Jonathan Minard

‘Archive’ (2013) by Jonathan Minard

A documentary focused on the future of long-term digital storage, the history of the Internet and attempts to preserve its contents on a massive scale.

Part one features Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and his colleagues Robert Miller, director of books, and Alexis Rossi, director of web collections. On a mission to create universal access to all knowledge, the Internet Archive’s staff have built the world’s largest online library, offering 10 petabytes of archived websites, books, movies, music, and television broadcasts.
The video includes a tour of the Internet Archive’s headquarters in San Francisco, the book scanning center, and the book storage facilities in Richmond, California.

By mh | Posted in Composition | Also tagged access, alexis rossi, archive, books, brewster kahle, California, church, collections, deepspeed, digital, DIY, headquarters, history, internet, jonathan minard, knowledge, library, media, movies, petabytes, protection, robert miller, san francisco, servers, storage, television, universal, video, web, websites | Comments (0)

Nigel Shafran

‘Ruth on the phone’ (1995-26 January 2004) by Nigel Shafran

For almost nine years, Shafran took photographs of his girlfriend Ruth when she was on the phone. The final date marked the birth of their son, Lev.

By mh | Posted in Composition | Also tagged action, birth, collection, DIY, duration, emotions, england, found, girlfriend, lev, Nigel Shafran, performance, photography, romance, ruth, son, text, unknown | Comments (0)

Juliane Eirich

Juliane Eirich, from the series ‘Korea Diary’ (2007-2008)

By mh | Posted in Composition | Also tagged architecture, down, flip, found, fun, gavity, house, juliane eirich, korea, photography, the wild, unknown, upside, weird | Comments (1)

Orson Welles

Still from ‘F for fake’ (1973) by Orson Welles

A documentary about fakery that focusses on the notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and Elmyr’s biographer, Clifford Irving, who also wrote the celebrated fraudulent Howard Hughes autobiography, then touches on the reclusive Hughes and Welles’ own career (which started with a faked resume and a phony Martian invasion). On the way, Welles plays a few tricks of his own on the audience.

By mh | Posted in Composition | Also tagged action, Clifford Irving, Elmyr de Hory, f for fake, fraud, fun, manipulation, oja kodar, orson welles, picasso, romance, text, the wild, trickery, unknown, video | Comments (0)

Patrizio Di Massimo

‘Oae’ by Patrizio Di Massimo (2009)

‘Oae’ is a video work which takes Italy’s colonial occupation of Libya as its subject matter. Patrizio Di Massimo examines this dark chapter in his native Italy’s history by overlapping excerpts of his own footage with black and white documentary and archive material taken from The Lion in the Desert, a film made in 1981 by Mustapha Akkad and censored in Italy at the time for its exposé of empire building and military atrocities. Filmed in high-definition colour on the streets of modern day Tripoli and amongst historical ruins across Libya, the artist sought out the monuments and architectural remnants of both Ancient Rome and more recently Fascist rule from 1911-1940.

By mh | Posted in Composition | Also tagged ancient rome, archive, colonial, fascism, history, italy, libya, mustapha akkad, oae, patrizio di massimo, romance, ruins, the lion in the desert, tripoli, video | Comments (0)

scs0360

‘Railway model movie’ (2006) by scs0360

By mh | Posted in Abstraction | Also tagged action, collection, DIY, fuckem, fun, Gamma, installation, joke, maerklin, marklin, mechanical sculpture, model trains, public art, railway model movie, romance, scs0360, sculpture, the wild, unknown, video, youtube | Comments (0)