Aaron David Ross, eZen Garden (2011)
http://www.aarondavidross.com/eZenGarden.mov
(Right click, “save link as”)
A simple way to use mouse scrolling as a direct means of meditation.
INSTRUCTIONS
* Download File
* Open in Quicktime
* DO NOT PLAY
* Two finger scroll (laptop) or use a scrollwheel mouse (desktop) to scrub the video
* Rake the garden at the rate you choose.
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.
‘Body Pressure’, a 1974 performance piece by Bruce Nauman.
The performer is instructed (through a poster hung on the wall) to press himself against the wall in various positions. The poster is also a free edition.
The text from this poster is below.
Body Pressure
Press as much of the front surface of
your body (palms in or out, left or right cheek)
against the wall as possible.
Press very hard and concentrate.
Form an image of yourself (suppose you
had just stepped forward) on the
opposite side of the wall pressing
back against the wall very hard.
Press very hard and concentrate on the image pressing very hard.
(the image of pressing very hard)
press your front surface and back surface
toward each other and begin to ignore or
block the thickness of the wall. (remove
the wall)
Think how various parts of your body
press against the wall; which parts
touch and which do not.
Consider the parts of your back which
press against the wall; press hard and
feel how the front and back of your
body press together.
Concentrate on the tension in the muscles,
pain where bones meet, fleshy deformations that occur under pressure; consider
body hair, perspiration, odors (smells).
This may become a very erotic exercise.
Work from ‘Salutary plank’ (2010) by Sofia Leiby
Screenprint on found book page.
‘Salutary Plank’ is a modest memorial ‘plaque’ installed at Ox-Bow School of Art commemorating the absence of happiness in a specific domain, or, the infeasibility of nostalgic fulfillment in the modern “natural” landscape.
Stills from ‘(Goodbye to) Manhattan’ by Ken Okiishi
Okiishi has been living between New York and Berlin since 2001, and (Goodbye to) Manhattan combines materials from that experience (filmed between 2006 and 2009) into a seventy-two-minute, semiautobiographical transposition of Woody Allen’s classic Manhattan. Okiishi’s cast of characters is pared down to Manhattan‘s three female protagonists, interpreted by key players in the artist’s actual New York/Berlin life; its script is the Google translation, into English, of the German version of Allen’s original.
Watch the video here
