Revulsion in every direction. A burning black hole of explosive anger – given a physical shape by a body trapped in circumstance. A body that is barely able to contain it’s energy.

2dollar shop Australiana decaying on the bonnet of a burning police car. The Museum is a carrier of the violence of incarceration; ethnic typecasting; the leisure classes.

“Too ethnic for SBS” – Too angry for reality television, too real for silence, too alive to die. A bastard son mongrel dog of a prick, primed to kick back at the forces which try to contain it.

A post-colonial audiovisual essayist, using as his tools cheap midi controllers, usb devices and undiluted aggression exorcised from the depths of an amnesiac Australian culture.

http://www.clickjaw.com

https://vimeo.com/11747138

Three days in a cinema to pick the brain of Mike Figgis, director, artist and musician. Sugar and cocaine. Digital and celluloid. Grain and focus. Portrait and landscape. Hollywood and independence. Script-writing and score notation. Bullshit and real bullshit. Theatre and self-obsession.  Pornography and J.L. Godard.

Brilliant, real and inspiring.

http://www.mikefiggis.co.uk

Thanks to Janine Dijkmeijer at Cinedans.nl

Dafna Maimon’s take on arts industry workers, recent art school graduates, art guards and the dreams and fears of the people at the frontline of cultural institutions. The protagonists use black parcan theatre lights on mic stands to frame their monologues. A white light too strong. Lights. Camera. Action.The repetitious scenes were almost nausea inducing in their hammy under/overacted delivery. Exquisitely bland dialogue, sometimes directed to audience members or the unwitting gallery visitor who becomes part of the narrative. Tiny, intoxicating scenes that would be repeated over the course of an hour.

Inane moving of lights. Incessant moving of the framing devices. The power a directed light has to focus energy and create an immediate stage is profound. The spotlight gives license to the characters to deliver lines in much the same way that social networking platforms or micro-blogging services gives licence to transmit little traumas, everyday desires and narcissistic impulses. These individuals prepare their monologues for the amorphous mass, one liners that are both media-conscious and personal. They recite language to the ether, not a directed conversational language, but a never-ending stream of quotes, self-critical comments and weak commands. The dialogue of mediated individualism. I felt we were trapped in the lucid daydreaming IM chats of bored gallery sitters and wannabe curators.

Melodramatic pauses and romantic dialogue interspersed with asides to the audience “If this was a film I would be shot over the shoulder in medium close-up”. Characters moving in highly artificial arcs. The pacing is drawn out and gives ample room for slippage, coincidences and accidents. A character sighs and delivers a highly breathy and despairing “Help. The website is stuck again”. This is anti-depressant operatic tragedy set to the scale of 21st century comment culture.

09/01/10. W139, Warmoesstraat 139, Amsterdam

Directed by Dafna Maimon

Performers: Anu Vahtra, Lot Meijers, Steven de Jong, Timothy Moore

http://www.dafnamaimon.com
http://www.w139.nl

Ken Hollings has an essay on MJ in the new Zero books publication ‘The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson’, edited by Mark Fisher of Kpunk blog.

Providing an antidote to the mixture of unthinking sentimentality and scurrilous prurience that Jackson usually attracts, this book offers impassioned and informed answers to the urgent questions that Jackson’s death has posed. What was it about Jackson’s music and dancing that appealed to so many people? What does his death mean for popular culture in the era of Web 2.0? And just how resistible was his demise? Was another world ever possible, something perhaps utopian instead of the consensual sentimentality of a world hooked on debt, consumerism and images? The essays in The Resistible Demise Of Michael Jackson consummately demonstrate that writing on popular culture can be both thoughtful and heartfelt. The contributors, who include accomplished music critics as well as renowned theorists, are some of the most astute and eloquent writers on pop today. The collection is made up of new essays written in the wake of Jackson’s death, but also includes Barney Hoskyns’ classicNME piece written at the time of Thriller.

Contributors: Marcello Carlin, Robin Carmody, Joshua Clover, Sam Davies, Geeta Dayal, Tom Ewing, Dominic Fox, Jeremy Gilbert, Owen Hatherley, Charles Holland, Ken Hollings, Barney Hoskyns, Reid Kane, Paul Lester, Suhail Malik, Ian Penman, Chris Roberts, Steven Shaviro, Mark Sinker, David Stubbs, Alex Williams, Evan Calder Williams

http://www.o-books.com/obookssite/book/detail/928