Friday, January 27, 2012

A BIT OF LIP SYNCHING



A subtle remix of "I Regret Not Knowing How to Sing",  a title I gleaned from a Jean-Luc Godard quote.  I think this version is more powerful with it's slightly longer length, adjustment of track output,  and the addition another Buchla "voice".  Painting by yours truly.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

CONNECTIVITY: Paul Morrissey & Caravaggio

In recently viewing some of the early films of Paul Morrissey,  I was struck by similarities between the works of this Warhol stalwart and the 17th century Italian painter Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,  whose paintings  possess a similar relationship to a harshly realistic underground culture and the blurry intersections of religious dogma, morality, and sex.  A quiet dignity resonates throughout work of both men,  even when faith, both secular and spiritual is mired in a painful poverty.  The two men are most similar in their use of street people as painters' models or actors,  underscoring the idea of a raw immediacy as a more truthful "reality".  Morrissey's films ( FLESH, TRASH,  and HEAT in particular) are really the first unscripted reality shows ,  while most of Caravaggio's paintings use Roman "lowlife" (street urchins,  prostitutes,  etc.) as models portraying Bible stories,  something that certainly disturbed clergy of the day. A work like "The Madonna of Loreto"  (1604-1606) in Sant' Agostino in Rome  presents the Caravaggio sensibility perfectly.  It shows two ruffled and dirty pilgrims kneeling at the rustic doorway of the Virgin (it could easily be part of a Roman tenement), a pair of unwashed feet right in the face of the viewer. The Madonna is presented as a barefoot peasant holding a less than ethereal Jesus unsteadily in her arms.  She emerges from a plain,  undecorated doorway,  suggesting squalor more than heaven's riches. This milieu is akin to Morrissey's  Alphabet City slums.  Many of Morrissey's films were initially banned from theaters for their use of gay themes,  moral ambiguity,  and plain "bad" acting.  Caravaggio also suffered waves of censorship,  often losing commissions because of questionable taste and the non-spiritual aspects of his compositions and models. Some of Caravaggio's portraits suggest a kind of gay erotica without overstepping the boundaries of the established culture of the time. Both these men rebelled against standards of the day,   and should be remembered for the forms they championed,  the cultural norms they bent,  and the sexuality they dignified.

Monday, January 16, 2012

ether^ra IN TWO PARTS

 Comp 115 / THE CAMERA CAPTURE THE by ether^ra

Here is an example of sound synthesis at its best.  It's brevity belies its abundance of ideas and the cohesiveness of the arrangement.  This is sound art with an aside,  that of the painter's hand.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

A BEGINNING: New Works


Here are a few of the preliminary drawings that will comprise a triptych that I'm presently working on.  None of them of are in a completed stage,  and will certainly be re-worked or added to in some way.  The third and smallest panel will somehow present a clear glass goblet and something in flux or transition.  All animals and objects will be painted full scale,  and panel size (wood panels in this case) will diminish from left to right.