Category Archives: Art

The Production and Decay of Strange Particles – A Film by Jon Behrens

by Cimaxion

Seattle avant-garde filmmaker Jon Behrens made this gorgeous piece in 2008 with 16mm film, latex paint and inks applied directly to the film surface. It creates a mysterious space travel and exploratory sensation that has some connection – at least in my mind – to Kubrick’s 2001.  There’s a big pile of magnificent work waiting for you to enjoy from this filmmaker.  Visit his Vimeo page and personal website for more information.

You can rent Behrens’ films for 16mm projection from Canyon Cinema.  He also has a DVD of collected works.

Inside Penguin’s Publishing Offices

by Cimaxion

Guy Kawasaki over at Holy Kaw! posts about the various team members and office spaces at his publisher, Portfolio, which is an imprint of Penguin.  He’s put up a bunch of photos he took inside the Manhattan office building where all the book work goes on.

It’s all more or less just fine… until we get to the photo of the art department (although I don’t trust smiling publishers).  The poor art people are given those brutally unprivate low-walled cubicles to work in.  All management teams use the exact same excuses for these open work areas:  fosters team spirit, allows easy direct communication over cubicle walls, lets the window light spread throughout the work area.

The real reason management installs low-rise cubicles is for observation and control.  It puts all employees, even the most dedicated and creative ones, in the position of monitoring each others’ work habits and arrival/departure times.  Low-rise cubicles are an insult to employees and do not foster team attitudes.  Professionals build teams by sharing their skills, not by watching each other.

Here’s Kawasaki’s book at Amazon.  And the cover really just truly sucks.  It’s about how to convince people to do the things you would like for them to do in business.  It probably helped convince the art designers to work in this cubicle hell.  His next book should be about how to smash furniture.

MOCA Film on Artist Alexis Smith

by Cimaxion

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is producing a series of short films about LA artists in their studios. They sort of lean toward the cute clever artist in their oh so picturesquely messy work spaces mentality. But sometimes it’s nice to see a little mess and hear a few comments from an artist. I happen to like this one about Alexis Smith. I like her comments about not knowing where her art is going and how she keeps all this stuff around to make it with. I think what she means is that she just digs around in pile of crap and throws a whole bunch of junk together and suddenly goes ‘Oh wow! There it is!’  Of course, to do that you’ve got to have a really fine pile of junk.

R. Crumb and the Corporate Mono-Culture

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Cartoonist Robert Crumb gets interviewed by a Los Angeles Times writer and talks about his living in France and his hatred for the pervasive corporate mono-culture that Americans seem unaware of.  He can’t stand it and chooses to live outside of it.

Really good perspective.

In a culture where you’ve got a Supreme Court actually giving corporate entities the rights of individual human beings, you’ve got total corporate control of every single living man, woman and child.  You can see this complete robotic control on very prominent and horrific display in the current president of the United States.  He a corporate hologram who moves only when commanded to by his boardroom overseers.  The entire country is oriented around cop/lawyer shows on television which are specifically designed to make you feel close and personal with the state/corporate stooges who work for police departments and gleefully lay disadvantaged people out on their faces on subway platforms and slaughter them with bullets fired straight into their backs from six inches away.  ‘The Mentalist’ is probably the supreme example of this attempt to make the corporate/police control mechanism seem odd and quirky and just a little cutely but intelligently eccentric.  ‘Medium’ is another.  The individual with oddball abilities or perceptions is entirely consumed and controlled by the state apparatus.  All cop shows are meant to make as many viewers as possible feel completely comfortable being visited by and talking to the police.  That is the entire truth of American television.  It’s message is simply this: when we come knocking, open the door.

That is the true subtext of every single show ever produced by American broadcasting companies.

R. Crumb is totally right.

Banksy Exposed!

by Cimaxion | 2 Comments

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Gotcha, Banksy!  I’ve been wondering about enigmatic urban street artist Banksy for some time now.  I’ve found out his secret.  Urban Outfitters.  Look at the stealth photo I snapped in a mall location.  The book raised high above all others on a pedestal… Banksy.  Apparently, he’s an Urban Outfitters fave.  Yes.  Indeed.  Uh huh.  Rebel artist.  Street prankster.  Humorist.  Urban Outfitter.  Dude, listen.  If your art is seriously dug by super-corp teenage dupe specialists like Urban Overchargers, its time to fill a vodka bottle with gasoline and fire bomb your own wall paintings.  For sure.  You know something’s off when you start reading about an artist’s ‘humor.’  Now run off to your nearest Urban Outfitters to experience the rebellious humor of legendary street artist Banksy!

Super-Secret Artist Banksy Defaces The Simpsons

by Cimaxion

Emerging in utmost secrecy from his well-hidden fortress of urban art, Banksy has brought his/her unique brand of urban art-terrorism to The Simpsons. Last night’s episode featured an opening sequence directed by the incognito artist. We see the Banksy logo painted across a billboard and then the sequence suddenly takes us into what looks like an asian sweatshop of animators working on Simpson’s animation and making Simpsons toys. My favorite part is the suffering unicorn.

Most people are caught completely unaware by the artist’s secret nocturnal visits to leave behind images that provoke.  However, I can’t imagine that the producers of The Simpsons were unaware of Banksy’s activities.  The only person who seems unaware is some mid-level Twentieth Century Fox employee who keeps taking the videos down from YouTube for copyright violation.  Would it be permissible for someone higher up at Twentieth Century Fox to take said employee into the parking lot and run over that person’s mouse hand with a Humvee?

Update: The higher-ups at the studio appear to have listened and graciously disabled the meddling fingers of whoever was deleting the video from YouTube.  So posted above is the Simpsons opening in all its glory.

Film: Fellini’s Death

by Cimaxion

Jeff Alu is a photographer making films who I met at the Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago. Cool guy. He’s also made this perfectly dream-like dream sequence that’s a part of his in-production film, 12 Dreams. I look forward to seeing all twelve! We had a brief discussion at the opening night of the film festival about the cameras we use and the filming of dream sequences. I said I thought they were kind of difficult, but Jeff clearly stated that no, I was wrong, they are easy! Well, they are easy for him and I like what he ends up with. The Fellini thing comes through clearly. Alu is onto it somehow. The pillow fight is extraordinary and I think the inclusion of the tabletop city model is brilliant.

During the film festival week in downtown L.A. they played Alu’s film on a video monitor in one of the galleries at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.  I love watching gallery films and Fellini’s Death look great there.

Film: Homeboy

by Cimaxion

Here’s another great film from Marvin Tiberious in Italy. ‘Nobody really talks about it, but we are moving peoples.’ That’s what he says in the film. It is one of the most beautiful thing’s I’ve ever seen on YouTube. He draws and speaks. The film shows how natural it is for people to move around and to not want to offer up their lives fighting for some spot of land.

Film: Metropolis Part 1

by Cimaxion

Having realized in a blinding flash of insight this week that the geek/tech outlook has essentially taken over most of the web world like some sort of a skin cancer and is absolute death to art, I offer an artist’s messy and incoherent view of urban life.  It is very uncool and not technically proficient.  But it is an artist speaking directly, without falsehood intervening.  This piece is by Marvin Tiberious who lives in Italy.

I’m having a huge vomit reaction to these blogs run by little gangs of cool-cats who spread themselves thinly across all domains and offer a smug smirk when photographed.  We’ve turned too much of the web over to the ugly little nerd group that wants everything to be just a tad retro.  If I see something that looks steampunk I’m going to smash it.  Steampunk is the white-supremacist version of cyberpunk which is simply a reference to any book you have read but cannot remember.

Boing Boing, Censorship, and Hypocrisy: Commenters, Watch Your Language!

by Cimaxion | 23 Comments

This article incorporates adult themes and language.

This is a flat-out attack on the hypocrisy and thin-skinned holiness of a major blog that purports to stand for freedom of expression and open ideas.  The blog is BoingBoing.net.  I’ve had my problems with the site before, having made comments that their moderators found to be excessive or too foul-mouthed for their rather puritanical tastes.  I say puritanical and I mean exactly that.

Boing Boing has a problem with genitalia.  You’ll see why in a few moments.

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