Pepperminta

I really want to see this surrealist film by Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist. This is her first full length feature film. The visuals are stunning and the soundtrack is amazing. She is best known for her I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1986) video.

Pepperminta (Ewelina Guzik) is an anarchist of the imagination. She lives in a futuristic rainbow villa and according to her own rules. Colors are the young woman’s best friends and strawberries are her pets. She knows the most amazing remedies to free people of their fears. Pepperminta‘s wish is for everyone to see the world in her favorite colors. Werwen (Sven Pippig), a young plump and shy man yet whose sex appeal Pepperminta finds highly attractive, and the beautiful Edna (Sabine Timoteo), who talks to tulips, join her on her passionate mission.

These three musketeers of a different kind set out to fight for a more humane world. Wherever the gang appears, everything is turned upside down and people’s lives are transformed in the most miraculous and wondrous of ways.

http://www.pepperminta.ch/en/

Flying Tape

Žilvinas Kempinas is an artist I've only recently known about. When talking to a friend about my obsession with fans (ventilators) he told me about this installation he saw in Paris. He had no idea who the artist was but with some extensive research I managed to track him down. I found the work seen in Paris (Flying Tape) and learned more about the artist and his other projects. A lot of his work has sound as a by product and he's obsessed with magnetic tape.

'Flying Tape' features an enormous circular loop of tape filling the entire space, floating and spinning in mid air. The tape is held aloft by a vortex of air created by seven industrial fans pointed outward toward the gallery walls. As the tape spins, it slowly ascends and descends, allowing the viewer to step inside its circle.

The installation achieves its serene monumentality through the careful calibration of the given architectural characteristics of the space and the introduced elements of the fans. ‘Flying Tape’ emphasizes videotape’s contradictory materiality, its surprising strength and flexibility, yet barely-there lightness: the installation is both subject to, yet magically defiant of gravity.

With the growing ubiquity of digital recording technologies, the simple magic of the first VCR’s is becoming ever more remote, and the actual material of analogue videotape, slowly obsolete. Kempinas’ installation manages to re-engage with the metaphorical power of tape as a recording medium. The literal and perceptual feats that ‘Flying Tape’ achieves, serves to powerfully extend tape’s virtuality and transformative potential into an entirely new physical domain.

http://www.spencerbrownstonegallery.com/

Tube

TUBE (created at the Atelier Calder, Saché, France) can be described as a translucent tunnel of parallel lines, created with magnetic tape. Žilvinas Kempinas’ TUBE “resonates with the environment of the floating city and creates a space where vision and movement are linked by means of the body. TUBE addresses the physical and optical experiences of the viewer, and the passage of time, while creating the feeling of being inside and outside simultaneously. One can describe TUBE metaphorically or geometrically but to be appreciated it must be experienced directly. No image can convey the gradual accumulation of sensory experiences awaiting visitors who pass through the translucent tunnel of parallel lines. Kempinas changes the function of magnetic tape from an information carrier to a linear map of time and space.”
(Excerpt from the press release).

White Noise

Žilvinas Kempinas uses unspooled videotape as a material to create unique works which encourage us to consider tape as both physical object and container of information.

Moving on from his gravity-defying works, such as Double O, in which large shimmering loops of tape are levitated in space by industrial fans, White Noise more explicitly refers to videotape as moving image medium. Viewers enter a dark, almost cinematic space and are confronted by what appears to be a large projection screen of pixelated static. The screen vibrates with the fragmented black and white pixels we associate with an untuned video source. A low hum and fluttering sound reinforce the connotation. As viewers move forward, they become aware that the screen is actually hundreds of strands of videotape stretched in horizontal bands vibrated by air currents created by a multitude of fans.

The obsolescent medium of tape is employed to evoke the flickering visual sensation of noise, thus creating a formal resonance with Ryoji Ikeda’s installation of monochrome pixels and digits in the Exhibition Hall.

Kempinas shows us that videotape is more than merely a neutral carrier of virtual moving images. He uses tape to extend its virtuality, transforming it into a medium of futurity, which sculpts and redefines space.

Zilvinas Kempinas is represented by Yvon Lambert in Paris and New York, and Vartai Gallery in Vilnius

The Small Within the Great

An instrument built on a concrete wall, this installation reflects on the survival of information and our participation in that which we observe. Warning! If using headphones, keep the volume low! This can easily give you ringing in your ears. It is a more or less endless drone derived from data of quantum decay; truly random, but also dependent on the act of observation. The viewer(s) is entwined with the sound in a kind of communication. Largely inspired by David Bohm's ideas of active information and mutual participation. More recordings and information forthcoming on my own website. The recordings on this video in particular are quite aggressive, while at other times the sound can be quite sweet, reminiscent of sitar harmonics. While part of my master's thesis, this exhibition was mainly a proof of concept. Future installations of this work would use a more robust BLDC motor system, as well as proper instrument strings.
by Barrie James Sutcliffe

Sound Looking - Rain

Ki Chul Kim - “Sound Looking - Rain”

Telic Arts Exchange and the Center for Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts present a sound installation by the Korean media artist Ki Chul Kim.

“Sound Looking - Rain” is a sound installation that investigates the nature of perception and representation in relation to the Buddhist concept of emptiness. Suspended from the gallery ceiling is a matrix of audio speakers, wires and monofilament, the audio that fills the space is a sound collage of falling rain. Kim’s sound landscape induces us to float between the opposing forms of sight and sound. Kim also references a formal minimalism as we experience the shifting relationships between sound, speakers, the gallery space and our bodies.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the generous support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Korg Monotron

I've just bought this online! The Korg Monotron (based on the MS-20) is similar to my DS-10 but it can do a lot more I hope.

Analog on the go!

Analog synths were once massive, temperamental monsters; but no more! The true analog monotron fits in your pocket and is ready to play – anytime, anyplace. Although small enough to hold in one hand, the amazing monotron delivers ginormous and dazzling sounds. Best of all, it's a blast to play. The controls have been streamlined for ease of use. Concentrating on the most important sound parameters, the panel contains only five knobs and one switch. With this level of simplicity, now anyone can easily enjoy the world of analog synthesizers.

http://www.korg.com/monotron

White Noise Machine

White Noise Machine by Yuri Suzuki. This machine reminds me of Luigi Russolo's 'Intonarumori'. It was constructed in India and the kids are having so much fun interact with it.

Prepared Turntable

Designed by Yuri Suzuki 2008
A turntable that focuses on actively composing and playing music.This record player has 5 tone arms, each of which can have its volume controlled by its own fader.
This is an analogue answer for the digitalized DJ. Filmed by Ben.

Breakfast Machine

Hollywood directors dreamed of it: the breakfast machine. Imagine a contraption that sets a chain reaction in motion at the push of a button, frying eggs, juicing oranges, brewing coffee, making toast, and serving it all on a plate with jam, meat and cheese. What a perfect way to start the day! This fantasy became reality during Platform21 = Jamming, when Japanese designers Yuri Suzuki and Masa Kimura built a machine just like this at Platform21 with help from fellow designers and the public.

Platform21 = Jamming was Platform21’s final project, and so we threw everything into the mix. Yuri Suzuki and Masa Kimura reused the remnants of previous Platform21 projects in their breakfast machine, from remote-controlled toy cars to hacked IKEA lamps. They got help from other designers who’ve taken part in past Platform21 projects, and many vistors lended a helping hand too!

So whether you’re a Gyro Gearloose or all thumbs didn't matter. The building consisted of a hefty dose of improvisation and a great deal of testing. Every day the machine took on a new function and the breakfast gained a new component. By the end, Platform21 changed into a restaurant serving all-day breakfasts!s

This breakfast machine reminded me of the one seen in Pee Wee's Big Adventure.