A friend sent me a link to this website, which chronicles the building of a real-life, low environmental impact house in Wales. Built by Simon Dale and his father-in-law, "with help from passers-by and visiting friends," the home cost the equivalent of about $4,500 - $5,000 to build.
I was job searching a while back (yet again) and came across a very curious posting about a position at the Internet Archive, which in itself is worthy of a surfing meander.
On the archive site I found an entry on Miga, based in Granada, Spain, which describes itself as "a group of audiovisual creators formed in 2004" whose "purpose is to show on the net the more advanced proposals from the actual south of Europe scene. [...] Any kind of artistic performance is inside Miga. Dj´s, Vj´s, Live Acts, net art, graphic design, experimental video, photography and all electro acoustic media is part of it, coming together to develop, feed & expand different ideas and projects."
In addition to many downloadable audio and video files on their site (Miga is also a "net label" of experimental music and video/animation), I found this captivating video of a live multimedia "attack" on the Alhambra, (a beautiful, historical castle-like complex of Moorish architecture), which took place in December 2006.
Makes me want to get together a merry band of guerrilla artists (perhaps fellow Intermedians?), pack up the projectors and some kind of sound system and find a building in SF. Anybody interested...? :)
I used to watch Fame and dream of someday being in the right place at the right time where an anonymous crowd would suddely erupt into song and dance. Hasn't happened yet (not outside the club scene, at least).
Thankfully there's video to capture moments that one hopes might still happen in "real" life. This commercial isn't exactly a Fame moment, but, still, there's a sense of coherence and "shared-ness" in the montage of scenes...
A few months back I applied for a job with the Kronos Quartet (didn't get it), but it did inspire me to scour YouTube for videos to learn about them, and I cam across this short documentary on their collaboration with Tanya Tangaq, an Inuit throat singer. It's fascinating - not just from an artistic standpoint but also from a process standpoint...
The term is new to me, though the style is not totally unfamiliar - being a fan of the time-travel look myself. But I had no idea that this had caught on to such a huge degree, as described in a recent article in the NY Times. It's a curious thing when art takes over life...
I've also been contemplating the question that someone asked after my piece on Tuesday:
"Is this what dancers do?"
Rather than attempting to answer the question, which I could never do completely, I wanted to share links to a few videos by my favorite choreographers:
Low, by Donna Uchizono This tango-inspired piece was created while the company was in residency in Argentina. I saw it performed in Minneapolis and spoke with one of the dancers afterwards who had not been part of the original production. She said it had taken her two weeks to learn just a few minutes of the choreography because it was so intricate. This same laser-focus on small details was also part of Uchizono's recent piece In Thin Air which was presented at ODC Dance Center in SF this past Winter.
Wet Woman, by Mats Ek This piece is performed by Sylvie Guillem, who is a superstar dancer with the Royal Ballet of London. Mats Ek's work could be described as classical ballet, slightly skewed.
