these tiles on the subway walls were designed with a bevel cut so that they would reflect more light therefore reducing the amount of artificial light to illuminate the otherwise dark space. i like how it creates an exquisite gradation of whites to greys to black. 

just chillin' with a chain around my neck

Frédéric Lagnau

http://sites.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/em/tapage/emission.php?e_id=18&d_id=400001008

As part of our contract being here at the 104 we have to have open studios and share our work. I showed my thesis film this Sunday in one of the 104's big theaters and regardless of the small (but precious(20?)!!) turnout I was psyched to see my film on the ENORMOUS screen and GREAT sound system.  Afterwards I had a "Q+A" but mostly it was me talking about the process and approach to making it.  I wasn't sure what the level of English speaking was in the room but enough people laughed at my jokes to let me know they were following my rambles :)

Hip Hop battle Friday night in the 104.

Survivors of a Mad Hope

The sublime new production by "le celebre et extraordinaire" Theatre du Soleil

at their beautiful home in the Vincennes forest on the outskirts of Paris.  La Cartoucherie: old ammunitions factories turned into a village of avant-guard theatre.we were fortunate to be able to see the production with our friend the magnificent director Dominique Serrand, Founder and Artistic Director of Minneapolis' Theatre de la Jeune Lune. Dominique and Soleil's famous leader Anne Neuschäfer are both contemporaries of Jacques Lecoq.  Anne takes tickets at every show.The 35 actors of Soleil cook and serve the most exquisite dinner to the audience before the show.  All company members are paid equally and fulfill all duties of the theatre together.You can peak into the troupe preparing before the performance.These pictures are during intermission when the are setting up for the second half of the 3 hour and 40 minute production.  The actors stay in character here and it is like watching a small performance in itself. The play opens in early 1914 at the dawn of Europe’s descent into autocratic turmoil. Félix, the proud owner of a Parisian ‘guingette’ called “Le Fol Espoir”, harbours a breakaway film crew in the bar’s dusty attic. Led by director Jean la Palette, the socialist splinter group – formerly workers in a national film company – put the new refuge straight to use. Jean rallies bar staff and crew alike to work on a film (silent of course) that chronicles the voyage of European migrants as they set sail from Cardiff in 1895 in search of new utopian beginnings.  So we watch actors film silent film sequences, with the actors performing all the special effects that would make a cinematic image believable but at the same time we are seeing everything outside of the frame and magnificent set changes that are turned into epic long sequences.  For example one scene opens with a model ship about 2 feet high, actors are on the ground holding lamps and others are holding fans and others are generating smoke and and the model is pushed around on stage and as that is ending in the background the "to scale" ship is being erected with a giant sail and mast and a performer is hanging on for his dear life in an tremendous storm.  

http://www.myspace.com/effibriest

Oil in the Gulf

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We saw two of Boris Lehman's film last night. "L'Homme de terre" and "Couple, regards, positions". The picture above is not from either of those films but hints at his genius.

Charlemagne Palestine last night at the Cote Court film festival. He played a live set but then also showed documentation from a performance he gave at the New England Conservatory in 2006. In this performance he worked himself into a trance a played a piece on two pianos, one with each hand. "Sound is Sound". The response form the NEC students was overwhelming, it was crazy how enthusiastically they responded...you would think it would be too "experimental" for conservatory tastes. Once this documentation started playing, the theater pretty much cleared out and by the time it finished at 1am, only a handful were left. We got to hang out wit Charlemagne and he was so nice and awesome.

mirror and a flashlight

piotr KAMLER

i found this post on rhizome.org :
I discovered the world of Polish animator Piotr Kamler after searching on YouTube for films scored by composer Bernard Parmegiani, whose music I came across via UbuWeb. Parmegiani and Kamler were both colleagues of musique concrète mastermind Pierre Schaeffer, and they participated in the experimental research arm of the French television station O.R.T.F. founded by Schaeffer in 1960. Some have dubbed the abstract films and animations created under Schaeffer's management of the O.R.T.F. "concrete cinema." Today I will be posting films by Kamler produced during his tenure in this department as well as some examples of his later work. These clips originate from the 2007 DVD Piotr Kamler, à la recherche du temps.

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friday

i don't have time to explain all these pictures but will give little notes. we spent about four hours hanging out at a cafe yesterday with adrianne and sage and my friend etienne.

then went to palais de tokyo for their much anticipated show in "collaboration" with the museum of modern art next door. thought it was quite a sloppy show and full of the same "im such a badass" art made by 30 year old men.

 

i did really like this artist though: alexandre singhthis piece just looks like the walls are barfing installation: when we came out of the palais there was an exquisite sunset:                                           experimental eiffel tower:and then made our way over to some siene hang out: 

it started to pour so we sought refuge under the bridge which had thousands of years of urine smell --we were joking that even Chopin had pissed here. Adrianne smartly figured out that if you go to the side of the portal where the wind starts, can you avoid the smell. we met up with Etienne again who was with his roommate and her friends who had just finished their final exams that day and were singing spanish songs with gustot. etienne recounted his travels in the united states this past winter which included being jailed in berkeley ca after meeting with up with protesters who were squatting a place and the police raided and arrested everyone. he can tell the story better than i can, as you can see i was slightly distracted by taking pictures.adrianne contemplating her few hours left in paris