Anyone seen the ArtI 2 Vid yet? To say its amazing might be a bit of an
understatement (yes I know this is more WARP hype, totally unnecessary and
probably tedious, but there you go). I think it features about 5 short 10 min
film-type-computer-animation-mad-thing-on-your-screen things, and each one is
pretty amazing. I wont say too much about each of them cos it would take ages.
The first one, "Nanotechnics" features "Utuba" by Beaumont Hannant, and
features stuff like floating globules of milk or something. I swear its got
something to do with the inner ear, flying into the eartubes maybe. LIke the
rest of the films, its all a bit unclear.
The second one (name evades me) features music from Richard H Kirk and
Polygon Window, and is all about the man from the ArtI 1 LP cover wandering
into a picture on the wall, walking thru a desert, and the like.
This is the best one, called "Posthumous Porpoise somethingorother" (the
professionalism of this review, wow....), features what looks like zebra
porpoises swimming inside a jaguar, which changes to a zebra, and so on. Its
a very claustrophobic piece, this one, as opposed to the 2nd which is very
agoraphobic, and at times its unclear which is the jaguar background and which
is the dolphin, they kind of melt into each other.
(Pause to realise I cant remember anything of the fourth film, but I assure you
its as good as the rest)
The fifth one is the one from which you may have seen stills: a kind of
eight legged beetle thing that constantly changes colour, clinging onto some
rocks that seem to have eyes. Very freaky. The music is Autechre's "Basscadet"
and it really suits the piece well. Some of the earlier pieces didnt really
suit the films, especially the second film....the beaumont hannant track
wouldve been a lot better there.
All in all, well worth buying, the only problem was I felt they couldve taken
it much, MUCH, further. Each film kind of faded in what seemed mid flow, and
finished just when you were getting into it. I think only in the third film
did they really explore what they had created on the screen (I wouldve loved
to have known what was at the end of the tunnel in the first film), and maybe
a few more digitised images rather than pure generations wouldve made this
a lot better. In each case, it was pure animation, with no sign of human
interaction, and to have these images go along with music billed as
"electronic music that can be lsitened to {and interacted with, I guess}", well
I guess I just felt the music had more character. I found myself just accepting
the music and being amazed at the images, like isnt that great what a computer
can do, when maybe I shouldve been thinking about the people behind it
(subtext there: maybe if they made the environment they had created *more*
alien, yet more human at the same time (ie weirder but with interactions) it
couldve blown my mind.
Well, they say it was the first in a series of ArtI vids, so, who knows.
As an experiment, pretty godlike, but I wanted it to blow my mind.
darko...
I hate this text editor....