Holy Cow. We found this skull-crushingly-awesome Pink Thing over at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, where it is part of Abstract Document, the latest exhibit of light-based artworks from the pioneering electronic artist Jim Campbell.
The piece actually changes color within a spectral range of pinks and pinkish-hues. Let’s go to the video!
Wow.
For over twenty years, Jim Campbell has been exploring the medium of light and LED technology in relation to video and sculpture. His career personifies the metamorphosis of film and form into an immersive experience reflective of our digital culture. The ten works in Abstract Documentdepict one day at a recent political rally, rendered across multiple formats. It is a pretty groovy experience and you should be sure to go see if before it closes, especially if you enjoyed Mike Kelley’sSuperman Origin Story Exhibit from 2015, which I still cannot shut up about.
You can see Jim Campbell’s Abstract Document on Exhibit Through June 17th, 2017 at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, Located at 505 West 24th St, in the Chelsea Gallery District.
Are you ready to rock? You will be, once you hit “play” (remembering to strap-in first) on this week’s Video Clip for the tune “Joyrider”, from one-man electronic dance outfit, Pictureplane (AKA producer Travis Egedy). In a song that combines vibrant electronic dance and pop without ever losing sight of the melody, Pictureplane’s flow is ultra-smooth and his beats are super sick. I love this song! Shot primarily an auto salvage yard, with interspersed shots of Egedy in a driving simulator (Joy Ride – get it?), or dancing in a yellow spray-painted room, the video is visually engaging from start to finish. If I heard “Joyrider” in a club, I would dance my ass off to it all night.
“Joyrider” can be found on Pictureplane’s most recent album, Technomancer, which is out now via the Anticon Records label. Recommend if you like: Tame Impala, MGMT or BØRNS. Enjoy!
I shot this video – a fun ad for David Bowie’s Blackstar album — while standing on the corner of 8th Avenue and 34th Street, in front of the Port Authority.
There are certainly equal measures of intense, captivating beauty in both the aural and visual aspects of this week’s featured video clip, “Everything From Above” from Temple Invisible, the trip-hop/Industrial musical project of Irina Bucescu, Costas Ivanov and Daniel Olteanu – three multi-instrumentalists from Bucharest, Romania. I’m a huge fan of trip hop, but I also watch a lot of Science Fiction films, and I can hear this song on the sound track, or perhaps played over a powerfully disquieting end-credits — of a film like Ex Machina or Europa Report — or any film where the Robots are smarter than the Humans, or a perceived paradise is not quite the Shangri-La it appears to be.
The computer-generated video, created by Dutch artist Julius Horsthuis, who specializes in creating fractal environments, is so richly detailed, you can watch it almost endlessly, as it continues to draw you further into the song’s rich fantasy landscape. The band describe the song and video concept below:
“Seeing everything from above doesn’t necessarily indicate towards a high standing point from which you can observe what happens bellow, though partially it does. Mainly, it is about going deep inside — entering the space which offers one the whole perspective and exploring the subconscious mind.”
“Everything From Above” can be found on Temple Invisible’s expanded edition of its EP, Enter, out now. Welcome to The Machine. Enjoy!
It’s hard to believe that the electronica duo, Plaid have been around almost as long as I’ve been writing about music. And yet, it’s true.
Plaid released its latest album, Reachy Prints (Warp Records) in mid-May along with this hypnotic video for the track “Wallet,” which was directed by Sabrina Ratté. Ratté offers that, “the video is inspired by the idea of creating a world based on memories, where things seem real but they are in fact a construction of the mind. All the images are made from electronic signals, from which were created a reproduction of a sun, different landscapes and cities. The musical composition induced the vision of bright colors and daylight atmosphere, so the simulated sunlight became a central element of the video, thus creating dazed images where everything is diffused and hard to grasp.”
Plaid Adds:
“We wondered if consciousness is a memory and what role memories have in the imaginative process . We saw prints as physical memories and an equivalence between printing and memory function. They often share the aim of ‘reproducing’ a subject as accurately as possible. Experience told us that a perfect reproduction is difficult, if not impossible. An attraction to explore this fallibility and a curiosity about the potential inaccuracies and artifacts gave us the album title, Reachy Prints. The track ‘Wallet’ is inspired by the items found in wallets, the money, receipts, business cards, photos etc and the symbolism of wallets as a safe place to store items we value and want to remember. Most items in a wallet have already been digitized and perhaps physical wallets/purses will become obsolete.”
Personally, I dig its minimalist “Light Sculpture” visuals and the Sunday Morning lull of the track’s gentle, pulsating beats. Plaid are on tour in the US for handful of dates in July, which you can find listed below. Enjoy!
NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES
July 3 @ Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
July 4 @ TBA
July 6 @ The Roxy – Los Angeles, CA
July 10 @ The Parish – Austin, TX
July 11 @ 1015 Folsom – San Francisco, CA
July 12 @ Fortune Sound Club – Vancouver, BC
July 18 @ Le Poisson Rouge – New York, NY