Ubuweb – Page 3 – { feuilleton }

The Residents: Twenty Twisted Questions

The art/music/performance group known as The Residents has been pushing their work into the media landscape for over 40 years but you could be forgiven for not knowing this. The Residents were delving into their own brand of the sinister and absurd years before the world had heard of David Lynch, but unlike Lynch their work has never been gained the mass audience that feature film and network television offers. The Residents were independent record producers before punk, in part because the music on their early albums was so far from the mainstream that few record companies would have dared take the risk.

Hello Skinny (1980).

Twenty Twisted Questions (1992) is a laserdisc compilation of their early films and music videos which can now be viewed at Ubuweb. I’ve always preferred the earlier material (up to The Mole Show), in part because its analogue nature retains a strangeness that the later productions lack. You get the impression of them carving out new territory on the earlier albums; later on things seemed to become more formulaic as they gained a wider audience. The laserdisc selection covers the first 20 years so you can judge for yourself. My favourites among the films are Hello Skinny, and the four One-Minute Movies from The Commercial Album (1980). If you can’t take all of it, at least stick around to watch those.

One-Minute Movies: The Act Of Being Polite (1980).

The Rite of Spring, 2001

Now this one is fantastic… Angelin Preljoçaj’s modern dance interpretation is wildly energetic, and, after a century of the music becoming increasingly familiar, manages to return some of the shock value to the ballet. Preljoçaj dispenses with symbolism and brings the sexual nature of the material to the fore, with recurrent instances of coercion that will no doubt prove intolerable for some viewers. All one can say to that is that this is a ballet which has always been about primitive erotic rituals which culminate in a chosen sacrifice being forced to dance herself to death. (The third part of the ballet—Jeu du rapt—was bluntly translated on a recording I used to own as “Game of Rape”.) For the finale of Preljoçaj’s version the dancer (uncredited, I’m afraid) performs naked. The televised performance benefits a great deal by having a score courtesy of Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra thundering away in stereo. It’s a thrilling piece which shows that a century on The Rite of Spring has lost none of its power when carefully staged. Kudos to Ubuweb for turning up the goods once again.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Rite of Spring, 1970
• The Rite of Spring reconstructed

Le labyrinthe and Coeur de secours

Le labyrinthe (1969).

Among the new arrivals at Ubuweb there’s the very welcome addition of more animated films by Polish director Piotr Kamler. Kamler’s incredible Chronopolis (1982) was posted there late last year, a longer work than these shorter films which are nonetheless fascinating in themselves. For a start they show the range of Kamler’s animation which differs radically from film to film. Le labyrinthe is the kind of thing SF artist Richard Powers might have made had he been offered an animation commission: a human figure paces through increasingly threatening corridors and empty spaces until the winged creatures that haunt the zone bear down on him. Coeur de secours is more a sequence of events than anything that might be easily summarised; I’d seen this one years ago on Channel 4 but didn’t remember a thing about it. Chronopolis was notable for its electronic score by Luc Ferrari, and both the earlier films have similar soundtracks created by Bernard Parmegiani and Francois Bayle respectively. All these films, Chronopolis included, are collected on a recent DVD which I’ll definitely be buying. Kamler’s work, like that of Patrick Bokanowski and the Quay Brothers, goes places that films with much larger budgets can never reach.

Coeur de secours (1973).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Chronopolis by Piotr Kamler

Weekend links 155

Poster design by Mishka Westell for this month’s Austin Psych Fest. Billy Gibbons’ pre-ZZ Top psychedelic outfit, The Moving Sidewalks, surprised everyone by reforming for a New York gig last month, their first performance together in 44 years.

• Pye Corner Audio played the Boiler Room, London, last week, and remixed a track from FC Judd’s Electronics Without Tears. Also on the latter is Chris Carter who talks about his own remix (and the “Radiophonic” Mr Judd) here.

• Tom Bianchi’s Fire Island Pines, Polaroids of New York’s gay enclave from 1975–1983. Related: In Conversation with the Violet Quill: Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, and Edmund White.

• From 2011: Sex, prison and lost ligatures: The story of Herb Lubalin’s Avant Garde typeface. Related: The ITC Avant Garde Gothic group at Flickr.

• Music reissues: Tape Works 1981–1982 by Laughing Hands is out now, and Scott Walker’s early solo albums will be reissued in the summer.

Drugs and the Mind (ii), a cover design from 1957 by Eric Fraser (1902–1983) whose illustrations and designs are in exhibition at the Chris Beetles gallery, London.

• At Ubuweb: William S. Burroughs + Brion Gysin + Genesis P-Orridge – Cold Spring Tape (1989).

• The World According to John Coltrane, an hour-long documentary.

• Neko Font: for when you need a word made of cats.

• Fuck yeah, Sarah Bernhardt

• Sordid Spheres!

• 99th Floor (1967) by The Moving Sidewalks | Over Fire Island (1975) by Brian Eno | Ledge (1980) by Laughing Hands

() by Morgan Fisher

Here’s a good one for enthusiasts of cinematic formalism. () (2003) is a 20-minute soundless assembly by Morgan Fisher of isolated moments from many feature films:

() is made up entirely of “inserts” from feature films organized according to Oulipian principles. Inserts were usually shot by assistants when star actors, large crews, or expensive sets were not needed. These include details of weapons, wounds, letters, signs, tombstones, machinery, games of chance, timepieces, money, and even intimate caresses. Fisher culled the inserts from a number of films he collected for that purpose and edited them together under constraints he does not fully reveal; he places the inserts from a given film in the order in which they appeared in that film, but two inserts from the same film never follow each other directly in his assemblage. Alternating among them we catch glimpses of violence, intrigue, high-stakes gambling, and sexual adventure.

Morgan Fisher is an expert musical collagist as well as a notable anthologist. His Miniatures (1980) anthology is a particular favourite, being a collection of one-minute recordings by a host of different artists. () is the first of his films that I’ve seen, however. The idea is superficially similar to Christian Marclay’s recent The Clock (2010), although Marclay’s concept is rendered more audience-friendly by sticking to a single theme which requires little explanation.

Both works remind me that some years ago I spent two weeks labouring with a pair of video recorders and a huge stack of tapes to collage together three hundred separate clips from famous films. The resulting 15-minute piece was intended as a visual complement to Holger Czukay’s Hollywood Symphony, the last track on his Movies (1979) album. That collage seemed impressive at the time, mostly because the effort required to produce anything decent via such crude methods was considerable. In the age of non-linear editing and YouTube supercuts few people would be impressed at all. I did send a copy of the video to Holger Czukay, however, and received a pleasant phone call by way of thanks. I still relish that.

Morgan Fisher’s () can be seen at Ubuweb. Fisher writes about the Miniatures tracks in great detail on his blog.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• La Région Centrale
• Downside Up