After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.
Spheres (1969)
This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain reaction. The dance is set to the musical cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.
Oh butterfly, what dou you dream of when you flap your wings? (2020)
The work of taxonomists hides more secrets than can be perceived.
Street Musique (1972)
Animator Ryan Larkin does a visual improvisation to music performed by a popular group presented as sidewalk entertainers. His take-off point is the music, but his own beat is more boisterous than that of the musicians. The illustrations range from convoluted abstractions to caricatures of familiar rituals. Without words.
Tyngsboro (2024)
During his visit to a graveyard, a young man is suddenly projected into a dream-like realm. Empty and removed from time, the familiar landscape forces him to confront certain pains when blood suddenly effuses from his hands.
Moonwalk (2024)
This short documentary film captures the natural movement of the moon mixed with an experimental musical track that accompanies the rhythm of the "walk" on the stage that the protagonist occupies, the sky.
Lohengrin (2024)
A short experimental film shot on Super 8, inspired by the music of Richard Wagner.
Caterpillar (1988)
A half-hour experimental film that shows Fukui moving towards cyberpunk imagery in a manner similar to Tsukamoto, featuring industrial locations, a malfunctioning cyborg/android and a hulking metallic ‘caterpillar’ that stalks characters.
Logistics (2012)
Logistics or Logistics Art Project is an experimental art film. At 51,420 minutes (857 hours or 35 days and 17 hours), it is the longest movie ever made. A 37 day-long road movie in the true sense of the meaning. The work is about Time and Consumption. It brings to the fore what is often forgotten in our digital, ostensibly fast-paced world: the slow, physical freight transportation that underpins our economic reality.
The Enclave (2013)
Commissioned for the Irish representation at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, The Enclave is an immersive, six-screen video art installation by Irish contemporary artist Richard Mosse. Partly inspired by Joseph Conrad’s modernist literary masterpiece Heart of Darkness, the visceral and moving work was filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo using 16mm colour infra-red film, which captures otherwise invisible parts of the spectrum. The resulting imagery in Mosse’s work is hallucinatory and dream-like with the usual greens of jungle and forest replaced by shimmering violet. The Enclave depicts a complicated, strife-ridden place in a way that reflects its complexity, using a strategy of beauty and transfixion to combat the wider invisibility of a conflict that has claimed so many.
Flux (2022)
Samantha is an 18-year-old girl who, in the middle of a move, experiences a flashback of memories and is reunited with her imaginary childhood friend, Flux. Between waves and cardboard boxes, she passes the farewell with herself, with what surrounds her and with the tide.
The Waltz of a Lonesome Pigeon (2023)
An experimental fairy tale about life, death, and spreading your wings. After Cecilia witnesses a bird smashing into her window, she begins to notice her body transforming. Her skin starts to peel and little feathers start to grow out of her back. Will she fly away or end up like that poor little bird?
Last Minute Habit (2024)
Saga, a kid tasked to make a film project, procrastinates, a lot. A habit that keeps coming back into his life continues to put him in rock bottom. He has a few ideas on how to embrace it.
Melody (1971)
Although Gainsbourg and Birkin had appeared in a string of films since their magnetic collision in Pierre Grimblat’s Slogan, Melody was a bit of diversion from their collaborations since it’s a series of interwoven videos inspired by the Gainsbourgalbum. For '71 it’s a novel concept to bring visual life to an LP, but even more surprising are the short film’s amazing visuals that director Averty crafted using a wealth of video filters, overlays, camera movements and chroma key effects. Averty applies these in tandem with the increasing tone of Gainsbourg’s songs, which more or less chronicle an older man's affair with a young girl. Each song is comprised of steady, sometimes brooding poetic delivery, with refrains timed to the phrase repeats of each song, while Alan Parker’s buzzing guitar accompanies and wiggles around Gainsbourg’s resonant voice. The bass is fat and groovy, the drums easy but steady, and the periodic use of strings or rich vibrato makes this short a sultry little gem.
“(ಥ﹏ಥ) ✧_My Parents Are CIA Psy0ps_!!!* ಠ_ಠ" (2023)
On a sleepy summer night in 2004, eyes peer into the world-wide-web: traveling between conspiracy sites, malware, porn, and mp3 databases in an attempt to lose (find) themselves. Passing through blog graveyards, broken hyperlinks, and digital spirits, they begin to realize the Internet is so much more. Lost websites, anon forums, and inexplicable pixels singing to a prepubescent soul. An ode to the 2000s webpage and flash game culture.
Ode to R.G. Springsteen (2024)
Daily dedications to a minor artisan of the classical Hollywood western. Each segment was originally a kind of letter, a private correspondence, sent in fragments to a friend over a few weeks—an ode to R.G. but also to B.C. (an ode to cinema, to everyday life, and to the cinephilic fantasy of their becoming indistinguishable).