Category: youtubery

QUIETEST PLACE: Art Assignment Highlights

Back in April I did a video for Sarah Urist Green & John Green’s Art Assignment, PBS Digital’s weekly series where artists devise ‘assignments’ for the viewers to complete. My assignment was: take a stroll until you find the quietest place within walking distance and document it with photo or video, sharing the results on social media via #theartassignment. Amazing documentation poured in from all over the globe.

Ssshhhhh – YOU PEOPLE ARE GREAT. ‘The Quitest Place’ received a record number of responses, several of which are featured in this highlight reel:

And here John riffs on my assignment in an airport for his wildly popular Youtube Vlog Brothers.


“attention has become so fractured on the internet that there is no longer room in YouTube videos for any silence”

BLACK MYSTERY MONTH: AFRO-SPECTACLE & YOU

Black Mystery Month begins today! And by Kindly Kosmic Koincidence, friends & I are throwing an event in Brooklyn: AFRO-SPECTACLE. Come join us, *tonight*, Wednesday February 1st for:

info:

On Wednesday February 1st, at 7pm, DJ Rupture and Lamin Fofana will host a special 2-hour live radio show from south Williambsburg’s Spectacle Theater, with guests Chief Boima and Old Money.

Following the live WFMU broadcast — built entirely from African music videos purchased in the cornerstores of NYC — we will screen God’s Own Country by director Femi Agbayewa. GOC presents the story of a young Nigeria lawyer who immigrates to NYC to discover that life in America is not like he hoped… As Boima explains, “It’s firmly in the Nollywood tradition. The story line is a New York story, and I think it’s the perfect context for the non-Nollywood initiated to get introduced to the industry. . . it is also referencing the tradition of the American hood gangster flick like Belly. Almost an amalgamation of the two.”

Palm wine and kola nuts are included with the $5 admission. Space is limited, so come early!

NASS EL GHIWANE FILM TRANSES @ SPECTACLE TONIGHT

A reminder: you are invited to Spectacle Theater tonight, Monday December 5th, for an evening of live radio and a screening of Nass El Ghiwane film TRANSES, one of the best musical documentaries ever… and I’m not just saying that because I’ve been obsessed with Moroccan music since forever and did some touring with Nass El Ghiwane back in the day.

TRANSES is a great, poetic introduction to the deliriously deep world of Maghrebi sound — and the social shifts it both anticipates and provokes.

All the best documentaries document – give us a glimpse through a weltanschauung window – rather than explain (there are no voice-overs here, for example), and excellent translations mean that we get to experience the band’s lyrical power as well. So c’mon down! We’ll talk, listen, watch.

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SUPER TIGHT: SPANKSGIVING SPECIAL

in which the ladies of Super Tight get incarcerated for copyright infringement (showing my 90210 clip); face potentially catastrophic replacement by the men of Bronx Juice; receive a curious video message from the M.E.D.E.A Housewives Terrorist Group; learn Jonny Oso’s background in law; and hear a prison guard wax — interruptedly — on generic narrative conventions, among many other developments, plus puppets and some extra meta. “What is a puppet?”

SUPER TIGHT: HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

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If Super Tight isn’t your favorite ersatz public access TV series yet, then you just wait… Puppets, gender melt, sketches — and, in this new Halloween special, an interview with my dark side.

Remember: if you can’t beat them, join them start your own alternative economy slash media ecosystem.

screenshots followed by SUPER TIGHT episode 2: Hollow Weenies.

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and here’s a handy breakout video of the interview.

KALUP LINZY FEAT. JAMES FRANCO: RISING

Kalup Linzy feat. James Franco, “Rising”. Matt Shadetek and I built the beat structure, then I labbed up with cellist/songwriter Brent Arnold who performs with me in Nettle (catch Nettle’s trio formation at Rome’s Maxxi Museum ‘the National Museum of 21st ct. Art’ next week) to further flesh things out musically. Kalup Linzy made the video which incorporates some footage from James. Enjoy! For more info, check out the Pitchfork post.

EARS WIDE OPEN & WARM

off to Knoxville’s Big Ears festival! It sports an action-packed lineup (The Ex, The xx, jj, GGD, Nico M, Joanna N, et al). I’ll be performing three times, in fairly different contexts:

  • * a late-night dance set on Friday (with Ben Frost opening).
  • * a Saturday afternoon set in a theater. w/ Dirty Projectors and William Basinski! Remember: a seated audience is a captive audience.
  • * and finally, Saturday night The Ex’s guitarist, Andy Moor & I will do our improv duo performance. Here’s a nice preview writeup of my hyperactive weekend.

Sometimes Andy & I go way out. Sometimes, like here, I’ll let a beat play for awhile and we gather corners until it feels like a song.

[audio:05 The Sheep Look Up.mp3]

DJ /rupture & Andy Moor – The Sheep Look Up (this is from our album of live recordings, Patches)

“Nothing lasts forever” writes Cesar Aira, “something else always happens.” Needless to say, it sounds – is – much better in Spanish.

A side-effect of Andy playing with me is that he gets confused even more frequently with the popular British trance DJ of the same name. Eventually we’re gonna accidentally get booked to play with Tiesto, I know it!

This snippet is from a show in Orleans, France. Photos by Andy.

and this audio is from a gig we did in Holland last summer, here overlaid with an anonymous Iranian video on the eve of election protests (remember those green twitter jpgs? ah, slacktivism! ah 2009!):