Horizontal Infinity

9frames

shortened vers. of GIF by thekraken.

From Boris Groys' Art Power, pp. 16-17:

The artist of the ancien régime was intent on creating a masterpiece, an image that would exist in its own right as the ultimate visualization of the abstract ideas of truth and beauty. In modernity, on the other hand, artists have tended to present examples of an infinite sequence of images--as Kandinsky did with abstract compositions; as Duchamp did with readymades; as Warhol did with icons of mass culture. The source of the impact that these images exerted on subsequent art production lies not in their exclusivity, but instead in their very capacity to function as mere examples of the sheer variety of images. They are not only presenting themselves but also act as pointers to the inexhaustible mass of images, of which they are delegates of equal standing. It is precisely this reference to the infinite multitude of excluded images that lends these individual specimens their fascination and significance within the finite contexts of political and artistic representation.

Hence, it is not to the "vertical" infinity of divine truth that the artist today makes reference, but to the "horizontal" infinity of aesthetically equal images...

See also, Portrait of Boner, A Young Man, 2010 (by timb, Boner, anon., etc)

Update: Another Boner portrait, though they really need no augmentation.

Bad Idea from Brody Condon

...as noted by Rhizome (but not described as such):

In coordination with Saks Fifth Avenue and the PS1 Greater New York Exhibition, Brody Condon was invited to contribute a project to be displayed in the Saks window on 50th St. Brody’s proposal was to film a performance inside Saks itself. To his surprise Saks was familiar with his work and agreed.

The piece, a modification of the Trisha Brown work Accumulation (1971), is a floor-based dance performance based on various seizure-like movements choreographed by Stephen Lichty, who is himself familiar with movement disorders.
-- DESCRIPTION FROM DIS MAGAZINE

In the accompanying photos the "seizure-like movements" are all by attractive female models, of course.

My comment:

Why is Saks' green light for this a "surprise"? Guess everyone's forgotten heroin chic and Diesel's "dead teenagers" campaign. And name-checking Trisha Brown, how wonderfully correct.

My bird could play that

YouTube of birds perching on an electric guitar neck, unconsciously dispensing power chords. (posted by bustram) [update, 1/1/2012: video removed by user--why?]

Prefer this to the famous Schoenberg cats, which subtly reinforce bubba dislike of modern music. These birds are creating their own score (although the digital delay helps quite a bit) and the artist who set it up isn't showing off I-hate-it-but-I-really-like-it musical acumen: creating a highly structured work product around a highly structured score to imply (without really meaning it, natch) that the score is just random splooge. What is the point of that?

Hat tip Disquiet - the link to the birds came up in the course of a discussion of the new Oval disc (first in many years from Markus Popp). Haven't heard the recording but it sounds like Popp's old fans are mostly dancing around that it (i) isn't anything like the '90s records that they loved and (ii) possibly is mediocre.

Brandon Blommaert

brandon_jan_blommaert

Now this is an efficient GIF - 24 KB. That's a lot of bang for your memory buck.
The artist is Brandon Blommaert, who also did this video:

GREYCON4
"an animation about a scientist in a computerized cave" - what's not to like?
Tron meets the Brothers Quay (and Jim Henson)
The sequences of old school wireframe mixed with synthesized blorts give me animatronic goosebumps.
What caught my eye for the video were these cardboard consoles.

hat tip un/stage, which has a page of Blommaert's GIF work.

previously noted on Rhizome - the GIFs got better since that post but are still probably a little too much on the slick side for my taste - the organic form in the one above helps warm it up a little - while at Rhizome be sure to read about coal-fired computers and feel really bad about yourself. (I seem to recall this was a late '90s canard designed to spur coal production - one lump per megabyte or whatever - but I'm sure the artists have done their homework this time and aren't just passing around bogus industry statistics. Nothing like having a coal stove hooked to a laptop to make your point - subtle!)