TimhTube

Koyaanisqatsi (originally directed by Godfrey Reggio) sped up 1552% by Wyatt Hodgson (1982/2012)

2012-02-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

Balance Out of Life from Wyatt Hodgson on Vimeo.

"The year 1552 marks the publication of "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies," an account of the mistreatment of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas"- Wyatt Hodgson

"In the postmodern worldview, narrative has lost its sacred power. The semiotic significance of this lose is profound, for by rejecting traditional narratives of the West, the postmodern myth has rejected the centering structures that have long given meaning to human history."

"...With its disconcertingly narrativeless flow and violent juxtapositions of discontinuous images, the film presents a postmodern parody of traditional film documentaries to show us just how senseless and disharmonious the modern world has become. Paradoxically enough, it's a postmodern denunciation of the culture of postmodernism.

"Ultimately the sheer spectacle overwhelms the moral. Social criticism becomes postmodern art.And that's the Semiotic secret concealed by the overt moral message of Koyaanisqati: that the technological resources of the television age have souped up our apprehension of reality. We don't really care whether things make sense as long as they look interesting. Electrically powered and technology-wise, postmodern consciousness is entertained by what it sees. If the modern world's a wasteland, it's a very entertaining wasteland."

- Jack Solomon, "Our Decentered Culture: The Postmodern Worldview"

"In a sense, Koyaanisqatsi is the world's best student film--a two-and-a-half million dollar one--with the familiar and easy juxtaposition of undefiled Nature against the moral evils of the Big City. This dichotomy has a distinguished U.S. pedigree, through transcendentalists and populists, and here it's propped up by the Hopi Indian philosophy encapsulated in the title word (roughly "life out of balance). That said, Koyaanisqatsi is astonishingly involving, a visceral experience of image and music without recourse to narration or actors, featuring one of Philip Glass' finest works, composed in tandem with the images over several years. The riveting photography--which must be seen in a theater--is as seemingly repetitive and distanced as the Glass score. No matter what qualms one might entertain over its "philosophy," Koyaanisqatsi forces one to experience America in a completely new way. How many films can claim as much?"--Scott Simmon, UC Davis

"As an English reviewer remarked of Koyaanisqatsi–a film that, incidentally, owed most of its exposure to Francis Ford Coppola’s distribution–”Its vainglorious appeal as a ‘new cinematic experience’ is really to an audience that would rather be open-mouthed than open-minded.” I found its glib borrowings from the avant-garde so irritating that I had no sense of regret about missing its sequel."- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Rosenbaum also said that the film essentially rehashed ideas from The Man With a Movie Camera, but in a sense Koyaanisqatsi is far from a sequel, it's an opposite. MWAMC is the ultimate celebration of becoming-cyborg, man finally gaining the dignity of the machine in the development of an Marxist/Fordist work ethic that equalizes both man and his mechanical neural extensions (shades of McLuhan here), while Koyaanisqati depicts technology as alienating ourselves from nature, and hence one's essentialism. Despite these diametrically opposed vantages, both films can be said to have a sequel in Jennifer Baichwal's brilliant Manufactured Landscapes (based on the photography of Edward Burtynsky), wherein both man and nature have been conquered and colonized by the artifical. A reciprocal wasteland.

Hi Tech Soul dir Gary Bredow (2006)

2012-02-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

"The general attitude here with the powers-that-be is that industry must die to make way for technology. The climate has definitely affected us, and I think that we probably wouldn’t have developed this sound in any other city in America."-Juan Atkins

Suzanne Ciani on David Letterman (1980)

2012-02-06T20:34:00.001-08:00

Suzanne Ciani on Omni

2012-02-06T19:17:00.001-08:00

Public Image Limited- Live on the Old Grey Whistle Test (1980)

2012-02-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

If David Lynch directed...

2012-02-03T18:40:00.000-08:00

Embedding is turned off on this one

I Am Sitting In a Room dir Evan Leed (2005)

2012-02-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

Ways of Seeing episode 4 dir John Berger (1972)

2012-02-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

with music by Delia Derbyshire

Ways of Seeing Episode 3 dir Peter Berger (1972)

2012-01-31T19:03:00.000-08:00

Ways of Seeing episode 2 dir John Berger (1972)

2012-01-30T18:23:00.000-08:00

Ways of Seeing episode one dir John Berger (1972)

2012-01-29T18:33:00.000-08:00

Wipes dir Lloyd M. Williams (1963)

2012-01-28T19:58:00.000-08:00

Opus 5 dir Lloyd M. Williams (1961)

2012-01-28T19:56:00.001-08:00

Eyewash dir Robert Breer (1959)

2012-01-28T19:42:00.001-08:00

Free Radicals dir Len Lye (1958)

2012-01-28T19:39:00.000-08:00

A Colour Box dir Len Lye (1935)

2012-01-28T19:26:00.000-08:00

Neighbours dir Norman McLaren (1952)

2012-01-24T19:43:00.001-08:00

Dots dir Norman McLaren (1940)

2012-01-24T19:32:00.001-08:00

Spook Sport dir Norman McLaren (1940)

2012-01-24T19:22:00.001-08:00

Peer Gynt dir David Bradley (1941)

2012-01-24T19:05:00.000-08:00

Starring a very young, but incredibly cut Charleston Heston.

The Butthole Surfers- Blind Eye Sees All (1986)

2012-01-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

Ensemble Economique- To Feel the Night As It Really Is dir kohnkepik (2011)

2011-12-26T20:28:00.001-08:00

ENSEMBLE ECONOMIQUE - To Feel The Night As It Really Is from PɨK on Vimeo.

Wooden Veil- Gravity Problems dir Hanayo (2007)

2011-12-26T20:12:00.000-08:00

Sculpture- Elf Cloner dir Tapebox (2011)

2011-12-26T19:54:00.000-08:00

Elk Cloner from Sculpture on Vimeo.

The Christmas Card dir Terry Gilliam (1968)

2011-12-22T08:39:00.001-08:00

The Cameraman's Revenge dir. Ladislas Starevich (1912)

2011-12-10T20:03:00.001-08:00

Slavoj Zizek at Occupy Wall Street (2011)

2011-11-30T17:59:00.001-08:00

"The Reflecting Pool" dir Bill Viola (1977-1979)

2011-11-29T18:59:00.000-08:00

Documentary about Richie Hawtin dir Maren Sextro/Holger Wick(2006)

2011-11-19T19:01:00.000-08:00

Jehst- "England" (2011)

2011-11-17T18:56:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the party, America.

Carol dir Ed Emschwiller (1970)

2011-11-13T18:01:00.000-08:00

Pump Up the Violence- The History of House Music Dir Carl Hindmarch (2001)

2011-11-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

Little Nemo dir Winsor McCary (1911)

2011-11-03T20:10:00.001-07:00

One of the first color animation films, depicting the creation of the classic comic. Caution: racist iconography herein.

Party Monster: The Shockumentary (1998) dir Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato

2011-11-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

Aphex Twin on MTV (1996)

2011-09-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most intriguing thing is how the girl seems to be, like, in love with him or something.

New Wave on 20/20 (1979)

2011-09-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

Could you imagine a mainstream news piece getting it this (almost) on the mark nowadays? Also, a nice companion to Retromania, noting the undeniable debt of punk/new wave to the 1950s.

David Bowie- "Crystal Japan" video

2011-09-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

The commercial that wound up being the origin of "Crystal Japan", the Bowie b-side that Nine Inch Nails eventually knicked for "A Warm Place"

David Bowie- Boys Keep Swinging (Saturday Night Live, 1979)

2011-09-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

Starring Klaus Nomi
This has to be the strangest SNL performance ever.
As noted in the user comments for this video, the phobic SNL crew decided to cut out the phrase "other boys check you out", but failed to censor the puppet erection he made for his marionette costume.

Speed dir Philip Hopper (1980)

2011-08-10T18:54:00.001-07:00

Music by Alan Brown

Robert Abel and Associates- Logo Medley(1980s)

2011-08-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Think About What You've Done (2011) dir Evan Leed

2011-07-11T20:05:00.001-07:00

Think About What You've Done from Evan Leed on Vimeo.

The Waste City Trailer dir Anto Rabzas (2010)

2011-06-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

[NSFW]

A work in progress for the Cranämour butoh dance theater company.

Trident Crisis w/ Franz Falckenhaus- Secret Microcassettes (unknown year)

2011-06-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

Submit to Me Now dir Richard Kern (1987)

2011-06-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

CAUTION: EXTREMELY DISTURBING

Starring
Lydia Lynch
Clint Ruin (Foetus)
Nick Zedd
Lung Lef
et al.

Synchromy No. 4 dir Mary Ellen Bute (1938)

2011-06-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

Fantasia ain't got shit on this.

PSA Break- Fire Safety (1974)

2011-06-20T12:02:00.001-07:00

Programme X: Secret Weapons dir David Cronenberg (1972)

2011-05-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

Programme X: Secret Weapons by IndieMoviesOnlineUSA

featuring a great soundtrack by Syrinx- anybody know anything about them? I'm guessing they're Canadian...

David Cronenberg- Long Live the New Flesh dir Laurens C Postma (1986)

2011-05-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

Crimes of the Future dir David Cronenberg (1970)

2011-05-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

Stereo dir. David Cronenberg (1969)

2011-05-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

Cronenberg's first full-length, about a group of polymorphously sexual telepaths being studied at a nearly empty fully modernist psychiatric center. Interventions by the psychiatrists to use their abilities to form a commune/replacement family unit are hidden from the camera but described in cold clinical detail on the voiceover. Echoes of Ballard, whom the Canadian Cronenberg had likely did not know at the time, are all over. These parellel sensibilities would of course collude with Crash (1996), but would also reach a head in 1975's Shivers (also known as They Came From Within), which mimes Ballard's 1975 novel High Rise in an eerie tandem.

David Bowie- "Space Oddity" (Love You Til Tuesday Version) (1969)

2011-05-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

The earliest, folkiest version of this song had quite a high budget. This is especially interesting since the song never charted until a much later rerelease.

Barbe Bleue dir Pina Bausch (1977)

2011-05-06T19:34:00.000-07:00

Pina Bausch's adaptation of the Bela Bartok opera.

Curious Alice

2011-04-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

Cymatics- Bringing Matter to Life With Sounds (1960s)

2011-04-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

2011-04-17T19:16:00.001-07:00

The War Game (1965) dir Peter Watkins

2011-04-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

A prototype to Threads/ The Day After, The War Game invented the docudrama form and examines hypothetical fallout from a nuclear attack on Britain in horrifying footage.

As an aside, curious if any one knows if this film is the origin of the record label name Honest Jon's. In the film, a nuke is nicknamed an Honest Jon and I haven't seen any other colloquial use of the term.

Reverend Andy C and MC GQ- Praise it Up @ Baptazia (2007)

2011-04-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

Connecting the ecstatic ecclesiastical energy of Southern Shaker churches with the similar manic vibe of drum n' bass.

Sesame Street Alphabet

2011-04-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

The alphabet has never been present so interestingly since.

Philip Glass- Geometry of Circles (1979) Sesame Street

2011-04-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

Reminds me a bit of a more euphoric take on voice work by Morton Feldman.

The Alchemists of Sound (2003) dir Roger Pomphrey

2011-03-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

Excellent documentary on the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Kraftwerk - Köln II (live on German TV) (1971)

2011-03-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

cut your hair, hippies.

Future Sound (2010) dir Jamie Whitby

2011-03-25T19:59:00.001-07:00

Future Sound - An Underground Electronic Music Documentary from Jamie Whitby on Vimeo.

feat Roska, Scratcha DVA, Black Down, Lisa Blanning, K-Punk, SBKRT

Dialtones: A Telesymphony (2001-2002) Golan Levin

2011-03-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

A brilliant piece composed on cell phones best documented on the limited edition 2002 album from Staalplaat (OOP, but available online if you search for it). These types of ringtones are already becoming one of those de-circulated technologies representative of a bygone era. Expect them to make a huge comeback in ten years along with modems and pagers. Yet again, Meat Beat Manifesto will have been prescient.

Grubby Little Hands- Uneek (2011) dir Brian Melton

2011-03-25T19:19:00.001-07:00

GRUBBY LITTLE HANDS - UNEEK from Brian Melton on Vimeo.

Majlis al Jinn (Meeting Place of the Jinn) (2010) dir. Paul H Williams

2011-03-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

Majlis al Jinn (Meeting Place of the Jinn) from Paul H Williams on Vimeo.

Majlis al Jinn (Meeting Place of the Jinn)

Paul H Williams's films (via Ballardian)"continue to mine this unique nexus of Ballard, Islam, rampant development, industrial isolation and subsonic hums. These filmic miniatures form a unique, ongoing travelogue, often shot from the upper-level hotel room high above the clouds that has served as Paul’s home for the past year, recording his nostalgia and emotion at the absence of his family in the UK, as he captures the evolution of the cityscape warping the desert below".

This film also features beautiful music by Williams himself

The Stranger- Kirbymooreside (2007)

2011-03-10T04:49:00.001-08:00

Leyland Kirby

"Special Report" by Bryan Boyce (1999)

2011-03-10T04:21:00.001-08:00

What the Future Sounded Like (2007)

2011-03-10T04:01:00.000-08:00

The story of EMS

Arthur Russell- Soon to Be Innocent Fun (1985)

2011-01-18T18:42:00.000-08:00

Davy Graham- Cry Me a River (1959) dir Ken Russell

2011-01-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

Student Protestor (2010)

2010-12-16T19:10:00.000-08:00

(via K-Punk)

"This was meant to be the first post-ideological generation. This was meant to be the generation that never thought of anything bigger than our Facebook profiles and our TV screens"

"However much they try to imprison us in the streets of London, those are our streets"

Future Shock dir Alex Grasshoff (1972)

2010-12-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

Narrated by Orson Welles
Based on the book by Alvin Toffler

Bohren & Der Club of Gore- "Constant Fear" (2008)

2010-12-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

Fire In My Belly dir David Wojnarowicz (1987)

2010-12-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

Banned art. Soundtrack by Diamanda Galas

Ministry- Just One Fix dir Peter Christopherson (1992)

2010-11-30T19:33:00.001-08:00

feat. William S. Burroughs

Rage Against the Machine- People of the Sun dir Peter Christopherson (1996)

2010-11-30T19:26:00.000-08:00

Nine Inch Nails- Pinion dir Peter Christopherson (1991)

2010-11-30T19:20:00.001-08:00

Coil- The Snow (Answers Come in Dreams II) dir Peter Christopherson (1991)

2010-11-30T19:17:00.001-08:00

Ministry- Over the Shoulder dir Peter Christopherson (1985)

2010-11-30T19:11:00.001-08:00

Coil- The Wheel dir Peter Christopherson (1985)

2010-11-30T19:01:00.001-08:00

Throbbing Gristle- Discipline

2010-11-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

Devo October 1981

2010-11-22T19:38:00.001-08:00

Karlheinz Stockhausen on Sounds (1972)

2010-11-21T19:25:00.000-08:00

Wojciech Bruszewski- Yyaa (1973)

2010-11-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

Philip K. Dick: A Day in the Afterlife (1994)

2010-10-31T18:23:00.000-07:00

An Episode of the BBC series "Arena"

Jon Stewart C-Span Interview

2010-10-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

In honor of the Rally to Restory Sanity and/or Fear, here's my favorite Jon Stewart interview.

Who is the Master? film/interview by Edgar Pêra Lisboa with Robert Anton Wilson (1994)

2010-10-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

Reality is what you can get away with

Art of Noise- Close (to the Edit) dir Zbigniew Rybczynski

2010-10-27T19:26:00.001-07:00

Classic video

"Half Mensch" by Einsturzende Neubaten dir Sogo Ishii

2010-10-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

speaking of found sound stomping, shoving, and pounding

I Hear a Shadow dir Nico Vascellari (2009) (excerpt)

2010-10-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

Nico Vascellari bangs a stick against a wall and creates an ungodly noise in a stunning performance piece

"You're Going to Die" (2000) dir Timothy Furstnau. Narrated by Vito Acconci

2010-10-14T04:03:00.000-07:00

Threads (1984) Dir Mick Jackson

2010-10-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

In my formative high school years, I received a film education through my local library, which was the only place you could find movies from before 1975 (and found Blockbuster, Video Update, or other now extinct chains to be the enemy). Simultaneously, I obsessively used the library to mine the archives for "samples" to powder the rudimentary basement electronic music I was making at the time (examples of this will eventually be posted here). So I decided to check out an innocuous-seeming BBC drama called Threads from 1984 hoping to find a few cool sound samples and expecting little else. As any one alive when it first aired in the UK can attest, it is one of the most disturbing, terrifying films ever made. Going into scientific and horrific medical detail of what the fallout of a nuclear assault on Britain would be like, it's no surprise this was required watching for a country in the grips of the cold war. That the threat is no less plausible now should be a good enough reason to revisit this one.

Solaris (1972) dir Andrei Tarkovsky

2010-10-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

Need I say More?

Sleep/Swim

2010-09-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

not really sure what this is, but it's lovely

John Whitney- "Lapis" (1966)

2010-09-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

James Whitney- "Yantra" (1957)

2010-09-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

dig the soundtrack on this one

John Whitney- "Catalog" (1961)

2010-09-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

This may seem like standard issue screen saver nowadays, but this was 1961.

Through the Night Softly- Chris Burden 1973

2010-09-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

TV ad made by performance artist Chris Burden in 1973.

Thanatopis (1962) dir Ed Emshwiller

2010-09-17T18:12:00.001-07:00

20/20 Special on the Danger of Heavy Metal

2010-09-15T18:22:00.000-07:00