10 An Homage to Antonin Artaud
Born in 1896 (died 1948), Artaud is one of the most unusual artists of the 20th century. He wrote poetry that was banned by the French government, assisted in some of the most bizarre films in history, and even wrote music. He had a small part in the film The Passion of Joan of Arc (hailed as the film with the most emotional performance ever captured on film by Maria Falconetti). This video is an homage to Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, “a primitive ceremonial experience intended to liberate the human subconscious and reveal man to himself”. In the original show people threw up and had to leave because of the sounds and behaviour on the stage.
9Sickness Inducing Unnamed Video
From youtube: “This is a weird scene that was floating about a bbs and apparently causing phsychotic reactions in some people who watched it with high quality headphones. There seems to be a variety of audio frequencies in use, primarily 17 and 19hz and the garbled speech could be from anywhere someone mentioned a reference to Hitler somewhere they thought.” There were also mentions of the brown note but it is unlikely that a computer could produce the sound required and it is not even likely that the brown note is anything more than a myth. This is definitely a very odd video (suggested by Matt on the previous list of videos) and I have not been able to locate its origin. I did not listen with headphones so I am not sure about the quote on youtube. If anyone tries it and does feel sick, please mention it in the comments.
8 David Lynch Advert
David Lynch is a famous avant-garde film director who was born in Montana. After a very successful television series (Twin Peaks) Lynch wrote and directed Mulholland Drive which is probably his best known film after Blue Velvet. His latest film, Inland Empire, was recently released to theatres and should be out on DVD soon. Many people are not aware that David Lynch has written and directed a large number of adverts for television. This video is an advert he made for Parisienne Cigarettes. It is typically lynch (in that it doesn’t really make any sense) and the entire thing runs backwards.
7 Gilbert and George
Gilbert Prousch (Italy born) and George Passmore (UK born) are artists who work exclusively as a pair. They started out as performance artists in the 1970s but are more well known for their large scale photo montages. In 1995 the title of their latest work “Naked Shit Pictures” caused a media stir. They have frequently used images of faeces, urine, and sperm in their artwork, as well as nudity. This video clip is of one of their performance pieces in which they demonstrate the dance they invented called the bend-it. The colours in the background are very typical of Gilbert and George who like to work with bold colours. The pair own one of the most powerful graphic workstations in the UK as it is needed to manipulate the huge file sizes needed in their work.
6Marcel Duchamp
Duchamp was a French born artist who became an American Citizen in 1955. He is generally associated with Dadaism and Surrealism though he tended to work behind the scenes in those areas. After his experiments in American Dada he barely participated in Paris Dada. A playful man, Duchamp prodded thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much with words, but with actions such as dubbing a urinal “art” and naming it Fountain, and by “giving up” art to play chess. He produced relatively few artworks as he quickly moved through the avant-garde rhythms of his time. This is a small short by Duchamp accompanied by the music of American pioneering composer John Cage. Both artists believed that the art was not just created by the artist, but also by the spectator. The piece of music is “Music for Marcel Duchamp” and it is performed on a prepared piano, in which one piece of rubber, 7 pieces of weather stripping, and one bolt have been added to the strings.
5 Russian Exorcism
Exorcism is the ritual used by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches to case evil spirits (demons) out of a possessed person. The subject is a very popular one and has been the basis for at least two major motion pictures (The Exorcist, and the Exorcism of Emily Rose). The exorcism in this video is being performed by a Russian Orthodox Priest. It is in Russian but you can get the gist of what is happening without needing to understand the language.
4 Der Struwwelpeter
Der Struwwelpeter is a collection of 10 tales mostly about children written by Heinrich Hoffmann a German author. Each story has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehaviour in an exaggerated way. The book was written in 1855. In this video we see the sixth story Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher – little suck-a-thumb. In this story, a mother warns her son not to suck his thumbs. However, when she goes out of the house he resumes his thumb sucking, until a roving tailor appears and cuts off his thumbs with giant scissors.
3 Bill and Tony
William Burroughs, the author of this film, was an American writer of experimental novels that evoke, in deliberately erratic prose, a nightmarish, sometimes wildly humorous world. His sexual explicitness (he was an avowed and outspoken homosexual) and the frankness with which he dealt with his experiences as a drug addict won him a following among writers of the Beat movement. Burroughs and Antony Balch are seated next to each other, looking directly at the camera. Their simple dialogue is roughly: “I’m Tony, who are you? I’m Bill. Where are you Tony? I’m in London, where are you? I’m in a 1920s movie.” First Bill speaks Tony’s lines, then later the entire dialogue is repeated with the correct people speaking the lines. It is repeated again later with Bill’s dialogue playing while Tony’s lips move and vice versa. There are other permutations as well. It also includes bizarre excerpts from the Scientology secret scriptures.
2 Creepy Kids Television Program
There is nothing to cite for this one as I am not sure of its origins. It is a very strange kids programme that features an “angel” called Satan. It is very weird. If anyone can shed any light on it for me, please do so in the comments and I will update this description.
1 Speech Radios
John Cage was an American avant-garde composer whose inventive compositions and unorthodox ideas profoundly influenced mid-20th-century music. He is most well known for his piece 4’33” which is roughly 4 minutes and 33 seconds of non-performance in which the audience become the creators. In this strange video you get to see John Cage directing the performance of his piece of music called Speech Radios. In this piece, the performers walk around with radios and turn them on and off, change stations, and basically make it all up as they go along. The funny thing is to see the seriousness with which this is all done. Some people actually cheer at the end. Read More: Facebook Instagram Email
