I think I know why I experience a bit of inner cringe when I see a video that's 5:34 in length. I simply see too much, as we all do, and anything asking for over 2 minutes of my time often just hits the skids at some point and becomes tedious. Even when I like something that is lengthy I still resist sharing it, not wishing to burden anyone with my bulky videosnack of this or that.

That said, this is a really good one. The technique is visual storytelling via a forensic path moving through a frozen, but extremely dramatic and volatile moment. As your perspective moves through the scene, the pacing gives you time to consider the metaphors in the imagery, and the subtext playing into all the split second moments that run as undercurrent to our lives. It also provides a viewer with all the clues necessary to construct the narrative in simplest terms, I personally like both options as they run synchronously.  One of my favorite examples is under the Massive Attack video, but hopefully you watch this first.....it won't take too too long.  

It just says it all in...... 1:59. done. On with your day. See you tonight at 11 for the same thing. Done.

 

A quiet, sensitive, calculated, descent into a tale of values. Its a process-amputation in prose and animation, lead by Paul Barman's voice and accompanied by Michel Gondry. Its lovely and is 3:33 in length. Simplicity almost always wins, but it must be coupled with concept, and this film has a foot in both shoes, until......that shoe is lost on its way down the stairs.  

 

Days before the new decade began I took a short trip with my 9 year old daughter to Las Vegas NV. For most of us Las Vegas trips include the typical stream of debauchery, financial jeopardy, binges on unlimited king crab legs, 1,000's of menthols, roller coasters, porn, Mignon's (fillet and otherwise), drugs, lies, and spinning out-of-control. With this journey and the company I kept while there, it was distinctly altered from that well known course of decline. I had a 9 year old with me, we were seeing my old friend Ezra Fowler and his wife Kelly, both had recently migrated from Portland Oregon and both of who had transported to Las Vegas with all of their Portland sensibilities firmly intact.

These parameters of a subdued Las Vegas produced a most interesting and valuable chain of events that lead me to discover one of the finest art shows I have seen in years. My only regret is that all I had was my iPhone to photograph with...it worked okay. This is a good one to check out. Well done Las Vegas, your shimmer is a new one for me. The show is likely no longer up, but I expect it illustrates the promise that the group at the Neon Museum and the Reed Whipple Cultural Center are moving Las Vegas forward with.

Altered States - Artists Re-imagine the Book - curated by Joseph Shuldiner.