Wikipedia on Concrete TV: Concrete TV is a public access show in New York City aired on Channel 67, combining violence, sex, pornography, new video, old video in a video collage artform set to music. This half hour program is produced by Ron Rocheleau, known as "Concrete Ron." It is shown Friday nights at 1:30 AM. Episodes are heavily thematically based in 1980s video, hearkening back to the early MTV days, in a mash-up art style. yatta: Looks like Fleshbot and BoingBoing have found Ron Rocheleau's Concrete TV, perhaps my most favorite show on MNN ever. Created on two VCRs with worn out "Record" and "Pause" buttons, it was The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin channeled through video (I think he's moved on to digital tools since I last saw him.) It was collage that could make Nam June Paik quiver. It was montage that could make Eisenstein cry. It mixed good porn, bad movies and even badder music videos in a way that made pre-ritalin MTV look like the work of hacks. Concrete TV was mashup before most of those folks were out of grade school. Concrete TV website (Episode 9 up now in Quicktime)
Episode 8, part 1: [YouTube]
A gem from Manhattan Public Access Cable. The "fast montage of clips" is a staple of art world video (for some reason everyone who does it, and there are hundreds, thinks no one has ever "deconstructed" TV before) but Rocheleau, whose only brush with the art world that I'm aware of was a video window at Cristinerose's West Broadway gallery, is consistently the hardest, fastest, meanest, skankiest, and most relentless of the lot. He's been at this for a decade and a half. He has great comic timing and between bits fills the screen with endless-seeming montages of car crashes, exploding heads, and booty-shaking strippers. All set to a constantly pounding score of rock, hiphop and techno. It really is the ugly essence of American pop culture. An opinion: one reason it would never fly in the galleries is, it's too blue collar and "male." Too honest about about what the state of the culture is really like, in other words. Also, in fairness, it's probably best encountered channel surfing in the dead of night, not on a monitor in a gallery.
I love frenzied editing and it's harder to do than it looks. Your reasons for it not flying in the galleries are on the money, for some strange reason we, the royal art-making we, are supposed to be coming up with all these noble 'alternatives' for the skanky state of the culture.
In addition to being a mashup, it's composed of all sorts of flotom and jetsom. In that sense, it reminds me of Found magazine, but in a video form.
I think all the flotsam is stuff he found recorded on video tapes. Mostly Hollywood but also pr0n, promotional vids, industrial vids--anything that could be copied from one VCR to another.
I don't know if the pieces on his site are old (all-VCR) or new (digital, if in fact he's using that)--they look old.
Yatta and Wikipedia call it a mashup but it's really just a montage. There was no timestretching, digital re-syncing, etc in the vintage stuff. Some of it could be called "proto-mashup," particularly in parts where the audio and video don't match but seem to "go together." But it's a look, not a technical procedure. I'm probably guilty of using the term mashup too loosely somewhere on this blog.
Those are fun. The 'choad-rock' that provides the audio does a lot for making it feel "too blue collar and "male".
Good point. He adds a lot of hiphop and rave techno but the bad rock dominates. On the film side, there's a preponderance of low-budget drive-in comedies and martial arts films that also would never, ever be quoted in the tonier appropriation circles. And his fondness for strippers almost guarantees that he will be banned forever from the world of what L.M. describes as noble alternatives.
Yeah you can't forget the ass factor!
Thanks Tom! I remember catching this in NY years ago. Nice to see it again. I always assumed Concrete TV was tongue in cheek, and making astatment about we like as entertainment, but maybe Ron is just having fun. Either way it's great.
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Wikipedia on Concrete TV: yatta: Concrete TV website (Episode 9 up now in Quicktime)
Episode 8, part 1: [YouTube]
A gem from Manhattan Public Access Cable. The "fast montage of clips" is a staple of art world video (for some reason everyone who does it, and there are hundreds, thinks no one has ever "deconstructed" TV before) but Rocheleau, whose only brush with the art world that I'm aware of was a video window at Cristinerose's West Broadway gallery, is consistently the hardest, fastest, meanest, skankiest, and most relentless of the lot. He's been at this for a decade and a half. He has great comic timing and between bits fills the screen with endless-seeming montages of car crashes, exploding heads, and booty-shaking strippers. All set to a constantly pounding score of rock, hiphop and techno. It really is the ugly essence of American pop culture. An opinion: one reason it would never fly in the galleries is, it's too blue collar and "male." Too honest about about what the state of the culture is really like, in other words. Also, in fairness, it's probably best encountered channel surfing in the dead of night, not on a monitor in a gallery.
- tom moody 8-19-2006 7:05 pm
I love frenzied editing and it's harder to do than it looks. Your reasons for it not flying in the galleries are on the money, for some strange reason we, the royal art-making we, are supposed to be coming up with all these noble 'alternatives' for the skanky state of the culture.
- L.M. 8-19-2006 8:07 pm
In addition to being a mashup, it's composed of all sorts of flotom and jetsom. In that sense, it reminds me of Found magazine, but in a video form.
- mark 8-20-2006 6:18 am
I think all the flotsam is stuff he found recorded on video tapes. Mostly Hollywood but also pr0n, promotional vids, industrial vids--anything that could be copied from one VCR to another.
I don't know if the pieces on his site are old (all-VCR) or new (digital, if in fact he's using that)--they look old.
Yatta and Wikipedia call it a mashup but it's really just a montage. There was no timestretching, digital re-syncing, etc in the vintage stuff. Some of it could be called "proto-mashup," particularly in parts where the audio and video don't match but seem to "go together." But it's a look, not a technical procedure. I'm probably guilty of using the term mashup too loosely somewhere on this blog.
- tom moody 8-20-2006 9:08 pm
Those are fun. The 'choad-rock' that provides the audio does a lot for making it feel "too blue collar and "male".
- Thor Johnson 8-21-2006 7:01 pm
Good point. He adds a lot of hiphop and rave techno but the bad rock dominates. On the film side, there's a preponderance of low-budget drive-in comedies and martial arts films that also would never, ever be quoted in the tonier appropriation circles. And his fondness for strippers almost guarantees that he will be banned forever from the world of what L.M. describes as noble alternatives.
- tom moody 8-21-2006 7:23 pm
Yeah you can't forget the ass factor!
- Thor Johnson 8-21-2006 7:27 pm
Thanks Tom! I remember catching this in NY years ago. Nice to see it again. I always assumed Concrete TV was tongue in cheek, and making astatment about we like as entertainment, but maybe Ron is just having fun. Either way it's great.
- anonymous (guest) 8-21-2006 11:08 pm