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Three Kings, 1999. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze drive an open jeep around Iraq after the end of the First Gulf War, looking for a cache of Saddam's gold bullion. Wacky adventures ensue before the men become sensitized to the plight of the Shiites, who are attempting an uprising against Hussein's still-dominant forces.
Four Kings, 2009. Sequel to Three Kings. Soldiers leave the Green Zone in a self-armored Hummer during the Second Gulf War, looking for a cache of weapons left over from the Saddam years. Three die when their vehicle strikes an improvised explosive device; George Clooney loses an arm and a leg in the blast. The film deals with his painful recovery and his eventual radicalization into a staunch political foe of the "Bush regime." No wacky adventures are had.
More linkage you need (the New Net Art):
All of the phony names from spam emails Joel Holmberg has received this month as a rockyou textpix slideshow. Not sure which makes you want to drill a hole in your own head more--the thought of all that spam or the endless cheerful banality of "rockyou"'s personalized animated graphics.
Audio clip: hear George W. Bush, president of the United States, use the words "peeance" and "freeance" in a sentence (as adjectives, apparently). Not really net art, but worth putting in to flout conceptual purity.
Almost as depressing as the rockyou slideshow: Stock footage from Getty Images that is pulled up with the search request "artist looking at camera" (found by Guthrie Lonergan--who has a great nose for postModern anomie).
Updated: backgrounds are now transparent so the discs are round against a colored background--finally figured out how to do that this morning--takes a long time with the clumsy tools I'm using.
Update 2: fixed bad image tag--OK now, bloglines?
Not to be out-pr'ed by warmonger and torture bill endorser John McCain, "America's mayor" Rudy Giuliani today announced an "exploratory committee" for a 2008 presidential run. While he may have given Americans the brave-face-for-the-TV-cameras they needed on 9/11/01 while Bush was retreating into the Midwest, let's just say here once again that people in New York hate Giuliani. During his tenure as mayor he's remembered as a finger wagging control freak with a terrible record dealing with minorities. His "bravery" on 9/11 was damage control after his mistake in locating his 15 million dollar "command bunker" high up in 7 World Trade Center. Then, after leaving office, he milked the tragedy for personal financial gain as an expensive "security expert." Blogger Steve Gilliard thinks his dallying with mistresses and ties to corrupt individuals like Bernard Kerik will keep him from a successful run--sure hope so, he's a creep, not a "hero."
Found a couple of Dopplereffekt YouTube vids on this page: "Scientist" (without vocals) and "Satellites." Lots of grim laboratory visuals in the first one. This is Detroit electro--really great stuff.
Types of Artists
This list applies to all creative people but is especially geared to visual artists. I wish critics and art historians paid more heed to these distinctions.
1. Only one good piece in them. This type stumbles onto a work of genius despite general artistic inactivity. Provides valid material for shows such as Jim Shaw's "Thrift Store Paintings," as well as Google Images.
2. Comes charging out of school and then disappears. Probably the majority of artists are in this category.
3. Works privately entire life. For example, Henry Darger, a posthumous sensation.
4. Works publicly entire life--badly. Probably the second largest category. It includes: art professors who need a show every year to maintain credibility or academic standing, artists from category 2 who are canonized before they would otherwise disappear, human steamrollers whose egos will not let them be anything less than financially successful, or some combination of the above.
5. Works publicly entire life--well. Probably the smallest category, the self motivated artist who keeps it fresh through good times and bad, gallery and no gallery, and also engages other artists as well as the surrounding culture.
Most artists who read this will say they are in Category 5. This list is aimed not at you so much as the professional trainspotters who never seem to take these differences into account, resulting in bad survey shows and meaningless constructions of art history.
Good, clearly laid out survey of the chip music scene by Marcin Ramocki, on the vertexList blog. Originally appeared in Yard magazine, with added photos and links. Sample quote: "Many analogue-heads don’t understand the technical concept of making music on Game Boy and confuse it with sampling video-game tunes. This couldn’t be less accurate. Working with a Game Boy tracker is a very complex composition process; perhaps much more demanding because of its 'bare bones' sound library and minimal interfacing."
One correction to Ramocki's post should be made: the second of the two "pioneers of chiptune music" he mentions should properly be identified as the BEIGE collective, consisting of Cory Arcangel, Joe Beuckman, Joe Bonn, and Paul B. Davis. See my post on them from '02.
More: Ramocki's post has been updated with an email from Paul B. Davis giving some detail about who did what on the 8 Bit Construction Set record. This is fascinating stuff for those of us who had our worlds rocked by that disc.
Still more: Davis' update, which seems to be undergoing some revision over on the vertexList blog, says that the 8 Bit Construction Set was Paul's band and
Even more thoughts: while I do find the "who did what" breakdown fascinating, I'm going to continue to live with my illusions that this was a group effort, particularly since the LP did an excellent job of mystifying the consumer and not parsing credit. Cory Arcangel has been good over the years about describing his projects as Beige projects. It's not his fault that art world movers and shakers seem incapable of acknowledging communal authorship. The "Great Men" theory of art history has brought the world so much pain. Whether or not it is "Paul's band"--and I'd like to read some other band members' thoughts on that before laying down some journalistic edict--they all deserve props for an epoch-making work.
Final (?) update. Davis says the following in the comments. Since no one else has come forward with any disagreement I extend him belated and heartfelt congrats for his role in a brilliant record:
hiya tom, while i think you misinterpreted my post a bit and don't need an illusion about the group effort on the record, i'll go to my grave--or rather our deitch enterprises tv/vh1 8bit construction set behind the music special--saying its my band cos i write the tunes [and im a bit proud of them].Davis explained in an email, regarding the earlier wording of the vertexList update: "i wrote the songs myself on the 8bit record [dollars and saucemaster] and as a result cory and i discussed 8bitcs as being 'my band,' but it's definitely not 'my self titled l/p' but 'our self titled l/p' because the record had contributions from everyone." In the email Davis also mentions that he designed the LP cover, which had the "cracker" aesthetic down pat.
it's not normally an issue, one of BEIGE's purposes was to avoid these sorts of things and i take the steady art world goofs about cor's individual role in the 8bitcs project and Nintendo stuff with a grain of salt - it's none of our fault that people don't do their research. it's just that I got forwarded two really bad ones in one day [marcin's and francesco spaminato's essay in the "sound & vision" book] and snapped.
btw, i'd like to announce here that a box of mint condition, 8bit construction set records has recently been found [!] in my parent's basement and will be made available to discriminating art-buyers [sic]. seriously if ppl want one drop me an email paul AT beigerecords DOT com, i dont know how yet cos my pops isn't about to mail them out, but at some point i'll sort it.
