NEWSgrist - where spin is art: Posts from May 2009

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Posts from May 2009

May 20, 2009

"Unmonumental" now on Version

Dear Readers,
A selection of five images from the Unmonumental series is now up on Version, an online journal edited by Jordan Crandall and Caleb Waldorf, produced by the Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego:

assemblies. Joy+Garnett .
Unmonumental.051909

Stuff that oozes, creeps,

falls, breaks off, jumps
away from what is intended;
material that (just barely)
falls out of step.

More about V: http://version.org

Version is an online journal for short-form writing and media work. It presents scenes, incidents, encounters, and sensory experiences drawn from everyday life, in which concepts are not only elaborated but enacted.

Version works in close-up, cultivating moods, atmospheres, and various forms of bodily apprehension and awareness. It aims for a quality of intimacy, presence, and affective charge: a material openness to unexpected forms of encounter. At the same time, it works laterally, conducting transversal operations across object-boundaries, attuned to the rhythms, flows, and layered ecologies that constitute the phenomenal world.

Each Version editorial item adheres to the following formal constraint: a maximum of 500 words, 5 images, or 50 seconds.

With its formal and rhetorical approach, Version embodies new patterns of readership and network-enabled economies of attention, which can involve time-constrained multitasking and transversal readings across media venues. It spans specialized discourses, genre categories, and disciplinary divides, while encouraging the reception, rearrangement and redistribution of its material in new social networks and assemblages. It is less a bounded publication than an editorial ecology -- a dynamic system through which unexpected editorial properties and forms can emerge.

[read on...]

May 20, 2009 at 07:10 AM in Art of Advertising, Art World, Ephemera, Found-Art, Publications, Vernacular, Web Projects | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 19, 2009

First Listen, "Dark Night of the Soul": Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse (w. David Lynch)

via NPR.org (thanks Barry!):

Exclusive First Listen: Danger Mouse And Sparklehorse Team Up With David Lynch
Hear The Year's Most Mysterious Album In Its Entirety, Weeks Before Its Release

By Robin Hilton

Hear The Entire Album: 'Dark Night Of The Soul'

add to playlist

Hear Individual Tracks From The Album

Official Site For 'Dark Night Of The Soul'

NPR.org, May 15, 2009 - When the first cryptic bits of news about Dark Night of the Soul began trickling in earlier this year, it all sounded too good to be true. Though the whole project was shrouded in mystery, it appeared that Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, two of the most inspired artists making music today, were collaborating on a new album. That alone was enough to get our geek gears spinning with excitement. But there was an unusual twist that few of us at NPR Music could make sense of: Director David Lynch was somehow involved.

It all started back in March, at the South by Southwest music festival and conference. A number of us on the NPR Music team had noticed strange posters around downtown Austin, Texas, that read "Dark Night of the Soul." They looked like movie posters and had David Lynch's name on them, alongside names of some of our favorite artists, like Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, Vic Chesnutt, Jason Lytle and more. We wondered if it was some sort of musical film.

Soon after our Austin trip, NPR Music received copies of the mysterious posters in the mail. No return address. Someone was messing with us. I tried to find out more, but had zero success. Then, weeks later, I finally got a note from a publicist with all the details we'd been waiting for.

It turns out Dark Night Of The Soul is an album and the songs were written by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, though the myriad singers featured on each track also had a big hand in composing and producing the work. The album was initially going to be packaged with a book of photos taken by David Lynch. But now there's word that the music may never be officially released at all.

An unnamed spokesperson for Danger Mouse says that "due to an ongoing dispute with EMI" the book of photographs will "now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: 'For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'" When contacted, EMI declined to comment and wouldn't confirm whether the label is even involved in the project.

You can order the book, sans music, from the official Dark Night Of The Soul Web site. In the meantime, you can hear the entire album here on NPR Music as an Exclusive First Listen.

I've listened to the record all the way through at least a dozen times, and can confirm that Dark Night of the Soul delivers in every way you'd hope for. It's beautiful but haunting, surreal and dark, but sometimes comical and affecting, with ear-popping, multilayered production work. It just gets more mesmerizing with every listen.

In addition to Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, other artists appearing on Dark Night of the Soul include James Mercer of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, David Lynch, and Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Gerbils.