SFBG. Video Mutants.

"Video is exploding, and the mutants have taken over the means of production," writes Johnny Ray Huston, introducing the San Francisco Bay Guardian's video issue. "YouTube ululations, Day-Glo animation, and crazed acts of appropriation are stretching like Shmoo from black boxes to boob tubes to white cubes and from laptop screens to live performances. Each video-active blast favors impulse and expression over obedience to old conventions - and further blurs forms and styles."

He then offers an overview of Douglas Gordon: Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work from about 1992 until Now, on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through February 24, and previews Zidane: A Twenty-First Century Portrait, screening at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from February 1 through 7.

Also, "[Kalup] Linzy has stolen the show at a number of New York group exhibitions, and he's represented by a gallery in Manhattan, Taxter and Spengemann. But his work and creative identity extend beyond traditional art spaces via YouTube, an official Web site, and two different MySpace accounts." Samples pepper Johnny's interview with Linzy at Pixel Vision.

Then: "[Stephen] Thrower's [Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents, Fab Press, 528 pages, $79.95] deserves a spot next to Carlos Clarens's An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (Capricorn, 1967), Carol Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws (Princeton University Press, 1992), Michael Weldon's The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film (Ballantine, 1983), and Bill and Michelle Landis's Sleazoid Express (Simon and Schuster, 2002) on a healthily horrific bookshelf. Its closest relative in terms of loose format and interview content might be Incredibly Strange Films (RE/Search, 1986), but Thrower casts aside V Vale's coolness for the passion found in Danny Peary's series of Cult Movies books."

Kimberly Chun: "[Mike] Kelley's work can be found in major museum collections around the world, and he's collaborated on video pieces with artists like Paul McCarthy in the past, but Day Is Done, which screens Jan 31 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, is his first feature, revamped as a narrative-ish stream from the installation version shown in 2005 at Gagosian Gallery in New York City."

Cheryl Eddy talks with Damon Packard about SpaceDisco One and other works, which you can sample here.

"[A]nyone who's recently hung out with a certain brand of cued-in, mid-20s clubber knows that the neon-splattered, inverted Internet psycho-vids of Ryan Trecartin are the new now," writes Marke B. Plus, an interview. Earlier: Holland Carter in the New York Times.

"It wasn't until I stumbled across an early viral video, This and That by Chris Crocker (of 'Leave Britney alone!' fame), that I seriously considered making one for the Internet," writes Miles Cooper of the Passionistas. "It wasn't necessarily erotic, but there was something completely invading about Crocker's gaze into the webcam - it was as though he activated that little gray box perfectly. He had the excitement of a Pinocchio with his strings recently cut and the entertaining intent of a sociopath like Chucky. I knew this was a car crash waiting to happen, and I immediately became addicted to Crocker's videos."

Johnny Ray Huston wraps the package with a list, "Video Mutants: Eight for 2008," and naturally, a bit of online viewing: Paper Rad's umbrella zombie datamosh mistake.

Posted by dwhudson at January 28, 2008 11:45 AM