Saturday 17 April 2010

Martha Rosler: Semiotics of the Kitchen

Gosh! ... really wish I'd found this in time for the lecture on Phenomenology and Semiotics of the House...oh, well...maybe next year...



Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen - 1975

From A to Z, Rosler "shows and tells" the ingredients of the housewife's day, giving us a tour that names and mimics the ordinary with movements more samurai than suburban. Rosler's slashing gesture as she forms the letters of the alphabet in the air with a knife and fork, is a rebel gesture, punching through the "system of harnessed subjectivity" from the inside out.  "I was concerned with something like the notion of Ôlanguage speaking the subject,' and with the transformation of the woman herself into a sign in a system of signs that represent a system of food production, a system of harnessed subjectivity."

—Martha Rosler

...and Semiotics of the Art Student



'This film is a new twist on the classic pice of video art, "Semiotics of the Kitchen" by Martha Rosler. This film pokes fun at life as an art student, and all that is expected from us.'

[This and other videos that are not specifically related to my place/space seminars can be found on my new Youtube Channel Fathomspace.  I set this up so that I could 'store' other videos for various lectures to other groups.]

Two Videos by Tal Rosner: Doppelganger and Without You

Doppelganger



Without You

Wednesday 7 April 2010

Gil Scott Heron: Me And The Devil

Living in NYC I lost count of how many times this particular city was, and still is, a 'character' in the music business and entertainment industry.  We lived in DUMBO [meaning: Down Under Manhattan Bridge] an underpopulated and 'artsy' area at the time - many, many rap vids were filmed there down my street.  In spite of that and the persistence of Manhattan as film backdrop: the subway/graffiti/homelessness and disaffected youth - all cliches really - this video from GSH is startling in representing these concepts of urban realism in a monochrome, graphic language, replete with Shepard Fairey imagery and skull/Day of the Dead iconography - it's pure genius.  The album is also stunning.