Field Recordings by Courtney Egan

"Field Recordings" video still lifes by New Orleans artist Courtney Egan

MicroCinema rocks!

I love Andrea Grover! Although she is no longer running the Aurora Picture Show she can be found here.

Oh Goodness, Excerpts from Robert Ashley's "Perfect Lives"

While searching for interesting things out there in cyberspace, I stumbled on the art blog "Bloggy" who had Robert Ashley's work from the 1980's posted. It made me think fondly of Laurie Anderson, Allen Ginsberg, and all the possibilities that low tech offers.

AND the WINNER is...........

Thanks to all of you who have posted and emailed us your comments about our new Hot Sauce and Magnolia short video festival. After a random selection, our winner of a HSM silkscreened t-shirt by Happy Camper Designs goes to Cheryl Fox of Perdido Bay Florida. Congratulations Cheryl! Again thanks to all of you for your support, without you there would be no point!

Stay Tuned!

Thank yo u for all of your comments and for passing "Hot Sauce & Magnolias" along to other viewers. We will select a winner for a silk screened t-shirt in the coming weeks. Stay Tuned!

Hot Sauce & Magnolias-THROW ME SOMETHING MISTER

The festival, Hot Sauce & Magnolias, can now be viewed in full on our website!

With the approach of Mardi Gras, we thought we'd throw some free stuff out there! Wanna win a litt'le somthin'!? Its as easy as
1) watching Hot Sauce & Magnolias (link below)
2) email us your thoughts or post a comment below
3) winning a silk screened t shirt, DEADLINE FEB. 28th 2010

Plugged will randomly select an email and will throw you a custom made silk screened t shirt made by Happy Camper designs. Please share with us your thoughts about the Hot Sauce Festival in general, your favorite artist, or why you dig it.

Click here to watch duration 20 mins.

Hot Sauce & Magnolias: A Southern Experience

Well we have finally selected the videos for next year's touring festival. There was alot of diversity as well as student work submitted this go around. This was the first time that we focused on a region of the United States, rather than an international call, and so we had to get creative for how to put out our call.

Targeting Arts Councils, local art blogs, art reviewers, proved to be super time consuming and unfruitful to say the least. I found that many Arts councils either forgot or don't know the role they play to their local artists and rarely post opportunities for artists. And the art blogs for regional areas were few and far between. So we relied on the university network to spread the word. But hello, look out Recession, the university climate is pretty grim. Perhaps our art educators were too busy running around thinking "the Sky is Falling" or playing the role of 2 or 3 faculty members to think about their artwork or reviewing their students submissions. Times are serious!

Although disappointed in the overall numbers of submissions we received this year, we kept our heads focused and were determined to choose quality over quantity. Most of all I was excited by the generous suggestions made by the artists of where to show Hot Sauce in their hometowns.

Tune In

This is a great site where you can view various art video channels. The channels are from various art institutions such as Los Angeles Hammer Museum or San Fransisco's MOMA. On view are various art talks held at the museums and galleries, interviews with artists and gallery directors.

Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus

In light of our call to artists "HOT SAUCE & MAGNOLIAS: A Southern Experience", I found a unique documentary that comes pretty close to encapsulating a potent aspect of the mysterious American South. "Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus" (2003) combines many cinematic genres from documentary, drama, music video, to experimental narrative creating a surreal lens for the viewer. This combination of genres aids the viewer to remain present, relinquishing the voyeuristic tendencies that come with the "documentary genre". By the honest nature of the filmmakers and the overall tone of the film, judgment is checked at the door while experiencing this film. Also, a full experience is created not only visually but through the filmmakers creative use of sound. The narrative is weaved in and out layered over long stretches of farmland, swamps, trailers, abandoned cars and shots of local people. The soundtrack is often performed live by local musicians that become part of the storyline like the subjects of the film, bringing them from the hidden backyards of America to the forefront of our experience.

The filmmakers, director Andrew Douglas and writer Steve Haisman, are guided through the small towns of the South with musician Jim White who's poetic commentary sets a tone for reflection, spirit, good, evil, poverty, redemption & beauty. Douglas and Haisman's portrayal of the American South is a delicate piece of art that captures a unique glimpse of America's poorest people doing the best with what they have with a universal truth that we are all searching for something.

If you are intrigued, visit their website for more info about the film and musicians here. This film can be found on NetFlix. Here is a clip. There are more on Youtube.

Open Sailing Project

Open Sailing's project revolves around a new vision of how humans can live without stressing the resources of the environment instead folding humans back into our origins, the ocean . In Open Sailing's model for living there is an art to everyday life. The studying of the ocean, the animals, the social element of living together, the designing of tools, a universal power cord, architecture, cooking, above all there is an art to the efficiency and reversal of the destructive nature of contemporary culture's residue. Here is a video by Open Sailing introducing their project and an exerpt of the project's creator Cesar Harada speaking about the concept, mission, and goals of Open Sailing.

Open_Sailing 4 minutes concept from cesar harada on Vimeo.

Open_sailing @ v2_ Rotterdam, 2009/07/09
Uploaded by cesarharada. - Explore more science and tech videos.