Apparently (or so says my girlfriend) I am getting a new DVD in the mail from Blocks Recording Club that compiles 14 projection works that accompany or illustrate music from some of their bands:
Projected Lights is a DVD of Toronto’s shadow play and projection performance scene featuring fourteen works from: Shary Boyle, the Singing Saw Shadow Show, Steph Comilang and Final Fantasy, Yuula Benivolski & Zeesy Powers, Jordan Somers feat. Sandro Perri, Exploding Motor Car and Winston Hacking, Jamie Shannon, Renee Lear and Peter Venuto.
Whether its with overhead projectors, hand manipulated film loops & video, mirror reflections or straight-up lights and shadows, the collection showcases works by artists pursuing a hands-on approach to the moving image.
I’m really excited about it, not only because I’ve seen a bunch of the work in person and think it’s captivating and beautiful, but also because it’s supposed to include a cleaned up, pro version of one of my favourite music videos of all time: Final Fantasy’s “This Lamb Sells Condos.”
Shary Boyle, The Clearances , 2007 ,
installation view at Southern Alberta Art Gallery
It also doesn’t hurt that Shary Boyle, who can do no wrong in my eyes, is also involved.
I’ve been interested in the link between artists turning to obsolete and antiquated methods to create projections and animations, and the way that the indie, DIY music scene – particularly in Toronto – has embraced these artists’ work to illustrate and accompany their music. I’m sure it’s related to the link between these same musicians and their use of “naive” or hand-drawn posters and promotional materials as well (such as Seripop‘s totally awesome screenprint posters for Montreal bands – watch out: their website might give you a seizure).
I think it’s informed by an interest on the part of the bands to align themselves with the boho, rough-and-ready aesthetic that accompanies the aura around the artists, but I think it might also have to do with a common interest in returning to older or antiquated forms of music-making as well. Almost as though, in reaction to the preponderance of “professional” digital media that’s available to consumers, artists and musicians alike are rejecting the new and easy and embracing the old, time-consuming and labour-intensive in order to reinvest their work with something that may have been left behind in the sprint forward into technotopia.
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