Founded in 1996 by poet and dj, Kenneth Goldsmith, ubu.com was originally a site devoted to concrete poetry, but expanded to include music, documents and film. It's a completely free site whose goal is to make experimental and avant-garde works easier to access. The experimental in any art form is often marginalized with little commercial distribution. Ubu.com is a treasure trove of artworks many of which are in the public domain.
I came across this fabulous website recently by way of the remarkable davidbordwell.net cinema site. David is a film scholar who has written many excellent books on cinema and cinema history. He always has interesting comments, guest bloggers and up-to-date links for anything cinema related. And mediahistoryproject.org is no exception.
Basically, the Media History Project describes their site as:
We are a non-profit initiative dedicated to digitizing collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access. The project is supported by owners of materials who loan them for scanning, and donors who contribute funds to cover the cost of scanning. We have currently scanned over 200,000 pages, and that number is growing.
Our Collections feature Extensive Runs of several important trade papers and fan magazines. Click on the arrows below to learn more about these periodicals and select volumes to download and read. You’ll find more material and options at our Collections page.
The site is a treasure-trove for those interested in early Hollywood film/radio history. And all of it is public domain. You can download in pdf or use their excellent reader to read online. I love the many covers of magazines they have archived as well.
This is a young site and deserves your support. Try their blog and sign up for their newsletter. It's a fascinating glimpse into history.
In addition to drawing, writing poetry and creating wonderful animations, Mike also creates his own music. His music for The Fall is really neat (created with toy instruments, I believe). He's created comics using the www.issuu.com publishing site (very cool) and even has a section on his site devoted to puns. I also found his compilation film "Man Dies Goes to Hell" quite amusing and original.
I just love Mike's spirit which comes through beautifully in his website and design. Funny, DIY, retro, imaginative, silly, sad; all of these words come to mind when I visit his site, which I plan to do often. He's got a collection of his animations out called "Baby is Mamas Favorite Toy" which is being sold at another great site called www.crankyyellow.com
I hope I get a chance to work with Mike some day on an animation project. He's the kind of artist I admire. Now, take a look at Mike's version of Albert Camus' The Fall
Came across this remarkable abstract artwork using 2D images projected onto 3D sculpture and also flat paper. The result is a continually moving collage of colors and abstract shapes. Catch it in HD at Vimeo. The creator, Robert Seidel, has a cool website where you can get more info and download the film as well if you want to study it further.
Robert is also the creator of several remarkable abstract films including _grau which has won awards at festivals all over the world.
Madame Tutli-Putli is a stop motion film created in 2007 by Montreal artists Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, known collectively as Clyde Henry Productions and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. I came across it while browsing through the NFB's extra-ordinary online archive of films. It took five years to make and broke new ground in using compositing as part of stop-motion production (the characters eyes were composited on to puppet bodies).
Madame Tutli-Putli has won many film awards around the world including an Oscar nomination in 2008. This is the kind of film I admire and love. It inspires me because it shows how, with hard work and passion, you can create an entire universe using your imagination.
The film is also available at the NFB in HD at this link: http://www.nfb.ca/film/madame_tutli_putli_en
or simply select the drop-down link on the video player below, switch it to HD and go full screen.
