Algorithm Dancing

If you search for "Algorithm March", you will find this particular song & dance that originated in Japan, wherein people begin a set of syncopated movements that result in funny interactive mechanics. It's a cute team exercise exhibiting creative group dynamics (which we like). Below is a version of an adapted dance created in New Zealand called "Algorithm Chores" (which we like even better).

A New Rube (Goldberg)

WeTube de la n0ncha1ance

We've gone ahead and done it. (That is, created a YouTube channel for Nonchalance). Mostly a grab bag of oddball moving images that relate to our art theory & practice, organized into discreet playlists. Enjoy.



URL: http://www.youtube.com/n0ncha1ance

Cinema for your Domepiece: Esoteric & Mind Expanding Film Experiences

With a bizarre slant in cinematic interests, this is my 1st offering of many film lists . Beyond simply being "Art House" or documentary, this index refers to those films possessing a deeper informative component. They represent a visual expression of the theoretical, often issuing a kind of perceptual challenge to the viewer. They are experimental, but also accomplished productions, both memorable and entertaining. Sometimes dry, though, and best saved for those slow days when you're in a specificly idea thirsty mood...

Maschinenträume (Machine Dreams 1988)
A quirky & abstract meditation on the intersections of technology and the human spirit. NY Times Review

Synthetic Pleasures 1995
With good ambient music and a peppering of experts, artists and kooks, an exploration of the human inclination to create technologies intended to "improve" reality, such as cryogenics, Cyber-sex, and A.I. NY Times Review

Jonah who will be 25 in the year 2000 1976
The Swiss film maker Alain Tanner describes his film as "a dramatic tragi-comedy in political science fiction."
NY Times Review

Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees 1992
A bomb-sight grid becomes a honeycomb that becomes a map of the brain. The letters of a riddle float in the air and rearrange themselves into another slogan that seems to answer the first riddle. "Wax" imagines an alternative alphabet used to communicate by the spirits of the dead, as a pseudo-documentary on the development of photography and its relation to the occult. NY Times Review

Citizen 1982
"Follows an ensemble cast on an apparently random journey through a disjointed San Francisco cityscape. Along their travels they encounter a succession of madmen and eccentrics, portrayed by various West Coast performance artists, whose impassioned monologues and improvisations satirize the institutions of contemporary American society". Wikipedia entry - Now available on DVD here!


Slacker
Waking Life
Baraka
The Cruise
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
Apocalypse; Revelations for a New Millennium

I will amend this list soon with more titles, descriptions, and links. Unfortunately, many of these are not released on DVD yet, and therefore unavailable on Netflix. You'll just have to track them down and watch them the old fashioned way: VHS rental or purchase. (Try Reel Video, Facets, or Amazon). Other lists to come include: Arts, "Quirky", Animation, Political, Mainstream, etc etc etc!

Powers of Ten

You may be familiar with the Eames film, Powers of Ten. It's a fine choice then for the subject of one of our first posts here, because it's a fundemental example of the use of media to expand consciousness. This short film, which I remember seeing as a child on PBS, visually exhibited very profound concepts of scale, from the macroscopic to the microscopic and back again.

Apparently the Eames foundation has set up an entire "Powers of Ten" website, where you may view the film, play the game(!), and do other interactive exercises related to these concepts. And this makes us glad.

http://powersof10.com/