uP and Down

Video Takeover: Borna Sammak's "Best Buy"

origianlly posted on rhizome.org: By Ceci Moss on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 10:30 am.




Borna Sammak's debut solo show "Best Buy" took place last night for an exclusive two hour stint in the Soho location of electronics mega-retailer Best Buy. Thirteen of his vibrant and hallucinogenic high-definition "video paintings" were displayed on every single television on the lower level floor, making for an incredible (and gloriously surreal) sight. I snapped a few photos of the installation, below. To read the full backstory behind the show, check this interview with Borna Sammak and curator Thomas McDonell, conducted by artist Kari Altmann.

Alva Noë interview June 2008

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Nothing

I feel like I have nothing and nothing is going absolutely no where.

Nothing seems to make sense, but I keep looking for something. I don't think you can see the subtleties of this video with this resolution. There is disturbance, something unsettling. It feels like nothing.

I am hoping that this nothing will manifest towards something, if not into something. Every ten minutes I have, I watch it again. I move things. I write. I try to make sense of why I keep toying with this footage. Is it the footage or the idea?

Just a little bit every day, right? That will steer the gray matter.

a Chilean September 11th

We were on our way to a barbecue, to commemorate the day that the Pinochet took power in 1973 and many people went missing, were killed, tortured ... The idea of this happening is foreign to me. The smiles and lollipops land warns of terrorism and "fights" it abroad so that it will never reach our soil. It is so removed from my consciousness.


So the bus we took passed by Estadio Nacional: one of the torture camps run by the dictatorship. The stadium is still used today for soccer games. To me, I thought that was horrible - the American that I am who must sensationalize everything, but the Chileans explained it as "moving on", not allowing the past to dictate what we do in the present. Anyhow, we were passing the stadium and the bus stopped and I said, This is what September 11th is - as we watched the vigil. Do you want to get off?, Mati asked me. We jumped out of our seats and out the door.

in fact, I know.

I realize that my last few posts have not only been few and far between, but also much more like news announcements (actually, they have been just that) rather than blog posts. I don't like it either.

Life is funny though. Even when you are seemingly not busy, these things that you enjoy so much, seem as though you can't do them. Perhaps your brain won't relax enough for it to happen, or perhaps you just feel that you want to give it your all and you just simply don't have the time for it. But all the while, you truly aren't that busy ...

The winter here in Santiago is rough. It isn't really that cold, especially considering the time I spent in Chicago and Alfred, but it is bone cold inside the buildings. Energy gets sucked from you. I find myself overcome with exhaustion in the middle of the day. I even make "I'm cold" sounds, when it isn't that cold - just habit, by now, I guess.

The pollution will wipe one out as well. I come home and am amazed at how dirty my clothes have become after just one wear. Every time I wash my hands, I almost cringe at the dark, black, and gray running water from them. I try to keep my nails as short as possible otherwise the dirt and grime gets stuck, almost immediately upon leaving the house.

You would think that after the loooooooong and hard winters I have endured in other places (mentioned above), the mild weather conditions would be welcome. And yes, they are! I enjoy the fact that I don't need a winter coat, my fall jacket and a scarf work just fine. But with the experiences mentioned earlier, I am all too eager for spring to show its face. Do they have Groundhog's Day here?

I have said before that Santiago is a city of contradictions. Its winter is more proof of my very premature theory.

New on VideoChannel: One Minute Film Collection (OMFC)

VideoChannel - video project environments - is happy to launch on 3 August 2009 another highlight online.

OMFC (One Minute Film Collection) is an ongoing project initiative chief curated
by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne featuring at its start
67 films and videos with a duration of exactly one minute.

There are several thematic sections. Here is where "the Delay" is found:

A Matter of Time (rather appropriate grouping for it, don't ya think?)

Johanna Reich (Germany), Anders Weberg (SWE), Ron Diorio (USA),
Bill Domonkos (USA), Xenia Vargova (Bulgaria), Alison Williams (SA)
Walter Van Rijn (UK), Nicole Rademacher (USA)
Baptist Coelho (India), Milica Rakic (Serbia)