Unfinisheds 2014

Frustrated with so many unfinished and abandoned projects this year, so I made a sculpture out of them.

New in 2014

This year I’ve mostly been busy making videos and stuff for the University of Exeter, arranging my wedding, (not) decorating my house and looking after furry child. However, I have had a chance to do a couple of bits and pieces of video. One is my first attempt at a hand drawn run cycle and the other is a Planet Mu video for Traxman’s amazing new album. It’s an absolute privilege to make visuals for his music, I don’t think there was anyway I could do it justice.

Traxman – Ever And Always from Planet Mu on Vimeo.

Oh Deer! from Jonathan Toomey on Vimeo.

Disintegration Loops

While discussing William Basiniski’s Disintegration Loops recently with friends, it was suggested that his music is art. I hadn’t yet made this distinction between music and art, but it reminded me of Lev Manovich’s essay, The Death of Computer Art. In which Manovich describes the distinction between Fine Art and Computer Art as a difference in the artist application of irony to the materials and or medium. This rang true for me when thinking about the Disintegration Loops because recently when listening to the final recording in the set, during the final two minutes of the fourth disc (approximately five hours into the recordings) my CD began to skip ever so slightly. My recent conversation made me think that if this were music, and not art, I would have been annoyed but instead the disruption seemed somewhat appropriate.

Some music from two thousand and thirteen

I always struggle to commit to an end of the year list, so instead I’ve complied this Youtube playlist of music that has been significant to me and was released in 2013.

Misty Conditions: Dank [2013]

I made this video of incomplete CGI to compliment Misty Conditions’ style of ‘severely damaged’ and ‘fractured’ trap. I wanted the keep the action and any synchronization with the music largely in the background while the foreground elements linger as I intentionally skip edits and hold shots for longer than is perhaps comfortable for an electronica music video. I was inspired by Godard’s rubbish dump aesthetic and feel that the video should perhaps begin with his disclaimer, “this film was found in a rubbish dump”, as I like to this of this piece as electronic post consumer waste found abandoned on the internet. It’s elements are assembled second hand and held together with nails to form a psychedelic collage rather than a sting of highly finessed montages.

“The video adds another dimension to the already psychedelic production, combining swirling backgrounds with animated, headless bodies that seem to be running through an endless landscape. It’s the kind of visual accompaniment that could offer little more than what’s plainly visible, or, with the right mindset, could seem to offer layers of cloudy meaning to explore.” Leo Maymind of XLR8R Magazine

Misty Conditions -‘D’Zzzz’ LP is released on 15/10/13 on Planet Mu Records