...and the winner is CUFF Awards

CUFF, The 13th Chicago Underground Film Festival concluded on Thursday August 23rd with an informal awards party held at the Uncommon Ground coffee house a few blocks from the Music Box Theater.
The three person festival jury consisted of former CUFF programmer Brian Mckenndry, Clara Alcott, curator of film, video and installation work at Chicago’s Heaven Gallery and Brian Chanken owner of Odd Obsession Video, Chicago’s leading video store for alternative cinema. In addition to the Jury Awards and Audience Award was selected based on ballots of festival attendees.
We notice with pleasure that two good friends of Directors Lounge are among the winners.
SAVE, by Roger Warren Beebe won as best Experimental and NICE BOMBS, directed by Usama Alshaibi, as best Documentary.

still from SAVE by Roger Warren Beebe, 2005 USA 5:00 DVD

SAVE, was shown in february as part of our ongoing screening project Urban Research, curated by Klaus W. Eisenlohr, at Directors Lounge 2006, Berlin and recently in Poznan and London.
"A disused gas station offers a curious imperative to passersby: 'SAVE.' A riddle posed in the form of architecture: what is there to save? One more installment in the history of Americans pointing their cameras at gas stations; an attempt to figure out something about where we've been, where we're headed, and what's been left behind.
The first part of "S A V E" was edited entirely in camera."
2005, USA, 16mm/ DVD, 5 mins, colour, sound

NICE BOMBS 92 minutes, Directed by Usama Alshaibi

In Nice Bombs filmmaker Usama Alshaibi returns to Baghdad to reunite with his family after nearly 24 years. This documentary navigates through his unique relationship to an Iraq that is much different than the country of his childhood.
Usama captures the conflicting reactions to the conditions of life in Baghdad. Through a wide range of opinions and experiences he provides a broad panorama of voices long neglected under Saddam’s regime.
His cousin Tareef enters the room upon hearing an explosion. “It’s a bomb. A Nice Bomb,” he explains. The phrase is indicative of his family’s nonchalance about their situation. As one young boy put it, “We’re Iraqis. It’s normal.”
With humor and resilience Nice Bombs explores Usama’s dual role as both Iraqi and American.
We hope to featutre the work of Usama Alshaibi in our forthcoming screenings.

2006 CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL WINNERS

Narrative Feature: BULLDOG IN THE WHITEHOUSE Director Todd Verow

Narrative Short: PAUL AND THE BADGER EPISODE #1 Director Paul Tarrago

Documentary Feature: NICE BOMBS Director Usama Alshaibi

Documentary Short: IN LOVING MEMORY Director Robert Todd

Experimental: S A V E Director Roger Bebee

Animation: HOW SHE SLEPT AT NIGHT Director Lili Carre

“Made In Chicago” Award: A LOVER’S DISCOURSE Director Tim Kinsella

Audience Award: DANIELSON: A FAMILY MOVIE Director JL Aronson

Special Jury Prizes:

THE WILD CONDITION directed by Rolf Belgum

ANIMAL MOTHER Director Jasmine Way

JEAN GENET IN CHICAGO Director Frederic Moffet


congrats to all from Team Directors Lounge

related: Usama & Kristie Alshaibi • NICE BOMBS • London calling

Travelling Games Yoshio Itagaki







"I have created an imaginary tableaux of tourists on the moon and inside video games, taking snapshots and posing for the camera. I am intrigued by this activity that so many people from different countries and backgrounds all engage in. "Tourists on the Moon" and "Traveling Games" both examine the compulsions of a document oriented society. Tourists in particular feel a need to "prove" their experience by documenting themselves within the spectacular or famous scene. Taking an ironic position, I am both amused by and critical of the insatiable human appetite for sensation and novelty." Yoshio Itagaki

Born in Nagoya, Japan, Yoshio Itagaki grew up in Okazaki, Nara and Tokyo, Japan and Bangkok, Thailand, and currently lives and works in New York City.

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Eric Gill

Gill (1882-1940) was a gifted sculptor, engraver, illustrator, letterer, writer, and typographer. It's the latter for which he's best known today - Gill Sans is a very common sans-serif typeface created by Eric Gill and published by the Monotype Corporation between 1928 and 1930. Based on Edward Johnston's Johnston typeface for the London Underground, Gill Sans is widely admired for its quiet gracefulness and versatility.
It was notably used by the London and North Eastern Railway and later by British Railways and the odds are overwhelmingly good that you have at least one of his typefaces on your computer right now. (Gill Sans is a preloaded font in Microsoft Office, and included with Mac OS X.)
Gill's devout Roman Catholicism did not prevent him from living a bohemian lifestyle and taking lovers.
A deeply religious man, Eric Gill published numerous essays on the relationship between art and religion. He also produced a number of erotic engravings.
Gill died in Uxbridge, Middlesex in 1940. His headstone, on his grave near Pigotts, identifies him simply as a "stone carver"

pics via rare erotica
more works at Tate

Van Gogh´s photo realism

An air of mystery and fascination has surrounded Vincent Van Gogh ever since his death. Until today, the only photographs that existed of Van Gogh were from his teenage years....In Brussels around 1886, photographer Victor Morin took a number of photographs of local clergymen. Among these photos was a portrait of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to the figure in many of Van Gogh’s self-portraits, leading some to speculate that this photo might be of the artist himself. Before the time of this photograph, Vincent’s self portraits were obviously “eyeballed” (to commandeer David Hockney’s phrase) and did not have a strong sense of realism. However, subsequent self-portraits were as close to photo-realism as impressionist paintings could be. Is it possible that Van Gogh used Morin’s photograph as a guide to painting these new, realistic self-portraits? Some experts now believe that the artist may, in fact, have used the photo along with optical projection as a guide when creating these paintings. This possibility is underscored by the fact that when the Morin photograph and some of Van Gogh’s self portraits are overlaid, the close resemblance is hard to deny. If this newly found photograph does indeed turn out to be of the adult Van Gogh, and if it could be proven that optical projection was used by this great impressionist, the implications could change art history.



If Van Gogh used optics to trace his image from the photograph, how could he have done it? Techniques for optically transferring an image include using glass (a primitive lens), a concave mirror (another primitive lens), or a camera obscura or camera lucida. Van Gogh could have used any of these to project his photo onto canvas for tracing. Roger Vaughan, of The Camera Lucida Company in Great Britain, sent us a camera lucida to try some experiments for ourselves. We took the camera lucida and used it to make the sketch from the Van Gogh photograph.
Camera lucida tracing of the Van Gogh photograph laid over the Saint-Rémy self-portrait with 50% opacity. The tracing is directly taken from the photograph except that the right eye was adjusted so that it’s looking at the viewer as in Van Gogh’s many self-portraits.

Continue reading at the always excellent Neatorama.
The article, written by Anthony Sapienza, originally appeared in full-length format in the premiere issue of Seventh Hour Blues, a music & arts magazine.

the fairest fowl



This one, from the personal works of Tamara Staples, flies out to our fluffy fellows.
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where ships go to die Edward Burtynsky

End of the line: With one of the world's longest beaches, Chittagong is Bangladesh's biggest port. Half of the world's supertankers are disassembled here. When the tide is high, vessels are driven at full speed toward the shore. Once the water recedes and the ships rest along the muddy beach, the salvage crews move in, emptying the vessels of everything on board. Conditions in the shipyards are dangerous. Many workers are barefoot and without gloves, carefully avoiding razor-sharp metal, hot steel, and pollutants. For all its hazards, the shipbreaking industry employs, directly or indirectly, an estimated 200,000 Bangladeshis.
From the photo essay "End of the line"
More shipbreaking images here.
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Scam baiting

Scam baiting is the practice of pretending interest in a fraudulent scheme in order to manipulate a scammer. The purpose of scam baiting might be to waste the scammers' time, embarrass them, cause them to reveal information which can be passed on to legal authorities in the hope that they will be prosecuted, get them to spend money, or simply to amuse the baiter. A common status symbol among scam baiters is the collection and display of a photographic "trophy," a picture ostensibly taken of the scammer, usually while holding custom made signs. Lee Mayr, previously mentioned here, is such a collector of photographies. A small collection can be found on her blog. More portraits in the hall of shame, published by 419eater, and a even more bizarre collection of money shots (no phun intended) here.

Vincent Fournier






more here and here

Happy B-day Gatochy enchanting the internet since two years

One may wonder that gatochy´s blog, the daily stop for everyone who´s mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives, does not exist since we invented the internet. No wonder since gatochy (portuguese for virtual cat) is among the most acclaimed places for anybody interested into cats, vintage and all the essentials a culture addicted katz need on a daily base. Congrats as well to Mariana, the charming queen behind gatochy (but as every cat owner knows, there are no cat owners) Happy B-day you two :)

Des images à plusieurs voix Gerald Garbez










A stunning selection of photographies from different workgroups by Gerald Garbez at purpose mag.

The pleasures of cuisine and cunnilingus Marilyn Minter

Marilyn Minter has been considering representations and ramifications of glamour for the last thirty years, but it is worth considering just what is connoted by the word. Minter, it seems, defines this concept by the book, or at least intuitively leans toward its etymological truth, which aligns glamour with magic spells and illusory attractiveness—never with fictional ideas that propose glamour as some kind of natural condition. All of which is to say that Minter has been plumbing the depths of (al)chemical beauty (and its breakdowns) for a very long time...In conjunction with her practice of photography, Minter makes paintings (enamel on metal), showing a special interest in Photo-Realist methods of representation. Culling imagery from cooking shows, porn videos, and beauty advertisements, the artist posits a visual continuity between seemingly disjunctive sensual experiences. By intentionally conflating the pleasures of cuisine and cunnilingus, Minter renders straightforward yet ambiguous images that shore up the constructed nature of their meanings.

read more see more

Fashion photography of North Korea



more beauty here

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tonight´s the night: a summer evening with Telemach Wiesinger & Andreas Gogol

As always, a little pointer for those staying in Berlin, tonight´s the night for LANDED TAKES & SOUND TIMES, a live performance by Telemach Wiesinger (Film) & Andreas Gogol (Sound). This charming combo of strange little movies, brought to life by the stunning scores of Andreas Gogol while they are running, should by no way be missed if you are in town. If you are elsewhere, move over to Directors Lounge television to see excerpts from LANDED TAKES & SOUND TIMES as presented on Directors Lounge 2006.

Baiz Christinenstr. 1 (Ecke Torstrasse) 10119 Berlin
tonight, thurs august 24th 9pm

more here
related entry

for no specific reason




digged at muza sun

George Petty 1947

George Petty, widely acclaimed among bloggers after ASIFA posted George Petty's Ridgid Tools Calendars, is back with another dozen beauties: The George Petty 1947 Calendar Girls. George Petty was one of the top "cheesecake" illustrators of the 30s and 40s. He began his career with a series of cartoons featuring beautiful girls and their far from handsome beaus. His work coined the term "Petty Girls" to describe the carefully airbrushed girls with brilliant smiles and sexy poses. He left Esquire, to be replaced by Alberto Vargas, and became a freelance commercial artist. His girls soon ended up gracing magazine ads and calendars for such unlikely products as Tung-Sol Radio Tubes and the aptly named, Ridgid Tools.

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everybody loves kiss




everybody loves kiss, a blog with a theme
submit your kiss
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Ladies Weapons Antonio Riello

One more fashion shot: Ladies Weapons by Antonio Riello. "Using leopard skins, brightly lacquered colors, inset jewels and fake furs, I create a range of specialized items for wives of mafia bosses, arms dealers, sophisticated ladies and exigent soldiers....hybrids born from Italian obsession for high fashion as well as for violence". More at Hoard Magazine.
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hat attack

PlaceboKatz isn´t exactly known as a fashion magazine but a bunch of beautiful ladies with delightful hats is reason enough to point to tomorrows fashion party at the Rote Loge. Next to the exceptional hat creations by Evelin Mauff are collections by Tabea design, Phinale and Catwizzel on the smallest catwalk of the world.
The Big Surprise, a jazz combo will deliver the musical score for this fashionable evening.

august 23rd 8pm
Rote Loge Berlin
Simon-Dachstrasse 22, (next to Revalerstrasse)

Liquid image Udo Rathke

Udo Rathke, who did a mesmerizing screening last week as part of our row of summer screenings, will exhibit videopaintings, c-prints and drawings at Inter-Galerie, Potsdam from august 26th till october 7th.

"Udo Rathke’s work endeavors to reflect artistically on the inner and outer experience with nature in an abstract process, and to metaphorically increase its emotional substance...Completely constructed from color and made on irregular, found fragments of paper, his paintings refuse to depict any concrete or representational reference to an object... Inspired by the idyllic landscapes of Lorrain and Poussin, older works, in the compositional tectonics of their sensitively balanced concept of color, thoroughly create a pictorial harmony. This eventually fades, while the suggestive atmospheric value of the ever-unfolding landscape of color intensifies.


In the new work, the association of the landscape becomes more fleeting, less definite, the interest in composition decreases, as does any spatial indications and the flow of linear registrations becomes softer and more gestural. Limiting himself to a few, evenly distributed, rich nuances of color, above all blue - the color of desire, as such - produces an almost monochrome quality that works with grades of tonal values, like printmaking. In addition to works on paper that are austere and coolly bright, there are dark, mysterious works that are restrained, darkly over-painted, where memory seems to fade, and others that create a beguiling appeal of color - in this case, mostly an incredibly intense ultramarine....In a slow, endless flow of time, the painting process of layering the paint becomes a real metamorphosis that, in the use of the most modern technique, invokes natural processes of suggestive richness of atmosphere."
Ralf Weingart (full text here)




"Liquid Image" at Inter-Galerie, Nikolaisaal Potsdam
Wilhelm Staab Str. 10/11
august 26th till october 7th
opening august 25th, 8pm

shots from Udo Rathke (screening) & micronaut (guitar/samples) at Kunsthaus Meinblau, august 17th

related entries here and here

Hotel Bed Jumping what´s going on in YOUR hotel bed?

When we walk into a hotel guestroom for the first time there are elements that we form an opinion on immediately. Many will agree that the bed is the biggie. We always want to the room to have a sweet bed. This Site Celebrates Hotel Beds. And we poke fun at them too.
There is something completely intoxicating about today’s hotel bed. Plush, deep, luscious, thick…and oh so bouncy. Don’t deny yourself the indulgent luxury of taking a running start and launching up over that mattress and box-spring that will surely propel you back up into the stratosphere.
Hotel Bed Jumping. It’s naughty. It’s fun. Just remember check out is at 11:00.
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LANDED TAKES & SOUND TIMES

Directors Lounge presents:a summer evening with ...
Telemach Wiesinger (film) & Andreas Gogol (acoustic performance)

thurs august 24th 9pm at Baiz

LANDED TAKES & SOUND TIMES, a live performance by Telemach Wiesinger (Film) & Andreas Gogol (Sound)
On the road a lot due to his photographic work, Telemach Wiesinger decided to take a small reel of 16mm film on each of his trips around the world. In every country he carefully selected a location and his contributors (not to say performers!) and captured a scene of 2 minutes and 45 seconds each. Andreas Gogol joined Telemach Wiesinger in putting together their own journey based on the collected episodes and combining them in a new imaginary space.
Rather than a document one trip, one town or one country, LANDED TAKES & SOUND TIMES creates the impression of a travel journal, allowing a glimpse through the eyes of the traveller.
During screening, Andreas Gogol composes live on his instruments. He interacts with the film and makes the artists rich version of cinema visible. Each performance creates ann entirely new experience.

don´t miss it if you are in town
Baiz Christinenstr. 1 (Ecke Torstrasse) 10119 Berlin
thurs august 24th 9pm

to get an idea see excerpts from LANDED TAKES & SOUND TIMES as presented on
Directors Lounge 2006 thurs 16th february here

Félix Larher






photographies and collages by Félix Larher
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