Review: The Dark Knight Rises

Bane's weird voice ruins the whole thing.

Taboo1 and Shibito - Gindan no Wakusei [Forbidden Planet]

This is the lead single from Taboo1's Lifestyle Masta LP, which came out in October.  I hadn't seen this before, but between the mind-bending video and great track, including some super-advanced style from Shibito, it's a must-check.

"Transformation" at Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art: Bio-Viewing

I spent about four hours yesterday cruising through the TMOCA exhibit "Transformations," which is ending a the end of this month. It's absolutely essential for anyone with an interest in art, and likely important for anyone who thinks seriously about the show's particular themes - the status of humans in an era of advancing biotechnology. The exhibit deals with things like genetic engineering and artificial limbs, but also more abstract ideas of transformation. It's so full of amazing stuff I didn't have time to fully absorb all of it, much less the energy to keep going to the current display from the permanent collection, so I plan to go again soon.

It's an amazing museum and this exhibit is not to be missed - but there are definitely some problems. The biggest head-scratcher was that Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 is being shown in its entirety on two small LCD screens suspended above an installation, in a gallery room full of film stills. Since the film is still impossible to legally see outside of a museum, this leaves the option of standing for an hour and a half, or sitting against a wall. On top of that, since it's showing in a fully lit gallery instead of a screening room, parts of the occasionally very dark film are just hard to see. Especially since so much space was given to other films, this seems crazy. I can only think of two explanations - either there was an assumption that people have already seen Cremaster 3 and only needed a refresher, or Barney didn't agree to a full-scale screening as part of his broader tendency to limit access to the work.

Masakatsu Takagi

More generally, though, there were just too many films, which led both to viewing fatigue and, worst of all, some sound bleed - particularly in one section where Sputniko!'s techno-pumping installation threatened to break the suspension of disbelief fostered by Masakatsu Takagi's enthralling Ymene.  That work still managed to be the show's greatest discovery for me - conceived as a "bird's-eye-view" video, it uses video manipulation techniques that are completely impossible to describe, and has the visceral impact of a roller coaster ride.  It's mind-bending in the best possible way, and absolutely worth experiencing even in somewhat compromised conditions.

Other highlights included Jan Fabre's amazing self-portrait busts, in which he molds horns of real-life species onto his own head, Lee Bul's somehow acutely Asian robots, and Patricia Piccini's deeply uncanny short about a mermaid.  I'm late enough getting to this show I can't justify a full writeup, but suffice it to say, if you live in Tokyo or will be here in the next few weeks, you owe it to yourself to go.

Life is Decay: Tinymixtapes' Top 25 Album Covers of the Year

A couple of days ago, the main website I write for put out their list of the best 25 album covers of the year. It's a bit of a methadone situation, because I'm anxiously waiting for TMT's best records of the year list (which I voted on and wrote a blurb for) to come out.  But the covers list is interesting in its own right, mainly because this year I really got back into music, and I feel really invested in both a lot of particular records and the general gestalt.  The covers list (which I wasn't involved in) forms an amazingly coherent statement about our life and times, even independent of the records in question, many of which I haven't heard.

oOoOO - oOoOO

The main theme that I was struck by was simply that of imperfection and limitation adding up to something very intentional and careful.  TMT is arguably the biggest site that really has a substantial focus on experimental and "noise" acts (a label that is quickly becoming, like "indie" and "alternative" before it, more about approach and attitude than sound), and the world that today's noise bands live in is one that is decaying.  There's not a more accurate way to try and reflect back the condition of the first world these days, which can basically be divided into those fighting decline (Europe) moping about it (Japan) and living in spirited idiot denial (America).  Either way, this mechanical bull is falling apart.

Teams - We Have a Room With Everything

But it's great to enter the worlds of (visual and musical) artists who neither deny that reality nor accede to it.  2010's best record covers show what's possible with primitive tools, with recycled images, with old aesthetics.  Things get weird, and wonderful, and point toward the possibilities of how to live a more enchanted life even if you have less to live it with.  It's something I struggle with - I just started making real money, and I know that I've foreclosed some portion of joy to get here.  It's a roundabout route to get back to it.

Small Black/Washed Out "You'll See It"/"Despicable Dogs" 7-inch

One way to try and reconnect with the possibility of being happy is to constantly search for the wonderful and strange in the everyday - or even to make it yourself.  I don't think anyone has ever really taken graffiti seriously enough, or done enough street theater, or spent enough time ranting like a madman on a street corner.  We all deserve to live weirder lives.  Some of us have gotten way too comfortable with the idea of 'going out' as this one very regimented way of having a good time.  I think about all this stuff because I've known people who live differently - have collage night!  and sewing circles! and just hang out and jam! and yet somehow I've never quite been that person.  I like to watch TV and play video games, and mostly to read and write.  Sometimes other people scare me.  But there's this amazing world in my head and it's great to see some suggestion that in fact it's in other people too.

Sometimes it's impossible to put our feelings into words - feelings of otherworldliness, of expansiveness, of infinite possibility.  Music is maybe the best way to get those thoughts out into the world, and give them form. But clearly, there are ways to do it visually, too.

Gatekeeper - Giza