Shorts (w/ WALKING video, CHTHONIC BOOM)

Subject : "The Weirdo Maker" - Another video experiment
Posted Date: : 30 Mar 2008, 17:47

Shelfy seemed surprised that I’d already posted a video on MySpace BEFORE I’d even got my hands on his new movie camera!

Well, the first one ("THE USE OF STRIPES") was shot using the fifteen-second ’movie’ option on my Nikon digital camera, and then making loops out of the results.

This one, "THE WEIRDO MAKER" is entirely computer-generated, a sort of digital painting-cum-animation set to a woozy, jazzy and hitherto untitled piece of music that I had lying around (no doubt waiting for such an opportunity to make itself useful). The painting, as it turns out, is very much influenced by a recent exhibition entitled "A Rational Aesthetic: The Systems Group & Associated Artists" (CATCHY TITLE!), but don’t tell THEM that or they’ll only get bigheaded about it.

Note: none of these videos are on MySpace anymore, but the 'animated painting' idea led to this
http://www.myspace.com/video/pedanticpedestrian/light-relief-no-1/31435071

Subject : Minimalist video for minimalist music
Posted Date: : 29 Mar 2008, 07:37
I’ve tossed off this "film" (>>> see "My Videos") to accompany a 1995 piece called "THE USE OF STRIPES" (or at least a little bit of it). The tune is one of those minimalist loopy experiments of mine, that originally went on for decades, now benefiting from the digital razor blade that is the modern wave editor. The video features my legs, Gosport’s gum-bedecked high street and very little else really.

Note: the original video was scrapped, but the idea was worth preserving. The above is a later remake.

Subject : Chthonic Boom
Posted Date: : 03 Mar 2008, 16:13
I decided to post the piece "CHTHONIC BOOM" on the player, even though it's 'technically' a WORK IN PROGRESS. I can't decide whether it is finished or not. It's like a collage or a sculpture. It may have more added to it. Or it may not. Usually with 'works' like this, I like to go away and forget about it for a few weeks or months, and then see if I still like it when I hear it afresh. But it's got SOMETHING about it. Maybe it'll inspire a FREAKY FILM idea from our Shelfy. Who knows? Certainly not he... "CHTHONIC" is a real word, by the way - it's from the Greek "KHTHON", pertaining to the Gods of the Underworld. "As enny fule kno..."

Note: This music did eventually get applied to some Shelfy video clips, as you will see here -

http://www.myspace.com/video/pedanticpedestrian/chthonic-boom-ext-1-nasapod-animation/40166522

http://www.myspace.com/video/pedanticpedestrian/chthonic-boom-ext-2-bleeg-film/40166918

Stop Press, or PS, or whatever.... "What Has Happened To Chthonic Boom?", I hear you all cry... Well, I took it down again to make way for a couple of new pieces, but it's still an ongoing project. I keep revisiting it occasionally, to add more material from my bottomless tape archive. It has now expanded to over fifteen minutes long (which is possibly too long to be MySpace-viable?) and is still growing, into a huge magnum-opus of almost "LUMPY GRAVY" proportions (sadly, without any catchy tunes in between the audio-verité bits... at the moment anyway).

Note: "Chthonic Boom" expanded and evolved into the first Pedantic Pedestrian vs The Christmas Trees mashup album - http://pedanticpedestrian.bandcamp.com/album/chthonic-boom


This Week Oi A’bin Moostly Lis’nin’ To:
The Orb - "The Dream"
The Master Musicians of Jajouka - "Live in France 1980"
Frank Zappa - "Live Transmissions" (Saturday Night Live 1976-78)