Join URF for food, stories, strange dancing, gender bending, new friends, old friends and probably a cake. Just in Village J starting at 7! Help us start the year off well!
<3 Jono
Monday, August 22, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Hey, Summer?
So I'm chilling here trying to think up stuff to work on in URF this year, and for the sake of this blog I will definitely post the Weekly Update as well as mail it. That should help keep the information flowing.
Hope everyone is enjoying summer!
<3JN
Monday, April 25, 2011
Bard URF Returns!
URF is going to come back next year! We have been approved for three suites in Village J and things are only starting to get crazy! Our updated list of residents are below:
Adam Bowman
Jay Barett
Matthew Cosgrove
Matthew Hughes
Sarah Longstreth
Diana Crow
Rachel Finkelstein
Becky Lipnick
Victoria Konopacki
Izzy Filkins
Samantha Rosenbaum
Julia Koerwer
Tiago Moura
Myan Melendez
and me! Jono Naito!
We also look back on a year of amazing work and saying goodbye to some of our residents. Still honorary members who always have a home with us, Ben Sobine, Bart Robello and now CJ Sulze are on our list of fabulous and unforgettable alumni.
*Holds up champagne* here is to crazy art *clinks*
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Spring things
No idea if anyone even reads this! But I'm rolling in anyway.
Aside from playing Pokemon White and festering in the hell on earth that is cub scout related activities, I have spent much of this break glued to TCM. The next screening I've enlisted our little community movie theater for is "Shortbus," in an effort to trample my house with the queer brigade (a little more). Good idea, Bard deviant sexual maniacs--stop by; I think it's in two weekends (update when I get back, and I'm sure I'll facebook spam it).
Anyway, after that I'm going to vote to instate a "fuck new media" feature and foist film noirs and other old stuff on these people. Just as many old lesbians in these as anything else, not to mention sex and murder.
Upcoming things! To do my job, Contemporaneous has a show on April 1st in Hudson with some Bard composers and fabulous premieres. If you're able to go, don't miss it; these guys put on a hell of a show and this is a hell of a program.
BUT MORE RELEVANTLY TO US WE HAVE OUR APRIL FOOLS' ROCKY SHOW THAT NIGHT (first Friday after break) AT MIDNIGHT IN WEIS AND IT'S GONNA BE AWESOME. Way different from our normal offering too--edited movie with various hilarities and funny costumes and Gaga galore. Be there!
In the performance art sphere, look out for our "Caged" collaboration with the social justice dorm upstairs, coming this spring to follow up our wildly successful Dark Dining meal (below; expected to return next year, as, hopefully, are we). And stop by Village J first floor any time to get active (by which we mean sit on our couch and watch stuff)!
Still not on our mailing list? Email sl4629@bard.edu and I will HOOK YOU UP.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Review: Black Swan
Normally I am not compelled to write a review, but maybe that is already a testament to this movie that I wish to comment.
I’ll start with something that one may immediately critique: the innocence of Natalie Portman’s ballerina character at the beginning will throw you off, but you will accept it soon enough, or even miss it as the roller coaster moves forward.
The cinematography is varied, nearly every shot is made special. Wrought with symbolism, subtle effects that almost seem to be inventions of the mind and both careful camera movements (for dancing) and rough changes (for real life) that keep what you are seeing lively and interesting.
The pinnacle of the performance is Portman, who plays every angle of anger, pleasure, innocence, forced cooperation and lost sensations with true merit and fervor. I can only say little of the extent of her performance that actually honors its range and depth.
Will you like this movie? I don’t know. You will either adore it or despise it. Each moment will drag you through intense moments of hilarity, madness, fear, sensuality and passion as this movie, preposterous as it may be, captures you for every moment. The mixing of unnerving sounds with the murmurs and crescendos of the music of Swan Lake itself highlight the scenes well, and regardless of your suspension of disbelief you will feel involved in all of Portman’s confusion and fear in her interactions with an excellent supporting cast. In a movie where you are not sure what is real you are only sure of what you see when Portman rehearses with the company, and that you are having some true visceral reaction to everything else.
No matter your opinion, the common person would agree that it was worth seeing, either to love or laugh at. And I feel anything worth your time is truly commendable entertainment.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Hey look: An update!
No, we're not dead. This semester has been kicking everyone's ass lately which is why you haven't seen an update here recently. However, we have some really cool stuff in the works, both for this blog and events in meatspace. So stay tuned.
And now for something completely different:
If you haven't seen this film or don't know who Banksy is, you're really missing out and you should use the power of the internet to educate yourself. Oh, wait. You're already doing that.
Who is Banksy? Well, Banksy is this guy:
He's that graffiti street/performance artist who held an art show featuring a live elephant; hung his own artwork in a number of art museums; tagged the wall in the West Bank, you know, that wall, among other things. We're big fans of Banksy here at URF, considdering his skill at subverting and disrupting normal reality. He does some cool shit. He even made a movie.
(SPOILER ALERT! WATCH THE DAMN MOVIE ALREADY!)
But the movie isn't about Banksy. It's about this guy, Thierry Guetta:
Take note, hipsters. Oh, wait, let me give you a better shot of his "ironic" facial hair configuration:
Yeah. That's right. Mutton chops. Mutton. Chops. (!) The word on the street is that these will soon be required for acceptance into Top-Notch Liberal Art Schools (tm), such as Bard College. At the very least, you'll all be looking like this in a few years, so get used to it. But what does this guy actually do? Well, when the film opens, he's "employed" ripping people off so they can think they look cool selling vintage clothing in L.A. What else? As if we're not convinced enough by the mutton chops to believe this guy is a little bit unhinged and full of himself, we're told that he has this odd habit of filming everything. Everything. So, when he just happens to be blasted into the street art scene by way of Invader and Sheppard Fairey ("What, no hyperlink?" you ask? Fine. Fine. Here's your hyperlink.), we, as well as the street artists our oh-so-hip protagonist meets, don't really question him filming everything. Even the ultra-reclusive Banksy, apparently persuaded by the mysterious power of mutton chops, allows himself to be filmed. But it's all ok because, as Thierry tells everyone, he's a filmmaker; he's making a documentary about street art.
Except of course, he's not. He has boxes upon boxes upon boxes of tapes, most of them unlabelled, all of them unwatched. It takes a nudge from Banksy for him to actually put some footage together into this epic street art documentary that Thierry had been talking about for so long. So Thierry makes a film called "Life Remote Control" and shows it to Banksy. And it's total shit. Un-watch-able. The kind of thing that makes moderation projects rejected by the film department at Bard College look like they could have a shot of winning "Best Picture" at the Oscars. Hipsters interested in being "filmmakers": This is how low they've set the bar for you. So Banksy, seeing a few snippets of actually good footage in the mess, takes the film from Thierry, explains that it'll clean up in editing, and tells him to go back to LA, maybe do some art (Thierry has been dabbling in street art while filming Banksy, et al.).
So is Thierry Guetta a filmmaker? As Banksy puts it: "Maybe Thierry wasn't actually a filmmaker; he was maybe just someone with mental problems who happened to have a camera."
Banksy decides to take the project, which is how we've come to be watching the film in the first place. Thierry, meanwhile, has fashioned himself a street artist alter-ego by the name of Mr. Brainwash, complete with production team to roll out his "art" on a commercial scale. On the subject of that "art", it's part Warhol, part Banksy, and part Sheppard Fairey, and wholly unoriginal. But, as his first show "Life is Beautiful" demonstrates, although he does virtually none of the actual creative work, and though his style is completely stolen from other artists, Thierry Guetta can sell a painting. Indeed, his work is highly commercially successful, much to the confusion and amusement of Banksy, Fairey, et al.
That's the story we're given. But consider this: Mr. Brainwash, and perhaps the entire character of Thierry Guetta as well, is a creation of Banksy's, in a move to pull an elaborate self-referential prank on the art world by creating an artist out of nothing, but who produces work that the art world cannot help but love, even though/especially because it has no meaning except the commercialisation of art. This would not be the first time that Banksy has made a statement like this, since after his work began fetching high prices at auctions, he put on the front page of his website an image of a crowd bidding on a painting that said "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit." Of course, this reading of the film only adds to its meta-weirdness.
Go see it. Go make art.
And now for something completely different:
If you haven't seen this film or don't know who Banksy is, you're really missing out and you should use the power of the internet to educate yourself. Oh, wait. You're already doing that.Who is Banksy? Well, Banksy is this guy:
He's that (SPOILER ALERT! WATCH THE DAMN MOVIE ALREADY!)
But the movie isn't about Banksy. It's about this guy, Thierry Guetta:
Take note, hipsters. Oh, wait, let me give you a better shot of his "ironic" facial hair configuration:
Yeah. That's right. Mutton chops. Mutton. Chops. (!) The word on the street is that these will soon be required for acceptance into Top-Notch Liberal Art Schools (tm), such as Bard College. At the very least, you'll all be looking like this in a few years, so get used to it. But what does this guy actually do? Well, when the film opens, he's "employed" Except of course, he's not. He has boxes upon boxes upon boxes of tapes, most of them unlabelled, all of them unwatched. It takes a nudge from Banksy for him to actually put some footage together into this epic street art documentary that Thierry had been talking about for so long. So Thierry makes a film called "Life Remote Control" and shows it to Banksy. And it's total shit. Un-watch-able. The kind of thing that makes moderation projects rejected by the film department at Bard College look like they could have a shot of winning "Best Picture" at the Oscars. Hipsters interested in being "filmmakers": This is how low they've set the bar for you. So Banksy, seeing a few snippets of actually good footage in the mess, takes the film from Thierry, explains that it'll clean up in editing, and tells him to go back to LA, maybe do some art (Thierry has been dabbling in street art while filming Banksy, et al.).
So is Thierry Guetta a filmmaker? As Banksy puts it: "Maybe Thierry wasn't actually a filmmaker; he was maybe just someone with mental problems who happened to have a camera."
Banksy decides to take the project, which is how we've come to be watching the film in the first place. Thierry, meanwhile, has fashioned himself a street artist alter-ego by the name of Mr. Brainwash, complete with production team to roll out his "art" on a commercial scale. On the subject of that "art", it's part Warhol, part Banksy, and part Sheppard Fairey, and wholly unoriginal. But, as his first show "Life is Beautiful" demonstrates, although he does virtually none of the actual creative work, and though his style is completely stolen from other artists, Thierry Guetta can sell a painting. Indeed, his work is highly commercially successful, much to the confusion and amusement of Banksy, Fairey, et al.
That's the story we're given. But consider this: Mr. Brainwash, and perhaps the entire character of Thierry Guetta as well, is a creation of Banksy's, in a move to pull an elaborate self-referential prank on the art world by creating an artist out of nothing, but who produces work that the art world cannot help but love, even though/especially because it has no meaning except the commercialisation of art. This would not be the first time that Banksy has made a statement like this, since after his work began fetching high prices at auctions, he put on the front page of his website an image of a crowd bidding on a painting that said "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit." Of course, this reading of the film only adds to its meta-weirdness.
Go see it. Go make art.
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