I only have three magazine subscriptions. One is for Vman, one is for New York magazine, and one is for Out magazine. These three represent what I think are the most consistently well designed and considered mainstream magazines being produced today. When the latest issues of all of the above came in last week, I went through them all as I normally do but found something in Out that was particularly bizarre: a poorly photoshopped, “pLAyful” advertisement for tourism in Los Angeles produced with globs and globs of cheese. I nearly ripped it out of the magazine in embarrassment but I began to wonder: why does this advertisement inspire such anger? Let’s discuss.
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I like video installations because I like being placed into another world. There’s something about being placed in a dark public setting to be bathed in bright moving lights with a handful of other people. They are enveloping and, with video, you can really step into something else so easily. Ben Jones is really good at this. He’s the Day-Glo coloring, moving picture making, MOCA sweetheart artist who we, like many, have been taken with for some time. Saturday his new show at MOCA PDC opened with a preview the evening before. We stopped into the show and it is certainly a moving feast for the eyes.
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Miriam Cutler is an Emmy nominated Los Angeles based musician. Although her name may not sound immediately familiar, Miram has made the scores to many well known films. These are projects like like Lost In La Mancha, Chris & Don, Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib, , and more, films and documentaries that are lauded for their investigating and analysis of everything from botched filmmaking to an AIDs activist’s struggle. Her most recent work was on the Rory Kennedy’s HBO documentary Ethel, which was released in late October. Curious about the process of film scoring and what the landscape of the industry is like, we spoke with Miriam to hear about her rich history in the Los Angeles music landscape, how she arrived to film scoring, and what it is like being a woman in the film industry.
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It’s always good to check in on local Southern California university art programs. We always forget to do this and know we need to extend the scope of coverage to what these schools are up to. Artist and UCLA MFA student Janna Ireland sent us a note a few weeks back that the UCLA MFA 2013 exhibition was coming up, opening November 1 and closing November 17 at the New Wight Gallery. It was on our list of shows to see and, since we were visiting the Hammer, it was a perfect opportunity.
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No doubt that the Theremin is a sonic instrument that has brought to mind horror and Sci-Fi film sound tracks and true wonder since it was first invented by Russian physicist Lev Sergeevich Termen in 1920. Having never seen or heard one in person, my curiosity was piqued when I read that the REDCAT was hosting the musician Eric Ross and video artist Mary Ross this past Friday night, November 2nd. In retrospect it was a propos to showcase such a tripped-out, dreamy and infectious performance on Day of the Dead 2. The Ross duo’s Opus’ could be viewed and heard as a stream of consciousness, visual and audio memorial or celebration to deceased loved ones. I felt possessively transported to another realm within Redcat’s black box and even changed by Mr. Ross’s ethereal and piercing, sound compositions.
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