Mike Hall Video

documentation of fine art works, performance, and critical historic events of the third millennium

works

A portfolio of video productions, visual imagery and writings that challenge convention and explore alternative forms of perception

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All for Free (Free for All?)  a durational performance by Andi Sutton and Catherine D´Ignazio On March 10 2007, Andi Sutton and Catherine D´Ignazio stood resolutely in front of a pile of plainly wrapped packages and held up each in turn as if offering them for free to the audience. For most of those who accepted the invitation, the offer was then denied, sometimes quite vigorously. Their seduction of the audience by means of the enigmas these performer presented -- all turning out to be trivial items that can be obtained for free -- instilled a craving in the crowd that at times led to the breaking of the unstated rules of engagement. After the Fall  in performance with Inter Alia On December 9 2006, the members of an improvisational performance group called Inter Alia performed at the CasaNia dance studio in Cambridge, Mass. The mission statement of Inter Alia reads: "Each piece we perform is created in a completely collaborative manner. We try, as musicians, dancers, visual artists and performance artists, to open ourselves to the unique vocabularies of each other´s particular traditions, and to challenge and be challenged by the borders between them. In the process, we hope to create pieces which are innovative and thought-provoking while remaining emotionally accessible and at times downright fun." homage to sisyphus  a journey of absurd proportions In May of 2005, hundreds of performance artists from around the world converged on Providence, Rhode Island to participate in "Provflux," a weekend-long event dedicated to artistic and social investigations in psychogeography. Anna Shapiro, an artist who lives in the Providence area, performed her version of the mythical tale of Sisyphus. Empty cardboard boxes lined with reflective mylar, the burden of her journey across the city, continually broke from their leashes of twine and became tangled in the sharp angles of city spaces. Corporate Commands  A Training Video Commissioned by the Institute for Infinitely Small Things In April of 2005, I was commissioned by the Institute of Infinitely Small Things to produce a video that could be used to train their novice members on the recognition, documentation, and re-enactment of corporate commands in an urban environment. Wearing white lab coats with the Institute´s trademark infinity logo on their backs, the institute embarks on intrepid expeditions into the wilds of Boston Massachusetts to research and literally perform advertising slogans in the form of the imperative (for example, "just do it"). Butterfly  A performance in remembrance of Brooks Thomsen Singer On October 2nd 2004, the Meredith Butulis Dance Ensemble performed a new work commissioned to pay tribute to the life of a young man named Brooks Thomsen Singer. The performance was held during a daylong event held at a new children´s museum in Cohasset, Massachusetts called "Our World." David Singer, the father of Brooks, asked me to combine video that was shot by members of the audience and by my own camera to produce a video of the performance. The audience and viewer are asked to imagine that a butterfly, which occasionally passes through the projected video as a shadow, is fluttering amongst the dancers and the audience during the show. The Institute for Infinitely Small Things  excursions launched from the back of a truck On October 16, 2004, a mobile institute was parked in the Fort Point neighborhood of Boston which was dedicated to the discovery and analysis of infinitely small things. Excursions were coordinated by Kanarinka and Pirun of iKatun based on questions answered by artists of the community, in order to understand the past and present of the area, and perhaps determine its future as well. No monads were harmed in the creation of this video. 4/21  An improvisational video recursion project On this occasion, five members of the Somerville Producers Group captured a performance of three contact-improv dancers and two musicians in the studios of Somerville Community Access Television.  The resulting 10-minute video was featured during a live performance titled "LAUNCH!" that was held at Boston University on June 11th and 12th.  In this piece, the camera becomes an element of the performance itself, both by delving into the physical space and by projecting live images on the dancers themselves. Micki Taylor-Pinney  two performances at Boston University On June 11th and 12th of 2004, Micki Taylor-Pinney performed a solo, choreographed dance to a Sarabande by J.S. Bach, as part of a site-specific, multi-media event titled "LAUNCH!" in the Sargent Gymnasium at Boston University. Taylor-Pinney is the Artistic Director of Dance Collective, a non-profit, contemporary motion art performance and education group based in Boston. In this video, two separate performances are blended together to create a duet over time, which demonstrates the consistency of Taylor-Pinney´s creative vision as well as the subtle differences in expression that occur from one performance to the next. Sarah Hickler  Improvisation #104 On March 12th of 2004, I was fortunate enough to catch a performance at Studio 211 in Boston´s Fort Point Channel neighborhood to capture a Sarah Hickler work titled "Improvisation #104." In it, she dashes wildly from one persona to the next, none of them apparently aware of any of the others, in an emotion-packed ride through angst, elation, frustration, joy, indifference, self-determination and insecurity. Her work is very physical, as if her body is rushing to catch up with her feelings; on many occasions she lurched out of frame without the slightest warning. The Wailing Stall  Glimpses of a five-hour performance during ArtRages. On November 22 2003, Natalie Loveless performed a work as part of a large-scale art and music fundraiser called "ArtRages," put on by an independent arts organization called Mobius in Boston. The performance was a serious test of endurance: for 5 hours that night, she stood fully clothed in a shower stall, with cold water dripping on her, singing the "Star Spangled Banner" over and over again with occasional jazzy embellishments. I had my camera with me, so I shot some "guerilla video," as she calls it, to immortalize the performance.