ARTIST: AARON ROSE

Aaron Rose is a film director, art show curator and writer who is a key part of the Beautiful Losers art movement, which has featured and helped notarize the work of artists such as Barry McGee, Steven "Espo" Powers, Harmony Korine and Shepard Fairey. In 2005, he published with Drago Young Sleek and Full of Hell, where he collects over 100 artists including Mark Gonzales, Ed Templeton, Thomas Campbell, Phil Frost, Spike Jonze, Sofia Coppola, Sonic Youth, Terry Richardson. He was co-curator of the Beautiful Losers touring art exhibit, and edited the collected art book—released by Iconoclast and Distributed Art Publishers in 2004—featuring the work and artists of the tour. The exhibition toured the world through 2009. He is also the director of the documentary film Beautiful Losers, which began its US theatrical run in 2008.
He was the owner and director of Alleged Gallery in New York City and created Alleged Press, which has released books featuring the art of Ari Marcopoulos, Ed Templeton, Mike Mills, Barry McGee and Chris Johanson. He is also co-editor of ANP Quarterly[7].
Rose's latest venture is a documentary called Become a Microscope - 90 Statements on Sister Corita, a short film with music by Money Mark and Becky Stark. The 22 minute film tells the story of Sister Mary Corita, the California nun who was also a political artist.
Rose is signed as a director with the Los Angeles company The Directors Bureau which also represents Mike Mills and Sofia Coppola.[8]
In 2009, he was hired by Wieden+Kennedy to help create WKE (WKEntertainment), a content-driven entertainment channel and production house[9]. At WKE, Rose is the producer of numerous television projects including Califunya, D.I.Y. America, and Don’t Move Here, which he also directs.





A film shot on an IPHONE4

It seems to relate to the theme of here and now only in the sense that its discourse is of new technologies or modernity versus the past. below is my analysis.




Click here to see the page and an explanation from the artist

Narrative

The film seems to deal primarily with the conflict between old and new through the use of binary opposites (Levi Strauss)

A very short view of a small part of Berlin. Nothing really happens…it does not have a coherent narrative in the sense of what we are used to anyway.

In the cinema book ????? An art house film is defined as one that does not have a coherent narrative. Also the film seems quite experimental which would class it as Avant Garde.

It’s like a poem?

Sound

The music is a series of electronic sounds some of it experimental. It responds to what is being seen. It is mysterious,

The sound has the reversing quality is the film referring to the past and that is why it is used

Hard to understand the dialogue does create mystery but ultimately it’s alienating

‘Modernity is loaded with meaning’

‘Crossing the limits of the present’

The music seems to punctuate certain parts of the ‘narrative, going from 'reversage' sounds to silence. (Silence is used very effectively here to create dramatic tension. The pause or silence ends with piercing strings that introduce the next shot

The German voice speaks of alienation ‘I am the bastard kid”

Mise en scene

Its Germany, its black and white, the film is shaky and sometimes warps (whether this is the fault of the iphone or it has been done in post production it creates an uncertainty that the world is unstable.

Locations:

High rise buildings

Uniformity

Empty streets

Starts in the air a sense of freedom as we see wispy clouds. We then fall into the city with its suburban landscapes

Modern architecture vs. old

Contemporary art spaces…modern art

Camera

A slight warping effect, handheld as you would expect with a iphone. Black and white. Pans and tilts. In some shots the camera is at a dutch angle or even upside down.

Editing

Quote I am a bastard kid cut to heart with arrow drawn on concrete cut to girl with head in hands…you make the connection

Most editing is trying to exploit the binary opposites.