Bio:
From distinct backgrounds, Taly and Russ have been creating visual art since they met. Their work is a mixture of video, photography, collage and book art. Taly, a Film and TV graduate of New York University, was born in Israel and has directed and produced several short narrative films. Russ, a Detroit native and a Cooper Union graduate, has been showing media art since 1984.
They met in New York in 1988 and worked together producing multi-media music shows with a performance group called Leisure Class. As a team, they continued to produce collage, artist books, short video pieces, and documentaries. They married in May 1992.
Taly and Russ’ video subjects range from protests (in "A Few Protests And A Parade", a Gulf War documentary); Rock bands (The Rutles, Ramones…); Herbert Huncke (the late Beat writer) reading in a downtown basement; Jerry Brown (Presidential hopeful) on the campaign trail, and Ira Schneider (one of the fathers of video art) is in their newest conceptual piece "Surveillance Tapes".
Their videos have been shown in such distinct venues as The Kitchen and The Knitting factory in New York; Festival Der Nationen in Linz, Austria, International Video Summit Videomedeja, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, McMurdo Station in Antarctica as well as the internet at The Sync Online Film Festival. The Rabin Center in Tel Aviv, Israel has recently acquired Silent Voices, a video-poem documenting a spontaneous graffiti tribute that appeared on the site of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.
In their artist book editions they juxtapose images and words to explore new effects in communication. They strive to expose the unseen and overlooked. Their humorous photo book "DEAD TREES, A Holiday Album" is a strangely hopeful collection of discarded Christmas trees on New York City streets. The late William S. Burroughs said their apocalyptic collage book "More Satanic Verses" was "Great". Their books are in diverse collections such as The Museum Of Modern Art library, The New York State Library, International Art Archive in Pisa, Italy, and The City Art Museum, Koenigsberg-Kaliningrad, Russia.
With generic toys as their subject, Taly and Russ are currently working on an ongoing conceptual series of short dadaist videos. They choose common objects and toys to focus on a fascination with how the camera captures and communicates ideas. For poetic adventure they will turn the camera upside-down, spray water, cover video monitors in industrial gray machine parts, snow etc. In video work they love to play with the medium, as well as, the idea of what we expect from the televised image, always bending, blending, turning, spindling, and ripping to reveal something new.
Often humorous and sometimes political their work has always drawn comment:
"Decidedly weird" The Stranger, Seattle WA
"Delicious" Umbrella Review
"Nifty" Dragon's breath, international small press review, UK
"The epitome of a slacker" The Herald, Pennsylvania"...A refreshing blast of comic, arty observations" Beet magazine, NY
"Overwhelming" DJ Times
And even "most troubling" and "irresponsible" New York Newsday, NY
They continue to present work in galleries, performance spaces, festivals and shows throughout the world. Taly and Russ live in New York City with their four-year-old daughter, Truly.
Some recent exhibition:
Strange Brew Indie Film Fest, Los Angeles, CA. "Important Messages" May 10, 2002
Jorge Hernandez Cultural Center "Important Messages", May 1st 2002
Independent Exposure screening, Firestation #3, Houston, TX, "Debate", 2000 USA,
March 29, 2002
The Catacomb, Microcinema, Winnipeg, Canada, "Important Messages", March 30th 2002
Icon - Diva - Hero - Star, CULT, Echternach, Luxembourg, December 2001
Independent Exposure at McMurdo Station, Antarctica , "Important Messages" and "Debate"
Screening throughout the Antarctica Summer, September 2001
Global Shorts, Undercinema, Dinky Tower, Minneapolis, Minnesota “One More Thing”,
July 31, 2001
Independence Edition, Vital 5, Seattle, WA., “Pot” July 26, 2001
Images of Japan, Akita University, Japan, “Saturday Morning” (Astro Boy/Testuwan Atom)
February 2001
Perspectives of Deaf Culture, Vista Community College, Berkeley, CA, “We Really Don’t Care If You Yell”, September 21 to October 7, 2000
The White Room, PCL Exhibitionists, Strawberry Hills, Australia, “The White Room Gets Wired” September 9th - October 2000
Red Square Video Show, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, “One More Thing”
October 1, 2000
Industrial Architecture and Art, Municipal Library, Barreiro, Portugal, “Leisure Class 090”
November 25 – December 2, 2000
My Voice, Academy of Fine Arts, Poznan, Poland, “America’s Routine” September 2000
Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA., “William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton”
August 25, 2000
Zeitgeist Art "Focal Length Film Forum", Seattle, WA, “William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton” May 18, 2000 “NICOTINE”, and “One More Thing”
EMW (East Meets West) project, A Space Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
May 13th - July 15th, 2000 “East Meets West At Snack Time”
Carnival, Museo Civico Di Massaciuccoli, Massaciuccoli (Massarosa-LU), Italy, “Sally Jesse Rapheal” February 26 – March 19, 2000
Independent Exposure, Speakeasy, Seattle, WA., “One More Thing”, January, 27, 2000
Post Neo Dada, Art Gallery Marko Cepenkov, Prilep, Macedonia, “Teenage Runaway” collage,
August 20 - September 4, 1999
Recent festivals:
Fifth Annual Arizona State University Art Museum Short Film And Video Festival, Winner:
"Snack Time”, April 14, 2001 - 8:00 p.m.
Festival Der Nationen, Linz, Austria, June 2000, “Snack Time”
Twilight Trash #4, International Outcast Film Fest Berlin 2000, “A Miracle”
The ASU Film Festival Selection, California State University Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Center,
Santa Ana, CA., July 8, 2000 “William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton”
Hobbythek, “Independent Exposure ‘99”, Vienna, Austria, “William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton”
May 24, 2000
Fourth Annual Arizona State University Art Museum Film and Video Festival, Tempe, AZ, April 2000, “William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton”
The Sync online film festival, Viewer’s Choice Documentary Winner from April 1999 through
September 2000 ”Silent Voices”
Festival Der Nationen, Linz, Austria, June 2000, "Snack Time"
The ASU Film Festival Selection, California State University Fullerton?s Grand Central Art Center,
Santa Ana, CA. July 8, 2000 "William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton"
Hobbythek, "Independent Exposure "99", Vienna, Austria, "William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton"
May 24, 2000
The Arizona State University Art Museum Film and Video Festival, April 2000,
"William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton"
The Sync online film festival, Viewer's choice documentary winner for April- September 1999
"Silent Voices"
Festival Der Nationen, Linz, Austria, May 1999, "Silent Voices"
Filmography/Awards Info:
An Artists’ Statement
Through video we see a small part of the world more focused and direct. A fleeting thought caught on tape. We strive to capture, share and expose the unseen and overlooked, to find joy in the banal. In video artwork we can discover a point in the pointlessness of everyday life.
For poetic adventure we never confine ourselves. In our work we love to play with the medium. We have used short clips of TV news footage, appropriated popular images and religious icons to present new concepts. We are aware of the audience and will not ignore them. We utilize the electronic-media-made collective unconscious to predict and break clichés. We aim to change what a viewer expects from the televised image, always bending, blending to reveal something new. It’s hard to put into words this excitement we have for looking into another world. When we look through the camera we can never predict what this new remarkable thing in the view finder will become.
Objects on a table are a still life, the same objects transformed by video become cinematic, forcing us (the artists) to think in terms of dream, myth, pop culture, culture, and history. With generic toys as our subject we have produced a conceptual series of short videos. We’ve experimented with the concept of dumb, silly, and convoluted presentation, reducing the idea of performance to the bare minimal, like a finger pushing a toy car. In these short pieces we have chosen common objects and toys to focus on a fascination with how the camera captures and communicates ideas. Without an over-built set, we use simplicity to strip down to the essence of a complex idea.
It is our job to place the misplaced and misplace the placed.
Nine Brief Pieces
1. Why did you make this film?
We had to. It just came out.
2. How long did it take to make this film?
A week or so.
3. What was the biggest challenge you faced in making this film?
Keeping the pieces short. Sometimes things have a mind of their own and want to go on forever.
4. Do you have any "war stories" that you would like to tell us about the making of this film?
We made Nine Brief Pieces before we had a computer editing system and our 3/4 inch editing had just broke down. So we had no editing system.
5. What can you tell us about the technology/equipment that you used? Camera? Editing? Software? Hardware? Film stock? Video tape stock? Sound equipment? Etc.
We used stone knives and bear skins… two camcorders on the floor connected by a pile of wire spaghetti.
6. Do you enjoy one aspect of filmmaking more than any others?
Improvising!
7. In what country or region do you live? Is it important to your art?
If so, in what way?
We live in New York City. We don’t have a large studio space so it keeps all our studio work small. …On the other hand, documentary work in New York is as easy as walking down the street with a camera…. Something is always going on around here.
8. What does "Microcinema" mean to you?
Not paying over ten dollars to be disappointed like in regular theaters.
9. What does "Independent" mean to you?
Not having to answer to ANYONE.
10. What are a few tips you can give to other filmmakers?
All you need is a camera. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you need to spend millions on equipment. Just shoot and have fun.
11. Do you have ideas for another film? If so, will you share them with us?
We are painting several wind-up robots for a table-top low-budget sci-fi extravaganza
12. Who is your favorite film director?
This week hmmmm? Carl Dreyer, Woody Allen, and the Australian group that made the 70’s TV show spoof “Funky Squad”
13. What is your favorite film?
This week: William Wegman’s Reel 2 (1972)
14. What else would you like to tell us?
We also currently making collage out of old cereal boxes.
William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton
presidential study number 42
1. Why did you make this film?
This one sort of made itself.
2. How long did it take to make this film?
A week or so.
3. What was the biggest challenge you faced in making this film?
Trying to take the most overused pieces of Clinton footage from the last year and make it into something new and fresh.
4. Do you have any "war stories" that you would like to tell us about the
making of this film?
The biggest trouble was editing and hearing Bill Clinton over and over again until the piece was finished.
5. What can you tell us about the technology/equipment that you used?
Camera? Editing? Software? Hardware? Film stock? Video tape stock? Sound
equipment? Etc.
We used a White House video clip and edited with Premiere on a PowerMac 7100/80av
6. Do you enjoy one aspect of filmmaking more than any others?
Improvising... playing!
7. In what country or region do you live? Is it important to your art?
If so, in what way?
We live In New York and so much of the media is centered here that may have been the reason we made this piece. A reaction to our immediate surroundings.
8. What does "Microcinema" mean to you?
Showing our work to people who want to see it and can actually find it.
9. What does "Independent" mean to you?
Getting to play and not answer to anyone.
10. What are a few tips you can give to other filmmakers?
Have fun. If it’s not fun start a new project that is fun.
11. Do you have ideas for another film? If so, will you share them with us?
We have recently started to collect surveillance tapes of people of all walks of life and will edit them in a way Luis Buñuel would be proud of.
12. Who is your favorite film director?
This week lets say: Tex Avery, David Lynch, Ira Schneider and Robert Breer
13. What is your favorite film?
Werner Herzog Eats His shoe
14. What else would you like to tell us?
We have a companion piece to our Clinton piece, it’s called NICOTINE
NICOTINE
4. Why did you make this film?
This one sort of came out of the Bill Clinton Video we made just before it.
5. How long did it take to make this film?
A week.
6. What was the biggest challenge you faced in making this film?
Trying to keep it short and to the point and not get carried away with all the effects as happens with so many potentially good videos.
4. Do you have any "war stories" that you would like to tell us about the
making of this film?
No. Sorry. No one tried to kill us or ruin our lives like they did to that reporter from 60 Minutes who reported that Nicotine is addictive and the tobacco giants knew it all along.
5. What can you tell us about the technology/equipment that you used?
Camera? Editing? Software? Hardware? Film stock? Video tape stock? Sound
equipment? Etc.
We used a single video clip and edited with Premiere on a PowerMac 7100/80av
6. Do you enjoy one aspect of filmmaking more than any others?
Playing, Improvising...and playing more.
7. In what country or region do you live? Is it important to your art?
If so, in what way?
We live In New York and so much of the media is centered here that may have been the reason we made this piece and the Clinton piece before it. A reaction to our immediate surroundings.
8. What does "Microcinema" mean to you?
Showing our work to people who want to see it and can actually find it.
9. What does "Independent" mean to you?
Getting to say what we want and when we want.
10. What are a few tips you can give to other filmmakers?
Have fun. If a project is not fun start a new one that is fun.
11. Do you have ideas for another film? If so, will you share them with us?
We traveled from Manhattan (NY) to Manhattan (MT). When we reviewed the footage it surprised us. That’s all we can say now.
12. Who is your favorite film director?
This week its: Wim Wenders
13. What is your favorite film?
Alice In The Cities (Alice In Den Städten) 1974
14. What else would you like to tell us?
We have a companion piece to NICOTINE, it’s called William (Bill) Jefferson Clinton.
The Big Cement Thing
1. Why did you make this film?
When in Detroit we used to always visit this Big Cement Thing. We never knew what it was. And it was odd because this giant thing that takes up a city block was pretty much unknown. When it disappeared mysteriously we had to edit the footage of this lost world wonder.
2. How long did it take to make this film?
One night to shoot, several years to properly age the footage and than a quick week of editing.
3. What was the biggest challenge you faced in making this film?
Not being arrested or killed. In Detroit sometimes at night having a video camera can make you a target… and we were trespassing.
4. Do you have any "war stories" that you would like to tell us about the making of this film?
Shooting In Detroit always includes hours of aimless driving (a big pastime there). We stopped by “the midget houses” on the way and one of our crew was almost gunned down infront of a crack house, other than that we can’t think of anything.
5. What can you tell us about the technology/equipment that you used? Camera? Editing? Software? Hardware? Film stock? Video tape stock? Sound equipment? Etc.
We shot on some early version of a Sony Hi-8 cam, edited years later with Premiere on a 7100/80AV Mac.
6. Do you enjoy one aspect of filmmaking more than any others?
Improvising!
In the case of this video working with Tom Demerly. He is an adventurer and will do just about anything and he doesn’t mind being taped.
7. In what country or region do you live? Is it important to your art?
If so, in what way?
We live in New York City, but Russ is from Detroit originally so that’s where these Detroit trips come in. Detroit and New York are great areas for industrial weirdness.
8. What does "Microcinema" mean to you?
People making and showing video and film because they need to, not because it is a job. We both have done it as a job but found we prefer to answer to no one.
9. What does "Independent" mean to you?
Being able to shoot what you want when you want to…and even editing years later if you want.
10. What are a few tips you can give to other filmmakers?
All you need is a camera, turn it on and all else follows.
11. Do you have ideas for another film? If so, will you share them with us?
We want to shoot Tom again on a rafting trip through an industrial waste filled river. We already have a location and volunteer crew of outlaws… next stop Detroit.
12. Who is your favorite film director?
This week its Richard Donner He directed the Twilight Zone “Nightmare at 20,000 feet” with William Shatner...beautiful stuff.
13. What is your favorite film?
Ordet by Carl Dreyer
14. What else would you like to tell us?
We have just shot a new table top video that involves Jesus, two diapers, and some money. Really.
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