Ten hours

I recently stumbled across this video:  ten hours of Darth Vader’s wheezing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc1Zc4qsTQk[/youtube]

Hypnotic! Weird! Fabulous! But then things got even more hypnotic, weird and fabulous when I discovered that the “ten-hour video” is a bona fide Interwebs phenomenon. People are looping together short clips to make ten hours’ worth of all kinds of ridiculous things, including:

A cat playing a keyboard:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXCzwpeBJGs&feature=player_embedded [/youtube]

A cloying, frightening Russian singer:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkfVdrtLcRs[/youtube]

Justin Bieber getting shot on CSI over and over and over and over…:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmgT-rwn5W4&feature=relmfu[/youtube]

“Epic sax guy”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHy7DGLTt8g&feature=relmfu[/youtube]

Ten hours of Tetris:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMAIqZatptY[/youtube]

What’s your favorite? And what would you like to see ten hours of, as background to your next party?

 

 

 

8 responses to “Ten hours”

  1. FPS says:

    I am a big fan of Keyboard Cat.

  2. Tim says:

    Yes, but could you take 10 hours of keyboard cat? That’s approximately 1800 run-throughs.

    This touches on, but does not really compare to, Christian Marclay’s The Clock: a time-based work of art that a single human being could not possibly consume in one continuous sitting. Even in “just” 10 hours, one would have physical needs that would intercede. It’s different from a super-long narrative movie that is broken up into parts, as with Shoah. What is it with this kind of impossible challenge? I find it somewhat appealing but can’t say exactly why.

  3. FPS says:

    Dave and I went to a little bit of a performance of Morton Feldman’s second string quartet, a “durational” work that lasts six hours. The difference there is it’s performed live–hard to imagine being one of the players.

    And of course there’s this.

  4. J-Man says:

    There is an odd sort of other-worldly, surreal feeling that I get when I watch video art installations, which I attribute to the repetition and the lack of narrative of the pieces. I get that similar feeling with the Darth Vader and the cloying Russian guy videos, but not the others, I think because they also have an element of humor that breaks up the monotony a little bit. The Clock was different than any of these in that it did have an underlying surrealness, but the narrative was so compelling, in part, because it unfolded in surprising ways. These 10-hour videos make me crazy because their monotony is like, well, a ticking clock.

  5. Dave says:

    Then there’s Douglas Gordon’s stuff. Lisa, you came to that 24 Psycho thing at the Hirsch, right? I really loved several pieces in that show.

    I am also on record in favor of the very stretched out versions of Rebecca Black songs.

  6. LP says:

    5: I did not join for that, though I can’t imagine why. 24 hours of super-slow Psycho? Good times!

    I like the notion of slowing down the film to make it stretch, rather than repeating clips or stringing enough clips together for 24 hours. What did it feel like to watch? Did you find yourself breeeeaathing more sloooooowly?

  7. FPS says:

    The Russian singer, btw, is a meme unto himself: “Tro lo lo guy.” The internet tells me his song is “the Russian Rickroll.”

  8. PB says:

    I saw a German opera once that SEEMED 10 hours long. But then I am kind of a Philistine when it comes to opera. Now a 10 hour version of “Saturday night”? That would be something.