The Guggenheim Museum recently turned its sleek exterior into a multimedia canvas to display selections from “YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video.”  More than 23,000 YouTube videos were submitted from around the world and 25 winners were chosen.  A visit to the Guggenheim’s web site shows which artists made the grade. Check out some of the winners below.
– Lauryn Barnett

“Bathtub IV” by Ken Loutit

In the latest video for his “Small World” series, Keith Loutit uses his signature tilt-shift filming method, which blurs foregrounds and backgrounds, making objects appear miniature. What first appears to be a fanciful look at a typical beach day on the coast of Australia turns into a suspenseful mini-narrative of a man swept off a rock face into the sea, rescued by a helicopter crew and returned safely to his family. The three-and-a-half minute piece is set to the song “Clementine,” by Megan Washington, whose Regina Spektor-like vocals contrast nicely with the panic that pervades the video. Loutit sped up the footage to conjure the sense of watching a scene from a distance. The video delivers beauty and drama through his stylized lens, giving us the perspective to enjoy the scenery and a tiny moment of rejoicing when the man is rescued.
– Megan Finnegan

“Birds on the Wires” by Jarbas Agnelli

Imagine seeing a sound or hearing an image.  It’s a rare gift that Brazilian artist Jarbas Agnelli shares in “Birds on the Wires.” The whimsical minute-long piece took shape when Agnelli opened his morning paper to a picture of birds perched on telephone wires that seemed like notes arranged on a musical score.  Agnelli scored them for xylophone, clarinet, bassoon and oboe, creating a sweet, staccato melody played over the original image, filmed in a steady, sweeping pan that adds a nostalgic, carousel-like rhythm to the piece. The artist, however inspired, is reluctant to take credit for the music. That, he says, is for the birds.
– Jordan Shakeshaft

“Words” by Everynone (Will Hoffman, Daniel Mercandante & Julius Metoyer III)

“Words” is a simple yet stunning collage of both the mundane and fantastic moments life offers us. Through photographs and video clips accompanied by an original score by Keith Kenniff, the piece strings seemingly random acts together through a common implied word or phrase. From the first frame showing a finger pressing play, the viewer must connect the scenes as they fly by (a school play, a football play, playing the trumpet, etc.). No act or image is forbidden, from the endearing (two old men sharing a banana split) to the uncouth (a woman performing oral sex on a man). “Words” shows that while language may be limited, verbal associations are as infinite as space:  the video closes with a photo of outer space followed by the space bar on a keyboard.
– Krissy Dolor

“Noteboek” by Evelien Lohbeck

Can the convergence of art, society and technology be communicated through a YouTube video? Evelien Lohbeck answers with “Noteboek,” a set of four experimental films within a film. The video shows an artist’s notebook in which an illustrated laptop comes to life, with pen lines replacing graphics, allowing the (real) user to interact with an illustrated Web browser, guitar, scanner, handheld mirror and toaster. Running close to five minutes, Lohbeck’s work is longer than most of the winners, but it’s also among the most exciting: it snags the imagination with seamless animation that questions where art ends and technology begins.
– Vineeth Thomas

“The Huber Experiments: Volume One” by Erik and Matthew Huber

Spilled milk is nothing to cry about, especially for Erik and Matthew Huber. The filmmaker brothers captured spilling drinks and flying food in their video, “The Huber Experiments: Volume One.” The two-minute video shows cocktails, tomato soup, a bowl of cereal and a whole chicken being catapulted from dishes in slow motion. Filmed with a Phantom HD camera at 960 frames per second, the video shows the movement of the food in extreme detail. The cereal doesn’t just slosh out of its bowl, but instead rises in a wave of fruit loops, then crashes on to the table. The colors of the food – pink and blue drinks, golden brown chicken, bright green salad – stand out against the stark white background, and the calm piano music makes the whole show seem like a dance. Making a mess has never looked so good.
– Jessica Dailey

Crates of produce, canned goods and groceries line Prospect Avenue, near East 163rd Street. A queue forms around the block as seniors, families with children and people with disabilities wait to load carts with food.

This is the scene every Wednesday and Saturday outside the Word of Life Christian Fellowship International’s food pantry.

“One of the things, really that was a turning point in my life, was when I saw this man that was digging into the garbage can looking for food. And I’m sorry to say that with even what we have done, there’s still many, that the only way they have to eat is to go to the garbage can and look for food,” said Pastor John Okon, executive director of the Word of Life Church.

“And to me that shouldn’t happen in America.”

The food pantry, started in 2003, teams with the Food Bank for New York City, City Harvest, Feed the Children and does its own food drives and fundraising. Food pantry operators estimate that more than 1,000 people come each week. Sometime, families are turned away because of a lack of food.

In the 2009 annual survey by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, 58 percent of food pantries and soup kitchen operators said that they had to either limit food or close early because there was not enough to ration out.

The Bronx, which contains one of the poorest congressional districts in the nation, has 215 food pantries and soup kitchens. The Census Bureau approximates that in 2008, 27.3 percent of families were living under the poverty level, compared to the city average of 13.7 percent.

Jonah Weishaar looks like a normal, healthy two year old as he giggles while running around a playground near his Brooklyn home.  But his parents, Jill Wood and Jeremy Weishaar, know their son is in a race against time.

Last May, Jonah was diagnosed with Sanfilippo syndrome type C, an incurable and extremely rare disease that affects one in 1.4 million children in the U.S.  Jonah may have only two more years of relative health, doctors say, before he starts to show symptoms: mental retardation, bone deformation, organ and tissue damage. Children with the disease face death before adulthood.

Wood is determined to use every moment to help find a cure.  She needs to find enough children like Jonah, believed to be the only youth in New York City with the condition, to justify a study by Dr. María Escolar, a North Carolina genetic disease specialist.  To raise awareness and reach out to other families, Jonah’s parents created the Jonah’s Just Begun Foundation To Cure Sanfilippo Inc.

Five families with children with the condition have agreed to the study and Wood has heard of three more overseas. Once 10 families agree to participate, Escolar will conduct her study and present her findings to drug companies to help develop a cure.

Wood, an apparel designer, stays at home caring for Jonah and running the foundation.  Her husband, an NBC cameraman, supports the family through his job, which includes crucial health insurance benefits.

“I’m going to find a cure in Jonah’s life and give life to my son once again,” Wood vowed.

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