I doubt that Ryan Fox was the first person to have the idea to put a camera on the wheel of a car and drive around, but doing it without smashing the equipment involved and uploading it to YouTube is likely a much rarer feat. In Fox’s video above, the night lights of the city…

New York readers of (The) Absolute are, I’m sure, as well-versed as any in the ancient art of complaining about how damn high the rent is around here. But how did it actually get there? This documentary by Aaron Howell offers an answer in two parts: first, it explores the history of rent stabilization in…

We all know that musical stardom doesn’t rise out of thin air, but it’s still interesting to see the early moments of any living legend. That’s the appeal of this clip of a young Kanye West freestyling at a record store almost 20 years ago. According to the video description, Chicago’s DJ Eclipse found the…

The more environmentally-minded among our readership may have heard of Canada’s tar sands, extensive deposits of petroleum from which oil can be produced (as opposed to the usual drilling for crude oil that represents most oil production on the planet today). Since the sands are spread out across wide areas rather than buried in underground…

The message of French director Christophe Thockler‘s video for “Arterial,” a single by electronic artist Lusine, is simple: if you’re going to spill something on your computer, cell phone, or other piece of transistor-based technology, at least make sure it’s a whole lot of blood so it looks good when you videotape it. Inspired by the…

Though (depending on who you ask) vaporwave, seapunk, and other genres of Tumblr aesthetics may have passed their peak novelty in the blogosphere, the video art world still churns out new work that builds on the same energy of that loosely-defined category, “net art.” Chlorophillinhale, a collaboration between Carrie Gates and Kevin Carey, is a good,…