LiveBox

 

Because The Night

The exhibition October 19 - November 13, 2009
at the Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University, Orange California.

Media Artists include:
Caleb Engstrom, Fabienne Gautier, Paulo Fernandez, Christina McPhee, Midori Sakuraï, Pierre St-Jacques, and Michael Szpakowski.

Because The Night was inspired by Patti Smith’s recording “Because the Night”, and reflects the multiple facets of human behavior and local habitats in the night. The exhibition is curated by Sabina Ott with a video screening program by LiveBox.

Visual artists participating include: Stephanie Brooks, Pamela Fraser, Michelle Grabner, Kristin Calabrese,Terence Hannum, Goody B.Wiseman, Candice Lin, Dana Duff, Jordan Biren, Alison Ruttan, Scott Stack, Mathew Girson and more.

Somnio: Paulo Fernandez (Chile), 1:37 min, 2008

Somnio is an experimental video project that explores the audiovisual construction using the body as medium. Framed by the theme of sleeping, Somnio explores physiological and dreamlike dimension through kinetic visual and sound encounters.

Outside the Portico or An Exploration Into the Night Time of Wilderness: Caleb Engstrom (USA/Iowa), 2008, 1:28 min

Improvised video performance (mess around) that took place outside the Portico Gallery in Iowa City, Iowa. The work is a study on the nature of behavior, when stripped of time and responsibility. To quote actor and director, Alan Alda, "You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition". This is an exploration into the nighttime of wilderness.

Project for a Grey Dress: Pierre St-Jacques (USA/NY), 12:30 min, 2005

The piece is very loosely based on Alain Robbe-Grillet's novel "Project for a Revolution in New York". A woman in her apartment is getting ready to go out, she is ironing her grey dress. A man comes up the stairs, presumably to meet her but this is not certain. The style in the Robbe-Grillet book is one of ellipses and repeating patterns, because of those structures we are never quite certain what the intentions of the protagonists are. The basic central theme is of desire, desire for the other and also for the self.

Salt: Christina McPhee (USA/LA), 9:00 min, 2004

Post San Simeon earthquake nightmare and reflections on San Andreas Fault salt bed. SALT is born of the 6.5 magnitude San Simeon earthquake of December 2003. The night of the quake, McPhee recorded mass media’s take on the destruction – television’s six o clock lineup. Amid dismal reportage, an antagonist appears, taking recordings and drawing in the dry salt of Soda Lake.

αθδ(alfa / thêta / delta): Midori Sakuraï, (Japan/France-Paris), 5:54 min, 2008

“αθδ” is the 9th video in the series “DNA”, inspired by the electroencephalography (EEG). The video captures a night of insomnia through abstract imagery coupled with alpha, beta, theta and delta waves. Beta waves are the states of normal waking consciousness; alpha waves are detected during periods of waking; theta waves appear with drowsiness; and delta waves during periods of deep sleep associated with dreams.
Sound combines voice and music arranged from variations on Nessun Dorma / Turandot by Giacomo Puccini arrangement for a music box merged with eeg-α, eeg-β, eeg-θ, eeg-δ audio capture.

Corps: Michael Szpakowski (UK/London), 3:48 min, 2007

'Corps' was shot in a single winter night in London from just after people quit work until late. London becomes a dance as in "corps de ballet", and a study of the individual human body within this -"corps".

NIGHT WALK: Fabienne Gautier (France/Paris), 5:00 min, 2004

Color Super 8 to DV, 7 min. An improvised walk through Paris at night. Exercise in color and abstraction emanating from the city’s ethos.

LiveBox programingg is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.