The Exhibition
Hall features artists working in both video and new media technologies.
In the spirit of the festival at large, many of the artists in this
exhibition reference traditional art mediums in their work. The history
and formal practices of painting, photography, sculpture and performance
abound within the walls of this hall. Some artists toy with parallel
mediums such as Kim Collmer’s video projection “Pin-Up”
referencing fashion photography, while others lavishly borrow formal
techniques such as the painterly deployment of color, light and texture
in Robyn Voshardt and Sven Humphrey’s “Fall”. The
artists in this exhibition deploy technology in their process, while,
conceptually, they tap themes that are timeless: memory, identity,
connectedness, formalism, culture and politics.
P1, Featured
Artist Kurt Hentschlager, New York/Chicago based Austrian,
23:00 long, a high definition 16:9 video, one in a series. Contemplative
in nature and about nature. Kurt Hentschläger creates audiovisual
compositions in which audio and video actuate one another. The immersive
nature of his work reflects on the metaphor of the sublime. www.hentschlager.info/
Apple,
Featured artist Carole Kim,
Korea/USA, single channel video, 3:35, loop. An unsentimental and
powerful look at nostalgia and memory. Carole Kim is an interdisciplinary
artist with a focus on performance-based video installation combining
digital/new media technologies and the sensitivity of the improvisational
live performer/participant. A collection of her works will be screened
in the screening room on each day of the festival. The work emphasizes
video’s capacity as a live medium and the illusory architecture
of layered video projection in space.
(The Dynamics
of the Physical) Embodiment of Desire, Adam
Chapman, NY, 2006, Generative Video Installation. Custom
Software & Display. Diagram of the Dynamics of the Physical Embodiment
of Desire, is a generative video installation about the tension within
the experience of anticipation. The piece models the movement and
dynamics of water rolling down a windowpane.
Pin Up,
Kim Collmer, Filmed at Subart,
Croatia, 7:20 minutes, color no sound, 13 Photographs.The Pin Ups
features portraits based upon "beach pin up photography".
Each still pose captures multiple moments, gives pause for reflection,
recognizes the gaze of the viewer and the viewed. Pockets of time
are held within each frame, its construction enhanced through a quiet
yet very alive image.
Self,
Robert Ladislas
Derr, 23" x 30" video projection of the artist’s
contemplation in front of a tombstone and 23" x 30" color
photograph of a moment of contemplation. It illustrates the dichotomy
behind the theory of self. In Self, the photograph illustrates the
modernist myth of the author undeterred by cultural and social situations.
In the video, there exists an oscillation between the self and death
of the author. The artist questions the polarity between the modernist
and post-modernist concepts of self.
Memory
and desire stirring, Andrew
Hicks, real-time digital composition. This piece combines
computer programming, game theory, and photography to create an ongoing
real time composition. Image clips compete for space on the screen.
The winning images stay on screen and compose an image over 3 rounds.
The two images engage each other by running the Prisoner's Dilemma
iteratively until one image has won the round. This piece cites T.S.
Elliot's “The Waste Land”, and posits it as a valid, contemporary
reference, not only in content, but also in form. The work proposes
a poetic yet relevant model of consciousness as one suspended between
past and future.
Fall,
Robyn Voshardt and Sven
Humphrey, single channel video. This meditative yet ominous
footage came from a rural area in Nova Scotia on the brinks of over
development. A branch from a 150-year-old apple tree is the focus
of this extreme view of nature and the elements. Though the video
presents an isolated view, the title suggests civilization’s
broader impact on the environment.
Breath
In Between, Eun Sun Lee, Korea/Chicago, 4 channel video projection.
In Breathe In between, people’s heads constantly submerge and
emerge from water in synchronicity, a union of fluid inhaling and
exhaling. Breathe In Between is a study of the vitality between people
and the abstract expression of the artist’s thoughts on the
relationship between people. By creating an uncertain situation and
using very ordinary movements and body images, the artist attempts
to capture the essential and sensual energies of people.
Convergence,
Luftwerk (Petra Bachmaier and
Sean M Gallero, The moment of meeting one's self. Each person
chooses a place, a landscape, a street to walk, a location where one
escapes, contemplates or finds simple pleasures. In Convergence, four
people search for such a place, in a solitary walk or action, blurring
the point where one starts and where one ends, creating a path of
self-convergence. Luftwerk is an artist collaboration creating site-specific
multimedia installations that manipulate space. In their work, Bachmaier
and Gallero attempt to represent a convergence of ideas and themes
through the use of audio, visual and sensory elements.
Window
Multi Media Installation, Galina Schevchenko,
Russia/USA, Galina animates by layering her drawings with photographs
and video footage. The pieces are breathtaking and sumptuous.
"Life
isn't bliss. Life is just this. It's living." Stacia
Yeapanis, video, is part of “My Life as a Sim”
is an ongoing umbrella project for all Yeapanis’ work which
uses the popular computer game The Sims 2* as a medium in making art.
In playing the game, she explores the multiplicity of meanings that
can be made from a single cultural product.
Digital
prints by Igloo a British artist collective who showed at
this year’s 52 Venice Biennale.
