 above: April 29, 2012 event at ARENA 1 Gallery in Santa Monica |
 |
|---|
multimedia program 3 |
Arena 1 gallery |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
SPECIAL THANKS TO... Sherry Frumkin, Yossi Govrin, and Sabine Pearlman of Arena 1 Gallery for their generous hospitality and support. I would like to thank Joe Merrell. Also thanks to Mariel Carranza, Soyeon Jung, and Philip Mantione for creating new work for this occasion. Thanks to Soyeon for coming down from Wisconsin to present her performance. And many thanks to Kisito Assangni, all the participating artists, and to all those who lent a helping hand. |
|---|
"memory" and "identity" *VIDEO ART SCREENING: PERFORMANCES: INSTALLATIONS: |
|
by Alysse Stepanian: Tonight's event will also feature performances by Soyeon Jung (Wisconsin) and Mariel Carranza (L.A.) created for this occasion. Jung, whose video is also part of the screening, will be sharing food with the audience at a traditional Korean style dinner table, as a way of recalling her childhood memories. Mariel will contemplate the idea of the "self" as she gazes into her reflections in the surrounding glass and mirrors. Los Angeles artist Joe Merrell (L.A.) will present a video installation on a monitor, with processed images shot during a walk in the park. Philip Mantione's (L.A.) new 6-channel sound installation in one of the rooms of the gallery will assimilate each unique sound created by the movement of individuals into a mass of what he describes as "consensual identity." Also in the gallery, a monitor installation will present the [SFIP] Project - Still Fighting Ignorance & Intellectual Perfidy curated by the artist, Kisito Assangni. Kisito writes, "From experimental video to short film, this show focuses on aesthetic and methodological perspectives of fighting ignorance and intellectual perfidy in contemporary African art. The project tells Africa's story by African new media artists as seen through the lens of the relation between tradition and modernity."
|
 |
"In this performance for memory and identity, I will attempt to study/ reflect upon my image on glass and mirrors, perhaps to see what are the memories that create one's identity as opposed to experiencing one's self without memories or given identities. I will stand on my feet for approximately two hours at the same spot without moving, surrounded by several strips of glass and a couple of mirrors creating a myriad of reflections/images."
|
 |
|---|
 |
Soyeon Jung (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) |
|---|---|
 |
Philip Mantione (Los Angeles) Philip Mantione is the Technical Director of Manipulated Image. He has composed music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, computer, fixed media, interactive performance, multimedia installations and experimental video. Selected venues include: Merkin Concert Hall (NYC), the Bing Theater at LACMA, the CCA in Santa Fe and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona. He has participated in festivals worldwide including the European Media Art Festival (GE), Spring in Havana (Cuba), FILE 2010 and 2011 - Hypersonica (Brazil), and Zèppelin 2004 at CCCB (Spain). In 2010 he was awarded a grant from Meet The Composer, for his participation in an event he conceived called The Improvising Composer. |
 |
Joe Merrell (Los Angeles, California) |
 |
Alysse Stepanian (Los Angeles) Video title: "Roghieh" 2009, 5:30 min, color, stereo, HDV, NTSC, 16:9 STATEMENT: Born in Tehran, Iran, Alysse Stepanian moved to the US shortly after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. This video is based on her early dream journal. “Roghieh” paints a surreal picture of the early stages of the Iranian Revolution, when it empowered the underprivileged, who had a significant role in the overthrow of an elitist regime. A cleaning lady’s broom becomes a weapon symbolizing a new found strength. She jumps into the revolution from the wall-less bedroom of a young girl caught in the middle of great social changes and role reversals. Please see Stepanian's bio here... |
 "This is a ten-minute 2-channel film originally shot over five years on super8 film. The final form screened here is a single channel digital video, scored by Daniel Coughlin, combining 2 channels into one. Footage of People from cities around the world, (Beijing, New York, London, and Paris), with melted holes, rising from subway stairs is combined with images from the natural world, cyclical events, migration and destructive forces. Through chaos, destruction and loss, streams of people carrying their holes, keep moving on, generation after generation." |
Lana Z. Caplan (Boston, Massachusetts) Lana Z Caplan is an experimental film/videomaker, photographer and installation artist who splits her time between Brooklyn and Boston. She works with super8, found footage, video, interactive projections, and alterative processes photography in her pieces that explore relationships, mortality and social issues. Her work has been exhibited and screened from coast to coast of North, South and Central Americas as well as major cities in Europe, India and Israel. Recent screenings and exhibitions include: National Gallery, (San Juan, PR); MadCat Women’s International Film Festival (San Francisco, CA); Festival Cap Sembrat 3, (Barcelona, Spain); Danforth Museum of Art, (MA); Gallery NAGA, (Boston, MA); John Stevenson Gallery, (NY, NY). Recent grants and awards include: Wexner Center for the Arts Residency, Puffin Foundation Grant; Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant. She earned a B.A. from Boston University and an M.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art. Caplan is also an Adjunct Professor at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, MA. |
 - “Emanations” 2008; 9:57min, sound "Emanations is a collaborative experimental video whose visual and thematic is transported by a delicately layered sea-like atmosphere analogous to the fluid and fluctuating state of memory. Representing idyllic moments from childhood the film traces the shifting mindscape of the rememberer, perceptively transitioning between viewpoint and reflection. Layered scenes from a variety of footage reveal a unique quality of light captured to combine the poignancy and splendor, distance and apprehension, experienced within recalled memories." |
Brian DeLevie (Denver, Colorado) Brian DeLevie is a digital artist, designer, photographer, author and an Assistant Professor and Area-Head of Digital Design at the University of Colorado Denver. His body of work variously investigates themes of technology, memory, history and Holocaust issues. His work has been internationally shown at spaces and video festivals such as Diverse Works/ Aurora Picture Show, Houston, TX; New York Experimental Film Festival; SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, San Diego, CA; The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, FL: Orange County Center for Contemporary of Art; The New York Experimental Film Festival, 8th Lille International Short Film Festival, Lille, France; Space Gallery in London, England; 21st Instants Video Film Festival Marseille, France; The Moscow International Film Festival; the VAD: International Video and Digital Arts Festival, Girona, Italy. In 2004, he received Fulbright Fellowship to study the influences of Film, Television and the Internet on German culture. Isshaela Ingham is a freelance writer, poet, multimedia consultant and collaborative artist living in Denver, Colorado. For over ten years, Ingham's studies and projects have focused on multimedia applications and writing within the humanities. She has studied in Wales, Belgium, Italy and Germany and taught at the University of Limoges, France. Ingham has worked with a number of local artists. Her on-going collaborative work with digital artist Brian DeLevie includes a multimedia art installation, "Whispers of Contradiction," and an article published in Afterimage: “Unconscionable or communicable: the transference of Holocaust photography in cyber space" (May 2004). Ingham and DeLevie's most recent collaboration is a video short entitled "Emanations." |
 "A SEASON WANTS is part of my recent video work which extends my photographic explorations challenging the veracity of documentary practices through the ambiguity of place and persona, manipulation of media, low-fi production and the social web's methods of distribution. This short film weaves images, poetry, and spoken word performance into a recognizable potential histories and narrative, building new relationships between image, word, viewer and artist." |
Ron Diorio (Manhattan, New York) Ron Diorio is an artist working in multiple media including photography, video, spoken word and interactive applications. Ron has had three solo shows of his photographs, which have also been included in many group shows. Ron’s work has been exhibited internationally and is currently represented by Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art in New York City (phhfineart.com) . He produced Zine TV (93-95), a DIY television series on the diversity and creativity of the self publishing “zine scene” of the mid 90s. Ron’s current video work focuses on virtuality and the “imitation of life” in the early 21st century. The work is presented through short personal essays weaving, spoken word, video, photography, Poegles, and found public forum postings and other texts. Ron is VP for Product and Community Development for The Economist/Economist.com. He is a life long New Yorker and lives with his wife and two children in northern Manhattan. |
|
Michael Greathouse (Brooklyn, New York) Born in Kansas City, Missouri, I received my BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1991. In 1997 I moved to New Orleans to attend the University of New Orleans Graduate Fine Arts program (MFA 2000). Since 2003 I have lived and worked in Brooklyn, NY. "Inspired by film noir and experimental surrealist films my most recent work is a series of short Black and white video loops produced exclusively with composited computer animation. I consider my films experimental. I am interested in dreams, hallucinations, and delusions...the uncanny. Like the films of Maya Deren and the macabre drawings of Alfred Kubin, these short vignettes are intended to suggest, but not define, a narrative." |
 “the Eater" is a two-channel, interactive video installation. The version of the piece included in this screening is a single-channel video that presents a simulation of the physical installation. “the Eater” deals with the harvesting and consumption of experience, transforming it into personal memory. On opposing walls, a video of “the Eater” is coupled with a sequence of memory images that must literally be consumed in order to preserve them. The abstracted images resist referencing any particular event, but rather represent lived-in time as the artist moves between Korea and America. Within this piece, the act of eating of one's own memory exhibits a cannibalistic consumption that alludes to the destructive potential of memory when it becomes internalized. A sound-scape that becomes suddenly violent as “the Eater” seizes a memory in her desire to consume it augments this feeling of unease. The self-destructive drive to internalize and preserve traumatic memory is the product of a fear of emptiness; a situation in which one finds themselves lacking memory, experience, and attachment. In “the Eater” the body is treated as a repository for a multitude of accumulated time, yet in this state it is also susceptible to the resurfacing of the embedded trauma. In visualizing this relationship, the piece acknowledges the need for memory to be recuperated and creates a space for the audience to engage in this performance. The scale of the installed piece, combined with the multiplicity of images, limits the vision of the audience, forcing them to make decisions as to how they will negotiate the flow of images, which subjects they will psychologically engage with, and which they will let slip by and escape consciousness. |
Her installation and video work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and screened in a variety of venues. Selected screenings include KLEX experimental film/video festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Simultan Media Festival in Timisoara, Romania, Media Depo in Lviv, Ukraine, Kolektiva in Ljubljana, Slovenia, CologneOFF Videoart in Germany, Manipulated Image in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the International Women's Film Festival, Buffalo, New York. Recent exhibitions include Carnegie Art Center, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Big Orbit Gallery, and CEPA Gallery, all in Buffalo, New York, the Olean Public Gallery, Olean, New York and the 7 Days Video Series that traveled to Western Michigan University and The Bret Llewellyn Art Gallery in Alfred State University, among others. Soyeon was a graphic and web designer at Samsung in Korea before relocating to the United States. She received her MFA from the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo in 2006. Currently, she teaches in the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the fields of experimental video and digital art. |
 "The Xerces Society" is a series of artworks investigating the complexities of fanaticism and ideology under the auspices of art and science. The title refers to a North American butterfly conservation society of a similar name, as well as to Xerces, the famed king of ancient Persia. Sir Samuel Cropia, the primary character, is a world-renowned lepidopterist known for his extreme dedication to the preservation and proliferation of butterflies. The greatness sought by such men of power becomes their identity and legacy left behind. They are remembered by their actions; history looks kindly on the victories and admonishes the failures. In Installment VII Sir Cropia enters into his seventh decade oscillating between manic aspirations for a diminishing future and melancholic reflections on a vexed and variable past. Consequently, the moving images that constitute the video, visible through apertures that are at once windows and eyes, form a compelling analogue for Sir Cropia's own psychological state. Placing the spectator in Sir Cropia's restless shoes, the spectator does see, but only at the mercy of Sir Cropia's mind's eye. Thus, just as a tension exists within Sir Cropia's self-assessment, so for the spectator a comparable tension develops between his/her point of view and that of our nefarious protagonist. As such, the romance of travel by train, as suggested by the parade of level images on the windows' far side, quickly gives way to the realization that one has been kidnapped -- perhaps by Sir Cropia's own hand. |
|
 |
Joe Merrell (Los Angeles, California) Joe Merrell was born in Seattle and grew up in Olympia, Washington. He studied philosophy and history at the Evergreen State College in Olympia and received his masters degree in film from California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. He currently resides in Los Angeles, where he makes installations and experimental films. - “Tomorrow Never Comes” 2009; 4:15min, color, stereo "Repeated horizontal and vertical lines of video create a continuously scrolling still image and a vanishing point perspective. The source footage was shot on a street corner in downtown Los Angeles." |
 "A collective memory of growth as frantic, negative gravitropism. Everything rises from the earth and reaches for the sky. Shared fundamental structures and symmetries exist even among forces seemingly in conflict with one another. Shattered light bulbs are blossoming flowers, bundles of copper wires are climbing vines. A perfect hybrid between nature and technology is sought. Stop motion and digital compositing with the strings showing, the hands of the creator can be seen holding individual elements in place. Iridescent noise appears from the tremor of a heartbeat during a scanning pass. Dust inhabits nearly every frame. Shadows and reflections of light are unnatural and surreal due to the mechanics through which a scanner captures images." |
David Montgomery (Fernandina Beach, Florida) A childhood spent mostly outdoors until an onset of video game addiction at a still very early age (healthy equilibrium setting in several years later) may have set the stage for the hybrid naturalist and digital content creator workflow employed in David Montgomery's art. He finished his formal education at the University of Florida obtaining a bachelors degree in Digital Arts and Sciences in 2005. In the Fall of 2007 David premiered the first film of his artistic career (“Pollenating” 2007) at the International Festival of Erotic Animation (FIAE) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Since then his work has gone on to screen at animated film festivals all over the world reaching a crescendo in the Winter of 2008/2009 with exhibitions such as “Too Art for TV 3” in New York and “Visions in the Nunnery” in the UK. - “Grow Worm" 2008; 4:30min, color, stereo |
"Fear of the Saveloy Moon" is a mostly improvised scenario made from layers of video and still images projected onto live actors and translucent sets, and uses props and shadow play. After filming one full hour of video, the tape is placed into a malfunctioning video camera and uploaded to a computer. Because of the malfunction, the footage automatically a |
Christine Schiavo (New York City) Christine Schiavo is a multi-media artist born and based in New York City. She works in Film, Photography, Installation art, Drawing and Sound, often incorporating all mediums simultaneously to create experimental films, theater and performance art. She is a founding member and the Visual Director of the Collective Opera Company based in NYC (http://collectiveopera.com/). Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art/ NY, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art/ NY, and is shown in galleries and film festivals around the world. She is currently working on a silent cinematic fable called " RIVETGIRL ", which premiered its first two chapters at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC in May of 2007. RESIDENCIES: MacDowell Artist Colony, Yaddo Corporation, Saltonstall Foundation, Millay Colony, VCCA, UCross Foundation, Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation |
 - "MEMORY FACE 1" 4:34min, color, stereo "MEMORY FACE 1 is comprised from a few moments of a close-up interview with a glamorous actress at a movie premiere. Simple processing, symmetrical mirroring, reveals an alternate reality of intense emotions and archetypical imagery." |
Brooks Williams (New York City) In the 1990's Brooks started to develop an interest in photography and video. His visual style is influenced by his musical background and his love of electronic processing and manipulation. Brooks currently performs with Beo Morales in a duet called Band-B. http://myspace.com/beoandbrooks and in the ensembles BBF and Jambeaux. |
[SFIP] Project - Still Fighting Ignorance & Intellectual Perfidy Video art from Africa Project [SFIP] is a multi-national exhibition process and a platform for critical thinking, researching and presenting African video art. The technocultural revolution has democratised cultural and artistic practice through everyday access to new media. At the same time, the pervasive presence of technology in our lives has raised questions around privacy, surveillance and ownership, the dominance of Western media in globalisation, as well as the privilege of access in the developed world. The [SFIP] network is dedicated to the diffusion of new experiences worldwide through film and video. It is unfortunate that contemporary African art remains largely associated with sculpture and painting. Much work remains to be done in adequately researching the creative energy of the continent, especially within the last decade. This exhibition presents a selection of African video art that stands beyond the clichés that remain associated with the dark continent and the postcolonial image. It seeks to bring viewers closer to idiosyncratic readings of African video art and its thematic concerns which are largely ignored. ‘Still Fighting Ignorance & Intellectual Perfidy’ contextualises African video art within a larger cultural framework. Reflecting an age of inter-cultural migration, [SFIP] presents African video artists who live in Africa, Europe and USA whilst providing a meeting point for knowledge and interest in the relationship between self and society. Most works address issues of alterity, identity, tolerance and social relationships as artists reflexively consider their sense of place and belonging in an increasingly interconnected world. From experimental video to short film, this show focuses on aesthetic and methodological perspectives of fighting ignorance and intellectual perfidy in contemporary African art. The project tells Africa's story by African new media artists as seen through the lens of the relation between tradition and modernity. ABOUT THE CURATOR Kisito Assangni is a Togolese artist and curator who trained at Lomé and Paris. Currently living between London, Paris and Lomé, his artworks primarily question post-globalisation impact and psychogeography, a concept defined in 1955 by the French writer and situationist Guy Debord.
|
 |
Kai Lossgott (South Africa) is a Cape Town-based contemporary artist, writer, curator and poet whose personal practice currently focuses on exploring green politics and systems theory through experimental film, performance and drawing, for instance his engravings in plant leaves. His work has been widely exhibited such as the Museum Africa, Johannesburg; Arnot Art Museum, New York; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Museum of Contemporary Art Maracaibo, Venezuela... - Read these roads, 3'58'', 2010 |
|---|---|
 |
Michele Magema (D.Congo) received an MA in fine arts from the Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts Paris-Cergy. A key focus for her, is articulating a permanent exchange between her Congolese culture and her adoptive French culture through videos and installations. Prestigious institutions worldwide have shown her work: Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hayward Gallery, London... - Interiority-Fresco IV - The Kiss of Narcisse(e), 2'31'', 2010 |
 |
Ezra Wube (Ethiopia) moved to the United States at the age of 18 and received his BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and an MFA from Hunter College, New York, NY. His works encompassing video, installations, drawing, painting and performance. Ezra had exhibitions at Dreams of Freedom Museum, Boston; MEIAC-Museum of Extramadura, Badajoz (Spain); Rush Arts Gallery, New York; Blackburn Gallery - Howard University, Washington DC. - Gela 2, 1'57'', 2010 |
 |
Nicene Kossentini (Tunisia) is a photographer and filmmaker living in Tunis. Graduated from the Institut Supérieur des Beaus-arts in Tunis and the Université Marc Bloch in Strasbourg, she attended the Studio National des Arts contemporains Le Fresnoy and the Ecole de l'image Les Gobelins in France. Mindful of her heritage and past, Kossentini seeks to uncover the lost relationship and buried truths of her culture and origins. Her work has been presented at various venues across the world: Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; Museum of Tunis Kheireddine Palace, Tunis; Kunstnernes Haus, Oslo; CAN, Neuchatel (Switzerland); Selma Feriani Gallery, London. - Myopia, 3'13'', 2008 |
 |
Nathalie Mba Bikoro (Gabon) uses creative arts to introduce alternative independent adaptations of social life and development in communities in Northern Gabon. She currently works as a visiting University Lecturer across Europe and Gabon teaching in creative contemporary arts, politics and philosophy. Nathalie is developing many educational interdisciplinary arts projects and collaborations including ArtEvict & DNA Gabon. Her exhibitions have traveled internationally, including South London Gallery, London; Performing Arts Academy, Helsinki; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) Festival South Korea among others. - Hide & Seek, 5'33'', 2010, Nathalie Mba Bikoro & Iris Musolf |
 |
Jude Anogwih (Nigeria) is a multimedia artist and Co-curator of Identity: An Imagined State, living and working in Lagos, Nigeria. His work has been featured in several international art exhibitions and projects such as the Festival International d'Art Video de Casablanca, Morocco; FestivalMiden, Kalamata, Greece; SMBA, Amsterdam; Old News #6 Malmo, Lagos, Copenhagen, New York; Geo-graphics, Brussels; COLOGNEOFF VII, Madrid; Orbitas, Houston, USA. Recent curatorial projects include The Green Summary at Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos; Contested Terrains at Tate Modern, London and CCA - Lagos with curator Kerryn Greenberg (Tate Modern). He is a founding member of Video Art Network, Lagos. - STOP! 2'04'', 2010 |
 |
Samba Fall (Senegal) studied fine arts and animation in Senegal as well as in Norway. He uses the creative freedom provided by digital animation in order to examine and reflect upon human behaviour. Fall has shown his work at the Design Museum, London; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (Finland); Arad Art Museum, Arad (Romania); Pol's Potten Gallery, Amsterdam; Dakar Biennial, Senegal. - Oil man, 1'00, 2008 |
 |
Johan Thom (South Africa) gained a Phd in fine art at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Well known for his performances, videos and video installations, Thom often subjects the body to extremes in a quest to map its ongoing transformation. Numerous group and solo exhibitions from Venice Biennale, Italy; Museum Africa, Johannesburg; Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth, Germany; Slade School of Fine Art, London; DUCTAC, Dubai amongst others. - Illumination, 2'03'', 2012 |
 |
N'doye Douts (Senegal) graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Dakar. While painting is his favorite mode of expression, Douts also works in film and in sculpture. His works have been shown internationally at such institutions as Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf (Germany); Bekris Gallery, San Francisco; IFAN Museum, Dakar. - Train train Medina, 7'02'', 2001 |
 |
Kokou Ekouagou (Togo) attended the University of Lome, Togo. His video narratives and installations are propelled by a desire to reflect on the classifications and constructs of everyday reality. His videos were showcased at Centro d'Arte Contemporanea Ticino, Bellinzonna (Switzerland); Hexagon Space, Baltimore (USA); Galerie Lucrece, Paris; Savvy Contemporary, Berlin; Raffles Institute, Shanghai. - Taller man, 2'20'', 2011 |
 |
Younes Baba-Ali (Morroco) is a multi-disciplinary artist holding a master in Fine Art from the Ecole Supérieure d'Art, Aix-en-Provence, France. Sound material and its conditioning are central elements of his artistic work. Younes has had shows at Bozar Museum, Brussels; Kunsthalle, Mulhouse, France; Haus fur elektronische kunste, Basel, Switzerland; Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid. - Call for Prayer - Morse, 3'06'', 2011 |
 |
Saidou Dicko (Burkina Faso) is a self-taught artist working with video, photography and painting. He exhibits and screens his work extensively in an international context, including the Design Museum, London; Foto Museum, Antwerp (Belgium); Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama (Japan); Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Fondation Blachere, Apt (France); Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg (South Africa). Le petit Berger, 5'14'', 2011 |
 |
Guy Wouete (Cameroon) lives and works between Antwerp and Douala. He trained in Art and Multimedia at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten. His work (video, photography, installation) is an exploration into the finite and infinite, transcending the limitations of formal academic training by employing a more experimental approach that seeks to push existing boundaries. Guy has participated in several residencies and exhibitions at IFA Galleries Berlin & Stuttgart; SBK Galerie23, Amsterdam; Modern Art Museum, Medellin (Colombia); Museum of Contemporary Art, Algiers (Algeria); Momo Gallery, Johannesburg. - Le dilemme divin, 5'31'', 2009 |
 |
Saliou Traoré (Burkina Faso)'s art practice explores the idea of a reversed development-aid by using video, sculpture, installation and drawing. |
 |
Mohamed El Baz (Morocco) explores the notions of borders and territories in his work, especially those that would raise barriers between individuals. El baz plays upon three themes in his work: the everyday, the autobiographical and the playful. The work itself is nomadic and transforms itself according to the context. FUCK THE DEATH, 11'10'', 2011 |
| BACK TO TOP |
|---|
|
|---|
|
Echo Park Film Center (EPFC) Saturday, February 25 8pm - 10pm Tickets: $5 at the door 1200 N Alvarado St. (@ Sunset Blvd.) Los Angeles, CA. 90026 (213) 484 - 8846 |
 Alysse Stepanian outside the EPFC, before the screenings. |
 EPFC's host, tech and projectionist, Alee Peoples. |
 Wilfried Agricola's “House of Tomorrow” 2005, 3:00min |
 RKDB's “The Dream of 10,000 Year Old Fruit” 2011, 3:51min |
 RKDB discusses his work with the audience. |
 Audience during RKDB's discussion of his work. |
 |
|
Special thanks to the EPFC, Rick Bahto, and Alee Peoples for making this screening possible. Also thanks to all the participating artists. |
|---|
There is an unbridled energy and natural rawness to Martin Back's video, in which he uses his mouth, a contact mic and a webcam to create a raucous performance. Paulo Barros's percolating geometric abstractions are inhibited only by their forced rectangular enclosures. Hey-Yeun Jang's work penetrates the “in-between,” the deep cracks that are left unexplored in familiar realities. Niclas Hallberg and his collaborator Stina Pehrsdotter give voice to those who have come to feel shame in a civilization that has alphabetized and codified proper conduct. Wilfried Agricola de Cologne's videos are both visually and viscerally penetrating, and his clear observations are potent and commanding. |
 |
| In addition to the above selections from MI's archives, RKDB, a video artist based in Oakland, California will be at the screening for the presentation and discussion of his work. A BFA graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University, RKDB worked off-Broadway and in independent films in New York City, and while working at MoMA as an assistant to the curators for the Jackson Pollock retrospective, he had a revelation that led him to video art. RKDB calls himself an "amateur anthropologist/comparative religion and Jungian student." To the first time viewer, his work may appear absurd, funny, and even irreverent. But after viewing a collection of his work, one will come to understand the degree to which he is obsessed with Jung, ritual, myth and shamanism. RKDB trusts in intuition and the transformative power of inner truths, and sincerely believes that "the dreamlike quality of the moving image is best suited to respond to and enter into a dialogue with the part of the mind that is beyond - and on which floats - the rational sphere." It is not necessarily the "strange" quality of the sound that makes some of these works guttural, but the restless audacity of the artists in breaching the boundaries of the agreeable, the proper, and the familiar. (Alysse Stepanian, curator - updated January 2012) |
 |
 |
WILFRIED AGRICOLA DE COLOGNE (Cologne, Germany) |
 |
 |
MARTIN BACK (Texas, USA) |
 |
 |
PAULO R. C. BARROS (Sao Paulo, Brazil) |
 |
 |
NICLAS HALLBERG (Sweden) Hallberg works on several international projects focused on collaborational exchanges resulting in exhibitions and video screenings, and also in different art projects together with artists around the world. Niclas Hallberg founded Formverk (art zone) in 2004, together with Stina Pehrsdotter, an experimental exhibition and project space. STINA PEHRSDOTTER (Sweden) Stina works in video, photography, street/installation/object and performance art inspired by the human body and its environment. In her works she focuses on body’s desires and needs, wishes and loss. She often reflects on the connection between mind, body and soul, and tensions between the body and the environment. Her work can be seen as an exploration of existence and memories. Stina Pehrsdotter has participated in numerous exhibitions in Sweden and abroad. She is engaged in several international video collaborations, shown at festivals and exhibitions. As a curator, she has arranged many showings in a variety of context, and as being one of the founders of Formverk (art zone), an art project organisation, she is involved with a broad network of artists and independent art initiatives. |
 |
 |
HEY-YEUN JANG (New York City) BIO |
 |
 |
RKDB (Oakland, California) |
| BACK TO TOP |
|---|
|
|---|
program 1 @ TAM... |
Torrance Art Museum (TAM) Saturday, January 28, 2012 5pm - 7pm Free and open to the public 3320 Civic Center Drive Torrance, CA 90503 |
 Yuko Takemura's "Space in Between" 2006/7, 5:02 min, color, sound |
 Adnan Hussain speaks to the audience after his presentation |
|
|
Special thanks to TAM, Max Presneill and Jason Ramos for making this screening possible. Also thanks to all the participating artists. |
|---|
|
 |
| On this very special evening at TAM, Adnan will share with the audience the process of creating his film and stories from behind the scenes of working with very accomplished Pakistani folk musicians. The music was composed for "Gul (flower)" by Ustad Amb Jogi, and recorded in Sindh, Pakistan. (Alysse Stepanian, Curator) |
 |
 |
KIKA NICOLELA (São Paulo, Brazil) BIO ARTIST STATEMENT |
 |
 |
GERALD GUTHRIE (Illinois, USA) BIO ARTIST STATEMENT |
 |
 |
| ADNAN HUSSAIN (Los Angeles, USA) BIO Adnan Hussain is an artist working primarily in animation. Having worked at studios like Walt Disney Feature Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks on live action effects and animated films, he has turned his skills to directing and creating his own films. "Gul" is his first film and an attempt at exploring a more raw, painterly style of computer animation. ARTIST STATEMENT "Gul" is the culmination of personal experimentation in art and knowledge gained from commercial work. More than the techniques I adapted and created for this film, it was the story and process that kept me pushing to work on it in my spare time. I developed a story that meant something to me and a world to express it in. "Gul" is that piece of my imagination realized. It is all too rare for an artist to truly create what they imagined, with the constraints of work, life and waiting for someone to give you that opportunity. For me, I got that chance with this film. "Gul (flower)" 2009, 9:06 min, color, sound |
 |
 |
| YUKO TAKEMURA (London, UK) Born in Nagano, Japan, Takemura lives and works in London. Takemura has exhibited her work in the UK, Japan, and America. She writes, "I have been working in video and installation with specific concerns about perception and sensation which occur subconsciously within our bodies and minds. My ideas are often influenced by my own emotional experiences, which are sensuous, strange, but also disturbing. I always try to create something which would evoke a sense of tactility within our bodies, in order for viewers to be engaged with it visually and physically." - "Aloneness" 2008, 3:25 min, color, sound - "Space in Between" 2006/7, 5:02 min, color, sound - "the dark once faded" 2009, 3:48 min, color, sound |
| BACK TO TOP |
|---|