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| Audio/Video Engineers: June Romero, Spencer McNeil Technical Director: Philip Mantione (Composer, multimedia artist) SPECIAL THANKS TO: Mat Gleason, Founder and Director of Coagula Curatorial |
Don’t Eat The Yellow SnowThe powers that control societies endorse selective blindness that stifles our natural sense of compassion and justice as social beings. They capitalize on our desire for convenience and drive for self-preservation. We tend to look away, unless faced with personal calamity or transgression that affects immediate family, our allies, tribe, nation, or us. The title of this curation was inspired by the iconoclastic American composer, Frank Zappa’s song, which tells the story of a boy that is unable to look away from the beating of his favorite seal by a profit-seeking trapper. The ten videos in this show were chosen based on their relevance to an essay of the same title, available for download here... |
Christopher Coleman’s animation “Modern Times” is a visual essay about the post-911 U.S. government using the fear of terrorism for control and distraction from issues it is unwilling to address. Taiwanese artist, Wei-Ming Ho’s “The Art-Qaeda Project” utilizes the sounds of Morse code and figures from the Environmental Sustainability Index for a video created from the documentation of a series of guerrilla-type nocturnal projections on government and other buildings in Taipei. This work brings attention to the relationship between human activities and the destruction of the environment. In “The Cameo (Collapsing Memory; Savage Series)” Indonesian artist M.R.Adytama Pranada Charda superimposes the living portrait of a man over a still image of a bloody face that represents the military generals allegedly murdered by the G30S/PKI Indonesian communist Party in 1965. While opposing views point to the possibilities of foul play and the involvement of the internal army, the persecution of the communists eventually led to the election of General Suharto as the country’s president. Iranian-born Alysse Stepanian's video, based on her early dream journal, brings attention to the transience and volatility of social and political hierarchical structures in a post-revolutionary Iran. Israeli-born, London-based artist Guli Silberstein uses documentary footage found online, depicting a young woman who tries to protect a group of civilians from the weapons of Israeli soldiers. This powerful image in “Disturbdance” shows the human side of war. One wonders whether the two soldiers are as affected by the image of this heroic woman, as are the viewers. Socially constructed hierarchies often disrupt the flow of information. Iranian artist, Farideh Shahsavarani’s “Circulus Vitiosus” forces us to acknowledge the invisible walls built with blind prejudices. “The Romantic Self-Exiles 1” is a meditation on the memories and emotional attachments of the Iranian-born artist Morehshin Allahyari. Currently living in the U.S., Allahyari reminisces about what once was, before she chose self-exile over self-censorship. In a surreal animation “Dauphin 007” New York-based artist, Jonathan Monaghan relates elements and events associated with the French monarchy to contemporary forms of institutionalized control. In “Boxed” by Eric Hynynen of Finland, an adult-like child wearing a corporate tie cries feverishly. The freakish child is trapped in a box in the middle of the rubble of a destroyed office. U.S.-based artist, Kasumi’s "JIMMY" depicts a boy from an early American black and white movie. We are continuously reminded that Jimmy is “emotionally sick” because he is afraid of others. The image of the terrified child is juxtaposed against scenes of violence; Jimmy “can run, but he cannot hide”. In an animation video, U.S.-born artist, Michael Lasater depicts a man in a constant state of consumption. Using humor in “Billboard”, Lasater equates this man’s ravenous eating to the American consumer society. |
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Gelare Khoshgozaran (Los Angeles/USA) PERFORMANCE (ongoing) HAIRIE BROWN: THE TIMES THEY ARE X'CHANGIN BIO: Khoshgozaran is an artist, writer and independent scholar living and working in Los Angeles. Born in Tehran, Iran Gelare finished her undergraduate degree in Photography at the University of Arts in Tehran and she contributed to Iranian art journals and magazines before moving to the States. She received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California in 2011. She is currently a columnist at Mardomak.org, a prominent Iranian news and media website where she reflects on Iranian arts and culture especially among the diaspora. From pre-revolutionary Iranian TV commercial footage to personal home video, from static noise to an iconic American pop song, from the lobby of an art museum in New York to the communal virtual space of “online lifestyle”, from childhood games to every day rituals of living under societal rules, how is culture “formed” through our intake and experience of images, sounds, spaces and practices? How can artistic practice, alongside scholarly research be an entry point to approach the hybridity of culture and contemporary existence in the age of “post”? These questions, amongst others unfold in the videos, performances, films and writings of Gelare Khoshgozaran. |
  (photos: June Romero) |
Christy Roberts (Los Angeles/USA) PERFORMANCE Good Enough "We all drank the Kool-Aid. You drank the Kool-Aid. I drank the Kool-Aid. It isn't. Sometimes we think this is good enough. We aren't. Sometimes we think we are trying hard enough. It isn't. Sometimes we think this is all there is. We won't. Sometimes we think we will be saved from ourselves. I'm killing the cult inside me. Nothing will remain, but what is necessary. I'm purging my internal ad campaign. This is a requiem for what is about to die. Referencing the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid of the infamous Jonestown Massacre, as well as numerous horror films, Christy Roberts' performance examines her relationship to her own art practice and self-determined parameters, through metaphorically ingesting too much of her own unquestioned beliefs, only to inevitably purge herself of them. This personal gesture as performance is thus turned outward, questioning the viewer's own unexamined positions." BIO: Artist and educator, Christy Roberts, composes experiences, interventions, and objects that explore the tension between humans and their physical, social, and psychological environments and power structures and how they intersect with joy, risk, failure, and ethics. A native of Southern California, Roberts holds Bachelors Degrees in Philosophy and Religion, a BFA in Studio Art, and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University, earned in 2011.Christy Roberts is an Associate Professor at Moreno Valley College and has contributed to and organized in/with/at: The California Poppy Collective, The LA Art Union, Occupy, The Torrance Art Museum, Pacific Standard Time Performance Festival (with Mark Di Suvero, Leslie Labowitz Starus, and Suzanne Lacy), 5790 Projects, The Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, For Your Art, RAID Projects, Perform Chinatown, Summer Camp's ProjectProject, CSU Long Beach, and Track 16, among others. Roberts was recently one of LA Weekly’s Best of LA People, 2012, and was also a guest blogger for Art 21 Blog, writing on Occupy and the forming of an art workers' union. http://thecpc.tumblr.com/ |
Trial & Error
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PROGRAM 3) Eva Olsson (Sweden) 4) Anders Weberg (Sweden) 5) Nina Lassila (Sweden) |
6) Caroline Näslund (Sweden) 7) Rasmus Albertsen (Sweden) 8) Jonas Nilsson (Sweden) 9) Mattias Härenstam (Sweden) |
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Radmila Knezevic (Sweden) "You loved my hair" 3:09 min, 2009, no sound Since i was a kid i can't decide about my hair, -You must have braids! said my father and my teachers. I wanted to have ponytail. When we came to Sweden and I saw Swedish girls with tresses hair. I wanted to have same as them but it doesn't work for me because my hair was too thick. So i cut away all my hair with my neck and I was satisfied, but my mother find what I have done so she cut away rest of my hair. I looked like a scarecrow. My father always said "Half of women's beauty is HAIR!" so stupid I think , but his thoughts still control me. |
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Dorna Aslanzadeh (Sweden) "A Hundred and One" 3:30 min, 2010 A man is dancing in a empty room, a compulsive repetition of movements and choreography, a constant struggle against the body. |
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Eva Olsson (Sweden) "On non-freehold property" 3:02 min, 2011 What to do when trapped in a situation which cannot be changed. A situation that involves the right of possession but not ownership. |
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Anders Weberg (Sweden) "UNDISCLOSED BEAUTY" 3:13 min, 2008 |
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Nina Lassila (Sweden) "Woman" 0:58 min, 2009 Declaration of the real woman. Supposedly a wish to be a ”fucking” real woman, in the most beautiful city of the world, Paris. A playful video with a slight provocative touch. |
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Caroline Näslund (Sweden) "It's been 7 years since I last did this" 0:50 min, 2010 Every 7th year I smash a mirror to make sure that the odds are against me. First mirror was smashed in Tsukuba, Japan, in November 2010. On-going work. |
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Rasmus Albertsen (Sweden) "The archive" 3.28 min, 2009 An old woman is carrying paper from one archive to the next as a sort of Sisyphus mission. She is trapped inside the scenery and cannot get away. At one point there is another person but they barely notice each other. The other person sits at a desk as a kind of supervisor, listening to the noise of an old radio. Paper is flying everywhere. |
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Jonas Nilsson (Sweden) "Battlefield" 1:28 min, 2012 The work is a dystopia, an excessively negative social commentary on what it might be like to live in a rented apartment using the communal laundry room in Sweden today. How one can get irritated and disturbed by their neighbors - one resident's heaven may be another's hell. |
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Mattias Härenstam (Sweden) "Portrait of a smiling man" 4:30 min, 2010, no sound An actor dressed in a dark suit and tie is sitting on a chair. He has been given the task of trying to smile as broad and long as possible. The entire session lasted almost twenty minutes, and over time the smile gradually disintegrates into a more and more grotesque grimace. |
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below: images from the event
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