So although this is long overdue, I have to tell you about the incredible range of short film work being produced through Canada’s media co-ops, because sadly so few were there to see the B.C, Atlantic, Manitoba and Ontario segments of the Stem Cell Film Festival.
Scott Amos’ Memory Lapse is an intriguing glimpse into his own practice of voyeuristic collecting of found footage, re-imagining other people’s memories into a collage of lost meaning, searching for a glimpse of someone else’s dirty little secret. The delicate, yet almost arbitrary drawings in the film, right over top of someone else’s memories seem to elude to the irretrievable aspect of trying to record and hold onto any experience. You can see more of Amos’ films, music videos (Meatdraw “I Don’t Want to be Your Ghost” and look out for Hank and Lily’s “Angel of the West Wing”) and subscribe to found-footage podcast at http://www.oilyfilms.com .
In A Girl Named Kai, Kai Ling Xue transformed the all to often clichéd tale of coming out into a highly visceral experience, sending chills down my spine with the raw physicality in the rich colours of the film, the intensity of the music, and her own physical actions especially in the scenes where Kai is almost violently shaving her head in the middle of a street festival in (I believe) Taiwan. Similarly as we watch Kai’s body skin being marked with a tattoo she is able to invoke and bring attention to the corporeality of her own body, the body of the viewer and the materiality of the film itself. The tactility of experience and loss are intertwined with strength and resolve to tell her story and continue creating films. The embodiment and sharing, releasing and withholding, the necessity to express that, which is self repressed, the need to make public that which remains private within a family.
Saskatchewan’s Graeme Patterson (shown in the vibrant Manitoba section of the film screening) created an amazing stop motion animation simply titled Monkey and Deer. Growing out of his childhood experiments with miniature worlds and creatures, Patterson’s technical mastery of set and puppet building retains a humble sense of wonder that brings the enchanted Monkey and Deer characters to life and tugs at our desire to retain even a glimmer of the innocence, beauty and wildness that lingers in the world. Just as essential to the delicately animated animals, the elaborate buildings based upon Patterson’s recent fascination with the real life prairie ghost town of Woodrow, where three generations of his own forefathers lived (you can see the buildings on their own too at the website http://www.graemepatterson.com/ ). Could such an honest sense, of the romance and nostalgia of the rural peripheries come from anywhere but the Canadian prairies? This really is a masterpiece in Canadiana, delightful, whimsical, sad, awe inspiring, you really have to see it to understand.
There were a number of choreographed dance pieces that utilized the specific nature of the film to elaborate beyond the dance itself either through framing (Hiding in Plain Site), focus as a means of transforming the dance into a type of drawing (Tunnel Vision) but Amanda Dawn Christie’s Three Part Harmony was particularly entrancing. In the film she both danced in and directed, Christie layered three very closely structured dance passages over top of one another in RGB colour seperation. At times her bodies would coalesce, always flickering almost a ghost dance, various selves dividing, returning, repeating. Three Part Harmony was almost hypnotizing and quite poignant in addressing the idea of a consistently fluctuating self.
Other films like Guy Maddin’s Sissy Boy Slap Party and Victoria Prince’s Winged Victory overflowed with giddy exuberance, extravagance and chaos abounding. Maddin’s refinement of audio choreography (sissy slaps and voodoo trance drums) reverberates with hysterics while Prince’s silent film references jumbled with circus freaks, film burning and drawing are just as tumultuous.
How I had never before heard of Istvan Kantor (Revolutionary Song), I have no idea, or maybe I had heard of the artist who was banned from the National Gallery because he painted a giant X on the wall in his own blood, and was awarded the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Art a couple of years ago, either way his piece was a high strung film to end the screening with, and I believe it was at this point that I started getting spasms in my eye muscles. I am quite amazed by the intensity and the incredible range of work he produces, entangled with multiple identities, the development of Neoism?!, blood paintings, music, videos and performances with robots. Definitely another website worth checking out http://www.istvankantor.com, definitely another huge leap seeing this kind of work in Edmonton.
I will be back with more on aDemond, Placetime and dot.calm as well as metro cinema and just more in general.
later
Andrea
Monday, April 23, 2007
One week later and with the exception of dot.calm/49 Stories (Jfry Craig’s installation at Latitude) the inaugural test of STEMCell activity in Edmonton has concluded. The performances, the screenings and the contents of many Steam Whistle bottles have been packed away. What Cellular smatterings continue to resonate in the minds and memories of those who participated? Most significant may be the programming of pathways yet to come.
In knocking around where to begin in reflecting on STEMCell, I find myself returning again and again to aDemod’s performance at Latitude. aDemod is a recently formed Edmonton based collective of ‘multimedia artists exploring the juncture between sound, film, video, interactivity and performance.’ Last Friday’s performance featured film projection by aAron munson, a music feed from Shawn Pinchbeck and a live video mix by kelleY boleN. Shawn’s piece was created on custom designed software tapping into sound files of ‘soundscapes, environments, precomposed snippets and noises’. Shawn describes this work as ‘live improvised acousmatic soundscape.’ The piece that was played (and played with that night) had been created earlier that day in Estonia and uploaded to the internet. aAron and kelleY have collaborated with Shawn before and mentioned afterwards that they’re familiar with some of his sequencing patterns, enabling them to anticipate the helix-like shifts that occur along the way.
I asked kelleY a day or so before the festival to talk a bit about her work and her process. She explained that she is inspired by ‘anything that catches my eye as a static entity that I need to make move with stop motion…that (hopefully) makes you think.’ kelleY takes these clips and digitally projects from her laptop as she mixes using Josh Goldberg’s freeware Max/MSP Dervish program. She recently took a class at FAVA in cameraless animation and ‘loves the idea of something created with such a hands on, old school method; material that is then digitized.’ kelleY mentioned that one of her challenges in live performance is inviting the audience to engage and interact. On Saturday, her projections featured arrows and the directive ‘Push Me’: the flowing mix of images temporarily suspended until a response was received with audience members approaching a wall and pushing accordingly (or, pushing the Dervish mixer as some wag did). I find myself returning again and again to aDemod’s performance as a portal into thinking about what STEMCell achieved, what it sought to present and what the implications might be for the future, not only for the festival but for Edmonton’s arts community.
*
In viewing the works screened at Metro as part of STEMCell’s Film Festival, I was reminded yet again that across the country there are many, many prolific media art production centres. Each centre has its own mandate, yet operates under certain non-varied principles: non-profit; artist-run; committed to the production, exhibition and distribution of independent media art. Represented at the film festival were 40 works and 16 centres. In Alberta, there are 6 artist-run film and video production centres: 5 in Calgary (Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers, NUTV, Quickdraw Animation Society, herland, EMMEDIA) and 1 (FAVA) in Edmonton. This isn’t news to anyone who creates non-industry film and video in Alberta. But reflecting on the works that were shown and the proliferation of work being created elsewhere invites consideration. What’s happening here and what isn’t? Or, hasn’t. What’s new and what isn’t and why.
In an increasingly DIY media culture, why would anyone need a co-op? If you can buy your own computer, access software, noodle about in the comfort of your own home and/or deluxo studio space, what need would you have for a co-op? Okay, maybe you don’t have all of your own gear. You may need to rent a camera. Or a sound recorder. But you can do that at other places. You may have to pay more but you can get solid, reliable do-the-job gear. And any co-op advocate will tell you that it isn’t just about the gear. And any experienced gal will tell you, it isn’t just about the tools. It’s how you use them. Then what is it about? What makes a co-op a thriving, vital, relative entity and not just a discount gear house? The screenings of the shorts at STEMCell offered an opportunity to reflect on the critical junctions of creation, presentation and context. Generating from the centre and moving outwards…
*
‘Non-traditional uses of media art.’ Following STEMCell, this is how I began to talk about some of the work that I had seen to anyone who hadn’t attended or heard of the festival. BLANK was most often the expression that I was faced with in response. A friend and fellow co-op member referred to ‘all those experimental films’ at the festival. But wasn’t that the whole point of STEM Cell? To present work that might not otherwise be experienced here, at least not in a way that galvanized individual pieces into a cohesive yet disparate whole. And isn’t one of the objectives of a media arts co-op to foster innovative work, not only through available resources of cameras, projectors and editing suites but through discourse and dialogue around what is being created? In this context, ‘experimental’ is redundant: the co-op should be the lab hub where formulas are being tried, tested and proven. Especially now when it’s so very easy to just stay at home or go elsewhere. In this sense, experimental feels too much like ‘alternative music’: what’s really alternative anymore? Isn’t this just a grab bag term that doesn’t sum up a genre of music but attempts to establish credibility through distance from the mainstream? In co-op culture, we’re already there: in an environment that isn’t mandated by market values and prescribed circulations, how do you go further out when you’re already outside? By being supported from within.
At aDemod’s performance I found myself transfixed yet wondering how the experience might be varied. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be up and walking around (I was seated on one of the many chairs in the performance space) as I wanted to be lying on the floor. Could aAron and kelleY’s images be projected on the ceiling? If so, how would the audience be engaged in interaction? Would it be possible to involve sound responses such as clapping or foot stomps as an alternative to ‘Push Me’? Surely the creation of an experiential installation involves time, space and funds to fully explore the possibilities. And isn’t it worthwhile to invest in the facilitation of this happening here? Because it already is. And it has been for sometime.
*
Through STEMCell, we were invited to take a look at other ways of looking. Fresh perspectives on documenting and narrating our experience. Are we seeing things any differently? Are we inspired to attempt other ways of presenting our own work? Are we questioning existing spaces and practices of exhibition? Are we less inhibited in discussing concepts we don’t quite grasp? Were you turned off by work that felt too distant or cerebral? Were you touched by work that moved you? A definitive STEMCell is one that is unspecialized but with the potential for growth through division and that gives rise to other specialized cells. Jfry Craig wrote that ‘co-ops have to remember that while funding arty is cool, sometimes art should be popular as well.’ Could it be that one of the most radical outcomes of STEM Cell would be unanticipated exponential growth with vast appeal? At least for now we’re guided by a common desire: to make things move.
Leslea Kroll
In knocking around where to begin in reflecting on STEMCell, I find myself returning again and again to aDemod’s performance at Latitude. aDemod is a recently formed Edmonton based collective of ‘multimedia artists exploring the juncture between sound, film, video, interactivity and performance.’ Last Friday’s performance featured film projection by aAron munson, a music feed from Shawn Pinchbeck and a live video mix by kelleY boleN. Shawn’s piece was created on custom designed software tapping into sound files of ‘soundscapes, environments, precomposed snippets and noises’. Shawn describes this work as ‘live improvised acousmatic soundscape.’ The piece that was played (and played with that night) had been created earlier that day in Estonia and uploaded to the internet. aAron and kelleY have collaborated with Shawn before and mentioned afterwards that they’re familiar with some of his sequencing patterns, enabling them to anticipate the helix-like shifts that occur along the way.
I asked kelleY a day or so before the festival to talk a bit about her work and her process. She explained that she is inspired by ‘anything that catches my eye as a static entity that I need to make move with stop motion…that (hopefully) makes you think.’ kelleY takes these clips and digitally projects from her laptop as she mixes using Josh Goldberg’s freeware Max/MSP Dervish program. She recently took a class at FAVA in cameraless animation and ‘loves the idea of something created with such a hands on, old school method; material that is then digitized.’ kelleY mentioned that one of her challenges in live performance is inviting the audience to engage and interact. On Saturday, her projections featured arrows and the directive ‘Push Me’: the flowing mix of images temporarily suspended until a response was received with audience members approaching a wall and pushing accordingly (or, pushing the Dervish mixer as some wag did). I find myself returning again and again to aDemod’s performance as a portal into thinking about what STEMCell achieved, what it sought to present and what the implications might be for the future, not only for the festival but for Edmonton’s arts community.
*
In viewing the works screened at Metro as part of STEMCell’s Film Festival, I was reminded yet again that across the country there are many, many prolific media art production centres. Each centre has its own mandate, yet operates under certain non-varied principles: non-profit; artist-run; committed to the production, exhibition and distribution of independent media art. Represented at the film festival were 40 works and 16 centres. In Alberta, there are 6 artist-run film and video production centres: 5 in Calgary (Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers, NUTV, Quickdraw Animation Society, herland, EMMEDIA) and 1 (FAVA) in Edmonton. This isn’t news to anyone who creates non-industry film and video in Alberta. But reflecting on the works that were shown and the proliferation of work being created elsewhere invites consideration. What’s happening here and what isn’t? Or, hasn’t. What’s new and what isn’t and why.
In an increasingly DIY media culture, why would anyone need a co-op? If you can buy your own computer, access software, noodle about in the comfort of your own home and/or deluxo studio space, what need would you have for a co-op? Okay, maybe you don’t have all of your own gear. You may need to rent a camera. Or a sound recorder. But you can do that at other places. You may have to pay more but you can get solid, reliable do-the-job gear. And any co-op advocate will tell you that it isn’t just about the gear. And any experienced gal will tell you, it isn’t just about the tools. It’s how you use them. Then what is it about? What makes a co-op a thriving, vital, relative entity and not just a discount gear house? The screenings of the shorts at STEMCell offered an opportunity to reflect on the critical junctions of creation, presentation and context. Generating from the centre and moving outwards…
*
‘Non-traditional uses of media art.’ Following STEMCell, this is how I began to talk about some of the work that I had seen to anyone who hadn’t attended or heard of the festival. BLANK was most often the expression that I was faced with in response. A friend and fellow co-op member referred to ‘all those experimental films’ at the festival. But wasn’t that the whole point of STEM Cell? To present work that might not otherwise be experienced here, at least not in a way that galvanized individual pieces into a cohesive yet disparate whole. And isn’t one of the objectives of a media arts co-op to foster innovative work, not only through available resources of cameras, projectors and editing suites but through discourse and dialogue around what is being created? In this context, ‘experimental’ is redundant: the co-op should be the lab hub where formulas are being tried, tested and proven. Especially now when it’s so very easy to just stay at home or go elsewhere. In this sense, experimental feels too much like ‘alternative music’: what’s really alternative anymore? Isn’t this just a grab bag term that doesn’t sum up a genre of music but attempts to establish credibility through distance from the mainstream? In co-op culture, we’re already there: in an environment that isn’t mandated by market values and prescribed circulations, how do you go further out when you’re already outside? By being supported from within.
At aDemod’s performance I found myself transfixed yet wondering how the experience might be varied. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be up and walking around (I was seated on one of the many chairs in the performance space) as I wanted to be lying on the floor. Could aAron and kelleY’s images be projected on the ceiling? If so, how would the audience be engaged in interaction? Would it be possible to involve sound responses such as clapping or foot stomps as an alternative to ‘Push Me’? Surely the creation of an experiential installation involves time, space and funds to fully explore the possibilities. And isn’t it worthwhile to invest in the facilitation of this happening here? Because it already is. And it has been for sometime.
*
Through STEMCell, we were invited to take a look at other ways of looking. Fresh perspectives on documenting and narrating our experience. Are we seeing things any differently? Are we inspired to attempt other ways of presenting our own work? Are we questioning existing spaces and practices of exhibition? Are we less inhibited in discussing concepts we don’t quite grasp? Were you turned off by work that felt too distant or cerebral? Were you touched by work that moved you? A definitive STEMCell is one that is unspecialized but with the potential for growth through division and that gives rise to other specialized cells. Jfry Craig wrote that ‘co-ops have to remember that while funding arty is cool, sometimes art should be popular as well.’ Could it be that one of the most radical outcomes of STEM Cell would be unanticipated exponential growth with vast appeal? At least for now we’re guided by a common desire: to make things move.
Leslea Kroll
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
This afternoon I popped into Latitude to revisit Jfry Craig’s ‘dot.calm/49 Stories’. Gave me lots to think about in terms of the creation and evolution of work; the shaping of identity and narrative; forms of exhibition and many other recurring themes that have emerged for me through STEM Cell.
Jfry’s installation is both light and dense: whimsical and thoughtful in terms of textual pulls. Excerpts of dot.calm’s webscript documenting the life of obsessive, compulsive, golf loving, sous chef Paul (‘a troubled trouble maker of a gentleman who obviously had issues with language and relationships’) and his gradual retreat into himself are postered alongside dot.calm’s other work. TV monitors invite us to observe a seated figure visually quartered: one hand rests on a chair, the other grips a golf club, below, a foot in each monitor (shoes on each change frequently). Two small monitors sit akimbo on the floor, framing the larger ones. Mostly static on the right one, on the left I saw a bit of that cooking show with the woman whose husband left her for Tori Spelling. There was a shoebox with various mementos (a couple of match books, a ticket to SF MOMA, some photos of food---Paul’s creations?, a keychain and a tiny plastic woman). In the bathrooms are fuzzy pixel dot.calm dildo posters both beckoning and threatening: for the ladies, ‘Why aren’t you at home right now? Solutions to problems you know he won’t solve.’ And for the gents, ‘Do you measure up? Be nice ‘cause we sell sh*t that does.’ Courtesy of www.brandingbydot.calm On leaving the women’s bathroom, a glimpse in the mirror of the now non-reversed posters reminds you to ‘WASH YOUR HANDS’. A dot.calm poster reflecting Paul’s obsessive behaviour.
Among the sections of the webscript are ‘edited’ excerpts such as: ‘I stopped reading because it no longer captivated me…I generally distrust language…when they started selling ‘new-used’ vehicles, I understood that I didn’t quite understand. The truth is I lost track of language while I was mastering it.’
Reading Paul through dot.calm through Jfry is a bit dizzying. But like the Bridget Rileyesque ‘[Paul] numbers i’ image, its impact invites engagement rather than over analysis. Dot.calm’s body of work includes reverse text posters of ‘Get me drunk & then see what happens’, as well as tender reflections from Paul: ‘wanted. A quiet place where dad and I can skip rocks. A perfect round caught on tape to be remembered.’
I’m not sure if this installation fully realized Jfry’s aspirations for dot.calm/49 Stories (while I was at Latitude four strong arms appeared to repo the DVD decks. Jessica assured me that the decks would be replaced. I guess the royalties from www.brandingbydot.calm are still pouring in.) Somehow it felt like less like a work not still in progress, but one to be more fully inhabited. As a piece which began as webscript, evolved into installation and is now to be published as a book, dot.calm/49 Stories remains for the next week or so, a fitting finale to the experiment that was and continues to be STEM Cell.
chchchchchchchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Jfry’s installation is both light and dense: whimsical and thoughtful in terms of textual pulls. Excerpts of dot.calm’s webscript documenting the life of obsessive, compulsive, golf loving, sous chef Paul (‘a troubled trouble maker of a gentleman who obviously had issues with language and relationships’) and his gradual retreat into himself are postered alongside dot.calm’s other work. TV monitors invite us to observe a seated figure visually quartered: one hand rests on a chair, the other grips a golf club, below, a foot in each monitor (shoes on each change frequently). Two small monitors sit akimbo on the floor, framing the larger ones. Mostly static on the right one, on the left I saw a bit of that cooking show with the woman whose husband left her for Tori Spelling. There was a shoebox with various mementos (a couple of match books, a ticket to SF MOMA, some photos of food---Paul’s creations?, a keychain and a tiny plastic woman). In the bathrooms are fuzzy pixel dot.calm dildo posters both beckoning and threatening: for the ladies, ‘Why aren’t you at home right now? Solutions to problems you know he won’t solve.’ And for the gents, ‘Do you measure up? Be nice ‘cause we sell sh*t that does.’ Courtesy of www.brandingbydot.calm On leaving the women’s bathroom, a glimpse in the mirror of the now non-reversed posters reminds you to ‘WASH YOUR HANDS’. A dot.calm poster reflecting Paul’s obsessive behaviour.
Among the sections of the webscript are ‘edited’ excerpts such as: ‘I stopped reading because it no longer captivated me…I generally distrust language…when they started selling ‘new-used’ vehicles, I understood that I didn’t quite understand. The truth is I lost track of language while I was mastering it.’
Reading Paul through dot.calm through Jfry is a bit dizzying. But like the Bridget Rileyesque ‘[Paul] numbers i’ image, its impact invites engagement rather than over analysis. Dot.calm’s body of work includes reverse text posters of ‘Get me drunk & then see what happens’, as well as tender reflections from Paul: ‘wanted. A quiet place where dad and I can skip rocks. A perfect round caught on tape to be remembered.’
I’m not sure if this installation fully realized Jfry’s aspirations for dot.calm/49 Stories (while I was at Latitude four strong arms appeared to repo the DVD decks. Jessica assured me that the decks would be replaced. I guess the royalties from www.brandingbydot.calm are still pouring in.) Somehow it felt like less like a work not still in progress, but one to be more fully inhabited. As a piece which began as webscript, evolved into installation and is now to be published as a book, dot.calm/49 Stories remains for the next week or so, a fitting finale to the experiment that was and continues to be STEM Cell.
chchchchchchchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Sunday, April 15, 2007
STEM Cell’s third and final festival day featured screenings of short films and videos at Metro Cinema. The houses were small but those in attendance were treated to works by the likes of Guy Maddin (‘Sissy Boy Slap Party) and Istvan Kantor (‘Revolutionary Song’), as well as some very tasty new pieces from Canadian media art co-op affiliated artists.
‘Tea Party’ by Asa Mori of Video Out (BC) went something like this: Hexa-Teat self-squirted and shared her/his lactose bounty with Gas Masked Toxico. Toxico whipped HT’s milk into frothy cappuccinish foam. Back to HT who sliced up some froth and buttered it on Catatonic Giant Head. Yup, you had to be there and for a few minutes we were. Sweetly supping in the fantastical, minimally line drawn realm of Mori.
Graeme Patterson’s ‘Monkey and Deer’ (VideoPool) was another animation feat, this time featuring two unlikely buddies in a warm, sentimental spree across the prairie. A rangy ode to friendship and ingrained icons of tabletop hockey and wheatpool elevators, Monkey and Deer scored. Stop animation emo. StoMo.
Green is the colour of the heart chakra and two hues beat strongly from Vancouver’s Cineworks. Something not-quite-right laughing at the despair of a suicidal 9 year old, but too bad anyway for Timothy Higgins. Abandoned by Snowflake kitty, White and Pepper bunnies and Whitey the cockatiel, little Timmy has no friends. Okay, he has guests at his birthday party but they’re just using him for the cake and one kid insists on bashing Timmy’s handmade papier-mâché bunny (‘that’s not a piñata’) with a baseball bat. Timmy must have something on the ball to string up that noose all by himself, but it’s clear to everyone that he’ll never be in step with the dance of the happy lickers. What else to do in your lime wallpapered bedroom as the ‘World’s Saddest Boy’ but to end it all? Maybe Timmy’s troubles could’ve been cured by a little biological experimentation. In just over a minute, Ben Peters and Toby Gorman invoke a boy’s divine intervention on behalf of unsavioured amphibians. ‘Frog Jesus’ is a subtle and sweet 70 seconds of teal toned Cinework.
A few docs were shown on Saturday and Kai Ling Xue’s ‘A Girl Named Kai’ was heart wrenching. Xue disclosed that the only way to ‘speak out’ to her family about her struggles with identity and sexuality was ‘through moving pictures’. ‘A boy at heart’, Xue’s film and video piece candidly chronicled the emergence of her reinvented self.
Two very different works that were great in their approach to performative presentation were ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ by Emma Howes (Video Out) and ‘Winged Victory’ by Victoria Prince (Video Pool). Hiding in Plain Sight featured a gold lame boob tubed ballerina ‘dancing’ in the frame of a claustrophobic box to excerpts of deceased New Wave cult star Klaus Nomi. Winged Victory was ‘Freaks’ meets Fellini in an all out optically printed funhouse celluloid orgy. ‘The ringmaster is dead but the magic was here all along.’
I look forward to checking out Jfry Craig’s dot.calm/49 stories in a couple of days. If you haven’t already seen it, you should head on down to Latitude. Craig’s installation will be in place until the end of April.
‘Tea Party’ by Asa Mori of Video Out (BC) went something like this: Hexa-Teat self-squirted and shared her/his lactose bounty with Gas Masked Toxico. Toxico whipped HT’s milk into frothy cappuccinish foam. Back to HT who sliced up some froth and buttered it on Catatonic Giant Head. Yup, you had to be there and for a few minutes we were. Sweetly supping in the fantastical, minimally line drawn realm of Mori.
Graeme Patterson’s ‘Monkey and Deer’ (VideoPool) was another animation feat, this time featuring two unlikely buddies in a warm, sentimental spree across the prairie. A rangy ode to friendship and ingrained icons of tabletop hockey and wheatpool elevators, Monkey and Deer scored. Stop animation emo. StoMo.
Green is the colour of the heart chakra and two hues beat strongly from Vancouver’s Cineworks. Something not-quite-right laughing at the despair of a suicidal 9 year old, but too bad anyway for Timothy Higgins. Abandoned by Snowflake kitty, White and Pepper bunnies and Whitey the cockatiel, little Timmy has no friends. Okay, he has guests at his birthday party but they’re just using him for the cake and one kid insists on bashing Timmy’s handmade papier-mâché bunny (‘that’s not a piñata’) with a baseball bat. Timmy must have something on the ball to string up that noose all by himself, but it’s clear to everyone that he’ll never be in step with the dance of the happy lickers. What else to do in your lime wallpapered bedroom as the ‘World’s Saddest Boy’ but to end it all? Maybe Timmy’s troubles could’ve been cured by a little biological experimentation. In just over a minute, Ben Peters and Toby Gorman invoke a boy’s divine intervention on behalf of unsavioured amphibians. ‘Frog Jesus’ is a subtle and sweet 70 seconds of teal toned Cinework.
A few docs were shown on Saturday and Kai Ling Xue’s ‘A Girl Named Kai’ was heart wrenching. Xue disclosed that the only way to ‘speak out’ to her family about her struggles with identity and sexuality was ‘through moving pictures’. ‘A boy at heart’, Xue’s film and video piece candidly chronicled the emergence of her reinvented self.
Two very different works that were great in their approach to performative presentation were ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ by Emma Howes (Video Out) and ‘Winged Victory’ by Victoria Prince (Video Pool). Hiding in Plain Sight featured a gold lame boob tubed ballerina ‘dancing’ in the frame of a claustrophobic box to excerpts of deceased New Wave cult star Klaus Nomi. Winged Victory was ‘Freaks’ meets Fellini in an all out optically printed funhouse celluloid orgy. ‘The ringmaster is dead but the magic was here all along.’
I look forward to checking out Jfry Craig’s dot.calm/49 stories in a couple of days. If you haven’t already seen it, you should head on down to Latitude. Craig’s installation will be in place until the end of April.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
STEM drive-by, 13/04/07...
no sense of Place/Time=missed all of ian birse and laura kavanugh's performance. chatted with daniel barrow about 'winnipeg babysitter' and winnipeg's famous pollocks. shawn of regina and andre of saskatoon engaged in battle-of-bridges banter: saskatoon has parisian style but regina has the 'longest bridge spanning the smallest body of water'. no gloves were thrown down. settled in gentlemanly fashion. invited to push dervish diva kelleY boleN several times. did so only once but with feeling during aDemod performance (groovy three way featuring kelleY's digitally woven stop animation projections; aAron's celluloid stream and shawn pinchbeck's virtually live acousmatic soundscape). shared violet candies with jeff noel. discussed violet as a flavour--proposed 'french purple' for lack of more nuanced connection. laura proposed PARTY action. white grapes/red grapes/all good grapes. Jfry craig waxed poetic from the couch about dental anesthetic experiments involving static and the art house benefits of jagermeister and tequila. something about the box of shoes....
chchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchch
no sense of Place/Time=missed all of ian birse and laura kavanugh's performance. chatted with daniel barrow about 'winnipeg babysitter' and winnipeg's famous pollocks. shawn of regina and andre of saskatoon engaged in battle-of-bridges banter: saskatoon has parisian style but regina has the 'longest bridge spanning the smallest body of water'. no gloves were thrown down. settled in gentlemanly fashion. invited to push dervish diva kelleY boleN several times. did so only once but with feeling during aDemod performance (groovy three way featuring kelleY's digitally woven stop animation projections; aAron's celluloid stream and shawn pinchbeck's virtually live acousmatic soundscape). shared violet candies with jeff noel. discussed violet as a flavour--proposed 'french purple' for lack of more nuanced connection. laura proposed PARTY action. white grapes/red grapes/all good grapes. Jfry craig waxed poetic from the couch about dental anesthetic experiments involving static and the art house benefits of jagermeister and tequila. something about the box of shoes....
chchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchch
Friday, April 13, 2007
Wow, (insert some swearing here for emphasis – you can choose) first of all I have to say I am completely, thoroughly impressed by Daniel Barrow’s work. The totality of his performance was just incredible. I can attest to the difficulty in coordinating a number of layers of acetate on an overhead projector having dabbled in overhead image play but the ease with which he manipulates and activates the images, spaces, characters, and the internal images spaces especially (TVs, mirrors, book pages windows) was incredible. But the plastic really came to life combined with an elaborately detailed, highly researched, and captivating story creating an absolutely breathtaking experience (he didn’t even use a script for the entire 45minute performance. “The Face of Everything” and its accompanying cast list and the shorter “Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry” are really indescribable in their enchantment. I can say it is really too bad for those of you who couldn’t make it, you really missed out. But aside from the technical virtuosity with which Barrow transformed very simple materials the delicate handling of the content, a sense of lost innocence and ideals of beauty and relationships, of transfigurations and of the necessity or not of suffering, of façades, how we make contact between our interiority and the rest of the world; our faciality in the world.
So many of the films seemed to navigate different aspects of describing or being unable to describe interior experience and particularly the process of realization particularly Trevor Anderson’s Rock Pocket recounting his childhood desire to be able to walk through the Klondike Days festival with his boyfriend, each of them with their hands in the back pocket of each other’s rock jeans, just like all the teenagers he saw when he was 10 years old. But the dismay of having to enact the scene with a surrogate, that it was possible but never real, brought up the simultaneously beautiful, sad and hilarious aspects of the process of bringing fantasy to life. I also must say the overall feeling of this film great, wonderful storytelling and Steven Hope’s camera/editing work was gorgeous.
I remember the first time I saw one of aAron’s films, it was being projected on to the side of an abandoned house, and I kind of freaked out because I was so excited about it, I mean I had heard he made really great work but it kind of blew me away. So I had been looking forward to seeing his latest film. Much more of an internal memory vault/dreamscape of a haunting enigmatic figure, thrU uses internal collaged bits of film and projection within the stop motion set to reference the relation to the exterior world; completely captivating, I only wish it was longer.
Another great piece in its captivating simplicity of process and visual hypnotic wonder was Lyle Pisio’s Another Lost Soul. Pisio takes hundreds of thousands of still photographs of a polished steel ball attached with a rod to the camera as he moves through a field/path and interior living spaces. Watching it one becomes so aware of the body of the camera, always connected yet distorted in our reflective positionality.
I really want to go on more (and I will later) there were a lot of really impressive pieces I am just amazed but what is being created in Alberta and Quebec media centers but I have to get myself to Latitude now for the installation and performances tonight, Kelly Bollen’s video mixing is always a sure hit, tonight accompanied by Shawn Pinchbeck all the way from Estonia and aAron Munson in the newly formed media collective aDemod. I am also really looking forward to seeing Scott Amos’s film Memory Lapse in Saturday’s B.C. screening, his working methodology/aesthetic is close to my own heart, found film, scratchy dirty surfaces, re-imagined memories. Anyway I am excited about the surprises that await tonight.
See you there
Andrea
So many of the films seemed to navigate different aspects of describing or being unable to describe interior experience and particularly the process of realization particularly Trevor Anderson’s Rock Pocket recounting his childhood desire to be able to walk through the Klondike Days festival with his boyfriend, each of them with their hands in the back pocket of each other’s rock jeans, just like all the teenagers he saw when he was 10 years old. But the dismay of having to enact the scene with a surrogate, that it was possible but never real, brought up the simultaneously beautiful, sad and hilarious aspects of the process of bringing fantasy to life. I also must say the overall feeling of this film great, wonderful storytelling and Steven Hope’s camera/editing work was gorgeous.
I remember the first time I saw one of aAron’s films, it was being projected on to the side of an abandoned house, and I kind of freaked out because I was so excited about it, I mean I had heard he made really great work but it kind of blew me away. So I had been looking forward to seeing his latest film. Much more of an internal memory vault/dreamscape of a haunting enigmatic figure, thrU uses internal collaged bits of film and projection within the stop motion set to reference the relation to the exterior world; completely captivating, I only wish it was longer.
Another great piece in its captivating simplicity of process and visual hypnotic wonder was Lyle Pisio’s Another Lost Soul. Pisio takes hundreds of thousands of still photographs of a polished steel ball attached with a rod to the camera as he moves through a field/path and interior living spaces. Watching it one becomes so aware of the body of the camera, always connected yet distorted in our reflective positionality.
I really want to go on more (and I will later) there were a lot of really impressive pieces I am just amazed but what is being created in Alberta and Quebec media centers but I have to get myself to Latitude now for the installation and performances tonight, Kelly Bollen’s video mixing is always a sure hit, tonight accompanied by Shawn Pinchbeck all the way from Estonia and aAron Munson in the newly formed media collective aDemod. I am also really looking forward to seeing Scott Amos’s film Memory Lapse in Saturday’s B.C. screening, his working methodology/aesthetic is close to my own heart, found film, scratchy dirty surfaces, re-imagined memories. Anyway I am excited about the surprises that await tonight.
See you there
Andrea
Not yet noon and still buzzing from last night’s STEM Cell kick off at Metro (and not even from the $1.50 pints @ Velvet---$1.50 PINTS!!!). Lots to recap, so let’s go…
The evening’s screening began with a slight glitch as STEMlins invaded the projection booth. The room was humming with anticipation of ‘thrU’ and in a few short minutes we were treated to a few short (2.5) minutes of aAron munson’s latest opus. Underscored by Mark Templeton, thrU is aAron’s most resonant work yet. Invited into the stop motion house of unconscious reflections viewers reel through flashes of warm childhood memories, binding reflection, electric pulses. The cerebral snow and hearth of sand (?) were among my favourite images. aAron took the stage following the screening to talk about how he constructed the set and that the painstaking project took over a year to complete. He’s ‘glad that it’s over’. I look forward to seeing it againandagainandagainang...
About 13 or so shorts followed submitted by co-op creators in Alberta and Quebec. Not enough time (at the moment) to address them all. For me, among the most memorable were ‘Damaged Goods’ (Don Best) and ‘Another Lost Soul’ (Lyle Pisio) of CSIF; ‘In Deep Skin’ (Juana Awad, Jorge Lozano) Quebec Intervention Video; ‘A Little Metro Story’ (Evelyn Guay) Video Femmes; ‘Hammer Click’ (Mike Maxxis) and ‘Rock Pocket’ (Trevor Anderson) of FAVA. Although I’ve seen it many times, ‘Element of Light’ (Richard Reeves) of Quickdraw is always a delight to experience on screen.
The shorts were surely a challenge of curation and programming for the STEM Cell organizers. Selecting from 250 (?---something like that) submitted works would be tough work. Well done. Saturday matinee screenings will feature shorts from the BC and Atlantic co-ops; Saturday night Manitoba and Ontario.
Which brings me to Daniel Barrow. Stunning. Barrow sat in one of the middle rows of the Metro and performed over an hour of live illustrations on an old school (possibly school issue?) overhead projector. He narrated his pieces to the music of Matthew Adam Hart and was accompanied by an assistant who seamlessly presented him with sheet after sheet after sheet of drawings on mylar. Barrow performed three pieces: an excerpt from his work-in-progress ‘Everytime I See Your Picture I Cry’ (featuring the characters Helen Keller and---in this episode---Bag Lady). This was followed by pages from ‘The Catalogue of the Original’ (Kristy McNichol the clear audience favourite) and ‘The Face of Everything’. The density of Barrow’s work is intoxicating; the presentation hypnotic. The ‘mirrorpond’ jewel reflecting how Hillbilly (FOE) ‘would see himself in the mirror looking with eyes closed’ was key for me. The face, the self, the soul cut up and stitched back together. Taking the perversity of pain and inviting it to play: making friends with rats only to have them whisked off by owls; comforted by disjointed arms floating in as stroking angel wings; looking for love in all the wrong places and finding…something else. Scribbling in the dark, the line from FOE which resonated most was ‘I never felt more affection for myself than when I saw myself as gullible.’ The blessing and tragic beauty of belief.
chitters
The evening’s screening began with a slight glitch as STEMlins invaded the projection booth. The room was humming with anticipation of ‘thrU’ and in a few short minutes we were treated to a few short (2.5) minutes of aAron munson’s latest opus. Underscored by Mark Templeton, thrU is aAron’s most resonant work yet. Invited into the stop motion house of unconscious reflections viewers reel through flashes of warm childhood memories, binding reflection, electric pulses. The cerebral snow and hearth of sand (?) were among my favourite images. aAron took the stage following the screening to talk about how he constructed the set and that the painstaking project took over a year to complete. He’s ‘glad that it’s over’. I look forward to seeing it againandagainandagainang...
About 13 or so shorts followed submitted by co-op creators in Alberta and Quebec. Not enough time (at the moment) to address them all. For me, among the most memorable were ‘Damaged Goods’ (Don Best) and ‘Another Lost Soul’ (Lyle Pisio) of CSIF; ‘In Deep Skin’ (Juana Awad, Jorge Lozano) Quebec Intervention Video; ‘A Little Metro Story’ (Evelyn Guay) Video Femmes; ‘Hammer Click’ (Mike Maxxis) and ‘Rock Pocket’ (Trevor Anderson) of FAVA. Although I’ve seen it many times, ‘Element of Light’ (Richard Reeves) of Quickdraw is always a delight to experience on screen.
The shorts were surely a challenge of curation and programming for the STEM Cell organizers. Selecting from 250 (?---something like that) submitted works would be tough work. Well done. Saturday matinee screenings will feature shorts from the BC and Atlantic co-ops; Saturday night Manitoba and Ontario.
Which brings me to Daniel Barrow. Stunning. Barrow sat in one of the middle rows of the Metro and performed over an hour of live illustrations on an old school (possibly school issue?) overhead projector. He narrated his pieces to the music of Matthew Adam Hart and was accompanied by an assistant who seamlessly presented him with sheet after sheet after sheet of drawings on mylar. Barrow performed three pieces: an excerpt from his work-in-progress ‘Everytime I See Your Picture I Cry’ (featuring the characters Helen Keller and---in this episode---Bag Lady). This was followed by pages from ‘The Catalogue of the Original’ (Kristy McNichol the clear audience favourite) and ‘The Face of Everything’. The density of Barrow’s work is intoxicating; the presentation hypnotic. The ‘mirrorpond’ jewel reflecting how Hillbilly (FOE) ‘would see himself in the mirror looking with eyes closed’ was key for me. The face, the self, the soul cut up and stitched back together. Taking the perversity of pain and inviting it to play: making friends with rats only to have them whisked off by owls; comforted by disjointed arms floating in as stroking angel wings; looking for love in all the wrong places and finding…something else. Scribbling in the dark, the line from FOE which resonated most was ‘I never felt more affection for myself than when I saw myself as gullible.’ The blessing and tragic beauty of belief.
chitters
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Marsh Murphy isn't the only one who's SOOO EXCITED about Daniel Barrow's appearance tomorrow night at Metro. The 'Face of Everything' promises to be one of STEM Cell's performative highlights over the next few days. Barrow's manually animated work integrating bios of pop cult personalities project far beyond the easy reach of irony. His 'Trading Cards' series featuring (among others) Margaret Keane, Rip Torn, Wayland Flowers and Quentin Crisp are amusing, yet lovely and sad. Did anyone see the 'Winnipeg Babysitter'? This was Barrow's presentation of Winnipeg cable TV shows from back in the day when Canadian broadcasters were mandated to provide resources for local programming. Lots of schlock to be sure, yet fascinating to have been able to tune in and see what was cookin' up locally on the groove tube. Again, easy to present as pure send-up, but what happens when home spooned content is reviewed, explored and revered for all its quirks and energy? Barrowesque. Exciting...
And the first of the three STEM Cell screenings will be held tomorrow at Metro as well. Over 200 shorts have been submitted from media arts production centres across the c ounty. Among the works shown tomorrow will be aAron munson's 'thrU'. His previous Super 8 and 16mm works have been characterized by aAron's fierce attention to detail: meticulously filmed and edited; haunting soundtracks; thematically conceived. A stop motion set was constructed for thrU. It'll be interesting to see how/if this physical framework lays the foundation for narrative as well.
Chit3.33
And the first of the three STEM Cell screenings will be held tomorrow at Metro as well. Over 200 shorts have been submitted from media arts production centres across the c ounty. Among the works shown tomorrow will be aAron munson's 'thrU'. His previous Super 8 and 16mm works have been characterized by aAron's fierce attention to detail: meticulously filmed and edited; haunting soundtracks; thematically conceived. A stop motion set was constructed for thrU. It'll be interesting to see how/if this physical framework lays the foundation for narrative as well.
Chit3.33
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Cell Musings
Greetings and welcome to STEM Cell Musings. I’m one of a few folks who’ve been invited to share my thoughts on Edmonton’s upcoming first ever festival of non-traditional presentations of media art. Latitude 53, Metro Cinema and FAVA have collectively commandeered three days of performances, projections, installations and celebration to present a unique happening that hasn’t happened before. At least not quite like this. Not quite here.
What do you think of when you think ‘Edmonton’? ‘Festival City’? ‘Purple City’? ‘Dirt City’? ‘Gateway to the North’? ‘City of Champions’? ‘City of Mushrooms’? ‘Memorable-Murders-in-Winter City’? ‘West Edmonton MAUL’? Whatever it is, I’m betting a blue kingfisher five that it isn’t ‘City of New Media Art’. This town (and despite its growth, the city of Edmonton manages to maintain a big town feel---at least in an arts community context) is home to many cool cultural practices, yet exploration and presentation of media art hasn’t been predominant among these.
Theatre in Edmonton is huge. Literally. The big brick flagship sails on, but so do many successful and innovative independent theatre companies and collectives. Whatever you think of the selected design for the Alberta Gallery of Art, it’s exciting that the old EAG Brutalist bunker (cementalities aside) is giving way to new digs. Performance venues continue to crash and burn, yet E-town’s indie music scene is as dynamic and thriving as ever: healthy and incestuous cross band pollinations abound. Artists vs. Crafters pony up in semi-annual community hall shows and sale-offs. Poet gangs pitch boozy tents on rival syllabic territories north and south of the High Level. Readers of The Edmonton Journal debate on the editorial letters’ page whether or not our symphony conductor should shake his bum. So much. Edmonton is not a culturally apathetic city. So what about new media art?
It isn’t that media art isn’t, or hasn’t been produced in Edmonton. Tim Folkmann has been a cutting edge video artist for over twenty years. Folkmann has worked on numerous media art projects in collaboration with dancers, theatre artists, poets and musicians in addition to his own work. Alex Viszmeg has been prolific in his personal and pioneering experimental explorations of film and video. Shawn Pinchbeck’s electro acoustic compositions and performances are internationally acclaimed. When Pinchbeck isn’t in Edmonton, he’s teaching at the University of Estonia and hanging out with Arvo Part. Okay, only sometimes but still…
Having traveled a bit over the past several years, I’ve had the privilege to see work that I wouldn’t have otherwise experienced first hand. I wouldn’t have been moved by the violent and visceral projectile of Gary Hill’s weighty ‘Wall Piece’; I wouldn’t have viewed Pipilotti Rist’s fetching ‘Ever is Over All’, featuring a smiling, sundressed woman casually yet passionately smashing windshields; I wouldn’t have experienced the unsettling, erotic displacement of emotional centre refocused through the mundanely, breathtaking lens of Uta Barth; I wouldn’t have inhaled the prismatic pollen pyramids of Wolfgang Laib. And yet, immersing myself in the complex cynicism, beauty, humour and wondrous horror of our collective consciousness is as close to home as viewing one of the sublime films of FAVA’s aAron munson.
Context is not everything, yet it positions us to question and understand. At best, contextualization invites us to make our own connections, and to confront the uncertainty of primary disconnections. Musing on STEM Cell has presented me with certain anxieties. This is not fully familiar territory. I am not a new media artist. I don’t own a cell phone. And yet, the key to rethinking coded pathways of the mind and heart requires simply a willingness to begin. Openness to the exploration. A little trip made all the more inspiring through new connections, linkages and interfaces. Taking off with a noncommodified exchange of spirited ideas is a great place to start.
Now you are here: STEM Cell City.
chit chit chit
What do you think of when you think ‘Edmonton’? ‘Festival City’? ‘Purple City’? ‘Dirt City’? ‘Gateway to the North’? ‘City of Champions’? ‘City of Mushrooms’? ‘Memorable-Murders-in-Winter City’? ‘West Edmonton MAUL’? Whatever it is, I’m betting a blue kingfisher five that it isn’t ‘City of New Media Art’. This town (and despite its growth, the city of Edmonton manages to maintain a big town feel---at least in an arts community context) is home to many cool cultural practices, yet exploration and presentation of media art hasn’t been predominant among these.
Theatre in Edmonton is huge. Literally. The big brick flagship sails on, but so do many successful and innovative independent theatre companies and collectives. Whatever you think of the selected design for the Alberta Gallery of Art, it’s exciting that the old EAG Brutalist bunker (cementalities aside) is giving way to new digs. Performance venues continue to crash and burn, yet E-town’s indie music scene is as dynamic and thriving as ever: healthy and incestuous cross band pollinations abound. Artists vs. Crafters pony up in semi-annual community hall shows and sale-offs. Poet gangs pitch boozy tents on rival syllabic territories north and south of the High Level. Readers of The Edmonton Journal debate on the editorial letters’ page whether or not our symphony conductor should shake his bum. So much. Edmonton is not a culturally apathetic city. So what about new media art?
It isn’t that media art isn’t, or hasn’t been produced in Edmonton. Tim Folkmann has been a cutting edge video artist for over twenty years. Folkmann has worked on numerous media art projects in collaboration with dancers, theatre artists, poets and musicians in addition to his own work. Alex Viszmeg has been prolific in his personal and pioneering experimental explorations of film and video. Shawn Pinchbeck’s electro acoustic compositions and performances are internationally acclaimed. When Pinchbeck isn’t in Edmonton, he’s teaching at the University of Estonia and hanging out with Arvo Part. Okay, only sometimes but still…
Having traveled a bit over the past several years, I’ve had the privilege to see work that I wouldn’t have otherwise experienced first hand. I wouldn’t have been moved by the violent and visceral projectile of Gary Hill’s weighty ‘Wall Piece’; I wouldn’t have viewed Pipilotti Rist’s fetching ‘Ever is Over All’, featuring a smiling, sundressed woman casually yet passionately smashing windshields; I wouldn’t have experienced the unsettling, erotic displacement of emotional centre refocused through the mundanely, breathtaking lens of Uta Barth; I wouldn’t have inhaled the prismatic pollen pyramids of Wolfgang Laib. And yet, immersing myself in the complex cynicism, beauty, humour and wondrous horror of our collective consciousness is as close to home as viewing one of the sublime films of FAVA’s aAron munson.
Context is not everything, yet it positions us to question and understand. At best, contextualization invites us to make our own connections, and to confront the uncertainty of primary disconnections. Musing on STEM Cell has presented me with certain anxieties. This is not fully familiar territory. I am not a new media artist. I don’t own a cell phone. And yet, the key to rethinking coded pathways of the mind and heart requires simply a willingness to begin. Openness to the exploration. A little trip made all the more inspiring through new connections, linkages and interfaces. Taking off with a noncommodified exchange of spirited ideas is a great place to start.
Now you are here: STEM Cell City.
chit chit chit
Anticipating exponential growth, or one brief perspective on the new media scene in Edmonton
There is something under the surface, growing, we see, or rather begin to sense its perturbations, we know it is there just beyond our reach. It is impossible to discern the source, spreading and reaching out in all directions. New media work, in structure, approach and inherent sensibilities is rooted in a similar sensibility of rhizomatic wandering. Edmonton is not disassociated from the plethora of new media work being created in other parts of the country, yet it seems that this city ought to have a much greater presence as a producer of new and intermedia work. It is not for a lack of talented or innovative practitioners, but it seems to me to be largely a matter of attracting more new media producers and connoisseurs to the city, venues such as STEM Cell will hopefully begin to bridge the space between the underground and the established scenes and aids in establishing Edmonton in the national new media scene. I have to say one of my roommates moved here from Ontario specifically because the reception and encouragement she received from FAVA as an experimental filmmaker while on a short visit. The energy and vitality that she witnessed was an enticing attraction to join the growing Edmonton community.
It is interesting for me to contemplate the state of new media in Edmonton considering that I came to here to pursue my degree in printmaking. But part of what attracted me to the printmaking program at the University of Alberta was the way in which the practice of layering and integrating multiple processes within images could be easily transposed to working in installation and other intermedia work. Amongst students at the U of A there is often an expressed desire for more access to courses in non-traditional mediums. The University was able to run an installation class for four semesters (I was able to participate in two of these classes) that was quite successful, however it was discontinued due to lack of adequate space.
Within the graduate program at the university the division of students into specific media centered disciplines is indicative to a certain degree of the trends within the city as a whole. However I believe the lack of new media work taking place at the university, is not due to a lack of interest, or respect for the possibilities of new media, but rather due to a lack of funding, space and the belief that the fundamental of traditional media must be covered first before venturing into new media. In many of the major universities and art institutions in the world one often applies to a graduate program through a specific discipline, however once accepted students are encouraged to work within and between many mediums. That said, it would be unfair to neglect the gradual shift toward accepting and encouraging a certain degree of intermedia work within the specific disciplines that is occurring at the University of Alberta.
Although I have lived in Edmonton for almost four years now it was only in the last year and a half or so that I actually left the studio once in a while and started to participate in the arts community. This was largely due to collaborating with a number of artists through FAVA to create an installation / performance piece Project/Projekt incorporating live music, dance, video mixing, overhead projections and drawing. Being that is was intended to evolve from a jam aesthetic the results were similarly to the loose and indeterminable, there were moments when there were sympathetic responses between all the activities, but the overall cacophony only occasionally reached those moments of synchronicity. Edmonton’s many art festivals offer sites where the different co-ops and artist run centers can bring together a number of practices and a range of experimentation can occur.
I do not want to neglect the many attempts within the underground / avant-garde / independent scene to rectify such disparities between media, (consciously or not) exalting the urge to create and collaborate over gaining institutionalized recognition and perhaps it is generative and healthy for these practices to gestate in a sense underground free from the imposition of traditions and institutions. There is a lot of really innovative work being produced in connection with the many festivals, the thriving music scene, and artist co-ops like i human, Arts Hab, and studio e, however to maintain these sites of interaction recognition and adequate space and funding are essential.
So even though I am currently invested in a very focused study of a traditional medium I find it incredibly inspiring and even necessary to be exposed the variety of approaches occurring within different mediums and communities throughout the country. In my own work I always feel a sense of not yet being able to reach something through any of the media I have engaged with, a sense of longing for a process or interaction that can most adequately engage with the essence of what I am trying to communicate and I realize that this searching will take some time. Is this not what so many of us are striving towards in our work, to speak to that which stirs beneath the surface of our senses, beneath the surface of our daily lives, silently, or perhaps, not so silently imploring our attention? We know it is there, just how do we go about trying to reach it? Can this festival serve as a site for exponential growth in new media as its name suggests? An undifferentiated beginning, emerging from the foundation of a larger body, stretching out creating sites for new intersections and potentialities, will STEM Cell provide a source of generative fuel, it is with considerable anticipation that I look forward to this surfacing.
See you soon,
Andrea Pinheiro
It is interesting for me to contemplate the state of new media in Edmonton considering that I came to here to pursue my degree in printmaking. But part of what attracted me to the printmaking program at the University of Alberta was the way in which the practice of layering and integrating multiple processes within images could be easily transposed to working in installation and other intermedia work. Amongst students at the U of A there is often an expressed desire for more access to courses in non-traditional mediums. The University was able to run an installation class for four semesters (I was able to participate in two of these classes) that was quite successful, however it was discontinued due to lack of adequate space.
Within the graduate program at the university the division of students into specific media centered disciplines is indicative to a certain degree of the trends within the city as a whole. However I believe the lack of new media work taking place at the university, is not due to a lack of interest, or respect for the possibilities of new media, but rather due to a lack of funding, space and the belief that the fundamental of traditional media must be covered first before venturing into new media. In many of the major universities and art institutions in the world one often applies to a graduate program through a specific discipline, however once accepted students are encouraged to work within and between many mediums. That said, it would be unfair to neglect the gradual shift toward accepting and encouraging a certain degree of intermedia work within the specific disciplines that is occurring at the University of Alberta.
Although I have lived in Edmonton for almost four years now it was only in the last year and a half or so that I actually left the studio once in a while and started to participate in the arts community. This was largely due to collaborating with a number of artists through FAVA to create an installation / performance piece Project/Projekt incorporating live music, dance, video mixing, overhead projections and drawing. Being that is was intended to evolve from a jam aesthetic the results were similarly to the loose and indeterminable, there were moments when there were sympathetic responses between all the activities, but the overall cacophony only occasionally reached those moments of synchronicity. Edmonton’s many art festivals offer sites where the different co-ops and artist run centers can bring together a number of practices and a range of experimentation can occur.
I do not want to neglect the many attempts within the underground / avant-garde / independent scene to rectify such disparities between media, (consciously or not) exalting the urge to create and collaborate over gaining institutionalized recognition and perhaps it is generative and healthy for these practices to gestate in a sense underground free from the imposition of traditions and institutions. There is a lot of really innovative work being produced in connection with the many festivals, the thriving music scene, and artist co-ops like i human, Arts Hab, and studio e, however to maintain these sites of interaction recognition and adequate space and funding are essential.
So even though I am currently invested in a very focused study of a traditional medium I find it incredibly inspiring and even necessary to be exposed the variety of approaches occurring within different mediums and communities throughout the country. In my own work I always feel a sense of not yet being able to reach something through any of the media I have engaged with, a sense of longing for a process or interaction that can most adequately engage with the essence of what I am trying to communicate and I realize that this searching will take some time. Is this not what so many of us are striving towards in our work, to speak to that which stirs beneath the surface of our senses, beneath the surface of our daily lives, silently, or perhaps, not so silently imploring our attention? We know it is there, just how do we go about trying to reach it? Can this festival serve as a site for exponential growth in new media as its name suggests? An undifferentiated beginning, emerging from the foundation of a larger body, stretching out creating sites for new intersections and potentialities, will STEM Cell provide a source of generative fuel, it is with considerable anticipation that I look forward to this surfacing.
See you soon,
Andrea Pinheiro
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
One Week Countdown
We're coming out with some posters, the city should be plastered in them by the end of tomorrow. The webpage is sort of done. The films for the STEM CELL Film Festival have been juried and will be programmed soon. We apologize for the late notice of the films to be screened but we received an overwhelming response from our collegues and friends across the country (some 260 or so films). It's hard to choose, and time consuming. We'll do our best to make it soon. Really looking forward to the Festival though, we'll see you there.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Sub Terranean Edmonton Media arts Festival
Metro Cinema, Latitude 53, and FAVA are collaborating to present a festival of non-traditional media arts: STEM Cell, the Sub-Terranean Edmonton Media-Arts Festival. It will take place at Metro Cinema, LATITUDE 53 AND FAVA in downtown Edmonton between April 12th and April 14th 2007.
These three organizations, although quite diverse, share an interest in contemporary media arts practice. We approach the media arts in different ways, (through production, workshops, screenings & installations), but we collectively acknowledge that there is a large middle ground of work, and types of work, that is not often seen in Edmonton. There are communities of media artists and organizations throughout Canada (and western Canada); but somehow, Edmonton has historically not been as intimate a part of those networks as we could be.
These three organizations, although quite diverse, share an interest in contemporary media arts practice. We approach the media arts in different ways, (through production, workshops, screenings & installations), but we collectively acknowledge that there is a large middle ground of work, and types of work, that is not often seen in Edmonton. There are communities of media artists and organizations throughout Canada (and western Canada); but somehow, Edmonton has historically not been as intimate a part of those networks as we could be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)