Akimbo

Life on Venus

curated by
Matthew Hyland

Screening and curator's talk
Friday, March 13, 2009
Screening @ 6 & 7:30pm
Curator's talk @ 7:00pm

This programme will be available on request through
Thursday, April 2, 2009

 

The 6th season of The Curatorial Incubator©, Vtape's innovative media arts mentoring project, delves into the nature of the supernatural. Artists have always been interested in that which is not of this world. And video could be an ideal medium for this investigation (sorry...couldn't resist...).

After combing through the extensive holdings at Vtape, assisted by research into other distributors' holdings, the four emerging artist/curators each present a challenging and entertaining programme of works engaging their own specific "take" on the topic. The final programme in this year's Curatorial Incubator © features Matthew Hyland's probing exploration of a gendered uncanny.

"As scholar Kristin Ross has noted, 'women ‘undergo' the everyday--its humiliations and tediums, as well as its pleasures--more than men.' Here, the everyday takes on the character of subjection rather than mere experience. The discomfort engendered by this feminine commonplace has been the source of much attention among feminist artists."
Matthew Hyland

The Programme

Gunilla Josephson, CRASHBANGSMASH, 2001, 3:00

Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Me/We, Okay, Gray, 1993, 5:00

Jennet Thomas, SHARONY!, 2000, 11:00

Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975, 6 :00

Shana Moulton, Whispering Pines 8, 2006, 8:00

Deirdre Logue, Eclipse, 2005, 5:00

 

 

 

Darryl Bank presents "Trix of Light: the art of the hoax". "The hoax only becomes a hoax after it is debunked. Prior to that point, it is merely a truth claim, an assertion, an attempt to supplant one reality with another. The works that comprise this programme collectively argue for a third category beyond "truth" and "hoax" - the paradoxical hoax which cannot be debunked, forever in stasis between a subjective truth claim and an objective reality." (D.B.)

 

Erik Martinson presents "Where the wild things are". "The three videos in the program approach parent/child dynamics with an eye for their complexity, dialogue miss-functions, and traumas. The 'Wild Things' are not wholly lost; they lie beneath the surface to be accessed, summoned in the service of love, mourning, and transference." (E.M.)

 

Leigh Fisher presents "Marvelous! Ruin! Collapse!", "The dual quality of all things, the closeness of life and death, held in a tension, these aspects of animist ritual are not so far away from the surrealist merveille. Magic as sourced in ritual, material alchemy, animist spiritual practices can be linked with this condition between fixedness that attracted me to each of the works in this program." (L.F.)

 

Matthew Hyland presents "Life on Venus", a look at feminism and the uncanny. "As scholar Kristin Ross has noted, "women ‘undergo' the everyday--its humiliations and tediums, as well as its pleasures--more than men." Here, the everyday takes on the character of subjection rather than mere experience. The discomfort engendered by this feminine commonplace has been the source of much attention among feminist artists." (M.H)

Exhibitions in the Vtape Video Salon are supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, Media Arts Section.

Please contact Erik Martinson at Vtape to book class visits to view The Curatorial Incubator program as well as other titles in the Vtape holdings and to have an orientation to Vtape and all the extensive research facilities available to students, curators, writers and the general public.