“What-If? In the Days When the Tiger Smoked” is the culmination of an ongoing project which began in Busan, South Korea in 2006. At the heart of the work is the unfolding of a role-playing workshop where participants reenact dates leading up to a fictional polyamorous romance. The performance, played by a rotating international cast of artists, leads to a group wedding and honeymoon between characters based upon two obscure Marvel superheroes and two internationally renowned art personalities. The happy foursome are Orlan, an artist whose actual redefinition of her own body via plastic surgery confronts representations of woman throughout art history; Stelarc, an artist whose cybernetic mission in life is to render the body obsolete; the Scarlet Witch, a mutant superhero who has unlimited powers over probability, and the Vision, a “synthezoid” superhero whose mechanically fabricated body contains a human soul. What-If?…unfolds the entangled story that brought this romantic foursome together spanning the gulf between genders and representations; the body and technology.
Named after the Korean saying for “Once Upon a Time,” our project In the Days When the Tiger Smoked, fuses together our two single-channel video works from 2009, What-If? & What-If? Beyond a carnalove . New works from our polyamorous databank of speculative fiction include a series of video loops. Honeymoon Valley is an ambient exploration of both historic and contemporary South Korean sites and reengages with the terrain where our characters first met and later honeymooned. Wundagore Spa enacts a Proxy-Orlan character’s simulated operation with sticky and reckless abandon.
AnimatronLove revisits variations on the choreography performed by our characters’ virtual avatars contextualized into a series of alternate worlds.
Altitude Zero
16mm film
a feminist palimpsest of cinematic representation
2004
Selected Screenings: Athens International Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Women in the Director’s Chair, PDX, Humboldt International Film Festival, VideoEX Film Festival, Antimatter Film Festival, Brighton Film Festival, NextFrame Film Festival, Des Moines Art Center, Cannes Film Festival’s Emerging Filmmakers Showcase, Gene Siskel Film Center, Braquage Paris, KinoLab Poland, FOL Istanbul, Microscope Gallery (Brooklyn), Fem&Co. @ Denver Museum of Contemporary Art
Using century old technology, PXXXL creates digital glitch from analogue process. It was animated directly on the celluloid without a camera, in a darkroom, using lights, objects, and handmade lenses. Please do not watch if you are prone to seizures. 35mm print, optically printed.
Jonathan Bates is better known for the food forest he and his colleague Eric Toensmeier planted on their 1/10th of an acre urban lot in Holyoke, Massachusetts. When I visited him in February, most of the lot and its 200 plant species were still covered with snow, but Jonathan showed me around their eco-shelter. Thanks to good insulation and thermal mass, the passive greenhouse maintains above freezing temperatures all winter, and allows them to grow food throughout the year.
Installation by Chris Nelson, one of the artists participating in REACH April – May 2013. Kinetic, interactive sculpture installed in historic Wistariahurst Museum.
All of the submitted videos can be viewed here. Joining a recent history of international one-minute video festivals in the past decade, REACH hosts a One-Minute VidFest. All are encouraged to submit a one-minute video (including credits and titles) to be screened at the Popcorn Noir movie theater in Easthampton, MA and at other venues during the exhibition. Applicants may be included in a one-minute video DVD—a selection of the collected works from the one-minute film festival. Submit your video by March 4, 2013. www.reachfest.com/1-minute-film-fest/
“Cooking With Cage” is the 15th episode of SWITCH, an artists television program produced by artists in Western Massachusetts and includes work from various towns, cities and countries. This episode includes works from the NYC area. Cooking With Cage features an archival video, courtesy of Arleen Schloss, showing John Cage and Alison Knowles preparing a meal in John Cage’s kitchen. The visual is supported by their spoken interpretation of Stephane Mallarme’s Un coup de des jamais n’abolira le hasard: A throw of the dice will never abolish chance. 2012 Is the centennial celebration of John Cage. Cooking With Cage also includes a new performance by GLOVE of John Cage’s 4′ 33″ using the timings originally performed by David Tudor in Wooodstock NY. The score of 4′ 33″ indicates 3 movements each marked “Tacet” where the movements may be any chosen lengths of time as long as they collectively add up to 4 minutes and 33 seconds. SWITCH is a Holyoke production. For additional information please contact: press at holyoketv.org. Many thanks to Canal Gallery of Holyoke, MA for hosting a new performance of 4′ 33″ and SWITCH episode 15.
“In The Round” is a site specific art installation. Nine artists have installed works in the old Victory Theater in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The artists are Taiga Ermansons, Amy Johnquest, Chris Nelson, Christopher Willingham, Olivia Bernard, Torsten Zenas Burns, Kari Gatzke, Joshua Vrysen, and Angela Zammarelli. Victory Theatre is slated to be restored in 2013. For more information visit Mifafestival. The exhibition is on view by appointment until November 18th, 2012. Please contact Chris Nelson.
“Video, Video” is the thirteenth episode of SWITCH, an arts program created by artists in Western Massachusetts and the NYC area. This episode is all about Public Access Television, and one of it’s advocates is Jaime Davidovich. Mr Davidovich is an intermedia artist and an organizer of art on television. In this episode, he talks with the producers of Switch about the infancy of Public Access Television in SOHO/NYC in the mid 1970’s. The Creative Director of SWITCH is Jessica Higgins, the Producer is Denis Luzuriaga. Special thanks to Artist Organized Art for facilitating the rendezvous with Jaime. 720p download available here: http://vimeo.com/44069075
