25 Mar 2014

COLLABOTRONICA: THE FICTION SCIENCE TRIANGLE

We are in a brick building with a red door from 1865. Existing in this building is a computer running a social media program called THE FICTION SCIENCE TRIANGLE. We activate a delivery system that has no physical location. We project our link with your interface and make available three fictions. We see two sisters walking through a re-imagined Holyoke residency program, the last known photograph of the HALFLIFERS and a post-human Korean dance forms dating workshop. We are now exploring speculative fictions by video makers who work together and apart.

THREE VIDEO WORKS:
FAMILIARS
9:00 – STEREO – VIDEO – TORSTEN ZENAS BURNS
THE LAST KNOWN PHOTOGRAPH OF THE HALFLIFERS
7:00 – STEREO – VIDEO – HALFLIFERS: TORSTEN ZENAS BURNS & ANTHONY DISCENZA
ANIMATRONLOVE
4:00 – STEREO – VIDEO – TORSTEN ZENAS BURNS & DARRIN MARTIN

BIOGRAPHY
Torsten Zenas Burns is an artist and media arts educator living in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Since 2007 he has been curating exhibitions, video screenings and performance art events for PARSONS HALL PROJECT SPACE based in Western Mass. He received his BFA in video art in 1990 from the New York State College of Art & Design at Alfred University, and his MFA in New Genres: video and performance art from The San Francisco Art Institute in 1993. He has created & curated video, photo and installation projects exploring speculative content, including re-imagined educational practices, experimental space programs, zombie / afterlife relationships, post-human fictions, and improvisational choreographies. Other long term projects include collaborations with Darrin Martin and Anthony Discenza (under the name HALFLIFERS). Burns’ selected video work is distributed by Vtape, Video Data Bank, LUX and EAI. Over the past 19 years Burns has participated in over nine residency programs including Headlands Center for the Arts, Experimental Television Center, L.M.C.C. World Views Studio Program, Smackmellon, and Eyebeam. Burns has had video work screened at the Museum of Modern Art’s Video Viewpoints and Premieres series, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Pacific Film Archive, SF Camera works, Dumbo Arts Center, Video_Dumbo, Aurora Picture Show, Migrating Forms, Krowswork Gallery, The Chicago Underground Film Festival, The European Media Arts Festival, The Impakt Festival, The Melbourne International Film Festival, The Oberhausen Short Film Festival, The Busan International video festival, and The Stuttgarter Filmwinter: Festival for Expanded Media. In 2013 he produced and curated a magazine + video performance screening called The Uncanny Pioneer Valley at PARSONS HALL PROJECT SPACE. In 2013 Burns & Discenza as HALFLIFERS co-curated a group exhibition and performance series called: I think we’re ready to go to the next sequence: the legacy of HALFLIFERS at Gallery 400, Chicago, IL. In 2014 his latest videotape FAMILIARS will have its Chicago premier at the Chicago underground film festival.

LINKS:
http://parsonshallprojectspace.blogspot.com
http://holyokeresearch.blogspot.com
http://halflifersprojects.blogspot.com
http://www.darrinmartin.com/163809/collaborations

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25 Mar 2014

ANIMATRONLOVE: (DARRIN MARTIN & TORSTEN ZENAS BURNS)

“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.

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14 Dec 2013

About SWITCH

SWITCH was created by a group of artists who work in many disciplines and have exhibited and performed in venues locally, nationally, as well as internationally. Artists such as Jessica Higgins, Erika Knerr, Mary Averill, Denis Luzuriaga, GLOVE, David Teeple, Matt Waugh, John Landino. “Using tools from the latest imaging hardware, to video cameras from the 1970′s; digital editing suites to analog video switchers – we document our performance happenings and turn them in to the show we call SWITCH”. This half-hour program is also available on Community Access Television Stations in Massachusetts and beyond. Information about showing SWITCH on your local station can be obtained at PegMedia.org. “PegMedia.org is a media transfer site for PEG (Public, Education, Government) community television stations and producers of media for these stations.”

A sampling of 30 individual performances ranging from Vintage Fluxus, to Intermedia Forms & Works, to Performance Works & Happenings, can be seen here.

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20 Jun 2012

SWITCH №13 “Video, Video”

“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

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20 Apr 2012

SWITCH №12 “White House, Blue House”

“White House, Blue House” is the twelfth episode of SWITCH, an arts program created by artists in Western Massachusetts and the NYC area. This episode contains excerpts from “Traffic” performed by Kenneth Goldsmith at the White House Poet’s Workshop, “Human Stringed Instrument” by Jessica Higgins, “Comments” by Denis Luzuriaga, and “Full Message” by Joshua Selman. Thanks to David Teeple for camera on “Human Stringed Instrument”. The Creative Director of SWITCH is Jessica Higgins, the Producer is Denis Luzuriaga. For additional information please contact: press at holyoketv.org

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28 Feb 2012

SWITCH №11″Canoe”

“Canoe” is the eleventh episode of SWITCH, an arts program created by artists in Western Massachusetts and the NYC area. This episode contains “Ink Spots” by guest artist Suzy Sureck, “Mushroom String Theory” by Jessica Higgins, and a longer piece entitled “Connecticut River Chess” by John Landino and guest artist Jack Nelson. The Creative Director of SWITCH is Jessica Higgins, the Producer is Denis Luzuriaga.

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16 Feb 2012

SWITCH №10″Artists Paddle Fish With Song”

This is the tenth episode of SWITCH, an arts program created by artists in Western Massachusetts and the NYC area. This episode contains “Artists Canon” by Jessica Higgins, “I Am Here” by Erika Knerr, “Hooking Below The Surface” by John Landino, and a seven minute interview, produce by Artist Organized Art, with Jessica Higgins and Denis Luzuriaga, the Creative Director, and Producer – respectively – of SWITCH.

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15 Feb 2012

SWITCH №9 “Everything New Is Old Again”

This is the ninth episode of SWITCH, an arts program created by artists in Western Massachusetts and the NYC area. This episode contains “Ubu The King” by Erika Knerr (Adapted from Alfred Jarry’s ‘Ubu Roi’ – 1896), “PETH” by John Landino, “Unincorporated Entity” by Jessica Higgins, “A Tribute To OWS” by GLOVE, and “Wistariahurst Fall Artist Exhibition” which showcases the artwork of 21 artists.

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15 Feb 2012

SWITCH №7 “853 or 864”

This is the seventh episode of SWITCH, an arts program created by artists in Western Massachusetts and the NYC area. This episode contains “Max Routines with GLOVE” by Matt Waugh, “The Big Pop” by Jessica Higgins, “Remember Someone” by John Landino, and “The Corn Fields of Pioneer Valley (Extended Version)” by Denis Luzuriaga.

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15 Feb 2012

SWITCH №6 “Paper City”

This is the sixth episode of SWITCH, an arts program created by artists in Western Massachusetts and the NYC area. This episode contains “Loose Pages”by Alison Knowles, “Every String in the House” by GLOVE, and “Newspaper Music” by Alison Knowles. Also, a short segment showing the Holyoke events B.Y.O.R. (Bring your own restaurant) and “Paperworks”, an art exhibition at PCS80.

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