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Video killed the video star Electronic media at the electric fanny by KEITH MARCHAND
Now, this can appear to be a dauntingly large event, so here are a few thumbnail sketches of some things that I would venture to recommend.
Working with partner Dwight Frizzell, who will be transmitting a live Internet feed of "streaming audio" from the studios of KCUR-FM in Kansas City, Missouri, Tony Allard will utilize live sound with taped layers of "audio fossils" collected over the past four years. This improvisational composition will build upon the previous Worldmixes, comprising soundscapes from various cities around the globe as well as Montreal. With each successive performance, Allard and Frizzell are compiling an audio history and archaeology of planet Earth.
With past works like Remembrance of Things Fast and Premonition of Absurd Perversion in Sexual Personae Part 1, John Maybury examines contemporary gay culture with subverted pop imagery. With this year's offerings of Maledicta Electronica and Genetron, Maybury explores subjects as diverse as the current techno scene, gay erotica, the writings of Jean Genêt, bondage and poetic nostalgia in his signature style of electronic-infused luxurience and convulsive music-video bursts.
Renowned French artist Orlan will be present for the first time in Montreal for the performance This is my body, this is my software (followed by a conference and public discussion about the piece), a selected video program and two CD-ROMs about her work. Orlan is perhaps best known for her performance Presence, in which she employed plastic surgery--not as a beautifier, but as a means to disfigure herself in order to denounce the dubious standards of beauty that our culture holds dear. She had implants, traditionally used for cheek-bone enhancements, placed on either side of her forehead. The surgical team was clothed entirely in designer outfits and the room was elaborately decorated in her own blood, relics containing her own flesh, photos, video and film. The entire process was transmitted via satellite to several museums while she underwent surgery and fielded questions from spectators. Orlan denounces the present standards of beauty by subverting the very methods used to achieve it. Her body itself becomes the focal point for public debate.
This group, comprising of James Partaik, Luc Levesque and Michel St-Onge from Quebec and Blair Taylor from the United States, have created a work that takes place in three different places at once: the entrance terrace of Foufounes, an empty city lot wired for sound and video and a Web site. The entrance of the venue will house a Web site that records and continually updates the sound and light emissions from the empty lot, which has been designed as a domestic living room. The piece acts as a link between the urban landscape, the club itself and a virtual universe.
Taking the form of a large contact sheet (or the juxtaposition of many of these sheets), Cordero has charted the development of a video image. Utilizing a wall of video monitors with only one image represented by so many "channels," the artist has created a captivating image that is almost devoid of content. Cordero considers this piece to be "a commentary on technology in the face of the rarity of this medium in the third world." For more information on the Troisième Manifestation internationale vidéo et art électronique, call 527-8044 |
From September 23 to 29 at the now-legendary (and once-edgy) Foufounes Électriques, visitors will have the opportunity to see video and electronic media production that is far, far removed from the mind-numbing pap of MTV culture. With 85 works presented by artists from more than 25 countries, the Troisième Manifestation internationale vidéo et art électronique will transform Foufounes into a centralized base for the celebration and exploration of video and electronic imagery. Combining three theatres, an agora for a series of conferences, a media salon, CD-ROM bar, installation works and numerous performances, the Manifestation brings together art, architecture and technology in a breathless, seven-day funhouse of electronic media.
Worldmixmontreal by Tony Allard (U.S.)
John Maybury's Video Program (U.K.)
Orlan (France)
Ligne de site IV Installation by the Arkhe Collective (Quebec) & Blair Taylor (U.S.)
Let Me Tell You a Video Installation by Raul Cordero (Cuba)