worLd - mock exhibition proposal

Guy Laramee Biblios Series: Tectonic (2004)

WorLd

Project Proposal by Melanie WilminkAugust 24, 2012

WorLd | Melanie Wilmink 2

Introduction

WorLd is an exhibition curated around themes of language and the ways in which we label the world around us. The exhibit orbits several key works, each of which deal with the conscious and unconscious structure of our communications. The exhibition developed from a personal experience with William Ken-tridge’s The Refusal of Time at dOCUMENTA 13 in July 2012. It is a work that succeeds on both an emotional and intellectual level, and is a starting point for a curatorial exploration of the unintended consequences to our human need to systematize everything around us.

The other works are pulled from multiple mediums, incorporating several formats, like poetry and feature film, that one would not traditionally see in an art gallery setting. One of the first works encountered in WorLd is an episode of the audio podcast Radiolab. On the About page of their website, Radiolab describes itself as “a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience.” In many ways, this quote could also describe the act of art-making and art-viewing. It is the perfect access point into a series of works which explore the linguistic themes of the exhibition in a contextual space that lies in-between science and art.

As human experience is crucial to developing a successful exhibit, WorLd is also a compilation of my re-search into the practicalities of showcasing media art within a gallery context. The exhibition design devel-ops my research on the environmental and theatrical elements that facilitate audience engagement with individual works and with the exhibition as a whole.

History of the Project

Although it was inspired by Kentridge’s The Refusal of Time (2012), this project includes works that have been seminal in my research for several years. The Radiolab podcast clarified the concept that language literally shapes our perception of the world around us, and is an excellent entry point into the exhibition. The final work in the exhibit is the Canadian feature film, Pontypool by director Bruce McDonald. Although feature film does not traditionally place in the gallery context, part of my recent research has been the development of exhibition methodologies for cinematic works. The film itself also contains fascinating no-tions about language a living organism.

Some of the works in this exhibit, and certainly some of the literary theories around it, are highly concep-tual. However, the idea that language can turn on the user, or that the user lacks control of it, is deeply visceral. WorLd attempts to balance the conceptual and visceral, with works like Christian Bök’s Eunoia and Mark Tansey’s Derrida Queries de Man requiring more explanation and theory, and The Refusal of Time and Pontypool on the other side of the spectrum, acting on emotion and our understanding of cinematic tropes.

WorLd


Project Context

My current research involves the role of space in exhibitions that contain moving image artworks. Since the inception of video art, galleries have struggled with presenting moving image works, which capture the viewer’s attention in a very different way than traditional visual art. After the invention of photography, the contemporary art museum shifted its understanding of art as representational towards understanding it as being more in line with philosophy. As such, gallery spaces have been designed to encourage viewers to approach art with an academic, thoughtful perspective, as opposed to an immersive, ecstatic one. However, moving image art is inherently immersive, and therefore is not well suited to this type of viewing approach.

Moving images instinctively draw our eye - a television screen in a bar or an advertisement on the side of the road instantly attracts a glance. Kate Mondloch sums it up best when she refers to the entrapment of the gaze and disciplining of the body as “aggressive” (Mondloch 29). The trouble in the gallery is how to hold that attention. She explains the gallery is designed to allow viewers to travel at their own pace, and distance themselves from the work, so that a viewer can contemplate and look at once. It is a freedom of temporality and mobility that is in direct opposition with the way that the cinema engages viewers, and therefore makes it difficult to engage viewers for the length of time required in cinema.

While there is definite value in the gallery approach to visuality, less discussed is the idea that there might be equal value in the way that the cinema captures attention. Films are often used as documentation or as support material, or presented in ways that take away their immersive power. This is a great disservice, because films, more than any other medium, have the power to pull us into experience, to treat us like characters in a living dream and place us inside the action. Karyn Sandlos writes about the emotional thrill of embodied viewing, saying “it glances across the imagination without committing itself to scrutiny. This, for me, is the temporal difference between learning about and learning from short film and video program. As audience, we cannot learn these histories off by heart; instead, we become implicated with the works in the time of hints, subtle gestures, and flirtatious innuendo.” (Sandlos 30). Once you are inside of a cinematic work, it is easy to place yourself into the story, either as a fly on the wall in a narrative feature film, or as the main character within installation works like Bruce Nauman’s “Video Surveillance Piece: Public Room, Private Room” (1970) or Peter Campus’ “Interface” (1972) where the viewer is literally projected into the work. By experiencing yourself as part of the work, it becomes more like a performance or an event, and ideally will create a connection that shocks you into thinking about it long after you have left it behind.

Sandlos also draws on Freudian ideas that learning is partially unconscious; we never fully learn from an experience while we are in the moment, and therefore we must continually search for new contexts in which to revisit old experiences. Sandlos points out that in short film exhibition the program delays understand-ing. Since the program is temporal and moves from one film to the next with little pause for thinking, the viewer must simply experience and save the contemplation for afterwards, at which point they will consider the program as a whole, not just as single works. This back and forth between experience and contempla-tion is where cinema is able to meet the gallery. It is an in-between space that is also referred to by Laura Marks in her discussion of the eroticism created by the fluctuation of the haptic (or tactile) and the optical gaze (thoughtful). The idea of this action as erotic is interesting because it metaphorically links the feeling of connectedness with art and a romantic relationship between two people. The creation of any relation-ship requires a certain amount of vulnerability, intimacy and trust. I believe that it is possible to establish an environment that is more conducive to intimacy than the stark, white box gallery, and that by doing so, it will engage art audiences in a dramatic, memorable fashion. The first step is to compile a collection of works that can build relationships with one another, and then to make the audience feel invited into the space to


share that relationship.

The exhibition WorLd is designed to disrupt the traditional gallery dynamic, with the inclusion of mediums like poetry, feature film, and audio, along with powerful immersive installations, painting and sculptures. The thematic relationship between the works is straightforward, but in many ways it also acts as a metaphor for my research in defining a curatorial methodology for cinematic works in the gallery. It is an attempt to shape a concept that there is little-to-no language for at this point. It is a balance between conscious choices and the unconscious connections that develop between the works. It is an act of play and explora-tion that lies somewhere between the known and unknown.

Project Rationale

There has been a strong worldwide movement towards the exhibition of media art, and specifically cine-matic works in the gallery context. It is highlighted in the most recent edition of dOCUMENTA (2012) where moving image art comprised the majority of the works. This project is a step towards developing practical methodologies and curatorial critique in the display of this medium. The exhibition is an interdisciplinary approach to the gallery space that will create a semi-scientific testing ground for the ways in which people engage with the various formats. It will include opportunities for audience surveys and feedback, and will conclude with the publication of an academic analysis. In addition, the balance of critical and emotional ex-periences, along with the variety of mediums will engage a variety of interests. The inclusion of a narrative feature film as part of the exhibition offers exciting opportunities to create event-based outreach to new audiences.

Language as a meta-organism has been of interest mainly in literary circles, and WorLd explores cross-section of non-literary works that deal with the concept in ways that are unique to their own mediums. The thematic basis of this exhibition is also highly engaging as multi-disciplinary exhibitions increase world-wide. Recent exhibitions at the Guggenheim (Found in Translation, Feb-May 2011), and MOMA (Ecstatic Alphabets/ Heaps of Language, May-August, 2012) similarly deal with the theme of language through an interdisciplinary lens and highlight the timeliness of this thematic choice.

Project Structure

WorLd is currently in the early stages of conception. The project consists of an exhibition, live events, audi-ence surveys and interviews, a short exhibition catalogue, and a longer academic analysis. In the proposed partnership, the MacKenzie Art Gallery will work with curator Melanie Wilmink to develop the exhibit and showcase it at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. Timelines and exhibition dates are open to discussion and can be set by the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

It is proposed that the MacKenzie Art Gallery will provide:* Exhibition venue* Production/ equipment costs* Coordination and staffing of live events


* Shared direction of the exhibition catalogue* Distribution and collection of audience surveys* Coordination of cafe/ bar space* Promotional costs

It is proposed the Melanie Wilmink will provide:* Curatorial direction* Grant writing support* Coordination of artists and artwork shipping* Coordination of space design and production* Creation of audience surveys and critical texts* Coordination of live events* Coordination of audience interviews & on site research* Shared direction of the exhibition catalogue* Creation and publication of academic analysis

Exhibition diagram for WorLd


Exhibition Methodology

As mentioned in the Project Context section, the exhibition structure is designed to include interdisciplinary, and specifically moving image art. Karyn Sandlos’ curatorial theories inform the space design and juxtapo-sition of works. In order to build a relationship between the various artworks, the flow of the exhibition is treated much like a short film program. Each work is considered and planned to stand alone, with its own space and area for contemplation. This is accomplished by separating works into rooms of their own, or visu-ally separating them with dividers, seating or lighting. However, the individual works are also tied together through traffic flow. Designed as a loop, where the entrance is Kentridge’s The Refusal of Time, and it sequenc-es through Laramee, Cardiff, and McDonald’s works, with Radiolab, Bök and Tansey in a central lobby. Viewers will be encouraged to start with Kentridge, but have the flexibility to reverse their way through as well. Here, works and space flow into one another, so you are forced to move with the experience and think about it as a whole afterwards.

In order to deal with their linear natures and offer them proper viewing conditions, the moving image works of The Refusal of Time and Pontypool are labelled with set start times. These designated start times do not prevent people from entering at will, but will ideally encourage people to set aside time to start the work in a linear way (like they are designed) and block off the time needed to see the complete artwork. As the feature film requires more time commitment, Pontypool is be exhibited in two black box theatres - each one playing the same version of the film, with staggered start times (1hr intervals). This will allow audiences to attend a show time at their convenience, within the context of the exhibition as a whole, and not just as a separate en-tity. Each gallery-theatre is be a simple rectangle setup, with light blocking entry and luxurious theatre-style seating for 10-15 people. The interior of the space must feel luxurious and cinematic, to encourage comfort and engagement with the idea that audiences are welcome to stay for the full length of the work.

In addition, to allow for push-pull dynamic of experience and contemplation, the exhibition is designed with quiet places. I will refer to these places as an in-between space. This terminology has occurred regularly during my research, and an excellent example is found in Andrew V. Uroskie’s discussion of Robert Whitman’s Cinema Pieces (1964-65), where he describes the creation of “a hybrid phenomenological situation between the... art gallery’s brightly lit white cube, and.... the cinematic black box” (2). These spaces are most obviously created by media installation works, and often refers to the meeting point between cinema and reality, or the way in which installations works engage the gallery space by making us aware of both our physical space and the virtual space of the moving image. On a basic level it is the moment we start thinking about our role within the artwork, but haven’t yet fully realized our understanding. This in-between is where dialogue happens. Usually this phenomenon is only obvious with installation works, where the artist specifically draws your attention to it. However, it can be created in many ways, and if it is done by the architecture of the gal-lery itself, it may open up a situation where the artwork can focus on other interests, without also having to try to build a space around it so viewers will pay attention.

In WorLd, these spaces are placed in the central lobby and around the Pontypool theatres, and will ideally include a small cafe or bar to encourage restfulness and social interaction with other visitors. This idea of comfort, both in the cinema space and in the meditative spaces outside, is key to the development of a thea-tre-going ritual. This ritual engages audiences with the cinematic constraints of sitting in a space and giving a certain amount of time to the work. It lets them immerse and engage with the image in a very different context than the gallery, but builds it within the gallery space, so that when they walk out of their immersion, they are forced to contemplate their experience. Food and drink play a strong role in developing comfort and


intimacy, and the concept of a gallery cafe is intended to give people a neutral space, where they are com-fortable enough to sit for a period and do something that requires no consciousness (eating or drinking), but engages them in a social ritual where they can think or talk with other visitors.

Finally, the live events will act as another method to engage audiences and cross the cinema/ gallery barrier. The events will consist of traditional film screenings, scheduled one evening a week, to occur with a full cafe/ bar service. This traditional cinematic event, will set a start time for the screening, and host live discussions after the film is finished. Visitors may also view the rest of the exhibition before and after the film screening. The concept behind the live event is to engage audiences that might be interested in the cinematic portion and were unable to view it during their previous visits, or to encourage people to attend an event activity if they are not accustomed to regularly visiting galleries.

Exhibition Themes and Selection of Work

The palimpsest of our language over time mutates our definitions and understanding of things, and our quest to label everything once we understand it seems to be an attempt to stabilize and control it. In reference to collections in a natural history museum, James Delbourgo writes “Hyperinscription threatens to collapse the very identity of the species such labels hope to stabilize, however, as names and numbers multiply on the same box. In some cases you can barely see the glass for the paper. In others, the label is neatly folded, but when opened out, threatens to engulf its object with words all over again.” (48-49) This exhibition explores museum pedagogy and underlines how we build our worlds with language. Each of the works in this exhibi-tion highlight the ability of language to shape the way conceive of, and construct our understanding of our universe. In collaboration with one another, the works question our perceived reality and the language that we use to describe it. It destabilizes the idea that we are in control of our words, and questions the amount of control language itself has over us.

Upon entering the exhibition, the viewer will come upon text pouring over the walls. The poetry of Christian Bök is spectacularly visual and conceptual. As a visual, it is an overwhelming monu-ment to language as a form. It takes the place of didactic texts on the wall, yet offers no concrete knowledge, save for some beautiful and surreal lines of literature. “A Dada bard as daft as Tzara damns stagnant art and scrawls an alpha (a slapdash arc and a backward zag) that mars all stan-zas and jams all ballads (what a scandal).” (1). Although there are many examples of interesting phrases and poetic turns in the text, the meat of Bök’s poetry lies in the structural constraint of his process. The title of his book Eunoia means beautiful thinking, and the concept of the text limits each chapter to the use of a single vowel. Pages, upon pages of surreal and dreamlike text was carefully constructed using the most precise formatting possible. It is as controlled as a text can possibly get, and an act of supreme dominance over the language itself. However, many of the words juxtaposed reveal delightful turns of phrase, or images that may not have been discov-ered without the massive constraints. The language reveals, even as it is tied into place.

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Mark Tansey’s Derrida Queries de Man is exhibited alongside Bök’s poetry. Two men tussle or dance on the edge of a cliff etched with words and wobble on the precipice of a void; there, the philosophers Derrida and de Man stand in for Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty in this replica of Sidney Pa-get’s famous illustration. Even if one considers it simple literary pun, it stands out visually in the same way as Bök’s monument to language, and it draws the viewer into a dialogue about communicating with other people, the violence and danger inherent in speaking, or mis-speaking. It also references the way our world, and memories of it, are only concrete as long as we have power to use it. Once it fades out of our control, into the landscape, it is abstracted and represents a danger to the two men engaged on the cliff.

Along with Eunoia and Derrida Queries de Man, the initial entry into the exhibit will contain an oppor-tunity to listen to a segment from the Radiolab podcast, “Colors - Why Isn’t the Sky Blue”. This can be an installation with seating and access to headphones, or a digital link or QR Code to the website for audiences to download the podcast directly to their phone. The episode refers to a study where lin-guist Guy Deutscher researches the origin of our word for the colour blue, and then describes experi-ments where an African tribe in Namibia and a small child were tested to see if they could recognize the colour without having the corresponding word. “Why Isn’t the Sky Blue” provides context for the premise that language literally controls the way we see the word. Acting as both a support document for the theme and an artistic product in its own right, the Radiolab podcast initializes an imbalance to the traditional gallery context, and a questioning of the works that follow it.

William Kentridge’s The Refusal of Time references the 19th Century pursuit of knowledge through scientific research and museum building. The installation of its arcane objects, in darkness illu-minated only by video installations depicting animations, dioramas, re-enactments and fantasy, disorient the viewer and establish this museum as one that perhaps cannot be trusted. It never explicitly reveals its knowledge, instead dancing around maps of colonial Africa, juxtaposed with steampunk style films - monochrome narratives of the establishment of Greenwich mean time, ex-plosions in alchemic laboratories, and deviant physics. Dubious characters lead us in a merry chase that questions the verity of scientific questing, and underlines how we force our environment (and the uncontrollable characters within it) into behaving properly by naming and classifying it. The work specifically recalls the establishment of Greenwich mean time as an act of colonization - con-trolling the world and making its inhabitants fit into a certain (Western) modality.

Guy Laramee’s Bilbios series offers a brief pause after the chaotic action of The Refusal of Time. His book sculptures reference literature and language without speaking. They are a meditation on the loss of language, or perhaps the need for silence. His landscapes form from old texts, but they are inaccessible as language in their current form. Like the geological formations they represent, they are seemingly immortal - their time extends far beyond a single human life-span. They are hid-den recesses of knowledge and embody a sense of spiritual rapture. In texts related to his body of work, Laramee writes a history of the Biblios - the people to whom these libraries belong: “Just imagine, before words existed the Biblios didn’t even know they were nomads. They didn’t even know they were Biblios. They just were. No more, no less, and even at that one wonders if they knew. Knowing that you are or being what you know, that’s a huge question. So, the Biblios had found words and started collecting them.” There are serendipities between this text and the other works in the exhibit. It is an echo of the Radiolab podcast, but also acts as a pre-cursor to Ponty-pool with its references to decay and destruction. This portion of the exhibit acts as both a remind-er of the themes, and a place to meditate on the work thus far.

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The next work in the loop is Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s Telephone / Time. It consists of a rotary-dial telephone on a sparse desk. The viewer is invited to sit at the desk and pick up the telephone. As one of the only tactile works in the exhibit, it serves to ground and question the viewer’s role in an art space. It asks them to actively engage in the work and become an eavesdropper on a private phone conversation. The conversa-tion hearkens back to Kentridge’s The Refusal of Time as the viewer (listener) overhears a discussion between Cardiff and a scientist on the nature of space and time. The dialogue proceeds to subtly loop after a minute of dialogue, without the listener being completely aware of it. It is a work that questions perception as a personal or scientific phenomenon. As with Cardiff and Miller’s other works, it immerses the viewer by creating a sensation of tactility achieved with audio, video and installation.

The final work in the exhibition program is Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool. The narrative of the film is a decisive echo of the other works in the program. Although it takes up the convention of a mainstream horror film, McDonald subtly builds a horror tension around characters isolated inside a small town radio station, and slowly reveals that the seeming zombie infection is in fact driven by a language borne virus. Many great moments of the film reflect the rhythmic and surreal poetry in Christian Bök’s Eunoia, and it carefully balances its artistic dialogue with a driving narrative tension. It questions the way that we use language and the amount of control we actually have over it. The idea of language as an organism that we cannot control is horrifying, since we rely so heavily on it. As part of WorLd, Pontypool is a crucial pinning point, since it draws on the same themes as the other works, while simultaneously activating the immersive style that makes cinema so good at evoking emotion.

Publication

WorLd will be broken into two publications. The first is an exhibition catalogue, which contains descrip-tions of the works, images and a curatorial essay. This may be published as a hard copy, and also designed as a digital publication or app for viewers to pull up on a mobile device. The second publication will con-tain exhibition research and development, published as an academic essay in a journal or conference. This publication will include interviews with exhibition audiences and results of the survey to assess effective-ness of the techniques postulated.

Curator Biography

Melanie Wilmink is a Masters student at the University of Regina, in the Interdisciplinary Visual Arts pro-gram. With a background as Programming Coordinator for the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmak-ers and the $100 Film Festival, her research focuses on cinematic curation and the role of space as a key to audience engagement with moving image art. She received a BFA in Studio Practice from the University of Calgary and has worked with various arts groups in a variety of mediums over the past few years, with a specific, addictive, leaning towards handmade analogue formats like film, photography and printmaking.

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Works Cited

Abumrad, Jad, and Robert Krulwich. “Season 10, Episode 13: Why Isn’t the Sky Blue?” radiolab.org. Podcast, WNYC, 21 May 2012. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Abumrad, Jad, and Robert Krulwich. “About” radiolab.org. Podcast. WNYC. Web. 22 August, 2012.

Bök, Christian. “Eunoia.” archives.chbooks.com. Coach House Books. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Baker, George. “Film Beyond its Limits.” Grey Room. 25 (2006): 92-125. ABM. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Cardiff, Janet and George Bures Miller. “Telephone/ Time.” cardiffmiller.com. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Film and Video Art. Ed. Stuart Comer. London: Tate, 2009. Print.

Conolly, Maeve. The Place of Artists’ Cinema Space, Site and Screen. Bristol, UK.: Intellect, 2009. Print.

cuf2f. “William Kentridge ‘The Refusal of Time’, 2012 Hauptbahnhof, Nordflügel (#93)’” youtube.com. Youtube, 25 July, 2012. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Delbourgo, James. “What’s in the Box?” Cabinet: A Quarterly of Art and Culture. 41 (2011): 48-49. Print.

“Derrida Queries de Man by Mark Tansey.” hell-yeah-professor-moriarty.tumblr.com. Tumblr. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

“dOCUMENTA (13).” d13.documenta.de. DOCUMENTA 13. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

“Ecstatic Alphabets/ Heaps of Language.” moma.org. The Museum of Modern Art, 2012. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

“Guggenheim Exhibition Explores Language and Translation through Video, Film, and New Media.” guggenheim.org. The Guggenheim Museum, 14 Jan. 2011. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

hoodzy23. “Pontypool Trailer (HD).” youtube.com. Youtube, 20 May 2009. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Kentridge, William, and Peter L. Galison. N”009: Documenta 13 Artist Book: The Refusal of Time. Ostfildern: Hatjie Cantz, Print.

Laramee, Guy. Guy Laramee. Guy Laramee. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Lenfield, Specer. “The Refusal of Time.” harvardmagazine.com. Harvard Magazine Inc. 1 May, 2012. Web. 22 Aug, 2012

Marks, Laura U. Skin of the Film. Duke University Press, 2000. Print.

Mondloch, Kate. Screens: Viewing Media Installation Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. Print.


Sandlos, Karyn. “Curating and Pedagogy in the Strange Time of Short Film and Video Exhibition.” The Moving Image 4.1 (2004) Project Muse. Web. 22 Aug. 2012. Strathaus, Stefanie Schulte. “Showing Different Films Differently: Cinema as a Result of Cinematic Thinking.” The Moving Image 4.1 (2004): June 3, 2012. Project Muse. Web. 22 Aug. 2012.

Trodd, Tamara. “Intoduction: Theorising the Projected Image.” Screen/ Space: The Projected Image in Contemporary Art. Ed. Tamara Trodd. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 2011. Print.

Uroskie, Andrew V. “Windows in the White Cube.” Screen/ Space: The Projected Image in Contemporary Art. Ed. Tamara Trodd. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 2011. Print.


EXHIBITION CHECKLIST

IMAGE DESCRIPTION EXHIBITION HISTORY

Eunoia (2001)Christian Bök

The word ‘eunoia’, literally means ‘beautiful thinking’, and is the short-est word in English that contains all five vowels. Inspired by the Oulipo (l’Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), a French writers’ group interested in experimenting with different forms of literary constraint, Eunoia is a five-chapter book in which each chapter is a univocal lipogram (the first chap-ter has A as its only vowel, the sec-ond chapter only E, etc.). Each vowel takes on a distinct personality - the I is egotistical and romantic, the O jocular and obscene, the E elegaic and epic. Medium: Text on WallDimensions: variableMaterials: Text panelsCollection: Artist

Published in Canada in 2001 by Coach House Books; sold 20,000 copies; and won the 2002 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize. Canongate Books published a Brit-ish edition in 2008. The book sold well in the United Kingdom, making The Times list of the year’s top 10 books and becoming the top-selling book of poetry in Britain.

Image: Cover of EunoiaPhoto: Coach House Books

Why Isn’t the Sky Blue (2012)Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich

Producer Tim Howard introduces lin-guist Guy Deutscher, and the story of William Gladstone, who conducted an exhaustive study of every color reference in The Odyssey and The Iliad. He found something startling: No blue! A book of German philoso-phy from the late 19th Century helps reveal a pattern: across all cultures, words for colors appear in stages. And blue always comes last. Jules Da-vidoff, professor of neuropsychology at the University of London, helps us make sense of the way different peo-ple see different colors in the same place. Then Guy Deutscher tells us how he experimented on his daugh-ter Alma when she was just start-ing to learn the colors of the world around, and above, her.

Medium: PodcastCollection: Available publicly online

Published May 21, 2012

Image: Sun RaysPhoto: Balaji.B/flickr/CC-BY-2.0


Image: Derrida Queries de ManPhoto: Alan Koppel Gallery, Chicago

Derrida Queries de Man (1990)Mark Tansey

This painting is based on Sidney Paget’s classic Victorian illustra-tion depicting Sherlock Holmes’ battle with Professor Moriarty above Reichenbach Falls - except that in this case, the cliffs consist of deconstructed text.

Medium: Oil on CanvasDimensions: 212.7cm x 139.7cmCollection: private

The Armory Show - Alan Koppel GalleryPiers 92 & 94, New York, USA, 2012

Image: Installation - The Refusal of TimePhoto: dOCUMENTA 13

The Refusal of Time (2012)William Kentridge

Commissioned for dOCUMENTA 13, this recent work engages five pro-jection screens with animated films, a breathing machine and a rhythmic sound collage. This surrealist dance of light and sound stirs questions the historical establishment of Greenwich Mean Time. Kentridge questions temporality and physics, as well as the colonial effects of our human drive to conquer and control all aspects of our world.

Medium: Media & Sculptural InstallationDimensions: Variable:Length: 27 minCollection: Artist

dOCUMENTA 13 Hauptbahnhof, Kassel, Germany, June 9 — Sept 16, 2012


Image: Installation - Telephone / TimePhoto: Jens Ziehe

Telephone / Time, 2004Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller

The visitor listens to a conversa-tion on an old fashioned telephone installed on a desk. They hear a recorded conversation between Cardiff and a scientist on the na-ture of space and time.

Medium: Audio & Sculptural InstallationDimensions: 120cm x 120cmLength: 2 min (loop)Collection: Artist

n/a

Image: Biblios: PetrasPhoto: guylaramee.com

Refuges Galerie Lacerte, Quebec city, Quebec. 2006.

Trafic, at L’Écart (Artist run center) Rouen-Noranda, Quebec. Curated by Mathieu Beauséjour and Nathalie De Blois. 2005

Tous ces livres sont à toi , inauguration exhibit of the Grande bibliothèque du Québec, in Montreal. 2005

Le Grand atelier, à CIRCA, Montreal. 2004.

Biblios: Le dernier livre at Galerie R3 of Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Quebec. 2004.

La grande Bibliothèque, at Biblio-thèque nationale du Québec. 2004.

Biblios : le dernier livre, at Galerie de l’UQAM (Université du Québec à Mon-tréal). 2004.

Biblios (series), 2004.Guy Laramee

I carve landscapes out of books and I paint romantic landscapes. Moun-tains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where appar-ently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are.

Medium: SculptureDimensions: VariableCollection: Artist


Pontypool (2008)Bruce McDonald

Pontypool is a psychological thriller directed by Bruce McDonald and adapted by Tony Burgess from Burgess’ novel Pontypool Changes Everything. The film is set in a radio station in Pontypool, a small vil-lage in Ontario, Canada, where one day the morning team starts taking reports of extreme, bloody incidents of violence occurring in town. As the story unfolds, the radio staff soon realizes the violence that is ripping society apart is due to a virus being spread through the English lan-guage.

Image: Promo Poster - PontypoolPhoto: Maple Pictures

Chlotrudis Award (nominated), 2010 Best Adapted ScreenplayTony Burgess Fangoria Chainsaw Award (nomi-nated), 2010 Best ActorStephen McHattie Genie Awards (nominated), 2010 Best Achievement in DirectionBruce McDonald Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading RoleStephen McHattie Best Screenplay, AdaptedTony Burgess Vancouver Film Critics Circle (nomi-nated), 2010Best Actor in a Canadian FilmStephen McHattie Best Supporting Actress in a Canadian FilmLisa Houle

Medium: Feature FilmDimensions: variableLength: 93 minDistributor: Maple PicturesMaterials: 2 x cinema setup with projectors, screens wtih curtains, dvd players, theatre seating & lighting

worLd - mock exhibition proposal

Documents