Two Evenings of International Performance Video Art (3 programs)
Presented by Pleasure Dome
in conjunction with the 2nd 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art
Performance to Camera: Recent British Video, Part IIThursday November 5 8 pm
CineCycle, 129 Spadina Ave
Curated by Catherine ELWES
The direct address to the viewer and the intimate space of the video image has long inspired artists to perform to camera. This British selection ranges from the minimal performance of SMITH and STEWART’s breathless evocation of a couple’s interdependence to the outrageous exhibitionism of Michael CURRAN’s erotic prancing in the face of female indifference. The deadpan Pythonesque delight in the absurd is also in evidence in John SMITH’s work while a more lyrical note is struck by the curious childhood rituals that Angela DERBY weaves around bodily hair. The tradition of free speech, exemplified by the soap box orators at London’s Speakers Corner, underlies the uncompromising realism of Anne WHITEHURST’s address from her wheelchair. Keith PIPER similarly leaves us in no doubt as to his subjectivity as a young black male coming to terms with the history of slavery. This collection of works reinforces video as a medium of the personal statement in the face of the reductive generalizations of broadcast television.
American Psycho (drama): Sigmund Freud vs. Henry Ford
Friday November 6 7 pm
CineCycle, 129 Spadina Ave
Curated by Nelson HENRICKS
This humourous selection of performance-oriented videos maps a trajectory between consumer society and the psychoanalytic confessional. HALFLIFERS perform two ‘rescue’ missions using coloured snack food and everyday objects as a means towards transcendence. In The Horror, Emily BREER and Joe GIBBONS recuperate Coppola’s Apocalypse as a day at the beach. GIBBONS’ solo work, Multiple Barbie, features the artist as a smooth talking psychoanalyst, gently attempting to fuse the mute doll’s shattered plastic psyche. Three works by Anne MCGUIRE all employ genre conventions derived from popular culture (the variety, show, the talk show, and the rock video); McGuire’s presence as a performer amplifies the sense of strangeness that lies at the heart of the familiar, creating a vertigo between form and content. ANIMAL CHARM’s interventions in the program are homemade commercials and infomercials, sampled from a reservoir of neglected or useless images.
Smells Like Bonbons: Canadian Performance Video
Friday November 6 9 pm
CineCycle, 129 Spadina Ave
Curated by Steve REINKE
This program features some of the best of recent videos which challenge and extend the idea of ‘performance’ and ‘performance video’ into exciting new territories. Most of these tapes have never been seen by Toronto audiences, including the premiere of new works by Monique MOUMBLOW and Emily VEY DUKE. Also featured is Micah LEXIER’s One Minute of My Time, originally produced for BRAVO, and the Toronto premiere of Barb WEBB’s Smells Like TV. Recent favourites from Yudi SEWRAJ, Jinhan KO, Sylvie LALIBERTÉ, John MARRIOTT and others round out the program.
