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INTRODUCTION
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PROGRAM ONE |
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 Image: Shelly Silver, “In Complete World,” 2008. Courtesy Video Data Bank, Chicago. Text: VDB online catalogue: http://www.vdb.org Reprinted with permission by VDB. . |
Shelly Silver: In Complete World In Complete World can be seen as a user’s manual for citizenship in the 21st century, as well as a glimpse into the opinions and self-perceptions of a diverse group of Americans. It is a testament to the people of NYC in this new millennium, who freely offer up thoughtful, provocative and at times tender revelations to a complete stranger, just because she asked. Biography: Shelly Silver’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the US, Europe and Asia at venues such as MoMA, the ICP, MoCA, The Yokohama Museum, The Pompidou Center, The Kyoto Museum, the London ICA, as well as the London, Singapore, New York, Moscow and Berlin Film Festivals. Silver has received numerous fellowships and grants from organizations such as the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, the Jerome Foundation, and the Japan Foundation. Silver graduated from Cornell University in 1980 with a B.A. in Intellectual History and a B.F.A. in Mixed Media prior to attending the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. She is an associate professor in Visual Arts, School of the Arts, Columbia University. |
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 Image: Jesse McLean, “Somewhere Only We Know,” 2009. Courtesy Video Data Bank, Chicago. Text: VDB online catalogue: http://www.vdb.org. Reprinted with permission by VDB. |
Jesse McLean: Somewhere Only We Know Somewhere Only We Know is the second part of the Bearing Witness Trilogy. With footage culled from mainstream media and television, these videos distill moments of sincerity from perhaps insincere sources (televangelists, reality show contestants, screensavers, B-movies). This trilogy puts pressure on the infrastructure of distributing images, particularly those that represent what might have normally been private experiences made public for the sake of entertainment. Biography: Jesse McLean grew up in Pennsylvania, studied art at Oberlin College and received her MFA in Moving Image from University of Illinois at Chicago. She has shown her work most recently at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Threewalls, Migrating Forms at Anthology Film Archives, Art Chicago, Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, Director’s Lounge in Berlin, FLEX, Monkeytown, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago Underground Film Festival, LUMP gallery/projects and Space 1026. She lives and works in Chicago, IL. |
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 Image: Halflifers, “Actions in Action,” 1997. Courtesy Video Data Bank, Chicago. Text: VDB online catalogue: http://www.vdb.org. Reprinted with permission by VDB. |
Halflifers: Actions In Action Actions in Action plunges into a world of frantic heroes trapped in a continual crisis of dissolution and reification. An ordinary domestic setting is recast as a psychoactive landscape in which the concept of function becomes situational and fluid. Only through the strategic application of organic and inorganic “devices” can this zone be successfully navigated and the mission be saved. Biography: Halflifers is a collaborative project by Torsten Zenas Burns and Anthony Discenza. Their single-channel works, including The Rescue, Action, Island, and Pioneer series have screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the New York Video Festival, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, Pacific Film Archive, Impakt Festival in the Netherlands, EMAF Festival in Germany, Pandaemonium Festival in England, Pleasuredome in Canada, and the Videoex Festival in Switzerland. |
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 Image: Yael Bartana, “Odds and Ends,” 2005. Courtesy Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam. Text: NIMK online catalogue: http://catalogue.nimk.nl. Reprinted with permission by NIMK. |
Yael Bartana: Odds and Ends Odds and Ends reflects Israel’s political situation through the ritual of shopping. Partly shot from a bird’s-eye view, we see a large group of customers in a shopping mall in the city of Lod; they are standing in an elevator and then clustered around goods on sale. A menacing wall of sound mixes muzak with a jumble of voices, intensifying the desire for consumer goods. In this case, the physical bodies fight for one purpose only: to snatch up a bargain, an ambition that goes beyond cultural, religious, class and gender categories. Biography: Yael Bartana was born in 1970 in Kfar-Yehozkel, Israel. She has had solo exhibitions in Germany, Israel, Australia and Japan and has won prizes such as the Anselm Kiefer Prize (2003) and the Dorothea von Stetten-Kunstpreis (2005). Her work focuses on the relationship between ritual and identity in Israeli society, looking at the practices that constitute identity, especially in its relation with traditional and contemporary notions of gender, place and ethnicity. |
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 Image: Nelson Henricks, “Satellite,” 2004. Courtesy Video Data Bank, Chicago. Text: VDB online catalogue: http://www.vdb.org. Reprinted with permission by VDB. |
Nelson Henricks: Satellite In Satellite, Nelson Henricks combines found footage and techno beats to question western society’s ongoing obsession with science, technology and the future. Juxtaposing images derived from old educational films with absurd, aphoristic slogans, Henricks offers up a witty, entertaining and provocative commentary of our need to make sense of everything, at any cost. Biography: A musician, writer, curator and artist, Henricks is best known for his videotapes, which have been exhibited worldwide. A focus on his videowork was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of the Video Viewpoints series. His writings have been published in Fuse, Public and Coil magazines, and in the anthologies So, To Speak (Editions Artexte, 1999) and Lux (YYZ Press, 2000). Henricks co-edited an anthology of artists’ video scripts entitled By the Skin of Their Tongues (YYZ Press, 1997) with Steve Reinke. Henricks lives and works in Montreal, Canada. |
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 Image: Nicolas Provost, “Plot Point,” 2007. Courtesy Video Data Bank, Chicago. Text: VDB online catalogue: http://www.vdb.org. Reprinted with permission by VDB. |
Nicolas Provost: Plot Point The crowded streets of New York City turn into fictive, cinematographic scenery. Provost is playing with our collective memory, its cinematic codes and narrative languages - questioning the boundaries between a staged, suggested reality and authentic fiction. Although filmed with a hidden camera, Plot Point presents a highly dramatic construction with overly sophisticated images and a subtle but tangible urge in the soundtrack. The meticulousness with which Provost shoots and edits the images and sounds make Plot Point the perfect trailer for dramatized experience in our daily life, an ordinary walk on the street will never be the same again. Biography: Nicolas Provost is a filmmaker and visual artist living and working in Brussels, Belgium. His work is a reflection on the grammar of cinema and the relationship between visual art and the cinematic experience. His work has been screened worldwide at festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival, the San Francisco International Film festival, the Venice Film Festival, the Locarno Film Festival and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Solo exhibitions include Haunch of Venison (Berlin), the Seattle Art Museum, Tim Van Laere Gallery (Antwerp), the International Media Art Biennale (Poland), De Brakke Grond (Amsterdam), C-Space Gallery (Beijing), and Solar Galeria de Arte Cinematica (Portugal). |
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