I’m really, really, really going to miss The Office. Firstly, because it has provided real opportunities for artists working in the OC, especially up and comers. Secondly, because I’ve always felt that knowing there was another space out there showing some of the artists that I’ve been showing has provided some kind of validation for my curatorial choices in a “I might actually know what I’m doing.” Working in San Pedro can be a bit of a vacuum – it’s handy to see parallels to what you’re doing.
Sadnesses aside, Office owner/director Chris Hoff assured me that he has plans that will keep him in the game, and I’m looking forward to seeing those develop. On to the show.
re-Perspective is at its heart revolves around three themes “technology, feminism and politics,” according to the introductory text of the exhibition’s catalog. The show stays neatly within those bounds, and in some of the works there’s definite overlap between the themes.
Above – Audrey Chan, Boomerang (installation still) – This piece’s presence dominates the exhibition, but its presence in a separate room prevents it from overtaking the other work in the show. A 23 minute video, Boomerang seems at times a mix of mash up and pile up, and in the best possible way. It’s like a page from a sketchbook, raw, with a half finished drawing in the corner, a peek into the artist’s thought process and mind. Although the piece meanders in terms of the subject and background music, it is held together by footage of Maya Lin and the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, and by the presence of the artist, in the form of scrolling text. The title, Boomerang refers to two things, one the shape of Lin’s memorial, and two, the notion on things coming back again. It is at its heart, a meditation on the inevitability of the future existence of an Iraq war memorial, one that exists in the shadow of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorials transition to an emphasis on “The people, not the politics.”
In this piece, Chan functions as appropriator and narrator, taking us along with her as she attempts to explore the current, ongoing, bombs exploding right now war via the lens of its inevitable memorial. Her journey is an extremely contemporary one, not possible before the Internet era. In the 1970’s as the Vientnam War raged, our experiences were mediated by Walter Cronkite, and a limited and graphic sphere of television news. It wasn’t until after the war was over that we really began to be able to get into the narrative of the conflict. Today, if we choose, we can immerse ourselves into the narrative of the conflict at the level and intensity of our choosing. Chan has been drawn into the sphere of instant video – something not possible before the 21st Century. The individualization of our experience of war fragments us as a society. Although there are still touchstones that we can experience collectively (Abu Ghirab, Battle of Fallujah, etc…) our experiences of the war are far more individual than those of previous wars, especially those who don’t directly have access to the battlefield via family members or friends. We can now, if we choose, watch beheadings on our laptops, or not.
I can sympathize with her journey. Although I somehow remain largely uninterested in the video aspect of the current war, since 9/11 I’ve immersed myself in military and political texts, largely with a focus on 4th generation warfare, maneuver warfare and insurgency. I can’t help but feel that if I just read enough, if I just synthesize enough concepts and history I will come to understand the re-orientation of the society I live in. But being informed has its price – isolation. I imagine that Chan’s video is also motivated by a need to share, to say “This is how it is!” to strangers, to people who hold crazy ideas, or no ideas or who’s heads are in the sand about what’s happening. I imagine that Chan has become aware of the difference between history, its monuments and the reality of the now.
Despite the assortment of violent imagery in the video, the most painful and decisive moment is archival footage of a Vietnam Veteran denouncing the then proposed Maya Lin memorial as a “scar,” while a visibly distressed Lin sits in the audience, squirming and seemingly terrified. His intensity and certainty that Lin’s memorial banishes and diminishes his sacrifice I don’t know if this is my individual response, but I find it telling about the state of our media and our experiences that I’m less disturbed by watching infra-red cam video of humans being picked off with a helicopter’s machine gun than I am of watching an undergraduate have to hear hard criticism of her work.
Above – Audrey Chan, Boomerang (installation still) – A hostage, as seen in Boomerang.
above – Seth Price, Romance – As someone who’s been neck deep in video gaming since the Zork era, and who’s primary field of work as an adult is curatorial, I can tell you this – every era of video game history is going to be re-mixed by artists. It’s all going to seem brilliant or novel to hundreds of curators who don’t know their Wasteland from their Secret of Monkey Island, and a lot of really, really bad purchases are going to be made by institutions that don’t have the know-how about the media to make the right distinction between crap and art.
People have been making their own text adventures for decades – there is nothing important about the media in this case. It’s essentially just a long video screen capture of an individual going through the process of playing a game. Which brings up the question – is video game based art that’s not playable just video art? Or is it video game art? I can’t answer that. I played Eric Medine’s Christ Killa earlier this year, and I can definitely say that’s video game art. But a piece like this, I’m not so sure.
What I like about this piece is that it hallmarks on key elements of the text adventure – direction, description and inventory. It’s like a landscape in that way – mountains, trees, water… I get a little pump of joy watching the inventory (seen above) come up in this video. Text adventures are essentially linear media, even when there is a randomness involved, the number of effective actions available at any one point are limited by the simplicity of the system. By reducing the viewer-player’s visual field to text, individual words come to take on new meanings – “What am I supposed to be doing here?” “Can I pick that up?” “Am I asking the right question?” Playing one of these games is to be thrust into confusion, into a world where one’s actions are often mediated by a rigid bureaucracy (side note – Douglas Adams authored a text adventure named Bureaucray) of syntax. I look at this piece and I see daily frustration – the pain of coming to terms with ordinary and inescapable obstacles, and the rigid laws of science that govern our interactions with time and space.
above – Gioj de Marco, WWII: Dog Fighting Mode – I must be an idiot. I’ve been looking at this piece for days, as it was heavily used to promote the show. I’m not dumb enough to know that it is of Wonder Woman, but I’ve been trying to figure out the WWII aspect of the painting – what does it have to do with or say about WWII. Well, after seeing the piece in person and reading the catalog, I came to realize that I’m slightly stupider than I think I am already. It’s an image of Wonder Woman, sitting in her invisible jet, engaged in a dogfight with the aircraft seen moving through the left side of the image.
It’s at heart, an image that humanizes (read – reveals the presence of ordinary weakness) Wonder Woman, to show what is largely an artificial symbol of patriotism and semi-sadomasochistic sexuality in a slightly unflattering or revealing light. It reveals a great deal about the idea of the superhuman. I always feel that we have become superhuman as civilization has developed. Our technology and ability to develop ideas from generation to generation allows us to do things outside of the limits of our bodies, like flying at supersonic speeds in fighter aircraft. What is the difference between a superhero in flight and a fighter pilot? The difference is that the superhero is in flight due to “magic or its equivalent” and the fighter pilot is in flight due to the combined semi-random efforts of millions of humans over thousands of years. Which one is really more amazing?
above – Robert Hollister, Career Opportunities for Young Women, 1974 – 2007 – NOTE – I had to re-edit this descriptor, as my initial reaction was formed due to a mis-overheard conversation between the artist and some guests, that I’ve now clarified. I didn’t know this until about two hours before the show, but Robert Hollister is the SO of my co-worker, Heather Dundas (at left). I know him as Rob, so I didn’t make the connection until it was pointed out to me. Career Opportunities for Young Women is a photo essay that Rob began in 1974, as a student, and that he’s updated for this show. It portrays seven young women in service industry jobs, all of them look strikingly similar.
above – Ana Teresa Fernandez, To Press 3 – This image, and its partner, To Press 1, are oil paintings based upon performance documentation. It’s difficult for me not to see both images as profoundly erotic – they would find themselves at home in any BDSM publication. From her catalog interview she states that she’s interested in using her own body as a reference point for actions and structures, but I have no idea if my take on these paintings isn’t far,far off from her intentions. I’m not sure if she’s actually using eroticism to glorify what is ordinarily perceived as a rote task, or if she’s trying to build a drama of struggle through the contortions of her body. I really like Fernandez’ execution of her performance documentation as oil paintings, although I don’t have a “good reason” why. I guess maybe because it adds a filter between the performance and these pieces, putting them into a soft focus that de-realizes them just enough to make them seem slightly dreamlike.
Technorati Tags: art, The Office, contemporary art, video art, text adventure, Seth Price, Audrey Chan, Ana Teresa Fernandez, Robert Hollister, Gioj de Marco, Maya Lin, re-Perspective, art, art exhibition, art gallery
