Rockstars & Wannabes

For Immediate Release…
September 20, 2007

Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery and Video Pool Media Arts Centre are proud to present the exhibition

Rockstars & Wannabes

Curated by Cathy Mattes, this exhibition features: Warren Arcand, Kevin Ei-Ichi deForest, Skawennati Fragnito, and Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay.

Dates: September 29 – November 10, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 29, 2007 @ 8 PM
Location: Urban Shaman Gallery – 203-290 McDermot Ave
Mediums: Video and Installation

With the emergence of MTV and Much Music in the early 1980s, a new form of escapism, and role play surfaced for young people. How youth connected with popular singers and bands changed drastically thanks to vee-jays spinning flashy music videos that provided visual narratives to follow along with popular music. In basements and bedrooms across the land, youth held brushes as microphones, envisioned themselves in music videos, and mimicked the music stars they admired…

Rockstars & Wannabes locates artists who examine the impact of the music industry on identity, using music videos, karaoke, and popular TV talent searches as catalysts. Music as an aid in escaping cross-cultural boundaries, the longing for validation or substance in one’s life, and the lengths some will go to locate and express their inner rock star is investigated.

Warren Arcand’s contribution to Rockstars & Wannabes is a video installation that explores “how youth turn to Rock music as a form of magical thinking, or who alternatively may be used by Rock to refresh and revitalize its own iconography. Within this exchange there are many hazards and casualties, not the least of which is boundary control.” – Warren Arcand.

Kevin Ei-Ichi deForest uses Karaoke to out existing stereotypes within popular music and explores the struggle to culturally fit in for those of mixed ancestry. By presenting imagery of Japanese music icons, cityscapes, and the impact of American pop-culture on Japanese youth, his video works expose how cultural perceptions are internalized, while simultaneously reminding viewers about the potential of music to bridge existing gaps.

Skawennati Fragnito locates like-minded adults who grew up in the '80s, and dreamt of being in music videos like those seen on Much Music and MTV. Her video work 80 Minutes,80 Movies, 80s Music, is an ongoing digital-video project which invites Generation X-ers from diverse cultural backgrounds, professions, and locations to live out their 80s rock star dreams in 80 second music videos created by Fragnito. New additions to 80 Minutes, 80 Movies, 80s Music will be featured in the exhibition.

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay’s video and installation work provide a glimpse of his intimate relationship with certain pop music icons. History, sexuality and identity collide in Audition Tape, a musical monologue inspired by outtakes from American idol competitions. In Jimmy, a heraldic flag and documentation of a performative marathon honours Scottish gay pop hero Jimmy Somerville. Referencing a fan's obsessive sensibility, Jimmy explores the rewriting of narratives about who gets canonized and honoured in popular culture.

Rockstars & Wannabes Highlights:

* Join us at the free public opening reception on Saturday, September 29, 2007, which will include an '80s dance party after 10pm.
* Come to the curatorial talk/karaoke night at Urban Shaman – date TBA

With special thanks to our generous funders:













We wish to express additional gratitude to our friends, volunteers, community, and All Our Relations.

For more information please contact Milena Placentile at Video Pool @ (204) 949-9134 ext.1

- 30 -

Sample Images - Click for larger versions. More coming soon!

Warren Arcand. Flamingo Killers.














Kevin Ei-ichi deForest. Foxy Lady, 2006.

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay. Audition Tape.









Biographies

Warren Arcand lives and works in Vancouver, where his artistic output includes performance art, film and video, theatre and text based work. His past performance pieces include “Six Gun Sufi” (cowboy ballads and sexdeath mysticism); “Surgery” (hermaphrodism as a metaphor for Abo identity); and most recently “Superchannel” (audience members received wireless headsets giving them access to 7 channels of selectable audio with which they could mix their own ‘soundtrack’ for Warren’s simple performance task of ‘making eye contact’). He is currently teaching performance art at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.

Kevin Ei-ichi deForest is an internationally recognized visual artist whose practice focuses on the representation of cultural hybridity, specifically with reference to his Eurasian background. Born in Winnipeg, he was part of the fledgling punk rock scene there in the late 70s. In the spirit of his hybrid outlook, his multimedia practice includes painting, installation, video, sound art, and critical writing. He has exhibited nationally as well as in USA, Mexico, Holland, Germany, Italy and Japan. He recently returned to Manitoba as Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual and Aboriginal Art at Brandon University, Brandon Manitoba.

Skawennati Fragnito is an artist, independent curator, and occasional writer. In 1994, Skawennati co-founded Nation to Nation, a First Nations artist collective, whose exhibitions have included TattoNation and the very popular Native Love, which toured Canada. From 1996 to 2005, Skawennati was the director and primary curator for CyberPowWow, the pioneering Aboriginally-determined on-line gallery and chat space. Her most recent curatorial project is an on-line exhibition entitled Grrls, Chicks, Sisters & Squaws: Les citoyennes du cyberspace.

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay is a Montréal-born artist working predominantly in video, text and sound. Since 2000 his work has brought together song, self-reflexive performance and lyrics from pop music as vehicles for examining the singing voice, the untranslatability of emotions into language and the ways in which emotional expression changes shape when mediated by technology and popular culture. Nemerofsky Ramsay's work has screened in festivals and galleries across Canada, Europe and East Asia and has won prizes at the Hamburg Short Film Festival, the Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- und Videofest and the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (all in Germany), the Toronto Inside Out Film and Video Festival as well as First Prize at the Globalica Media Arts Biennale in Wroclaw, Poland. He currently divides his time between Canada and Europe.

Remember! Saturday, September 29 is the night to party like a rock star!

Dear people on the internets, especially those in Winnipeg on Saturday night...

The hype is building and we can hardly contain ourselves!

On Saturday, September 29, beginning at 8:00 p.m., Video Pool and Urban Shaman are proud to unleash the hot new exhibition Rockstars and Wannabes!

Get in the mood by dressing like an 80s rock star and join us at Urban Shaman Gallery (203-290 McDermot Ave) for a night of video, performance, music, and fun. Costumes aren't mandatory, but you'll feel more like a star with one on as you strut the red carpet and schmooze with the other luminaries ;-)

This exhibition is curated by Cathy Mattes and features work by Warren Arcand, Kevin Ei-Ichi deForest, Skawennati Fragnito, and Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay. You're going to love it!

We're all stars...

Video Pool and Urban Shaman Gallery are delighted to announce an evening of intimate conversation and rock shenanigans.

Curator Cathy Mattes will deliver a talk about her latest exhibition, Rockstars & Wannabes, in a venue certain to pull even the shyest of art lovers out of their shells and onto the stage! The significance of rock music on the construction of personal identity, and as a creative form of escapism, are just two of the relevant themes that Mattes will discuss. The capacity for rock to help us tap into our inner rock star personas is another. To draw attention to the energizing nature of such experiences, Mattes offers her talk with a night of karaoke, and all are welcome to participate.

So please join us!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007 beginning at 7:30 p.m. sharp
Club 200 (120 Garry Street, just South of St. Mary Ave)

No cover! We're going late!

Rockstars & Wannabes launched on September 29 with all the appropriate fanfare. This exhibition, which features work by Warren Arcand, Kevin Ei-Ichi deForest, Skawennati Fragnito, and Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, is on now and is available for viewing until Saturday, November 10 at Urban Shaman Gallery (203-290 McDermot Ave). For more information, please visit: http://www.urbanshaman.org or http://www.videopool.org

We almost forgot to post this one!

If there was ever an interesting and valuable side-effect of grant writing, it's going through old files and reflecting on past activities.

We forgot to mention the great news of Stacey Abramson's review of Rockstars and Wannabes in Uptown back in November. So, here it is! Click on the pic to read the text in full size.



Thanks Stacey!

Welcome to our new blog!

As always, Video Pool is up to a number of very fantastic things! We want you to have easy access to all the information you could possibly want, so we’ve decided to start this blog.

Beginning later today, you'll find news about upcoming exhibitions, events, talks, performances, opportunities, and even social occasions, since getting together, sharing ideas, and celebrating contemporary media art is an important part of what we do. On that note, we will soon begin posting images and other documentation relating to our programming, so even if you’re not in Winnipeg, you’ll still be able to access the excitement. Of course, developing an ongoing archive of activities is always a great idea, as well.

So come back soon, and be sure to visit often! We’ll be burning this feed as soon as possible, but another way to keep in the loop conveniently is to subscribe to this blog through an interface such as Google Reader. Just add http://videpool.blogspot.com and our news will come to you.

And don’t forget: this blog is intended to be completely interactive, so if you have something you want to say to us, and everyone else, please feel free to comment. We’ve set up this blog so you don’t need to be registered with Blogger -- just select anonymous, fill your comment into the field provided, and you’re done!

Coming up next, details about our next exhibition, Rockstars & Wannabes!

Thanks for singing along!

Last week Wednesday we had the pleasure of hosting Cathy Matte's fabulous curators' talk about her fabulous exhibition, Rockstars & Wannabes.

Aiming to shake up the conventions of traditionally-formatted talks, Mattes' presentation was inter-textual, multi-disciplinary, performative, and participatory. Furthermore, it functioned in the spirit of a happening. Mattes opened and closed the talk with a selection of karaoke songs, and they were performed enthusiastically (and creatively) by members of the audience. The talk also involved clips of video work presented in the exhibition.

We're thrilled that so many people were able to attend this event, and we are especially grateful to professors from the University of Manitoba for bringing their students down. It's not every day undergrads get to hold class in a bar!

On that note, thank you once again to Club 200 for hosting us... it was a blast!

Ps. Below are some snapshots taken during the talk. If you, or someone you know, happened to take photos during the karaoke party afterwards, please do pass 'em on... we'd love to post them here!









And now for a little "behind the scene stuff"... troubleshooting tech compatibility in the VP office just before heading down to Club 200. Because, well, this stuff is just fascinating, isn't it? ;-)

More great local media coverage

In the latest issue of Uptown Magazine, local arts reporter, Stacey Abramson, shares her impressions of Germaine Koh's interactive new-media interventions, Call and Relay. It appears that Stacey enjoyed these projects as much as we did, and it appears that we've both noticed how popular they have been with the many, many participants who helped make the projects come alive.

For the whole story, please visit: http://www.uptownmag.com/2007-11-22/page1263.aspx

We were also very pleased to discover Sean Manson's coverage of Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay's two projects, Jimmy and Audition Tape in Outwordsinc. These works were both part of the exhibition Rockstars & Wannabes, which Video Pool co-presented with Urban Shaman Gallery from Sept 29 - Nov 10, 2007.

To download the issue containing this story, please visit: http://www.outwords.ca/issues/OutWordsOnline146.pdf

Save the Date! Rockstars & Wannabes Curator's talk comin' soon!

The rock star vibe at Video Pool and Urban Shaman ain't over yet!

On Wednesday, November 7, beginning at 7:00 p.m., Rockstars & Wannbes curator, Cathy Mattes, will give a talk about the exhibition.

More details are coming soon, but we're telling you now so you can plan your attendance =-)