Video Pool: January 2008

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Coming Soon: Camera-Free Film and Video

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Video Pool Media Arts Centre presents
Camera-Free Film and Video
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Winnipeg, MB (January 23, 2008) – We can always trust artists to challenge assumptions and to seek creative alternatives to conventional practices. In the case of film and video, this is also true.

This screening features experimental techniques for moving image creation and manipulation including: machinima (film and video made using avatars and/or video game environments), computer-based image manipulation, well-established filmmaking techniques such as hand processing, optical printing, and scratch animation, as well as work employing modified cameras or found footage.

Curated through an open call for submissions, Camera-Free Film and Video showcases provocative non-traditional film and video produced by artists from diverse cultural backgrounds and communities. We are pleased to present the work of a number of local artists, underscoring Winnipeg's rich contribution to experimental film and video making in this country.

Featured artists include: Ed Ackerman & Gregory Zbitnew (Winnipeg), Clint Enns (Winnipeg), Gun Holström (Helsinki), Ian Robert MacTilstra (Vancouver), Mike Maryniuk (Winnipeg), Divya Mehra (Winnipeg/New York), Robert Pasternak (Winnipeg), Andrew James Patterson (Toronto), Heidi Phillips (Winnipeg), Victoria Prince (Winnipeg), Nicole Shimonek (Winnipeg/London, UK), Murray Toews (Winnipeg), Kai Ling Xue (Vancouver), and Collin Zipp (Winnipeg).

Join us!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Cinematheque Theatre, 100 Arthur St.
Admission is free of charge

This one-night only screening begins at 7:30 p.m. and will be followed by a Q&A session, and then a reception at Platform Gallery

Video Pool thanks the Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque and Platform Gallery for their generous presentation support.

Image: Clint Enns, The Death of Natural Language, 2007 (video still)

* * *

We wish to acknowledge the generosity of our funders: The Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, and the Winnipeg Arts Council

VIDEO POOL MEDIA ARTS CENTRE is a non-profit artist run centre dedicated to advancing the discipline of media art by providing media artists, non-profit organizations and community groups with access to professional video and media equipment, training, distribution and programming. Video Pool strives to be a national leader fostering innovation, experimentation, critical dialogue and advocacy in media arts.

Contact: Milena Placentile, Programming Coordinator
Video Pool Media Arts Centre
#300-100 Arthur St., Winnipeg, MB R3B 1H3
http://www.videopool.org +++ http://videopool.blogspot.com +++ 204.949.9134 x1

Coming soon: Video Pool Media Arts Centre celebrates 25 years with a series of exhibitions featuring six newly commissioned works curated by Sigrid Dahle and Grant Guy. Featured artists include: Sharon Alward, Daniel Barrow, Peter Courtemanche + Lori Weidenhammer, Richard Dyck, Steven Loft, and Victoria Prince.

The Portage and Main Story Line

1 (204) 943-1423
... the Portage and Main story line

It has been 32 years since Winnipeg’s fabled intersection, Portage and Main, was barricaded to pedestrian traffic.

Do you still remember crossing Portage and Main?
If so, I am interested in your story.

Please call, 1.204.943.1423 and tell me about it.

It is a voice mail box that will record your story that I will then reassemble into a new work made with all of the other stories I am told. Anyone with memories of actually crossing the streets are invited to call, but other Portage and Main recollections would be welcome too. If your story is particularly long, either leave several messages, or if you prefer, email me, jake moore, at mjake@videotron.ca, to set up a direct connection.

Why?
I am collecting these stories for the construction of an audio sculpture to be included in an exhibition called SUBCONSCIOUS CITY, curated by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan for the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

According to the curators:
“Inspiration for the title of the exhibition comes from American cultural theorist and art critic Rebecca Solnit. In her recent book, “A Field Guide to Getting Lost”, (Viking, 2005), she posits that, “A city is built to resemble a conscious mind, a network that can calculate, administrate, manufacture. Ruins become the unconscious of a city, its memory, unknown, darkness, lost lands, and in this truly bring it to life.”

If we accept the mind as a model for Winnipeg, the unconscious (the lesser seen or ignored) makes its presence felt in unexpected ways. It burbles to the surface in ways that inform and enrich us, as well as revealing injustices and neglect. Similarly, the conscious (the affluent, the celebrated, the new) can reveal paucity (of community, of vision, of spiritual connection with each other and our past) as well as promise.”

In many ways I am beginning a conversation; an oral history of the ruins of the public site that Portage and Main once was, and the monument to the automobile and civic politics that it has become. Collective memory, or memories collected, can be the promise referred to Dempsey/Millan.

There will be a public opening on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2008.
Remember, “Love me, Love my Winnipeg”

for further information on this project, please contact jake moore

NB. The artist would like to acknowledge the support of Video Pool Media Arts Centre in the production of this work.

SUBCONSCIOUS CITY
February 8 to May 11, 2008
the Winnipeg Art Gallery
300 Memorial Boulevard

Public opening 7:30 p.m., Thursday, February 14, 2008
with performances by John K. Samson, Christine Fellows, and Freya Olafson.

Curated by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Adjunct Curators.

For the complete list of artists please visit http://www.wag.mb.ca/upcoming.asp

Friday, January 25, 2008

Art's Bday Photos - Round 2

The following selection of photos were taken by Michael Talastas and Charles Venzon of incidencephotography.com. Please visit their site for more fantastic shots!