Xpace Cultural Centre: Volume 5 b h a f

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y v S z v Xpace Xpace Culture Centre is a membership driv- en artist-run centre supported by the OCAD Student Union and dedicated to providing emerging and student artists and design- ers with the opportunity to showcase their work in a professional setting. We program contemporary practices that respond to the interests and needs of our membership. As we program with shorter timelines this allows for us to respond to contemporary issues in the theory and aesthetics, keeping an up to the minute response to what is going on directly in our community.

Volume Volume is Xpace Cultural Centre’s annual anthology of exhibition essays, interviews and support material. Volume acts as a snap shot of the programming that hap- pens every year at Xpace across our many exhibition spaces: our Main Space, Window Space, Project Space, and External Space. The essays included here demonstrate the breadth of exhibitions and artists that help to contribute to Xpace’s place as a vibrant part of Toronto and OCAD University’s arts community. This publication gathers togeth- er documentation covering programming from August 2013 - July 2014. t Co n

Main Space Window Space Storied Telling 5 Don’t Go 50 Mystery Machine 10 Observations 54 Betrayal of the 14 Arrangements 57 Proper Medium Frank 60 Provisions 21 Chalk Form Census 64 Posts and Pillars 25 Live and Active Mories 68 Fado:11:45pm 32 Long Live the Working Class: Images Festival: 39 I am only interested in 71 Transcending Binaries what is not mine Tectonic Breaks 44 CASH4KARMA 77 s t en

Project Space External Space Yellow Pages Catacomb 82 Inside the Village 114 by the Grange Stories 86 Plesure of A Lazy Laity 90 Twitch 117 Queenston Quarry 120 Roomies 94 Toronto Harbourfront 123 An Expedition 97 Mancave 101 SemiCycle 126 Holy Trannity 129 Bad Luck Amazon Giftcard 105 Personal Inventory 133 Myriad (No1) 109 1997 136 m

ain Space Storied Telling Humboldt Magnussen August 9 - 31 Ella Dawn McGeough 2013 Alexis Boyle Brette Gabel

Curated by Amber Landgraff

“The storyteller takes what he tells from experience – his own or that reported by others. And he in turn makes it the experi- ence of those who are listening to his tale.”

Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller Top Bottom

Ella Dawn McGeough Alexis Boyle An Average Sunset (Pegasus) Moving Mountains

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Brette Gabel Humboldt Magnussen Nightmare Quilts Performance

7 There is nothing I like better than a good story Similarly, Ella Dawn McGeough’s jacket, An told correctly. The telling of the story matters. Average Sunset (Pegasus), becomes active The ways in which ideas and moments are through absence. The position of the jacket, lovingly strung together, woven intricately into hung on the back of a chair with arms extended, a bigger picture. I crave stories messy with references the idea of an absent human body details – I want to live with the details, keep wearing the jacket. The stunning aesthetic of them close, to treasure the way that details can the jacket draws the viewer’s attention and make a story whole. The exhibition Storied Tell- desire, where people want to be that body ing explores the idea of the storyteller, shifting wearing the jacket. At the same time, during the the role of narrator from the artist to the object run of the exhibition the jacket will be going “on and back again. As a curator I am fascinated tour.” In it’s absence, posters will publicize the by the ways that telling about a work functions jacket’s alternative location. Mimicking the aes- as a story. What are the stories that we tell? thetics of late 70s/early 80s metal tour posters, When Francis Alÿs describes why he devel- the jacket becomes an active object, traveling ops his artworks around the idea of a story or through different locations. Our desire for the fable he explains, “If the story is right, if it hits jacket becomes a desire to follow where it a nerve, it can propagate like a rumour. Stories goes: like band groupies, we go where it does, can pass through a place without the need to longing for the chance to bask in its presence. settle. They have a life of their own.” And it is this life, the ways that stories are transmitted, how they move and change, take on the details Brette Gabel’s Nightmare Quilts start with of the teller and the listener, and the ways that the telling of a story. Gabel invites friends and they are active and activate that Storied Telling strangers to tell her about their nightmares explores. These artists — Humboldt Magnussen, and then she transforms that description into Ella Dawn McGeough, Alexis Boyle and Brette quilt patterns. The beauty of the materiality of Gabel — are storytellers. They are mythmakers, the quilts, the skill with which they are made, capturers of dreams, movers of mountains, and the practice of quilt making itself – the and authors of entire worlds. At the same time, long rich history of quilting patterns carrying while the artists are the tellers of these stories, stories through both patterns and materials the works themselves take on an active role chosen – belie the content of the stories told: in the story’s transmission, shifting effortlessly our nightmares, those subconscious fears between performative and static objects. given form while we sleep. The coziness of a handmade quilt, the tactility and softness invites curling up with the quilt and revisiting those The tent from Alexis Boyle’s performance Mov- nightmares, a playful request of the dreamer ing Mountains, found here collapsed on the to sleep with their fears. Included in the show, floor, becomes activated, a living mountain, with Stitches, Shark Attack, and The Hag, creepily the presence of the artist’s body. In Moving tell of nightmares about doctors performing Mountains two people walk the tent across procedures on themselves, swimming in shark both a natural and urban landscape. The idea infested water, and the common feeling of of a moving mountain brings to mind a majestic dreaming that you’ve woken up but can’t move and terrifying picture, a rumbling shifting of the because an invisible demon is sitting on your earth, a magical impossible moment. Howev- chest holding you down. er, Boyle’s performance subverts this majesty, bringing humour to the work as the two figures in the tent move across the screen with stilted, hopping movements. Back in the gallery, with- out the performer’s presence, the tent, along with the two videos, exists as a document. The objects indicate a potential for movement, and in this way, attention is drawn to the absence of the two bodies that made up the mountain.

8 Finally, Humbolt Magnussen has created an These objects, they tell a story. They have a life entire world, which his works, Hunty Helmet, of their own. Maybe if we listen closely, Stealing of the Voice Beard, and a dinner party they will tell it to us. performance (taking place during the open- Amber Landgraff ing reception) revolve around. In this world, questions of identity and voice are personified through intricate characters with entire rich histories — small bits of which are revealed through each telling. Hunty Helmet is a wear- able mask representing the character Hunty, who was put on trial for stealing the Chrysan- themumalo’s voice beard — the same crime that is illustrated in Stealing of the Voice Beard. At the same time, Magnussen brings this fantasti- cal space into the real world through interactive performances, involving elaborate costumes and explanations of the rich history of the world that he has created. In this world, the Chrysan- themumalo has been missing for months. If you have any information about the Chrysanthe- mumalo’s whereabouts, please let us know.

Humboldt Magnussen Performance Ephemera

9 Mystery Machine Augustina Saygnavong September 13 - October 5 Marvin Antonio 2013 Manden Murphy

“What sort of satisfaction results from working in a group?”

Maria Lind In the cartoon Scooby-Doo the characters often The artists in the Mystery Machine take Gillick’s find themselves stumbling onto the trail of an observation as a starting point for their tongue- unexplainable mystery: haunted houses, myste- in-cheek collaboration. Choosing to use the rious disappearances, and other conspiracies. Scooby-Doo reference as an instructional set- In the early incarnation of the show, through up, much like a punch line to a joke, Augustina almost sheer dumb luck, the Scooby Gang Saygnavong, Marvin Antonio, and Manden always manage to reveal that these paranormal Murphy, come together with three individual in- activities have often prosaic and human causes. terventions into the gallery space that are meant The common trope in Scooby-Doo is “Let’s to overlap and respond to each other, creating Split Up and Look for Clues,” where the gang a “whole.” Entering the gallery Saygnavong’s go their separate ways to investigate, coming light sculpture, Pipe Down, mirrors the venti- together at the end of the episode to reveal lation and plumping pipes in the gallery space, the answer to the mystery. However these providing a sobering illumination stretching revelations come about, not through good across the ceiling of the space. Bisecting the detective skills, but rather the bumbling antics gallery, Murphy’s Fuck Off Dad, creates both an of Scooby-Doo and Shaggy ruining Fred, Velma obstacle and a delineation of a new space with- and Daphne’s more intricate plans to catch in the gallery space, creating a forced perspe the villain in the act. The formula of the show is tive that moves the exhibition space forward Fi- based on the notion that working together the nally Antonio’s To Gate or Not to Gate?! offers Scooby Gang will always triumph, and villainy a stand-alone structure reflecting on the space will always be revealed for what it is. created by Murphy’s Fuck Off Dad and the light provided by Saygnavong’s Pipe Down.

This inherent “goodness” assumed by the Scooby-Doo Gang’s collaboration, where good In this way, the notion of collaboration becomes always triumphs despite their bumbling and evil a red herring, the façade meant to distract is always revealed and punished, is criticized by us from what is actually happening, which in Liam Gillick when he points out that this model Mystery Machine turns out to be nothing out of collaboration “is the idea of not bothering to of the ordinary typically found in the standard work together at all – to actually go off indi- conventions of an exhibition featuring individual vidually and fuck up everyone else’s system. authors/makers. In this way the exhibition offers It’s the ‘Scooby Doo’ concept. You split up a nudge and a wink to the ways in which dia- and then meet back by the Mystery Machine.”1 logues about collaboration in art practice have Gillick’s criticism comes at an opportune time, become popularized and often subsumed by as collaboration has become a popular method the institution, and where individual practice is of working in contemporary art. As Maria Lind overshadowed by and critiqued through often explains, “[Collaborations] often appear as ineffectual methods of collaboration by which alternatives to the predominant focus on the we are meant to understand that the sheer individual so often found in the field of art, as presence of multiple authors turns out to be an instrument for challenging both artistic somehow more democratic or politicized than identity and authorship.”2 However, as Gillick individual methods of production. observes, the presence of multiple voices does not automatically act as a political statement about production, but rather is often taken up in a cartoonish fashion by artists keen to engage in the semblance of collaborative acts while not actually collaborating.

11 Installation view of Mystery Machine

12 At the same time, in the Scooby-Doo cartoons 1 Liam Gillick, “Selected Transcription from Talk at (and other pop culture that references the UN Plaza, Berlin, 2006.” Printed Project, 2006. Let’s Split Up and Look For Clues trope), the spectacular accidental solving of the mystery 2 Maria Lind, “The Collaborative Turn,” Taking the consistently highlights that the members of Matter into Common Hands, Black Dog the Scooby-Doo Gang function best together, Publishing, 2007. where each individual on their own could not hope to achieve what they manage to stumble onto when acting as a group. As every villain ever has exclaimed, “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.”

Cameron Lee and Amber Landgraff

13 Betrayal of the Proper Medium Michael Wirth Broff October 18 – November 9, Patrick Krzyzanowski 2013 Andrew Remington Bailey Pat Navarro Reid Jenkins

Curated by Andrew Remington Bailey The five artists within Betrayal of the Proper same formulaic combination of stock imagery to Medium - Andrew Remington Bailey, Reid graft together the characters within this series: Jenkins, Patrick Krzyzanowski, Pat Navarro, and a landscape photo, a business portrait, chipped Michael Wirth Broff - playfully mine contempo- teeth, a scar, a celebrity hairstyle, and a design- rary media and modes of cultural production. er shirt. Jenkins offers a cynical proposal of how Drawing inspiration from sources such as com- in our everyday online routines we are meticu- puter screen savers, clipart, fan art, logos, video lously constructing our own virtual identities game environments, and YouTube videos - they and obsessively self-branding. collectively offer a calculated and entertaining subversion to what is typically expected from both high art and information technology. Patrick Krzyzanowski’s installation Tape Wall, features geometrically patterned wallpaper made from folded tape perfectly framing a pro- Andrew Remington Bailey’s digital print series, jected video of the bouncing logo that typically Maximal Ernst Fantasy, is based on Max Ernst’s appears as a screensaver for DVD players. first volume of wordless collage graphic novels Tape Wall fools the viewer into thinking that in his series Une Semaine De Bonte. Ernst there is a technical error or unintended glitch. created the darkly humorous scenes of social The folded tape acts as a beautifully distracting unrest within these artist books by reassem- alibi for this trickery - such a extremely mes- bling images taken from pulp magazines, a merizing and obviously labour intensive frame type of comic-fiction known for their lurid and couldn’t possibly have been built to house such exploitative stories. What distinguished these banal content as the eternally bouncing DVD works from most other collage work of the time logo, could it? Besides the primary purpose were their overall coherence and technical of humorously deluding audiences, this clever plausibility; without seeing the source material, combination draws attention to many of the it is difficult to work out where Ernst intervened. practical considerations that fine artists have Using Photoshop, Bailey has created images to deal with when trying to use media devices that have been assembled from appropriated such as projectors or DVD players to display consumer media that conceptually represent their work. By appropriating a logo that is typical avenues for contemporary obsessive fan- widely recognized as only being a temporary doms such as three-dimensional video games, placeholder for more desirable video, and then pixel-based software, and two-dimensional ani- creating a physical bounding box on a wall for it mated cartoons. By referencing Ernst’s original to interact with, Krzyzanowski is toying with our collage methodologies, and re-skinning them expectations of how video art functions within in a pastiche of deteriorated pop media Bailey the gallery space. is creating a dialogue between the canonized philosophies of the montage, and the repetitive campy appropriation found in fan art. Krzyzanowski’s second piece within this show, simply entitled Jurk, works as a companion piece to his Tape Wall. By folding a promo- Reid Jenkins’ work consists of a series of three tional poster for Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film, large-scale digital collage prints, all featuring Jurassic Park, so that title font now says ‘Jurk,’ similarly composed figurative portraits. These the titular logo, even though altered, is still portraits have all very obviously been con- completely familiar and has additionally become structed digitally in Photoshop, each portray- both hilariously new and unexpected. When ing a female figure sporting a strange smile looked at collectively Tape Wall and Jurk act as and elongated bodily proportions. However, a slightly ridiculous micro theatre environment once you get past the initial sense of uncan- where everything has been intentionally set up ny unease that these faces provoke, you will incorrectly, eliciting a mingled reaction of initial begin to notice that there are certain patterns laughs and second thoughts. of composition and source material that link each of these pieces together. Jenkins uses the

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Andrew Remington Bailey Installation View of Betrayal of the Proper Medium Maximal Ernst Fantasy with works by Reid Jenkins

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Patrick Krzyzanowski Installation View of Betrayal of the Proper Medium Jurk with works by Patrick Krzyzanowsk

17 Patrick Navarro Inventory

18 Patrick Navarro’s Inventory, features gloss- With the advent of social media such as white painted objects on a single pedestal Youtube or Tumblr, any single piece of creative sitting between two beams of projected light. work that can be uploaded has much more Navarro, using a specific type of light projection potential of reaching and affecting people called 3D projection mapping, has made it so online than if it were on display within a gallery. that the light shines in such a way that it only If this is the case, what then is added or taken wraps around the objects and pedestal and away when such informally crafted work is nothing else within its path. With this technol- transposed into the specific context of the ogy Navarro has programmed the projector to fine art world? As the Internet and technology shine a variety of shifting digital patterns onto become more and more ingrained into every the objects he has placed upon the pedes- aspect of our lives, and the ability to consume tal. These objects and patterns have all been and view art becomes increasingly easy to do selected in reference to iconic video game sym- outside of a gallery environment, will the frame bols and items that, within their original game and pedestal attitude of the gallery still maintain narratives, are imbued with a special quality it’s relevance? Can things like Youtube videos or power that brings them above the status of and memes survive the transition into a gallery ordinary objects. It is this specific video game environment? Or would this transfer into such trope that Navarro is using to dually poke fun at a rigid structure deflate them of their signif- the practice of presenting found objects as art icance? The artists in this exhibition do not within a gallery space, and the notion that an collectively offer one single answer to any of art object has any sort of uniquely inherent aura. these questions but through the use of humour, By projecting pixelated video game imagery parody, and satire they have each proposed a onto an art pedestal and his motley assortment potential option out of this cultural quandary of whitewashed items, Navarro has set up an that not only prompts critical thought but hope- irrefutable but distinctly kitschy example of an fully a few laughs too. aura for his audience. Andrew Remington Bailey

Finally Mike Wirth Broff’s video piece, I.D.G.A.B.T.T, features the the text ‘It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This” with the Patrick Her- nandez’ s 1979 song Born to be Alive playing on a loop through accompanying headphones. The floating script is set in front of the classic Starfield screensaver that comes included in many older versions of the Windows OS, and arches across the screen confidently in a garish pink typeface that looks like it could have been very popular in the 80’s. The piece is displayed on the screen of an older desktop PC that rests on a pedestal sitting alone along the front wall of the gallery. Wirth Broff’s video has used a piece of familiar media and upended it for the purposes of humour and artistic intention in a way that is atypical to conceptions of what should be elevated and placed on a pedestal.

19 Mike Wirth Broff I.D.G.A.B.T.T.

20 Provisions Maggie Groat November 22 - December 14 Tiziana La Melia 2013 Kristie MacDonald

Curated by Ellyn Walker

Mike Wirth Broff I.D.G.A.B.T.T. Kristie MacDonald Still Heading North

22 Processes of accruing provisions for the future We gratefully acknowledge the support of the unite these diverse bodies of work, which take Ontario Arts Council in the form of Exhibitions up questions of place and belonging alongside Assistance towards the production of works by notions of colonialism and the nation-state. artist Maggie Groat. Maggie Groat, Tiziana La Melia and Kristie MacDonald each explore material practices as ways for reclaiming, renegotiating and reimag- ining the pictorial narrative of Canada, and their place within it. Individually, their works speak to rematerialized histories, while collectively, they offer poetic gestures that can contribute to larger cross-cultural dialogues.

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Installation View of Installation View of Tiziana La Melia PROVISIONS

24 Post and Pillars Alexis Boyle January 30 - February 22 Andrew Buszchak 2014 Emily Davidson Aryen Hoekstra Miles Stemp

Curated by Stefan Hancherow and Jennifer Simaitis Top Bottom

Alexis Boyle Miles Stemp Infinitive Islands

26 In the mid 1830s Thomas Cole, an En- Like Longlamps, Boyle’s linear representations glish-born, American artist whose work inspired of the human form, Cute Couple (2012), are the Hudson River School, conceived a series fashioned from remnants of an industrialized of paintings that dramatized the rise and fall of domain. She aestheticizes bicycle wheel an ancient classical state.1 His message was inner-tubes to create partners that generate a implicit: that maintaining a pastoral way of life syntactical language of companionship and is better served than giving into the imperial cohabitation. The genderless designs pinned to system of commercialization, capitalism and the wall act as traces of existence, which can colonization, because, “all empires, no matter be personified by the viewer. how magnificent, are condemned to decline and fall.”2 Posts and Pillars considers the cy- clical nature of civilizations and includes works The second painting in Cole’s series, The from Alexis Boyle, Andrew Buszchak, Emily Da- Arcadian or Pastoral State, depicts an idyllic vidson, Aryen Hoekstra, and Miles Stemp. Their landscape of tended fields and Greek architec- work resonates with the five paintings from ture. Davidson’s series of letterpress posters Cole’s Course of the Empire series (1834- (2012) and Cole’s painting share an optimistic 36), through the exploration of post-capitalist perspective, however, where Cole looks to the critique, mass production, and fictional utopias. past for inspiration, Davidson offers her utopia in a future context. Taking the role of a pseu- do-agitprop, Davidson produces ephemera, Cole’s Course of the Empire series com- posters and pamphlets that signify a future mences with The Savage State, depicting uprising that champions alternative social hunter-gatherers developing a primeval way of perspectives. Texts declare: “Join us for thought life within a lush wilderness. Stemp’s Islands experiments and brainstorming on the undoing (2013) are examples of fictional uninhabited en- of the capitalist mindset”, “Capitalism has fallen, vironments. Flocked green masses are present- art must be redefined” and “Fame is hierarchy: ed on mirrored glass cubes, which are arranged artists are already everywhere among us” The on the floor in a series of clusters, generating collection of works titled, Another World: a reflection of the observer and their surround- Archives of the Inner City Artists’ Commune ings on the surface. The mirrored surfaces and (2012), are attributed to a fictional Halifax, Nova imaginary islands are equipped with an analogy, Scotia-based group of social activists who are one that demonstrates authority and control of rigorously attempting to break the cycle of the economic systems, where a viewer’s reflection capitalist régime.4 Interestingly, although days is made visible as value.3 Stemp’s Longlamps and times for meetings are included on the no- (2013), torch-like sculptures made of PVC tices, no reference to a year is made. Davidson tubing and compact fluorescent light bulbs, are accepts the impending downfall of capitalist aestheticized industrial goods wherein form su- systems; the posters become archives of the persedes its function. The bulbs in Longlamps future, written in past tense.5 hover near the ceiling of the gallery, becoming astral substitutes or stand-ins for hand-held torches, in either case illuminating the mysteri- ous landmasses below.

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Emily Davidson Installation View of Post and Pillars Another World: Archives of the with works by Alexis Boyle Inner City Artists’ Commune

28 Installation View of Post and Pillars

29 In Cole’s third painting, The Consummation precise, but when the system begins to mal- of Empire, indications of the natural world function, new and exciting aesthetic qualities disappear and the river valley is covered in emerge. Pinned beside the matches is another colonnaded marble structures. The classical result of error, two plastic stamens used in fake façade of the metropolis does not reveal the plants are similarly fused, a fitting metaphor forthcoming tribulations that will lead to its aimed at the struggle between the natural collapse. Hoekstra’s Screen Stack (2013), world and the massproduction that aims to and Potential Screen III (2013) share formal mimic it. Buszchak’s digital video, Reality Show concerns with minimalist artworks. Except here (2010), exemplifies the downfall of an empire. Hoekstra uses modernist tropes, to disguise Anapt correspondence to Cole’s classical current underlying crises. The surfaces of the architectural motifs, Reality Show begins with works appear stable, when in fact they are a single Corinthian column atop a backdrop quite fragile and ephemeral. In Screen Stack, of the Milky Way galaxy. The video captures outmoded slide projectors throw red, green, cursor movements and image manipulations and blue light, producing an illuminated tower being performed by the artist using Photoshop. against the gallery wall. The aesthetics of this Buszchak proceeds to copy, paste, and resize work depends on electric current and the columns, placing them side-byside across the RGB-colour motif references a successful screen. The placement of sequentially smaller technological veil, television. Potential Screen columns continues until the column is reduced III, a black cine-foil wall piece is seen of its to a single pixel. That pixel becomes lost in an element absorbing light rather than directing it. array of stars perhaps signifying the end of a The potential for the screen to be a delineating digital empire. surface for media is equaled by its fragility.

Cole’s series culminates in Desolation; a Buszchak’s video Complete Trust (2012) is painting absent of human life, left are fragments a montage of clips compiled from the game of colonnades, decaying beneath the natural show Wheel of Fortune (airing since 1975). A environment. The cycle is set to begin again. resolute statement is revealed letter by letter: As in Desolation, Boyle’s Infinitive (2013) pairs ALL MONEY IS A MATTER OF BELIEF, this the natural world with the manufactured. There assertion references writer George Goodman are two sets of rings, one set, the remnants of a (1930-2014) author of Paper Money (1981).6 tree knot propped up against the wall, the other, Buszchak wittily portrays game show contes- two rubber inner tubes used for tricycle tires tants exclaiming our faith in the economy of lay relaxed on the ground, forming figure eights. exchange where “money is simply a symbolic The concentric rings represent the cyclical rise tool, wholly dependent for its usefulness on and fall of empires, where one ends it begins the underlying trust and belief of its users.”7 again. The course of an empire is embedded Game shows reinforce contemporary societal with the totality of society’s triumphs and tribu- belief in this arrangement by allowing a handful lations. In this way Posts and Pillars presents a of lucky contestants to vie for financial and collective struggle amid the capitalist order. celebrity enhancement. Jennifer Simaitis and Stefan Hancherow In Destruction, Cole’s painting which succeeds the crowning state of the empire, the metropolis is ablaze while citizens flee from invading mobs. Boyle’s Perfect Match (2012) may have easily started the destructive fury; two red tipped matches are conjoined as a result of a manu- facturing error. The mass production of material goods relies on objects that are consistent and

30 1 The Hudson River School were a group of 5 The works delineate the cognitive understand- New York City-based landscape painters that ing of time, similar to the Aymara people whose emerged about 1850 under the influence of concept of time is a mirror image of standard the English émigré Thomas Cole (1801–1848) chronology, where the future is positioned and flourished until the time of the Centenni- ahead of oneself and the past behind. The al. Because of the inspiration exerted by his Aymara locate themselves the other way around, work, Cole is usually regarded as the “father” “with the past ahead and the future behind.” or “founder” of the school, though he himself See: Inga Kiderra, Backs to the Future: played no special organizatinal role. See: Kevin Aymara Language and Gesture Point to Mir- J. Avery, The Hudson River School, Department ror-Image View of Time, University of California of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Met- San Diego, June 12, 2006, ucsdnews.ucsd. ropolitan Museum of Art, New York, metmuse- edu/archive/newsrel/soc/backsfuture06.asp um.org/toah/hd/hurs/hd_hurs.htm 6 George Goodman wrote a number of econom- 2 Niall Ferguson. Complexity and Collapse: Em- ic texts under the pseudonym “Adam Smith” in pires on the Edge of Chaos. “Foreign Affairs”. order to protect his identity. Mar/Apr2010, Vol. 89 Issue 2, p18-32. 7 Nuessle, Frank. “Distributed Capitalism: A 3 The mirror of production, in reference to Scientific Validation for “Going Local”.” World Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage, allows the human Futures 69, no. 7-8 (2013): 450-478 species to become conscience within the imag- inary. See: Jean Baudrillard, “Requium for the Media”, Utopie: Texts and Projects, 1967-1978, eds., Craig Buckley and Jean-Louis Violeau, trans., Jean-Marie Clarke, Semiotext, Los Ange- les, CA, pp. 281.

4 The posters are printed with the use of very lit- tle electricity, which suggests that the collapse of capitalism did not occur without destruction, bringing with it infrastructural complications. It is reminiscent of similar metaphors in The Hun- ger Games and the revolution that occurs as a reaction to the inequality of the empire.

31 Fado: 11:45PM Anthea Fitz-James March 8 - 29 Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle 2014 Emma-Kate Guimond Jessica Karuhanga Rah

Curated by Kate Barry Photo: Henry Chan

Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle 6 hours 6 minutes 6 seconds

33 Kate Barry Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle How do artists use time as a medium to create In her performance 6 hours 6 minutes 6 live performance? How does long-duration seconds Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle explores performance affect and change the role of the the idea of superstition in relation to her body spectator? Typically an audience will come and everyday domestic objects that had been and go during a long-duration performance, deemed “evil.” During the performance, Lacha- and in spite of the fact that most audience pelle manipulates the so-called evil objects in a members won’t experience the entirety of the kind of cultural alchemy, transforming each ob- performance, the question for both artist and ject symbolically through a series of interactive audience remains the same: what happens gestures such as balancing them on her body. when time becomes palatable and visceral? In doing so, the objects morph from being per- ceived as inherently evil, to becoming objects For the 2014 installment of FADO’s Emerging with “the right to exist ”, as Lachapelle states. Artists Series we have created a framework for She draws from the approach of artists such the direct exploration of the medium of time as Esther Ferrer and Boris Nieslony, whose by challenging artists to create a durational practices share the desire to mediate between performance of a minimum of 6-hours and up to the body, materiality, and the otherworldly. The 4-days long. The call for submissions brought objects in Lachapelle’s performance have us the work of five female artists from Toronto, been either anonymously donated by people in Montréal, and Ottawa: Arkadi Lavoie Lacha- Toronto, or have been collected from Montréal pelle, Emma-Kate Guimond, Jessica Karuhanga, addresses with 666 in the street number. Each Anthea Fitz-James and Rah. Their individual object is wrapped up and waiting in the gallery practices were loosely knitted together by space. Not knowing what the objects are prior themes of ritual, repetition, and language. to the performance infuses each object/body relationship with suspense and curiosity. What As a curator, I am absorbed by the socio-po- is intriguing about Lachapelle’s performance is litical content of the works of these artists in that her body is implicated in these questions relation to the female body. In her book, Radical of good and evil. In some religious lore, the Gestures: Feminism and Performance Art in human body itself can possess the ‘mark of the North America (2006), Jayne Wark referred devil’. In the height of the Inquisition marks such to a category of literature on performance art as moles, scars, birthmarks, skin tags, super- that takes the body as its focus. She discuss- numerary nipples, and blemishes indicated es how issues of subjectivity, identity, gender, that the individual was a witch. Even today, the and race are explored by female performers derogatory slang for menses is “the curse.” In 6 as a form of artistic language to express ideas hours 6 minutes 6 seconds, Lachapelle uses a through an in depth communication with their precise measure of time to search for equilib- audience. I am concerned with how the female rium between her body and the object, while body is negotiated by artists in pop culture, art creating an elaborate ritual of good and evil. history, and through performance and live art. I wonder, how is meaning produced through so- cial relations that are marked, or performed, on the body? I am fascinated by how the five art- ists in 11:45PM use their bodies as metaphors for psychic, cultural, and institutional codes and signifiers ranging from race to gender to sexuality, to class and ability.

34 Emma-Kate Guimond Jessica Karuhanga In digestion/liquidation, Guimond formulates Over 4-days and with the help of members of task-based actions utilizing the substance of the public, Jessica Karuhanga braids herself milk to explore the sensations of attraction and long hair. Radically long hair. Woven together repulsion in relation to her body. Audio record- with her natural hair, the growing trail and phys- ings made during the performance of a single ical weight of this new hair will eventually affect phrase repeated for 60 minutes, create a cir- and impair Karuhanga’s mobility. She explains, cular narrative in which meaning is questioned, “This gesture will highlight the ritualistic and and then obliterated through repetition. Per- repetitive aura of braiding hair particularly for forming in a dress soaked in milk, Guimond’s women of African descent who have a pen- investigation brings forth the idea of the abject, chant for actively and passively participating in specifically with regards to the classic essay, these transformations.” In The trip, and the fall, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection by and the lost heap of longing hair is a powerful Julia Kristiva (1980). The abject in Kristiva’s and forceful metaphor signifying the artist’s writing refers to the fear patriarchal societies experience with the rituals of beauty and con- construct in relation to the female body and sumption. During the performance a video plays sexuality. In her essay Kristiva talks about those from a laptop, a home video of Karuhanga’s messy and unpredictable aspects of the female childhood, showing her mother braiding her sis- body, its (un)pleasant fluids and substances. ter’s hair. Personal grooming, and hair weaving Guimond’s washing and wearing of her milk- and braiding, act as a site for female bonding dress makes reference to the female body’s between mother and daughter, and between connection to the abject through its bodily women. Karuhanga uses hair as a signifier for fluids such as breast milk, blood, sweat, and the socio-political and racial hierarchies formed spit. In Guimond’s piece she performs an in personal relationships between family mem- astute tableau of female subjectivity and bodily bers, friends, as well as the racial hierarchies being through language, audio-recordings, found in pop culture and in the canon of art and repetition. history. Karuhanga creates a performance where her own hair is racialized and eroticized in order to call forth the politics and economies Anthea Fitz-James of the beauty industry, while she directly con- Unraveling the Daughter’s Disease: Secrets, fronts issues of body image, gender, sexuality Knitting and the Body tells the story of Fitz- and race. James’ Great-Aunt Pearl’s incarceration through textile and sound. Throughout the 2-days of her performance, Fitz-James unravels the sweater she is wearing while simultaneously re-knitting the yarn into a new clothing object. This ‘em- bodied-knitting’, as Fitz-James describes it, is traditionally a domestic act, but in her perfo- mance it becomes a radical gesture of resil- ience and strength. During the performance, au- dio-recordings played on a loop from speakers scattered throughout the space tell the story from the perspective of different family mem- bers. The stories weave together the voices of her mother, her aunt, and her sister as they tell the story of one woman’s incarceration, which still affects the family today. Unraveling the Daughter’s Disease: Secrets, Knitting and the Body attempts to offer insight into how anxiety and trauma is passed on through generations and performed on the body.

35 Photo: Henry Chan Photo: Henry Chan

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Anthea Fitz-James Rah Unraveling the Daughter’s Disease: Ululation Secrets, Knitting and the Body

36 Photo: Henry Chan Photo: Henry Chan

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Jessica Karuhanga Emma-Kate Guimond The trip, and the fall, and digestion/liquidation the lost heap of longing

37 Rah Rah’s performance seeks to demonstrate her The performance projects in 11:45PM explore confidence in, and personal struggle with her ritual and temporality, and themes ranging from identity as an Iranian women. In Ululation, she the supernatural to the transformative. The title responds to the recent political debate and dis- of this series refers to a suspended moment in cussion surrounding the province of Québec’s time as a way to highlight the importance of be- latest encroachment on individual rights to ing in the moment and allowing oneself to fully religious expression through its attempt to ban experience a work of art. Or from the perspec- religious symbols in the workplace. During her tive of the artist, when creating a performance performance, Rah wraps herself in a black it refers to the exacting and concentrated focus Chador, a garment worn by women from Islamic that is needed to carry out a series of ritualized countries to show religious affiliation. She actions over a long-duration, both suspending unravels the Chador as she rolls across the and performing the everyday. 11:45PM also gallery floor in a gesture of physical endurance draws ones attention to that magical hour of and political resistance. As she unravels herself midnight where anything can happen. from the garment’s cocoonlike enclosure, she reveals herself to be wearing a traditional dress worn by woman in Shomal in the northern regions of Iran. Leaving a trail of clothes throughout the gallery as she dresses and undresses, the artist continuously ululates—a sound created by moving the tongue rapidly back and forth repetitively to make a sharp noise. Ululation represents a celebration, but it can also be expressed during times of mourn- ing and sadness. In Ululation Rah’s gestures of concealment and removal, silence and noise, action and stillness, act as a metaphors for per- sonal agency that respond directly to institution- al codes that discriminate against people based on their religion, race and class.

38 Transcending Binaries

Sarah D’Angelo April 11- May 3 Adriana Disman 2014 Nathan Flint Bronwen Deurbrouck Peter Rahul Quinn Robertson

Curated by Adrienne Crossman

Presented in conjunction with Images Festival Top Bottom

Installation View of Installation View of Bronwen Deurbrouk Transcending Binaries and Quinn Roberton’s Ominid

40 How does an artist explore the idea of a During her performance1, Adriana Disman will post-binary world within the confines of digital explore the precarity, complexity and discomfort media – a medium that is at its origin built of “passing” in terms of her race and sexual ori- on a binary language? What does it look like entation. More specifically, Disman’s piece will to operate in between/outside of the “either” explore the complicated relationship the artist “or”? Transcending Binaries attempts to answer has with passing as both heterosexual and as these questions through installation, live white, and how this affects how she navigates performance, and video. Artists Sarah D’An- the world in relation to her personal identity as gelo, Adriana Disman, Nathan Flint, Bronwen a queer non-white woman, versus her perceived Deurbrouck, Peter Rahul, and Quinn Rob- identity. The performance will consist of a med- ertson explore what it means to occupy and itation on the feeling one gets directly before create productive spaces in which post-binary falling, or during the fall itself: not quite in one transgressions occur. state or the other, but occupying the spaces in between. Disman’s work plays with the tension of these dualities; of feeling stuck while Sarah D’Angelo’s Mall Videos challenge the simultaneously in transition between categories, social landscape of cis-gendered advertising always in flux but never residing. Both preced- in North American shopping malls. The three ing and following the performance a single videos consists of a genderqueer figure cube of ice will melt on a plinth each day for the navigating downtown malls while trying on gen- duration of the exhibition. The ice is intended dered clothing and posing in front of to stand in for a precarious body in Disman’s heteronormative advertising. Questioning from absence. It takes on multiple states as it melts, a queer perspective, the series explores moving from solid, to liquid and then eventually, what happens to an ambiguous body inside evaporating into the air. In this way the flux that such a hyper-gendered space as a shopping Disman attempts to perform with her physical mall; a space in which normative gender is so body is mirrored by the ice as it melts.2 acutely commodified.

Disman’s performance explores the complex Nathan Flint’s Portrait of the Artist as a facet of queer identity in relation to visibility Hard Drive is a further exploration of identity versus invisibility, and what it means for one’s formation through the accumulation and con- ability to pass as straight (normal), and whether sumption of media and popular culture. A near passing is even desired. Queer theorist Sarah life-sized projection features the moving silhou- Schulman describes the act of ‘coming out’ as ette of the artist comprised of a variety of video “a process of self-interrogation in opposition to content from Flint’s personal digital database. social expectation that has no parallel in The piece proposes an analogous relation- heterosexual life”.3 Michael Warner refers to the ship between constructed identity and media process as “itself a political strategy,” adding consumption through collected digital artifacts. that “queer people are a kind of social group Home movies, independent and major motion fundamentally unlike others, a status group only pictures, YouTube videos and pornography all insofar as they are not a class”.4 become the substance of the body. While the projected silhouette of the artist moves within the frame, the body itself becomes the point at which countless video streams flow togeth- er. This flow causes the already obstructed source material to blend, making it difficult to distinguish one stream from another, providing a glimpse of the artist’s personal and queer digital archive that together forms his virtual self-image.

41 Inspired by the ever-expanding world of virtual By queering the binary divisions of construct- social environments, Bronwen Deurbrouck and ed normative identities, these works begin to Quinn Robertson’s interactive avatar modifi- dismantle the hierarchical power structures cation installation is a queer response to the that enforce them. Here, normal assumes a history of normative character creation in digital white heterosexuality, and forces an othering media. The installation consists of several on those that don’t fit that mold. By challenging monitors arranged in a “U” formation, displaying the definitions of undesirable vs. desirable bod- character/avatar modification processes from a ies the illusion of ‘normalcy’ is broken and the number of different virtual games. In the centre lack of discernable borders revealed. As Audre of the semi circle stands a computer monitor Lorde points out, “the master’s tools will never and mouse connected to software developed dismantle the master’s house. They may allow by the artists that allows the user to explore us temporarily to beat him at his own game, genderqueer and non-binary identity creation but they will never enable us to bring about through customizable avatars. The work opens genuine change”.5 It is for this reason why it is up a broadened range of possibilities in the not only important for one to be able to choose creation of post-gender, post-human bodies their identity within binary categories, but also while providing a refreshing take on non-norma- to have the ability to exist outside of these tive bodies within gaming culture; virtual spaces constructed divisions. Laura Mulvey describes in which binary choices pervade. this as the “thrill that comes from leaving the past behind without rejecting it, transcending outworn or oppressive forms, or daring to break Peter Rahul’s video installation Modem Mantra with normal pleasurable expectations in order ponders the spiritual connection between the to conceive of a new language of desire”.6 To physical and digital self. The digitally pro- challenge these dominant ideologies, we must duced video plays on an antique CRT monitor call into question what constitutes normative highlighting the connection between past and identity while creating new languages and present. The work displays a meditating figure, modes of desire. made up of vividly coloured pixels, floating within the frame, abstracting completely then Adrienne Crossman reappearing. Although silent, the pace of the video is set to an Internet dial up tone, bringing to mind the meditative and nostalgic mantra of a generational misfit; the 90s child who neither identifies as online or offline.

42 1 Disman’s performance will take place at 5 Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider, “The Mas- Xpace on Saturday, April 26th. ter’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House”. Crossing Press, 2007. Print. 2 The sculptural component of this work is a col- laborative piece between Disman and Danièle 6 Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narra- Bourque under the name DnA. tive Cinema.” Ed. Amelia Jones. Screen 16.3 (1975): 44-53. Print. 3 Schulman, Sarah. Ties Tthat Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences. New York: The New York Press, 2009. Print.

4 Warner, Michael. “From Fear of a Queer Plant.” The material queer: a LesBiGay cultural studies reader. 1st ed. Donald E. Morton. Boulder, Col- orado: Westview Press, 1996. Print.

43 Tectonic Breaks Jen Aitken June 27 - July 19 Zoe Downie-Ross 2014 Andrew Hoekstra Tiziana La Melia Matt Schust

Curated by Friends: Jenine Marsh and Aryen Hoekstra Jen Aitken

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Installation View of Tectonic Breaks with works Installation View of Tectonic Breaks by Tiziana La Melia and Matt Schust

46 The contemporary city is a great accumulation including diagrammatic plans and commercial of architectural relics. Haunted by its many design/layout, through which he can address familiar ghosts, the city is composed of skele- concerns relating to painterly space. In Zoe tons of worlds that died without ever existing. Downie-Ross’ projected three-screen video, A modernist building, once a utopic symbol of Untitled (Delay) Triptych, institutional infrastruc- hope, now appears heavy and dark, an image tures are interrogated through a slow-pan. The of a time that never came to pass. Structures camera positions the spectator as complicit to mark the real date of their construction yet they the choreographies of bodies, electricity, and air point toward a time outside of time, to futures within the building-as-machine. that have been overrun by the present. Styled towards specific idealistic aims, architecture is forever a retro look that wears the death of its Tiziana La Melia’s drawings relate a mis-heard ideals on its sleeve. description of the minimalist, symmetrical sculp- ture of Donald Judd while visiting Marfa, Texas. “Symmetry” heard as “cemetery” led her to a Tectonic Breaks proposes as a thought poetically altered experience of Judd’s work. In experiment an alternative way of thinking and her draped sculptural painting, La Melia’s work experiencing architecture. Can architecture explores an unsure position between mean- be re-thought of as something other than a ings found and meanings made. Encountered skeleton space worn like the dead shell home leaning in a gallery as opposed to standing in of a hermit crab? Instead of being put on and a home, furniture designer Andrew Hoekstra’s endured can the city’s architecture instead be Oak – Plinth is neither a stand for sculpture nor felt as a gesture, the continuous movement of ashtrays, neither busts nor butts. Function is an enduring present? This proposed position tempered by structural, architectural aspirations. is in contrast to structure as ideology, which The city, like the living room, ends up requiring limits physical reality. As gesture’s fluid motion navigation rather than inviting inhabitation. moves through space and time, it reveals the city’s skyline to be a radical site of potentiality that never sleeps. The artists included in Tec- Tectonic Breaks brings together these five tonic Breaks — Jen Aitken, Zoe Downie-Ross, artists to attempt a collective redefinition of Andrew Hoekstra, Tiziana La Melia, and Matt architecture - to put it under construction, Schust — approach this alternative conception again and again. An indefinite present bristling through discursively architectural physical acts with scaffolds of glass and stone, the city be- that use structural limitations as a starting point comes responsive to our touch, softening the for engagement. lines drawn and walls raised between limitation and possibility.

The cast concrete and polyurethane foam sculp- Jenine Marsh and Aryen Hoekstra tures of Jen Aitken isolate Brutalist architectural forms in autonomous, human-scaled objects. Outside of historic context, movements become styles, but Aitken’s work proposes formalism as a productive condition of the present. Though these works resist any exhaustive reference, they acknowledge an obscured place, de- manding from her audience an extended and deliberate encounter. Matt Schust’s acrylic paintings construct reductive abstract spaces where a gestural scaffolding negotiates a grey area for symmetry, composition and illusion- ism. While rooted in the formalist tradition his paintings point towards nameable structures, Installation View of Tectonic Breaks

47 Zoe Downie-Ross Untitled (Delay) Triptych

48 indow indow w

wSpace Don’t Go Julia Dickens August 9 – September 6, 2013

“Toronto is sometimes described as a “city of neighbourhoods.” It seems an odd description, since nearly all cities contain neighbourhoods, but it is intended to imply that Toronto’s neighbourhoods are especially varied and distinctive. However, neighbourhoods are not fixed entities. Al- though some neighbourhoods change very little in their physical, social, and demo- graphic composition over time, others may change significantly in the course of a few years… The City of Toronto’s neighbour- hood transition has been relatively sudden and dramatic, and the changes have seri- ous consequences for Toronto residents."

J. David Hulchanski The Three Cities Within Toronto Julia Dickens is an Ottawa-born, Toronto-based For a large percentage of Torontonians, the artist, illustrator and zine-maker currently concept of ‘home’ is further threatened by the completing a Bachelor of Design in Illustration shifting tidal waves of gentrification. While at OCAD U. Working primarily in 2-dimensional growth and change in any city is inevitable, mediums, her practice uses figurative drawing, Toronto’s economic polarization has been painting and text work to explore representa- unusually swift: in a short 35-year timespan, tions of memory and personal experience. Toronto’s rich and poor neighbourhoods have virtually swapped places, with wealth flooding the centre of the city as the rich outbid the poor Don’t Go is part of an ongoing attempt to face for access to desirable services and enter- a specific fear formed from both personal expe- tainment. The middle-income area of the city rience and observations of changes within her has disappeared at an alarming rate, while a community due to gentrification. The spaces substantial number of people have moved into that we consider homes, both physically and the lower-income sphere. In simple terms: the emotionally, are constantly subject to upheaval rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting and displacement, oftentimes unwanted. In this poorer. 66% of Toronto neighbourhoods were work, the phrase “Never Leave” becomes both middle-income in 1970, contrasted to 29% an affectionate request and a threatening plea. today. Conversely, the number of low-income It speaks of a desperation to halt the trajectory neighbourhoods has risen from 19% to 53% of time, from which the loss of what we cherish in the same time period. A clear concentration most will inevitably ensue. of wealth and poverty is emerging, and with it Toronto’s distinctive neighbourhoods - complex blends of physical, social, and psychological ‘Home’ is a recurring theme in Dickens’ work. attributes - are being redefined. 1 More than a physical entity, the concept of ‘home’ communicates the sentimental and sweet notion of a forgiving and stable place Artists and galleries have always played a that can always be returned to. The reality, of difficult role in this shift. The basic narrative of course, is that most of us bear a more compli- gentrification posits their arrival in a neighbour- cated relationship with the place we are from. hood as a first step in the process. Yet, with In her own case she admits “an underlying a low ownership rate, they are also among sadness to that sweet emotion”, as the idea of the precarious populations forced out when a a stable and timeless ‘home’ meshes with the neighbourhood becomes desirable to a higher realities of moving, loss of possessions, renova- income bracket. Dickens herself is currently tion, and perhaps the departure of siblings, the experiencing this phenomenon firsthand as a passing of a parent, divorce and remarriage. resident of one of Toronto’s few remaining artist lofts, located southwest of King and Bathurst in the condo-dominated neighbourhood of These twinned notions of home and leaving are Niagara. She is amongst dozens of artists living particularly poignant in the city with Canada’s and working in the heritage building known col- largest migrant population: over half of Toronto- loquially as the Coffin Factory, which is slated nians were born outside of the country, and an- to become a post-industrial condo development other large percentage have moved here from within the next few years. within it. For these people, the multiplicity of ‘home’ means that the memory of a place may be more strongly related to than the physical structure in which they currently reside.

51 Julia Dickens Don’t Go

52 A wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing scenario, the painting 1 J. David Hulchanski, The Three Cities Within of the house beneath the phrase ‘Never Leave’ Toronto: Income Polarization Among Toronto’s mimics camouflage, a nod to the common prac- Neighbourhoods, 1970-2005, http://www.ur- tice of condominium developments donning the bancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/curp/tnrn/Three-Cit- guise of exactly what they have displaced. The ies-Within-Toronto-2010-Final.pdf situation at the Coffin Factory seems destined to become yet another textbook example of a 2 Paul Aguirre-Livingstone, “Dundas West: tired refrain: evict the original tenants, gut the Toronto’s Next Gentrification Target?”, interiors, but keep the original exterior to lend http://www.thegridto.com/life/society/the-noc- an “authentic” feel. Market the new structure, lit- turne-is-duwest-the-next-frontier/ erally a shell of its former self, as “genuine artist lofts” - minus the original artists of course.

Even though “Never Leave” is an unreasonable statement, immune to the realities of life, it speaks to a common sentiment. As Dickens says, “Gentrification is horrible because it forc- es you into the position of leaving, and you have no choice but to move on, to be pushed out of your community... The phrase ‘Never Leave’ really speaks to the desire to extend a moment, or a place, or a sense of home infinitely, even though it’s ultimately impossible.”

Neighborhoods fragment further as developers begin to construct identities to market specific areas. Xpace, by various reports, is now located in either Brockton Village (the name of the orig- inal town located here, which survived on its own for a short 3-years before being annexed by the City of Toronto in 1884), Dufferin Grove Park, Little Portugal, or the newly named Du- West: a moniker that sounds suspiciously like something made-up by a marketing firm with an interest in revamping Dundas street.

At the moment, Don’t Go looks out over what is still regarded as “an uncharted part of town”2, thus far immune to the aggressive creep of condos. As Xpace settles into its new home on Lansdowne, we can pause for a moment to consider the shifts in our city, and to won- der what existed here before, and what this strip will look like in 20 years. Ultimately, the impossible statement “Never Leave” leads to a question: In the tides of change, what can we hold on to?

Kirsten McCrea

53 Observations Megan MacDonald September 13 – October 12, 2013 Top Bottom

Megan MacDonald Observations Detail of Megan MacDonald’s Observations

55 Megan MacDonald’s Observations is, at first is much more literal in its representation, brave- glance, reminiscent of a very strange fairy tale. ly calling into question the zealous romanticiza- Gazing kittens nestled in delicate foliage amid tion of tokenism that is characteristic of this era. remarkably fluffy clouds and pink skies do not The treasure’s superficial sense of inclusion, a Toronto landscape make. Yet the familiarity deeply flawed and equally falsified, gives of the natural forest (castle worthy indeed) and temporary relief to the viewer, while gently cau- Internet-meme-esque cats evoke a comfort that tioning that we have, in fact, continued such a is as undeniably awkward as it is intriguing. practice. The cats have inadvertently become a contemporary comment on this outdated genre, emerging as tokens of our own post-colonial MacDonald’s reference to and imitation of the time and demonstrating that what we continue recognizable Hudson River School tradition is to choose to present as treasure is not really contrasted through her play on content. Though treasured at all. painted in a similar romantic style on the two canvases and the accompanying vase, the kittens challenge the HRS form that traditionally The deception inherent in MacDonald’s token represents serious discovery, unchartered ex- vase reflects a more extensive awareness of ploration, and bleak settlement. The use of this her work within the gallery’s window space. A romantic style to portray the harsh wilderness direct reference to the practice of ‘window and tamable unknowns of colonialism’s mani- dressing’, the combination of HRS paintings fest destiny is subverted to reveal our continued and treasured vase contribute to MacDonald’s quest for understanding place. These kitschy disruption of the romantic style. Not only does kittens humourously, if harshly, remind us of our Observations undercut the intentions of the humbling idealization of historical landscape genre both in medium and in message, the very and our simultaneous search for inclusion act of doing so rebuilds the façade it works to within it. subvert. In a taste of irony, the placement of the pieces together within the window space pay homage to the practice, while independently Remaining true to the HRS style, MacDonald’s continuing to challenge the priorities that the collection of Toronto studies has been syn- romantic narrative presents. thesized to build the geographic landscape in Invaders at the Cove. The cityscape remains distant from the detailed foreground, presenting MacDonald’s strength lies firmly in her abili- the cat as larger than life and the focus of the ty to disrupt our interpretation of landscape, display. In this way, what becomes subverted is favouring a DIY-kitsch approach to expose the not the landscape itself, but rather the narrative finer and more amusing conundrums hidden style it represents and the history it works to within the genre. Observations forces viewers uphold. In fact, MacDonald’s commitment to to reconsider their own impressions, question- HRS is reflected in her use of the ornate fram- ing the contributions they make to the figurative ing of Portrait that begs for the work within to landscape, and exploring the implications of the be taken seriously, coyly undercut only through rise of the hopeful, incandescent kitten. her dedication to feline portraiture.

Greer Brabazon The third element of Observations continues this interruption of traditionalism in the roman- tic era. MacDonald’s Vase, also painted with romantic kitsch lends itself to the colonial tradi- tion of extracting valuable cultural objects from their communities or nations of origin to be displayed as ahistorical markers of discovery. Perhaps in a crude comparison, this ‘treasure’

56 Arrangements Anuta Skrypnychenko October 18 - November 16 2013 In her most recent project, Arrangements, used and punctured green foam balls normally Anuta Skrypnychenko draws inspiration from used to preserve floral arrangements are filled one of her day jobs working as a server for a with the bare, plastic stamens taken from fake catering company. While talking over coffee, flowers. Balloon weights are rendered totally Skrypnychenko talks about how the job helps unrecognizable when they are stripped of their to sustain her financially, simultaneously giving helium counterparts and colourful foil wrapping. her time to develop her personal work. “Your art They are small, palm-sized domes with a texture practice is connected to your environment. The that almost resembles concrete, a far cry from physical life you spend in certain places and it their polished “event-ready” state. leaves a certain mark. I like that I have a job that allows me to think. If it’s more mechanical work I can think about art. I didn’t do art in school. Skrypnychenko incorporates other common- I didn’t really get to play that much since I place, recognizable knick-knacks that are started going at around age 7. I think I missed mass-produced, usually with the intention of out on that stage where you can take things replicating a supposedly natural environment. apart.” Skrypnychenko’s practice is playful, with Store-bought feathers, artificially coloured previous works including acrylic fingernails water, decorative sticks, fake plants, fake fruit affixed with false eyelashes, electric candles and bags of stones are among her materials. In coated in real candle wax and a discarded art addition to the prefab elements she sources, deco jewelry display with fake blue hair cascad- she uses found materials from her own sur- ing from its base. “I like exposing and seeing roundings: pieces of asphalt, garbage left near what’s inside things. I like taking them apart and her studio and sticks. unfolding them, ripping them, looking in and then rearranging them”. The juxtaposition of materials in Arrangements pokes fun at the often bizarre, but broadly The specifics of catering and producing events accepted conventions of contemporary, North inform Skrypnychenko’s process. “I’m inter- American style decorating. Why are certain ested in how work changes who you come in items desirable to decorate with and why not contact with, the people you otherwise wouldn’t others? Why do we surround ourselves with have a chance to to talk to. The catering job plastic replicas of things that really exist? What becomes anthropological” she explains. “I does how we decorate reveal about what see large homogenous groups of people - for we value? example just doctors, just lawyers or a certain nationality. Sometimes it will be a family that comes from a particular country. I get to see “I guess my interest is in people’s temperament, them interact, the food that they order and their decorations and what they choose to have prefer to eat and how we decorate to suit the at an event like a wedding. The symbols of group’s interest. We go through the whole things like beauty or eternal life. Things like fake routine of setting things up for the event. Then flowers and fruits and stuff like that. Real fruits we are present at the event as servers, setting die and they have seeds but this just keeps that up the snacks and the food and all that. I get to moment of beauty, of youth.” see people getting drunk and listening to loud music. At the end of the night, everyone leaves. We take off all the tablecloths and dismantle ev- Vida Beyer erything and the lights go on. There are all the beautiful things and under that it’s like plastic tables. We have to take apart these arrange- ments. I get to see all the insides and take them home sometimes.” Many of the elements that make up the sculptural objects featured in Ar- rangements are artifacts from such events. Pre-

58 Anuta Skrypnychenko Arrangements

59 Frank James Gardner November 22 – December 20 2013 James Gardner presents his most recent incar- By titling the sculpture Frank Gardner has nation of Frank, a sculptural undertaking in its personified the sculpture despite its nonrep- fifth year of development. Throughout Frank’s resentative form. This insinuation of sentience exhibition history, Frank has taken on several and biology is evident in the anamorphic quality sculptural manifestations. This version of Frank of the shapes and texture. It also implies that has been considered specifically for the win- these forms are responsive to states of both dow space, partially for its exposure to the sun. maturation and decomposition, where the pres- Here Frank appears as triptych, capturing an ent appearance is just one permutation of many. organism in momentary stasis, awaiting its next This sets up a clear relationship in Gardner inevitable life cycle. having continuous dialogue with Frank. In this sense Gardner’s role is implicit in Frank’s development. The process of making becomes Gardner’s formalist approach to sculpture performative as we know that upon departing and painting follows an accumulative process, the gallery, Frank will begin to take on a new where accumulation and reconstitution inspire manifestation through Gardner’s regeneration ongoing production, and vestiges of preceding of it. projects become the underpinning for new sculptural forms and thoughts. In his studio are layers of sculpted wood adhered to walls, The use of expandable foam is conducive to this thickly painted objects superimposed over prior ever-changing methodology where a state of paintings and dangling objects. In this way, chance and unforeseeable texture is countered Gardner’s studio presents a space that feels by a reductive control through carving. In the both generative and stratified. way that a fungal growth accumulates mass and density, Frank is subject to a similar cycle of growth and degradation through the expand- Similarly Gardner’s relationship to the on-going able foam and collapsing balloon armatures. Frank is an ambiguous one, where perpetual The forms are carved and tunneled revealing assembly offers an engagement with temporal- a striation of colour, allowing for visibility into ity and evolution. This phenomenon of tran- Frank’s former past selves. Cavities formed by sience situates Frank in a state of always ‘be- the erratic expansion of the material appear coming’ rather than ‘being’ and prohibiting any in the hollowed, balloon-skin clad interstices conclusive state of completion. Frank brings to revealing intestinal passages as if having con- mind the early Greek thinker Heraclitus, who sumed the detritus of a birthday party. Through postulates that ‘being’ is merely a product of this reduction of material, Frank’s expansion reasoning that has no ground in reality. Her- is mitigated, creating interplay between chance aclitus explains that the term ‘being’ is more and control. often an antidote used to rationalize the chaos that is reality. In this way, subjects, objects, and things are in a constant state of flux, or state of becoming. The abstraction of ‘becoming’, although daunting and unstable, more accu- rately represents objects and subjects in time. Returning to Frank, Frank embodies this notion through its material degradation and indetermi- nate finality. Frank’s ‘becoming’ allows for an ongoing relationship and formal investigation into the material and its various possible forms.

61 James Gardner Frank

62 To compliment this dialogue of chance and con- This gradual change places Gardner in a trol, Frank is positioned in the window allowing reactive position by having to respond to the its photosensitive exterior to be exposed to the indeterminable nature of the materials. Frank’s sun. There are traces of prior tanning or baking present state of impermanence is the progeny techniques visible in the details indicating of what has preceded it while simultaneously Frank’s previous retreats to sunny locations. becoming the progenitor of future manifesta- This exposure indicates a state of evolution and tions. This perpetual dialogue between past adaptation to its present window environment, and present is the locomotion propelling this where it feels as if Frank is attracted to the light. piece into its subsequent future state. This highlights Gardner’s alchemical interest in pursuing the transformation of an essential ma- Charlie Murray terial to form a potentially new patina through chemical reaction. Further, as traditional alche- my has been fruitless in its effort to convert elemental material into precious material, there is a humorous futility in Gardner attempting to achieve this solar-induced patina knowing Frank will soon undergo a new transformation. Throughout Frank’s stay in the sunlit window, this solar modulation will transpire as passersby look onto the gradual change.

63 Chalk Form Census Alison Snowball January 30 - February 28 2014 Chalk Form Census (CFC), the title of Alison distribution. Underrepresentation of certain Snowball’s window installation at Xpace Cultur- communities within the NHS will lead to poor al Centre, plays on the name of Canada’s now planning processes.4 With CFC, Snowball fo- defunct long-form census (LFC). Snowball’s cuses more on the mechanics of polling rather minimal installation consists of a chalkboard than the use value of the data. that presents a series of eight pre-selected questions, one at a time, over the course of the exhibition. Instructions on how to respond CFC engages two distinct publics. The first accompany the installation. Snowball has setup group encounters the work at its physical site, unique CFC accounts on three separate social while the second group witnesses the first media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, and Insta- group’s responses online. Members of the gram), each of which support a different form of second group will either follow a member of the response and exchange. first group, or stumble upon it serendipitously. Xpace is located at an area in Toronto where the grid breaks and two east-west streets Censuses occur at scheduled intervals of time. intersect. As such, its window gallery faces They represent a moment to stop and collect a Lansdowne bus stop, with multiple routes social and economic information about a picking up and dropping off commuters in its population’s experience. Census data becomes immediate vicinity. CFC’s accidental audience more valuable when placed in comparison with will easily consume its pared down form. It in- past years, as it provides insight into how a vites reflection as it may enter the thoughts that place changes over time. Statistics Canada, occupy the idling bodies of people waiting for a reputable public institution1, administered transit. As individuals respond, their answers the LFC so as to ensure the confidentiality of will be aggregated. Responses from the first individual responses. Their practices promot- group will provide insight into the social com- ed privacy both through how they tabulated position of the area around Xpace. As people responses, and from the relatively large scale from the second group begin to contribute, the of the smallest geographic area that raw data is portrait broadens. It no longer reflects the char- available for2. The census is a tool for under- acter of a strict geographic region, but instead standing the social composition of a place. As a network of relationships. such it provides evidence to inform different planning processes at the community, munici- pal, regional, and national scale. Snowball’s questions differ in nature from those of the LFC or NHS. Her questions can be grouped into the three categories of: behaviour, Snowball’s project emerges from the tension perception, and pain. The first set of questions, within Canada’s census between public polling, “Where are you going? What are you talking personal information and privacy. The Harper about? What are you doing?” provide insight Government transformed the LFC into the into the everyday behaviour of her respondents. National Household Survey (NHS) in 2011. Her next set, “What do you trust? What do This action has compromised the quality of you believe in? What is real?” shift the sub- social and economic information Canadians ject of inquiry towards the audience’s more can access about ourselves.3 The Conservative personal perception of the nature of being. government claimed that the mandatory nature Finally, “where does it hurt?” moves beyond of the LFC made it overly intrusive, and thus the expression of opinions and beliefs, and re- made completing the NHS a voluntary act. quests vulnerability. The arc of these questions Voluntary surveys receive a lower response rate moves from everyday chatter towards a kind from lower income, immigrant, and newcomer self-awareness that may be less easily shared. communities. Low response rates from certain What happens when someone asks you a ques- communities introduces bias into the data, with tion? In an unfolding instant, several parallel and specific facets of the Canadian experience perhaps unconscious evaluations occur. “Who going unrepresented. The perceived social is asking? Why are they asking? What are they composition of a place influences resource really asking? What is my perceived responsi-

65 Alison Snowball Chalk Form Census

66 bility and stake in answering accurately and in a 1 Stats Can was described by former Bank of timely manner? And who else will hear my Canada Governor Mark Carney as the “pre-em- answer?” Here, Snowball’s open-ended inent statistical agency in the world” in 2010, questioning of the public can illicit a variety prior to the introduction of the NHS. of responses: ones that form and are shared immediately and ones that may come after the 2 The smallest area that raw data is available fact. While this work invites public response, for is called a “Dissemination Area”. A DA is an it’s impact can’t be quantified by the number of area comprised of 400 to 700 persons. formal replies. In the same way that a census produces a new awareness of the experience of 3 Grant, Tavia. “Canadian income data ‘is gar- a group of people, CFC’s persistent question- bage’ without census, experts say” Globe and ing will produce in some people, self-reflection Mail, Oct 4 2013. Web. Jan 15 2014 that will lead to new personal understanding, whether those answers are vocalized for the 4 Hulchanski, David, Et Al. “Canada’s voluntary project or not. census is worthless. Here’s why.” Globe and Mail, Oct 4 2013. Web. Jan 15, 2014

The mechanics of this project also point at a 5 Coleman, Beth, “Interview with the Virtual transition within culture towards a more porous Cannibal.” Hello Avatar: Rise of the Networked relationship between our digital space and phys- Generation. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011. pg ical space. Emerging in the 80’s, personal use 84 of networked computers allowed individuals to experiment with their self-presentation through constructed identities. In 2014, our online per- sonas have become tools for the maintenance of our personal and professional lives. This com- mercialization of digital platforms has brought new use value, while at the same time having the consequence of limiting experimentation. The ways in which we interact with these media are mostly prescribed: self-branding through interaction with constant digital interactivity.5

For four weeks, Snowball is asking her audience to reflect on their lives and to express it in a publicly visible (not publicly owned) forum. The LFC provided a comprehensive way to collect information about the social and economic expe- rience of people living within Canada. It enabled informed planning processes at community, municipal, provincial, and national scale. The Harper government undermined it on the pre- tense of protecting Canadians’ privacy. CFC works within this tension between personal information and privacy. It highlights a current issue, yet to be resolved, about private unac- countable entities occupying a more significant position than public accountable ones in the collection, storage and use of our information.

Simon Rabyniuk

67 Live & Active Moirés Jacob Horwood March 8 - April 4 2014 Curated by Alicia Nauta Jacob Horwood Live and Active Moirés

69 Situated in the window gallery of Xpace, Jacob red, the effect of the moiré is slightly different Horwood’s Live & Active Moirés features in each piece. When the sun is shining through two almost identical images screenprinted on the window on the works, there is a third layer plexiglass and placed side by side. Upon closer created from the shadow on the wall, producing look, the images appear to wobble, shimmer, even more interactivity between the layers. shift and change, depending on where you are standing. Moving around each piece, the effects of the moiré are highlighted even more. Standing in front of the pieces, the images appear to ripple, and as you move around, the moiré effect is emphasized even more. Staring Moiré patterns - which I originally thought to be at these pieces and noticing the subtle ways more mysterious anomalies - are actually quite that the lines interact with layers underneath, ubiquitous once you start noticing them. Moirés you become temporarily transfixed and without appear in many different ways: on television noticing, your feet seem to move of their own screens, in graphic arts, fabrics and textiles and accord to keep the lines dancing. There is a even on our money. A moiré pattern happens mathematical basis to this optical effect, but when two identical and usually transparent it seems to reach beyond an equation into a patterns are overlaid yet slightly displaced, more mystical realm, where a moiré serves as a producing an optical effect. This can happen, catalyst to experiencing two dimensionality in a for example, when someone appearing on tele- three dimensional way. vision is wearing a particular kind of patterned clothing and their movement on screen causes Alicia Nauta a moiré effect because of the television’s inter- laced scanning. It seems very magical and ap- peals to me the way optical art books appealed to me when I was a kid; where you stare at a design until an image appears. Moiré patterns are usually unintentional and actually avoided most of time, as they can cause visual “noise” and be disruptive in certain contexts.

Jacob Horwood has been experimenting with creating moirés for as long as he has been screenprinting, the medium he works in as both an artist and as a commercial printer. His vast knowledge of the technical processes of screenprinting lends itself to Live & Active Moirés, which is an exercise and study of process, materials and effects. The moiré is an elusive thing, where when done correctly, seems to dance and shimmer before your eyes, but is difficult to predict the outcome of. There are many variables involved, including colour, image design, how offset the layers of the moire are, direct or indirect light and the material the image is printed on. Horwood’s two moirés are of the same wobbly linear pattern, created by warping a simple grid, then printing with a high gloss ink on two sheets of plexiglass and over- laid. Side by side, but in different colour com- binations of green and yellow, and purple and

70 Long Live the Working Class

Hannah Enkel April 11 – May 9 Philip Shelton 2014

+

I am only interested in what is not mine

Rodrigo Martí in collaboration April 11 with Ananna Oisharja Rafa & 2014 Sarah Azimi

“The collective joy of protesting, despite the ever-present and alarmingly real threat of violence from the state, reminds us that there is much more at stake than a single body, whether it be our own or that of another - there is a collective body, shared capacities lopsidedly hacked away at by contemporary forms of work.1”

71 Top Bottom

Rodrigo Martí (in collaboration with Hannah Enkel and Philip Shelton Ananna Oisharja Rafa and Sarah Azimi) Long Live the Working Class I am only interested in what is not mine

72 Hannah Enkel and Philip Shelton’s Long Live authorization card, petition, or some other union the Working Class, on display in Xpace Cultur- document.”4 Here the rhetoric of the video al Centre’s Window Gallery, acts as an anthem implies that Target as a corporation is sincerely in support of a working class. Described within invested in protecting their workers, simply a manifesto written by Enkel and Shelton, the looking out for their welfare, and protecting sign reflects on and stands in support of those their hard-earned money from the union enemy. whose labour often is often dismissed: This is Other statements include, “Everyone gets hurt. for those who fix and maintain vehicles, who Everyone except the union,”5 and “Some unions take away our garbage, who wire up spaces so have gone so far as to force themselves on we can see. This is for House Cleaners, Plumb- employees.”6 Most tellingly, there is an implied ers, General Contractors and Woodworkers. undercurrent of the threat of job loss in the This is for Personal Support Workers, Social event of the formation of a union, as the smiling Workers, and people who care for children. This Target representatives ominously intone, “Our is for Farmers, Baristas, and people who supply ability to serve our guests could suffer dramat- food and serve it to us, so that we can survive, ically, and with fewer guests, what happens to and enjoy surviving. This is for those who work our team?”7 This language of fear is deliberate, in factories, in unsafe or slum conditions, and and with so many people living precariously, it for those who are underpaid.2 leads to situations where workers are too afraid of pushing back against unfair working condi- tions, for fear of losing their jobs. Precarity uses Both Enkel and Shelton identify themselves as the threat that someone else is always waiting a part of this working class, Enkel has worked on the sidelines willing to do more for less. as a cleaner and child-care worker and Shelton as an electrician, and so this call for support can also be seen as an act of collective support But it doesn’t have to be this way. for workers by workers.

In Rodrigo Martí’s temporary installation I am Why is collective support so important? Ac- only interested in what is not mine Martí re- cording to Working America’s Fix My Job web- flects on the way that Brazil’s youth movement site (fixmyjob.com), when workers stick together of Rolezinhos (or ‘little strolls’) offers an exam- and protect each other they are more likely to ple of the ways that young people are gathering have regular scheduled hours, it is 30% more together to assert their presence within public likely that they will receive paid sick leave, they spaces to which economically they have little tend to earn 30% more, and are 35% more real access. These Rolezinhos can be contextu- likely to get health care.3 Given these kinds of alized, along with other youth movements, as “a statistics it begs the question why we don’t refusal on the part of young people to be writ- see more collective support for workers and by ten out of the future.”8 For Martí, the gathering workers within the workplace. of information and the envisioning of the final installation involved a collective process. The work could not exist without the thoughts of in- Instead, labour is contextualized using a lan- terviewees: Francisco Fernando Granados, Mo- guage of fear and scarcity. Existing systems for jan Jianfar, Sebastian Gil-Riaño, Craig Morrison, worker rights and organizations, such as unions, Maya Annik Bedward, Thomas Bürk, Yan Wu, are demonized by workplaces and within the Aidan Grove-White, and Darren O’Donnell, and press. For example, Target requires all employ- the artistic collaboration of Ananna Oisharja ees to watch an anti-union video as part of their Rafa and Sarah Azimi, both youth members of training process. Leaked online, the video uses The STEPS Initiative, a non-profit community fear mongering tactics to vilify unions, with di- arts organization Martí has worked with in the rect quotes like, “Someday, someone you don’t past. Research and planning plays a large role know may approach you at work, or visit you in the resulting work, and the temporary instal- at home, asking you to sign your name to an lation is just one of many potential variations on

73 Rodrigo Martí (in collaboration with Ananna Oisharja Rafa and Sarah Azimi) I am only interested in what is not mine

74 the information and ideas gathered throughout Students and young people are now fighting his process. The choice to bring teenage col- back, affirming new modes of solidarity, forming laborators was done to bring in young people alliances with workers and labor organizations, who could relate to the Rolezinhos in a way and embracing a vision of democracy commit- that Martí couldn’t. The work in the end is about ted to economic and political equality. Most re- taking the chaotic and messy spirit of these markably, this new generation of young people gatherings, and bringing them into a local and is not only to think in terms that relate isolated personal context. problems to larger public considerations, but also to recognize the importance of a civic society that provides the formative culture nec- Both Enkel and Shelton’s sign and Martí’s tem- essary for selfgoverning democratic societies. porary installation can be viewed in connection Hence, the emphasis on the new media, social with the ways in which workers and a new networks, and the Internet is not merely about generation of young people are being dis- dodging the repression of dissent. It is more missed and demonized by a growing austerity importantly about creating alternative public culture that uses this dismissal and villainization spheres where the values, ideas, dialogue, as justification to take away rights and support, knowledge, and social relations necessary for a as Henry Giroux explains: As a long-term social democracy can take root, if not flourish… This investment, young people are now viewed as a is a generation that is fighting back and, in liability, if not a pathology. No longer a symbol doing so, inventing new pedagogical tools to of hope and the future, they are viewed as a expose the official scripts of power while at drain on the economy, and if they do not as- the same time constructing new modes of sume the role of functioning consumers or association and struggle based on democratic potential recruits for the war machine, they are ideals and values.10 considered disposable.9

Here we begin to see what a collective refusal This disposable-ness of young people is might look like, and the power and potential reflected in the opportunities that are made that can be found in a gathering together. available to them, where youth unemployment When we stand in support of each other we continues to rise and young workers consis- can achieve more than we can alone. There is tently are finding that they are being asked to power in people just getting together, bodies in work in precarious situations for little to no pay. space, even if the outcome may not be appar- Facing seemingly insurmountable student debt, ent at the start. this lack of opportunity can feel exhausting. It is difficult to imagine participating in collective Amber Landgraff action when day-to-day living feels like a big enough struggle, and even with the inspiration of collective pushing back, it can be difficult to see how (or even if) that pushing back can be taken up by just anyone without consideration of the specific cultural and political contexts in which they occur. The strength of many of these actions comes from the context of specific times and places. However, even if it is not possible to simply recreate these actions, it is possible to find inspiration in those moments where other people have succeeded:

75 1 Nina Power, “Don’t Smile, Organise,” in Work 5 Ibid. Work Work: A Reader on Art and Labour, ed. Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Annika Enqvist, 6 Ibid. Michele Masucci, Lisa Rosendahl, Cecilia Wid- enheim (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012), Pg. 38 7 Ibid.

2 Hannah Enkel and Philip Shelton, Artist State- 8 Henry Giroux, The Twilight of the Social: ment, 2014. Resurgent Politics in an Age of Disposability, (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 3 “Fix My Job,” http://www.fixmyjob.com/index. 2012), Pg. 8. php

4 Hamilton Nolan, “Behold Target’s Brand New Cheesy Anti Union Video,” http://gawker.com/ behold-targets-brand-newcheesy-anti-union-vid- eo-1547193676 (March 19, 2014)

76 CASH4KARMA Reid Jenkins June 27 - July 25 2014

“Tired of suffering consequences of an im- properly balanced spiritual energy? Wish there was an easy and convenient way to rid your life of useless cash squandered on frivolous consumer goods? Isn’t there a way to take all that money and turn it into good vibrations? Well now there is! Redeem yourself today—Cash4Karma is here for your salvation!”

C.R.E.A.M. CASH RULES EVERYTHING AROUND ME Top Bottom

Reid Jenkins CASH4KARMA Detail of Reid Jenkin’s CASH4KARMA

78 In his window installation CASH4KARMA, Reid ters, improves borrowers’ financial situations as Jenkins, in the dark humor typical of his works, well as [their] subjective well-being and avoids employs a mimetic strategy, referencing the more costly alternatives such as overdrafts and Money Mart across the street in the storefront check bounces”4. Regardless of which side of of a fictitious business entity CASH4KARMA. the argument is taken, these institutions mark Satirizing the formal visual language of these an absence within institutional frameworks, predatory institutions, such as the use of stock the cracks through which broad swaths of the images of happy individuals holding or posing population fall through, a systemic and ongoing near piles of money, Jenkins supplants the negotiation of access and its denial by the ultimate reward of cash and subsequent happi- machinations of neoliberal capitalism, which ness to a direct balancing of a celestial ledger. disproportionately maintain communities of In this sense, CASH4KARMA undermines the the underserved and the underclassed. vast mechanisms by which individuals progress to points of happiness through participation in systems of labour and reward lubricated by Jenkins’ installation also functions to bring forth monetary systems. CASH4KARMA cheekily a broader commentary on the gentrifying poten- makes literal the dismal refrain that ‘money buys tial of art institutions in general, and the shifting happiness’. By drawing a direct visual and con- economic and social landscape of the Lans- ceptual linkage with the Money Mart across the downe and Dundas area. Since payday loan street Jenkins draws passersby into a reexam- businesses tend to be located in lowincome ination of the promises the institution professes and minority neighborhoods they likewise serve while also highlighting its shortcomings. While as a visual marker of these demographics, in providing short-term financial remedies these essence visually demarcating spaces of ‘de- institutions perpetuate a paradigm of debt- cline’ from the perspective of property markets. based economies of living, maintaining elevated Several researchers have even gone so far as levels of financial and psychological insecurity to problematically attempt to draw direct linkag- in a class of individuals and families perpet- es between the prevalence of payday loan ser- ually underserved by educational and social vices and crime.5 Alternatively, art institutions infrastructures. Money can’t buy happiness serve the converse function of demarcating in a system that perpetually undermines and spaces of economic prosperity acting as either maintains communities of oppression. secondary or pioneer gentrifiers of an area. Much to the chagrin of artists who typically fall into lower-income brackets6, the symbolism of Emerging in a large part to service mostly cultural capital so lauded by Richard Florida et low-income minority neighborhoods which have al. serves to displace working class communi- historically been subject to red-lining1 and as a ties, which in many cases includes artists them- result a scarcity of access to primary financial selves. This precarious relationship is a morally institutions such as banks and credit unions2, uneasy one that any institution and artist should payday loan services have provided access to strongly consider and weigh in their desire to small, short-term unsecured loans and cash live and work cheaply. Through the mimetic advances. The growth of these institutions strategy employed by Jenkins the institution of has been staggering considering their relative Xpace as an art space is temporarily masked, scarcity in the 1990s, they now outnumber Mc- inverting the performance of value presented by Donald’s restaurants in America. The merits and this institutional façade. pernicious effects of payday loan services have been widely debated with some scholars, such Felix Kalmenson as, Uriah King and Leslie Parrish, asserting that the high fees of accessing loans are exorbitant and lock individuals into cycles of debt in the repayment of said fees.3 Others, such as Yilan Xu, have asserted “payday lending mitigates foreclosure risk after shocks of natural disas-

79 1 A practice of denying, or charging more for, 4 Xu, Yilan, Payday Lending and Crimes in the services such as banking, insurance, access to Neighborhood, Department of Agricultural and health care, or even supermarkets, or denying Consumer Economics University of Illinois at jobs to residents in particular, often racially Urbana-Champaign determined, areas 5 Charis E. Kubrin, et al., “Does Fringe Banking 2 Immergluck, Dan. 2004. Credit to the Commu- Exacerbate Neighborhood Crime Rates? Social nity: Community Reinvestment and Fair Lending Disorganization and the Ecology of Payday Policy in the United States. Armonk, NY: M.E. Lending”, 2009. Sharpe. 6 The mean art-related income for 2012 is 3 King, Uriah and Leslie Parrish. 2007. “Spring- $2,300 a year (after expenses.), 2012 Waging ing the Debt Trap: Rate caps are only proven Culture survey payday lending reform,” Durham, N.C.: Center for Responsible Lending.

80 p

project Space Yellow Pages Catacomb

Tobias Williams August 9 - 31 2013 Thoughts on the Telephone Book I feel uncomfortable just looking at a telephone cabinet and removed last years’ yellowbook, book. They look so dry like they are going to put the new one in its place and threw the old suck all moisture out of my body. I feel like a one away. I wonder how long they have been dried-out fish. When I think about using one it doing this dance and how long it will continue. makes me anxious. Too many options and not enough information. The smell and texture of the pages make my skin crawl. If I see one in Tobias Williams has produced a large pillar of my house today I’m going to throw it away. handcrafted skulls made from telephone books for an exhibition at Xpace to be displayed in the Project Space. Tobias told me a story not unlike I’m writing this on my iPad™ while playing a the one I related above, about a palette of freemium1 game on an iPhone™ while watching phone books being delivered to his girlfriend’s cartoons on Hulu™ using a television streaming apartment building and observing them day device and reading Game of Thrones™2 on a in and day out going nearly untouched by the Kindle™. I need a high volume of entertainment tenets of this building, who must somehow be to keep myself engaged. I don’t have time to go getting by without them.6 through a book and look at unrelated numbers. I don’t even have time to talk on the phone; I try really hard to never talk on the phone and I can In places all over the country, people are hard easily imagine a world without telephones and at work cataloging phone numbers, selling ad telephone books. space, producing graphics, pulping and printing phone books and driving around the city with trucks full of them. They are delivered to every So if we can all start from the same premise, occupied building in the city and sit there wait- that phone books are dying a slow public ing for the situation to arise where they might death, then we can agree that there is a kind be necessary and counting down the minutes of death of modernity in the public spurning of until they are replaced with the newer fresher phone book technology. The telephone book edition that will also wait for its death. is the ultimate piece of modern literature with an extravagant absurd scope that would seem fitting for a short story by Borges3 and an end- I imagine the catacombs below Venice that less bureaucratic futility that would be at home hold information about the location of the holy next to Kafka’s The Trial4. Better yet a haunted grail. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones lowers phone book would have made a great Twilight himself down a hole he made in the library floor. Zone episode. People want information that He fashions a crude torch and lights it. Ford/ makes a difference5. It’s not enough to have all Jones sweeps the torch across the lens and the telephone numbers: we have to know what cinematically reveals rows upon rows of human they mean. Sure, I can find any restaurant of skulls. Only they aren’t human or skulls; they any type in any city, but what do I actually know are phone books painstakingly crafted to look about them? like skulls. In the tomb where there once was a knight is now the artist, toiling endlessly to convert phone books to skulls. Without the I was waiting in the IRS office in Poughkeep- phone books Indiana Jones can never find the sie, New York attending to some personal tax holy grail.7 problems when I witnessed a man delivering the most recent copy of the local phonebook. A slightly overweight, slightly balding man in a In a different time, information that has been hawaiian shirt and wrinkled beige cargo shorts destroyed might have been gone forever. A walked twenty or so feet down the hallway into map to the holy grail locked up in a catacomb the the wood panelled room of the local IRS might only exist in one place. Yet we understand office. He handed the security guard a small intuitively that nothing has been destroyed by yellow book. The security guarded walked over the conversion of telephone books to skulls.

83 Tobias Williams Yellow Pages Catacomb

84 The directory exists elsewhere and this is just a 1 Simpsons: Tapped Out. EA Mobile. 2012. manifestation of the same information. Williams Video game. is actually rescuing these books from sitting under a desk or a lobby or an office somewhere 2 Martin, George R. R. A Game of Thrones. and getting thrown out in a years’ time. New York: Bantam, 1996. Print.

3 Borges, Jorge Luis, and Andrew Hurley. Col- While watching The Great Gatsby 3D8 one lected Fictions. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking, character says to another “give me a call, I’m in 1998. Print. the book”. I can almost hear all the North American kids under 12 (and maybe older) say 4 Kafka, Franz. The Trial. New York: Knopf, 1957. in unison “what book?” Phone books seem to Print. belong to another time and place; more roaring twenties than precious twenty-teens. I used to 5 To paraphrase Gregory Bateson wonder how I ever remembered all the phone numbers in my life now that I had a cellphone. I 6 Conversation with the artist. guess I never did. I had a book to do that for me. 7 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Harrison Ford and Sean In Seth Price’s essay Dispersion9 he discusses Connery. Paramount Pictures, 1989. the legacy of conceptual art and the influence of media on contemporary art praxis. Price fan- 8 The Great Gatsby 3D. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. tasizes about “An entire artistic program [that] Leonardo Dicaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulli- could be centered on the re-release of obsolete gan. Village Roadshow Productions, 2013. Film. cultural artifacts, with or without modifications”, of which he cites several examples. “[R]esis- 9 Price, Seth. Dispersion. New York: 38th tance” he states “is to be found at the moment Street, 2002. Web. 8 Aug. 2013. of production, since it figures the moment of consumption as an act of re-use.” In spirit with this idea is Tobias Williams pulling yellow books out of the trash and forcing them into the harsh light of the present.

Matthew Williamson

85 Stories Roger Galvez September 13 - October 5 2013 Left to my own devices I’ve come to realize I’m the tensions in growing up between restrictive nothing but an overgrown child always trying ‘because I said so’ senseless rules, and the to excuse myself of various obligations; leaving freedom that comes with being dismissed and places without saying goodbye, riding my ignored. bike on the sidewalk, growing restless when in a place without somewhere to sit down or something to eat, exchanging rude gestures A friend recently wrote to me about her experi- with kids in strollers while ignoring their parents’ ences at Canada’s Wonderland and SeaWorld eye contact. Roger Galvez’s series of 6 videos as a kid. She was thinking about these being entitled Stories captures the essence of child- the first experiences she had where she was in hood; the freedom and restrictions, the varying such close proximity to a lot of people. It was confusions, myths, cruelties and delights. I’ve overwhelming and exciting to observe how oth- always loved home videos (my own and other er people functioned- or didn’t function- in their people’s equally), probably in part because familial units. She also mentioned the famous while watching them I feel allowed to revel in tragedy at SeaWorld where the whale Tilikum certain sentimentalities that as an adult woman killed its trainer by dragging her under the wa- I should really be over by now. Through these ter, and said something so succinct I’ve been shorts that Galvez narrates, he tells the stories thinking about it ever since, that there was this of his childhood that were untold at the time of “terrible reality layered with the promise of fun in their happening. Recreating these home videos these really extreme places.” So much of being that never actually existed, he uses an old a kid was like that! In Galvez’s story Waterpark, video camera, tapping into something far more he reminisces about the thrill of going to the emotional and less precise than high definition Wild Waterworks for the first time with his fam- digital. Somehow the vagueness of fewer pixels ily, which was not an everyday activity because is so much more appealing in creating a hazy as he remembers, “the amusement of waters- nostalgia. Revisiting the places of his childhood, lides was reserved for the privileged kids in TV he filmed Stories mostly in and around his commercials as far as I knew, but there must childhood home of Oakville, Ontario. His expe- have been a sale on tickets or God existed for riences of these places are told from his point a minute long enough to bless my family with a of view, and probably offer a different story than set because we were going.” So extreme were that told by his parents or even siblings. the feelings of excitement that he HAD to be the first one lining up in order to get as many precious minutes of waterslide joy as possible, Think back on your own childhood, of all the meaning he HAD to hold the car handle in memories not captured, the mythical places, preparation of opening the door, and just HAD the scrappy woods where parents didn’t to jump out of the car too early…and in a sick venture, that desperation for a specific toy you twist of irony he HAD to end up with horrible weren’t allowed to have, Burger King garbage skinned knees, unable to ride the slides. littering the playgrounds, mean brothers and sisters (unsure themselves of why they inflicted the kind of torture they did onto younger Galvez also delves into the mysterious world of siblings), trying to figure out what swear words religion in his story Church, describing his two could be snuck into everyday vocabulary and years working as an altar boy. The mystifying which ones would land you a grounding. That Christian and Catholic rituals of ‘eating of the specific kind of crudeness and lack of sensi- body, drinking of the blood’ for communion tivity that seemed to fester among kids who, at was equal parts thrilling and terrifying as a kid. the same time, were trying to grow up and nav- Thrilling because, come on, snacks in Church! igate a crueler and even less sensitive world. Terrifying because it was supposed to sym- As Galvez recounts in his story vb, “We’d sit bolize Christ’s long dead body, which seemed on our brown balcony yelling out to the town, more aligned with a horror movie than a rea- trying to get the recognition we’d always been sonable adult belief that would make you into a denied simply for being kids.” Stories explores better person. Later, after realizing that “there

87 Photo: Lili Huston-Herterich

Installation View of Roger Galvez’ Stories

88 was no pay, except the salvation of one’s soul, name electronics for once) while reclining but no stores took Divine Credit and we were on an overstuffed loveseat, belonging to Rog- supposed to want to be there anyway”, Galvez er’s parents, I am flooded with feelings of describes leaving the church with no notice, loss as well as a yearning for unmapped and and taking away from his experience little more unchartered childhood experiences. Growing than a palpable fear of God. I had a similar ex- up and becoming disillusioned is not exactly perience, having been wholly convinced of the something parents wish to capture in their terrors of hell and eternal damnation when, kids faces in treasured home videos, but Gal- helping to teach Sunday School, I grew increas- vez’s treatment of his own disillusionment ingly suspicious and sullen when confronted tempered with time and distance is hilarious, with the overwhelming evidence that this touching and relatable. ‘unconditional love’ that was promised really did come with quite a few conditions. Alicia Nauta

Watching these six stories of Galvez’s child- hood memories play out on an old Sony TV (exactly the kind I remember receiving with absolute joy because my family had finally become normal and got the right kind of brand

89 Pleasure of A Lazy Laity

Lili Huston - Herterich October 18 - November 9 2013 A Lazy Laity Jessica Carroll A Lazy Laity is a space staged for comfort. The host understands a guest’s first time in their Cast: One functioning alcoholic, of any/all hu- place may be daunting, and arranges her do- man gender(s), age(s). Actions are emotionally mestic accoutrements accordingly. He doesn’t disorganized. Blue jeans, white Fruit of the notice that he’s hung his coat, and on his way Loom t-shirt (men’s, size large). out wonders how it got there. Movement from Act 1 room to room is intuitive and self-directed, and cushioned seats present themselves at the Functioning alcoholic enters from stage left. appropriately opportune time. Walls are warm Sitting slightly perpendicular to a blueinflected enough be neither white nor color, scent is just Qhalicheh Persian rug is a jaundiced Barce- strong enough to smell like nothing. As a pool lona chair. Artemesia Ghentileschi’s Susanna of 98.6° water, there are spaces exist that are and the Elders is raised, paint to the ceiling, dizzyingly un-affecting. unframed, upon a pair of sawhorses. It is the central table. Functioning alcohol runs fingers lightly along the painting as they pass. A Lili Huston- Herterich is interested in Feng Shui, traditional chakai Japanese tea set, in beige, is etiquette rituals, objects of leisure, arrangement nonchalantly placed on this table. A Pendleton of furniture, and indulgence in pastimes. A Lazy blanket is wrapped in a harness holder on the Laity includes a set of kimonos, a set of stools, floor against a leg of the sawhorse. two wall works, and a carpet littered invitingly with halfcomplete friendship bracelets. Each Functioning alcoholic approaches the tea set, element aesthetically explores an iteration of pours a cup. The liquid inside is scarlet. Rooi- generic gesture; the stools illustrate home bos? Campari? They take a sip. Beat. finishing techniques, the photographs sketch hypothetical furniture arrangements and their FA (with sincere consideration, but me- auras, the kimonos are embellished with the ob- andering, pacing): Yeah, so, I went to see scured faces of friends, and the carpet serves her. She asked whether or not I blamed myself as a platform for the Young Girl’s hobby: on her for the affair. (nodding) I said that of course I stomach, weaving for her dearests. had. I had failed in keeping up the… ummm... (raising eyebrows) happiness part. I think she understood that I was talking about fucking Accompanied by a text, in the form of a mono- because she gave me one of those sly, profes- logue, by Toronto writer Jessica Carroll, A Lazy sional looks. When she said that I realized that Laity will be activated in its documentation. The had never felt angry about the affair; my guilt collaboration with Carroll extends into the artist had been overpowering and paralyzing. I had photographing her, and two other friends, in seen anger in others, you know, that exuberant the space, wearing the clothes, weaving the anger where you throw your kale juice across bracelets. The exhibition, therefore, extends its the room at a person just hours after you’ve fin- utility through documentation, and the resulting ished painting the walls white. (Looking around photographs will become fodder for the artist’s as if for a specific object, feeling pockets) God, future endeavors. I’m not made for dealing with this stuff.

FA places empty tea cup on gilded Rococo Jessica Carroll & Lili Huston - Herterich side table that sits far off in stage right corner. They pull an iPhone from their pocket. Opening an app, they scroll using their index finger. The screen illuminates FA’s face.

FA: I made a list of things that are helping me to feel better. “Feelings are not facts,” she said when I saw her.

91 Lili Huston-Herterich Pleasure of a Lazy Laity

92 Using the iPhone as a reference, FA speaks, able skin and textured insides, is best used as a periodically looking up from the device while meditative object for beginners. speaking, with monotony. Ten. Dogs make excellent companions. The FA (slowly): Okay, so. One. [Beat] (motions bigger the better. in a circle) The bone is always placed with bitter herbs to its left and charoseth to its right. FA gets up from the window sill, shivering. To the left of charoseth is lettuce. Picks up Pendleton blanket, unwraps it careful- ly on the floor, like a sleeping bag. Finally, they A gesture is made towards the Frank Lloyd throw it over their shoulders and walk back to Wright window, hanging at stage rear. FA sit upon window sill, cocooned. makes way towards window, pulls it open, up- wards. Sits on small sill. The black theatre FA: Eleven. A traditional kimono tan measures curtains hang behind the open window. 14 inches wide and 12 ½ yards long. It is cut into 4 strips of fabric that are sewn and then FA: Two. When wearing a sbai, the garment taken apart to be resewn after washing. must always be worn on to fall over and to the back of ones’ left shoulder. (Breathes out, FA turns to audience. as if meditating.) Is that good? Do you like it? I can never figure Three. A gombey may not perform within the out when my art is ended. If I want to change small confines of the city of Hamilton, Ber- it, can I change it once I’m done? (scrunching muda… but anywhere else on the island it is face, painfully) Can I? permitted. (Standing) Ultimately, I want that! That. That! Four. If one’s Marimo moss ball does not feel To be there, to be the strongest, to be here, sponge-like when squeezed, it’s probably a getting through wholly, warding off nothing, de- styrofoam sphere covered with java moss. vouring all, above all eating, before going back to the absolute void. Five. Always be mindful of the feng shui trinity - one’s bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. FA drops blanket to the floor and exits, stage Purify the air by opening windows, keeping left. plants, and implementing essential oils.

Six. Secular residential loft spaces are an excel- lent architectural adaptation to formerly religious, but now obsolete, visually-appealing buildings.

Seven. One must not necessarily have citizen- ship of a country to perform on its team in the Americas Cup. How very American.

Eight. It’s beneficial to use the provided hand sanitizer and a face mask when entering a hospital emergency room, unless, of course, you feel like dying.

Nine. In the discipline of mindfulness, a piece of fruit that is coloured strikingly, with a remove-

93 Roomies Jenine Marsh November 22 - December 14 2013 Jenine Marsh Roomies

95 For her exhibition Roomies, Jenine Marsh has Seams of construction are often frank, partic- created an installation for Xpace’s Project Space ularly in the plaster and plexiglass works that that evokes tension between dimensionality face each other. They each bear an image of and surface. Distinctions between interior and a plant that is sensed more than seen outright. exterior, inhabitant and the inhabited are hazy. Their bookend configuration declares an earlier correspondence but despite this starkness, an origin narrative remains slippery. Like charmed Terracotta partitions cluster throughout the snakes, material identities perform somewhere perimeter of the space. The surface corrugation between coercion and willingness. is echoed and amplified in the walls’ overall undulations. At once warming and obscuring, this two-tiered pattern vibrates the space. Ply- Through sidelong attempts at camouflage and wood spines fix the cardboard in its wobbled emulation, the inhabitants of this space mingle state and at times these supports back into the traits. Like roommates, they are not simply bod- room, conceding a possibility for further shifts. ies sharing a space. They express a confluence At turns confronting and coy, these walls have of behaviours and vibes, and adjust themselves disengaged from architecture to act as back- in relation to each other. The question of who drop, participant, and observer in the goings-on brought what becomes contestable. We are of the space. in a zone of flexible dimension, where the conditions for a settled existence are just out of reach. A feeling of simultaneous construction and dismantling permeates. Walls are coaxed into Nikki Woolsey the room, while objects collapse into less space than they are accustomed. Materials that favour surface are propped into a fuller dimension. Ordinarily voluptuous objects are compelled into flatness. Flowers, once beckon- ing and open, are dried and shellacked into pic- toriality. Stacked and deflated terracotta pots languish on the floor like a distilled incarnation of the ribbed structures that surround them. A pair of gloves performs a mirrored self-portrait, showing the flipsides of gloveness.

Thank you to the Toronto Arts Council

96 An Expedition Sam Cotter January 30 - February 22 Fraser McCallum 2014 Photo: courtesy the artists

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Sam Cotter and Fraser McCallum An Expedition Installation View of Sam Cotter and Fraser McCallum’s An Expedition

98 By way of introduction to An Expedition, it is As mentioned, An Expedition uses visual appropriate to return to a fictionalized interview mimicry to explore two specific histories of that artists, Sam Cotter and Fraser McCal- constructed imagery that underlined the politi- lum, wrote in 2012, taking place between the cal power of European colonialism. The first of fictional explorer scientists that are represented these are early twentieth century ethnographic in the exhibition: Let’s start where it all began, travelogues and photos. These travelogues, the experiments we undertook during that two examples of which are Robert J. Flaherty’s hot, arid summer. We started a series of tests, 1922 silent film about an Inuit community, observing natural phenomena and collecting Nanook of the North and the photographic hard data. Alone with our gadgetry and guided archive of Edward S. Curtis, employed fiction- by only our powers of observation and reason, alization, misinterpretation, and wide circulation we knew that nature’s underlying order could to establish Eurocentric perspectives of the be revealed.”1 nineteenth and twentieth century Americas and its First Nations.2 These ethnographic travel- ogues and documentation enabled an hierarchi- Of course “where it all began” is what is being cal positioning by placing those who perform interrogated and revealed by An Expedition. the classifying and visual representations above Cotter and McCallum appropriate historical those “Others” who are subject to being clas- systems of knowledge accumulation, produc- sified, visually represented and eventually came tion and representation as a visual trope that to be defined as ‘vanishing’ into North American underlines their performance as scientists in settler culture.3 order to complicate the obnoxiously enduring and still dominant ideal of a singular, Eurocen- tric authority in science and culture. The artists’ Leading up to and during the colonialist expedi- interest in this same ideal authority stems from tions the role of artists became as important as the role that image-making and visual documen- scientists due to the capacity that images had tation played in the construction of European in constructing a scientific truth. The authority knowledge claims, as well as the subsumption conferred upon explorers by these images as of Indigenous epistemologies and technology ‘discoverers’ of nature and geography translat- in the Americas and elsewhere This imagery ed into economic advantages and contributed supported historical definitions of mastery over to the increase of European states’ prominence nature and other(ed) bodies in order to justify as colonial power, explained in the following the territorial claims of the colonialist era. The quote by Daniela Bleichmar: At a time when artists inhabit these idealized scientific author- European powers undertook the exploration ities in an effort to deflate their associations of distant territories as a matter of key eco- with mastery. nomic, political, and scientific importance, the production of images represented a central practice for investigating colonial nature and The combination of scavenged detritus pre- incorporating it into European science. In the sented as ‘expeditionary artifacts’ in the vitrine eighteenth-century study of nature, seeing and the looped slide projections that comprise was intimately connected to both knowing and Cotter and McCallum’s exhibition denotes their owning. Images of plants and animals were ongoing presence and production on the Leslie more than pleasant, secondary by-products Street Spit, a “new” expanse of land created by of exploration: they were instruments of pos- the build up of compacted industrial construc- session.”4 tion and excavation waste on the edge of the city of Toronto. The two scientists therefore prod, observe and use the methodologies of Cotter’s and McCallum’s images of amateurish possession— documentation and classifica- ‘gentlemen scientists’ dressed in white shirts, tion— within a physical manifestation of the sun hats, khaki shorts, black socks, hiking jack- unclaimed and abject, a landmass composed ets, toques and always sensible shoes inhabit of waste. the foreground in a series of photographs. A

99 temporal ambiguity implied by the scientists’ 1 Sam Cotter and Fraser McCallum, Two Ge- matching outfits is countered by the otherwise niuses in Conversation (Toronto: self-published, depopulated landscapes and shorelines com- 2012). posed of jettisoned rubble and contemporary urban detritus. 2 The documentarian Edward S. Curtis often requested that his photographic subjects wear elaborate attire for the benefit of his The artists’ performance as scientists plays photographs and films and removed European with the visual culture of the Western natural- objects such as alarm clocks from his images ist, surveyor and adventurer. In one slide they to increase the perceived-cultural distance set out towards the open water, in others they between post-contact Aboriginal groups and focus their tools and instruments on imagined the settlers that they interacted with. specimens. A continual loop of images oscil- lates between depictions of adventurers on a 3 Documentarians like Edward S. Curtis were mission and modern men quietly contemplating commissioned with the intention of capturing the world before them. The trials of survival images of Indigenous North American culture and the pursuit of knowledge undertaken by in advance of its ‘vanishing’ into extinction, an the figures in An Expedition comically fall short idea that is still presented in some museums of the vast and inhospitable landscapes of and texts. jagged mountain ranges, looming wilderness and stormy seas encountered in the nineteenth 4 Daniela Bleichmar, “Painting as Exploration: century romanticism of artists like Caspar David Visualizing Nature in Eighteenth-Century Colo- Friedrich, images that often conjure up the brav- nial Science,” Colonial Latin American Review ery of explorers. Instead An Expedition engages 15, no. 1 (June 2006): 81-104. a visual disjuncture between the earnestness of the subjects and the pointlessness of their actions in order to empty the visual tropes that underline the global West’s cultural claims to power, truth and knowledge.

Ostensibly when Cotter and McCallum’s cam- era is turned back onto their performance of the two scientist-documentarians it is to establish their image as the consummate source of knowledge and authority for the viewer. Howev- er unlike the images of Flaherty and Curtis, An Expedition offers no visible ‘Other’ associated with the nature in the frame. In the absence of ethnographic subjects, the scientists them- selves become the focus of the artists’ cultural investigation. In this way Cotter and McCallum re-present naturalized images of modern West- ern knowledge and inquiry as a vanquished and ‘vanishing culture.’

Denise Ryner

Xpace gratefully acknowledges the support of the Toronto Arts Council

100 Mancave: Great Failures of Sports Culture Matt Moreland March 8 - 29 2014 Matt Moreland Mancave: Great Failures of Sports Culture (Video Still)

102 Matt Moreland has created Mancave: Great been moments in history when athletes had an Failures of Sports Culture, a room designed impact on our world beyond simply being good after those rooms devoted to male fandom, at what they do. Jackie Robinson broke the to illustrate how professional sports are not colour barrier for baseball in the major leagues removed from ongoing social issues such as in 1947, and in the process became one of the racism, homophobia, sexism, rape culture, vio- most public faces of the civil rights movement lence, bullying, drug culture, and animal rights. for African Americans. In 1973, tennis player Throughout the room, different aspects of how Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in the sports can embody the worst of these various “Battle of The Sexes,” a match that was seen as issues are put on display, disrupting the intent a representation of the fight for women’s rights. of a man cave as a space that is closed off These athletes became symbols for something from the responsibilities and complexities of the greater than simply their skill in the field. In the outside world. Todd Bertuzzi’s jersey is hung on present day, University of Missouri football the wall, but instead of the jersey representing player Michael Sam has publicly come out and a player who displays a great level of skill, it depending on the results of the upcoming NFL represents someone who has become noto- Draft he may become the first openly gay player rious and infamous for brutally attacking and in NFL history. This is an especially important paralyzing opposing player Steve Moore during event because he is a football player, a sport a game in March 2004. As well, notorious inci- that more than any other promotes their players dents of violence are projected on loop, such as ultra-male warriors, paragons of classic as a massive brawl that erupted during a bas- manliness. Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen ketball game between the Detroit Pistons and took a stand for the inclusion of an openly gay Indiana Pacers in November 2004, highlighting player in pro football during a commentary that the brutality that is normally glossed over during went viral on the Internet, by noting that players games. In this way Moreland takes typical who have shown a stunning lack of humanity expressions of fandom and subverts them have been accepted into pro football, and yet a to highlight the ways in which sports enable gay player is considered controversial. Hansen discrimination, hatred and violence between illustrated the hypocrisy by stating: “Players ac- the players involved. Moreland’s installation cused of rape and pay the woman to go away? disrupts the idea that the man cave is a place You lie to police trying to cover up a murder? where a man can ignore the outside world and We’re comfortable with that. You love another retreat into his own comfort zone. Moreland man? Well, now you’ve gone too far!” Serious highlights how the environment that pro sports moral transgressions are ignored as long as creates enables those within it to act in ways these men achieve certain qualities of being the that seem hopelessly backwards, insensitive masculine ideal of a football player, and whether and even damaging to people, by encouraging a player is a good person becomes secondary everyone involved in the sport to conform to to the image they present. one singular, narrow idea of what a pro athlete should be. If someone doesn’t live up to this unrealistic ideal, they are singled out, abused by There are just as many, if not more, examples of their teammates and coaches, and criticized in situations where players and teams have com- public by the sports media. As Moreland mitted acts that are examples of marginalization, demonstrates these actions don’t exist in a ignorance, abuse and violence. The incredibly vacuum, and they can tell us a lot about how lucrative business of pro sports, and the status damaging it can be to turn public figures into which sports enjoys in our culture, can have a something larger than life, only to be quickly blinding effect on the moral judgment of those reminded just how human they actually are, and involved. Hockey is a sport where aggression how far we still have to go to make progress in and physicality are encouraged, and the result how we treat each other. are incidents of extreme violence such as Todd Bertuzzi driving Steve Moore headfirst into the ice, or Marty McSorley hitting Donald Brashear The influence that pro sports has on the greater in the head with his stick. But it isn’t just inci- culture can be trivialized at times, but there have dents during games that display how athletes

103 can take advantage of the riches and fame they According to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave we enjoy to do harm to others. Michael Vick was all begin life chained to the wall of a cave, one of the NFL’s most famous quarterbacks, like prisoners, seeing only the wall. We can playing for the Atlanta Falcons, when in July only see the shadows of the objects that exist 2007 he was arrested for operating an illegal outside the cave, not the objects themselves. dog-fighting ring and served 23 months in jail It is only once we leave the cave that we can after pleading guilty. Vick admitted to taking part see that the objects we assume to be reality in the torture and execution of the dogs that were actually just shadows cast by the sun. were forced to compete in these fights. Ath- Plato argues that those who escape the cave letes such as Vick may feel a certain invincibility are obligated to return and share their new from the fame they enjoy that allows them to knowledge with those still chained. A typical commit a heinous act such as this, and this feel- man cave resembles the beginning of Plato’s ing of immunity isn’t exclusive to pro sports, it allegory, with the fan choosing to imprison exists within amateur sports as well. In the sum- himself in his room, viewing what he assumes mer of 2012, members of a high school football to be reality through the game he watches on team in Steubenville Ohio were accused of, TV. But this game is only a shadow of reality, and subsequently convicted of raping a girl who not containing the vast number of experiences went to the same school. In May of 2013, two of many different kinds of people, with different teenage girls who also went to the school plead goals, hopes and dreams. Moreland’s Man- guilty to threatening the victim with threats of cave represents a kind of return to the cave, death over social media. Their comments were after gaining knowledge of the outside world, but a few from others in town who chose to and then informing those still within the cave attack the victim and side with the defendants, about this new knowledge. For Moreland, the because their status as football players gave more that the outside world can influence the them a level of respect and admiration in the world of sports, and influence the actions of community they wouldn’t have had otherwise. the people who participate in it, the better the It is in this incident that we see how sports can reflection that will be given back to us. blind not only those within the organizations, but the fans who watch on from outside as well. Anthony Smith They forego critical thought, choosing instead to judge those they watch on the playing field solely on how they perform on the field, not how they act off of it.

Xpace gratefully acknowledges the support of the Toronto Arts Council

104 Bad Luck Amazon Giftcard

Rachel McRae April 11 - May 3 Anthony Easton 2014 Top Bottom

Rachel McRae and Anthony Easton Performance View of Installation View of Rachel McRae and Anthony Bad Luck Amazon Giftcard Easton’s Bad Luck Amazon Giftcard

106 Rachel McRae and Anthony Easton’s perfor- McRae and Easton’s performance of BLAG is mance and installation of Bad Luck Amazon two fold. McRae and Easton’s choreographed Giftcard gives me the heebie jeebies. Seeming- movements create a new ritual in and of itself ly tempting the alternate powers that be, BLAG as they assemble the amazon.com pieces into demands the attention of both our conscious their predetermined place. Breaking mirrors, and subconscious selves as the artists perform placing hats on the bed, and opening an a series of ritual actions based on superstitions umbrella indoors work to invite adversity via meant to elicit bad luck. carefully planned arrangements. Though tradi- tionally viewed as rites that are rife with history, nuance, and grace, the very practice of building McRae and Easton’s collection and placement a ritual from scratch unmasks the fragility of of freshly purchased items from amazon.com observance. This revelation simultaneously into a pyramid of ominous omens brings to acts as a subversion; the performance of a light the question of what it means to build performance of ritual works to undercut the very superstition and – given the focus on those meaning ritual attempts to uphold by reenacting superstitions that breed bad luck - tease fates each element in a spoof-like manner. Athletic into fruition. Each item in and of itself does gear and baseball caps, though noble fashion not bring bad luck, yet in combination invites choices, are not necessarily the preferred garb 7 years of dismay, impending demise, and a of the druids, witches, and priests that frequent certain irreversible partnership with the devil. regular ritual routines. Yet, superstition is heavily rooted in ideas of supernatural causality, relying almost totally on a deeply set (and regularly enforced) commit- Yet, there is something unnervingly comforting ment to the belief of no natural connection. in ritual’s idiosyncrasy. Though excessively sym- In an attempt to explain surprise encounters, bolic in nature, ritual performance taps into our superstition acts as a bridge that defends the penchant for process, especially at a time when very gaps it wishes to fill. If superstition is the our own systems of belief have failed. BLAG practice of luck, then the objects of BLAG is a commentary on the evertimely resurgence continue to be nothing more than accessories of ritualistic practice and supernatural belief that are empty of inherent meaning, tempting in times of economic and social recession. As not fate, but satire. brick and mortar shops are closing and credit cards are considered commonplace, the use of amazon.com to purchase everyday items The relationship we end up observing in the such as an umbrella begins to feel as trite as artists’ performance is not one between the it is necessary. Buying online has evolved into objects as objects, but rather between the a ghost of the physical ritual of shopping we placement of objects as a representation of once all participated in, foregoing possible superstition and the performance of enact- interaction with sales associates and other ing such a placement. The ceremonial gusto customers for the invisible protection of the that embodies the act of placing each object Internet’s mystery. Rather than gathering found becomes riddled with the unspoken language or gently used items for BLAG, McRae and of ritual, revealing not our ability to control Easton’s decision to buy new from amazon.com the unknown, but rather our desire to believe is indicative of a continued obsession with new- that we have control despite our incapacity to ness, despite our current inability to financially, comprehend it. Ritual acts as an exposure of emotionally, or environmentally sustain such our insecurity, taking the place of universally shiny endeavours. missing confidence in our understanding of the world. Ritual’s secret as a placeholder for our lost confidences becomes buried in layers of ascribed meaning, troubled representation, and faulty intent. Why, then, do we comply?

107 This new ritual, one of false comforts and afford- ability, is reminiscent of building confidence and alleviating anxiety through affirmation; as we work to surround ourselves with new objects, we are attempting to wash away imperfection and perhaps ultimately, superstition. Desperate for renewal, we prescribe to mechanisms of purification, using ritual as an attempt to make ourselves more presentable to good fortune. At the same time, in the end, superstition leaves each of us wanting to be lucky enough to be included in the prophecy.

Greer Brabazon

Xpace gratefully acknowledges the support of the Toronto Arts Council

108 Myriad (No. 1) Melissa Fisher June 27 – July 19 Moshe Rozenberg 2014

“my love is building a building around you,a frail slippery house,a strong fragile house (beginning at the singular beginning of your smile)a skilful uncouth prison, a precise clumsy prison(building thatandthis into Thus, Around the reckless magic of your mouth) my love is building a magic, a discrete tower of magic and(as i guess) when Farmer Death(whom fairies hate) shall crumble the mouth-flower fleet He’ll not my tower, laborious, casual where the surrounded smile hangs breathless”

E. E. Cummings Melissa Fisher and Moshe Rozenberg Myriad (No. 1)

110 where the surrounded smile hangs breathless Myriad (No. 1) is a collaborative installation by Myriad (No. 1) has a visual / sonic tension and Melissa Fisher and Moshe Rozenberg, who are release. The central point of the room is flanked in a relationship. Their installation is a series of by two erect, mechanically rotating poles process-based works including sound, move- attach to the spinning wheels of two audiotape ment, and line, with materials including string, reel-players. The poles suspend a long piece of analogue tape recordings, and paint. The in- string between them, their rotation causing the stallation, much like E. E. Cummings’ poem My string to undulate slowly down and back to a love is building a building (seen above), where straight line. A strip of printed fabric is attached the poem outlines the strong fragile house to the centre of the undulating line. The strip of an intimate relationship. Myriad (No. 1) is dangles down, pooling on the floor onto a simultaneously fragile, like the dangling strip of circular slap of painted grey particle board. The fabric, and strong, like the heavy-looking round fabric strip writhes, like a sleepy cartoon snake. bases the hanging fabric strip and strings rest The pole contraption is both precisely engi- upon. The installation extends from work made neered and clumsy. in a studio shared by Fisher and Rozenberg, conflating work-space and personal space. The arrangement of the installation suggests ten- The fabric strip hangs loosely, slowly wig- sion, seen in the sharp string-wall designs, and gling, animated by an undulating string, like the visual and sonic silence, tempered by the a clothesline. The strip is attached on either woozy soundtrack, constantly wiggling fabric end to an elaborate contraption of moving strip and overall symmetry of how the space is wooden poles, animated by cogs, powered composed. Fisher and Rozenberg acknowledge by the spinning tape-reel machines below. A the struggle and harmony of their relationship in series of wall-mounted string designs is tautly developing Myriad (No. 1) together. suspended in finely detailed symmetry. The geometric design overwhelms my eyes, which beginning at the singular beginning travel over the intricately repeating lines that spiral and overlap, pooling onto small, painted Working within their own respective practices: grey circles of particle board. The designs are music and sound for Rozenberg, installation symmetrical and without motion, a tense visual and sculpture for Fisher, Myriad (No. 1) gives counterpoint to the loosely dangling string site and action to their negotiation of a shared machine at the centre of the space. The string space for a collaboration. The convergence of of the wall works is taut and precise, opposed their practices exists throughout the placement by the fabric strip, dangling like a wet noodle, at and layout of the works on the walls. The lay- the centre. ering - suspended string-wall designs - a motif consistent through Fisher’s body of work, are laborious, casual placed with rhythmic consistency and stag- gered with negative spaces between the string Myriad (No. 1) toys with moments of visual blocks. This measured spacing echoes the and spatial harmony, precision countered with music, a layered sound collage of instrumental relaxed simplicity. The resulting environment slowed down country music playing from the is symmetrical, where each sound, line and tape reels, placed at either end of the space. structure is balanced visually, or complimented The distance between each of the tape players by a counter point. Two reel to reel tape players dominates the centre of the room. The con- sit at a distance mirror each other. A long, trast of detailed string-wall designs and the slackened tape feeds from one side of the room unadorned spaces between them reflects the across to the other, a wavering visual line slowly silence in the audio clips. I feel overwhelmed moving. The sound is an ambient musical score by that loaded silence, like a palpable tension of twangy guitar, slowed instrumental coun- between words in an awkward conversation try music samples edited together, making a that feels intense.

111 familiar but wobbly, slowed sound. The physical Aguilar, Jorge. E.E. Cummings. My love is build- movement of the tape-line effects the sound ing a building. iml.jou.ufl.edu. Great Poets of the emitted from the tape player, a loose visual 20th Century. 2003, 20 June 2014. line contrary to the tensely suspended and controlled string-wall pieces. This difference is underscored by the music: a humourously woo- zy jangle, mingles with the stern, linear severity of the string walls. around you,a frail slippery house,a strong fragile house The building of a building, as in Fisher and Rozenberg’s installation is a constant process of ups and downs, much like the undulating line held high in the middle of the space. The consistent colour and symmetry of Myriad (No 1) underline the effort of compromise by Fisher and Rozenberg to erect the house that is their installation. The intervals of silence visually, physically, and audibly underline the tension that occurs within those compromises. When building is both a verb and noun, as in Cummings’ poem, the magic that suspends my belief in this structure is in constant danger of disharmony. But then the music kicks back in, keeping the building going.

Cameron Lee

Xpace gratefully acknowledges the support of the Toronto Arts Council

112 e e Space

xternal Inside the Village By the Grange

Meg Remy July 24 – August 27 2013

“[narrating] Come think of it, the whole place seemed to have been stricken with the kind of creeping paralysis... out of beat with the rest of the world... crumbling apart in slow motion. There was a tennis court... or rather the ghost of a tennis court... with faded markings and a sagging net... And of course she had a pool. Who didn’t then? Mabel Norman and John Gilbert must swum in it ten thousand mid- nights ago... It was empty now. Or was it? [cut to close-up of rats]”

Joe Gillis; William Holden in Billy Wilder’s film Sunset Blvd. Meg Remy Inside the Village by the Grange (Video Still)

115 Meg Remy’s 3-minute short film Inside the For Remy, this sinister juxtaposition of glamour Village by the Grange play on visual tropes with madness is less the brutal reality check that are both familiar and strange. As in Billy of Hollywood’s dark side, and more an intro- Wilder’s film Sunset Blvd. Remy’s short invokes duction to the parallel universe that film itself the dreamy fiction of old Hollywood, a parallel presents. This reminds me of David Lynch, an universe of opulence and glamour slowly aging admirer of Sunset Blvd. whose films stretch in plain sight. Remy’s work was shot on 8mm expectation through surreal suspensions of film, on location at the Village by the Grange, an reality. Lynch takes the tropes of Hollywood’s adjacent food court connecting various facilities dream mythologies throughout the 20th century of OCAD U’s campus. This setting is marked by and filters in a combination of absurdity and sin- various decorative and architectural curiosities. cerity — flipping the familiar through unexpected juxtapositions of imagery, sound and contextual reference. Remy’s Inside the Village on the The film begins with a cropped shot introducing Grange similarly uses methods of warped play two characters: Bobo the bird and the Hand, on the tenuousness of a glamourous dream. whose body is never introduced. The Hand ges- tures to Bobo, signaling the bird to a rustling dance to the accompanying musical score, an Lulu descends into the Village by the Grange, improvised synth-organ composition played twitching and flinching as she briefly holds by Remy. The twinkling organ wavers its tone, Bobo. Quick cuts of sparkle covered palm moving up and down in pitch and scale, setting leaves and kaleidoscopic jewel-like close-ups of a particularly creepy cinematic tone. twinkling light dazzle and disorient the viewer, acclimatizing us to the strange pace that is the reality Inside the Village by the Grange. The We then move to a wide shot of a white same footage of Lulu descending the white wrought iron staircase, a white painted wrought staircase is replayed but sped up, furthering our iron street lamp in the foreground to the right dream-like disorientation. Throughout the film, and palm leaved plants in the background left. a frame-burn is seen occasionally on the left of This scene is theatrically opulent; its ornate the screen. This is a reminder of the material of detail dramatically out of context within what is film itself, the beauty and the limits of the medi- otherwise a food court. um with which Inside the Village by the Grange comes to represent another reality.

Remy takes the dramatic set props for what Cameron Lee they are, spotlighting the top of the staircase, as the film’s third and final character Lulu is introduced. Lulu is a lavishly dressed woman, clad in a fur stole, long swishy red dress and head tightly covered by panty hose. Lulu’s glam- ourously made-up face, sparkling red lips and thick black lashes are twisted by the panty hose, physically obstructing our view of her face. A strange haze of light surrounds Lulu’s head as the bright spotlight reflects off the shiny, taut panty hose. Lulu is a glamour girl of the old Hol- lywood sort, part starlet part femme fatale, akin to the troubled female lead Norma Desmond of Sunset Blvd. This darkness is audibly signaled by Remy’s creepy score, which introduces a darkly sinister bass-filled synth line. Lulu slowly descends the staircase, again recalling a scene in Sunset Blvd. of Norma Desmond’s descent, eyes wide with implied madness.

116 Twitch Aryen Hoekstra September 10 - October 21 2013

“))<>(( (Back and forth, forever.)”

Me and You and Everyone We Know

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

The Wizard of OZ Aryen Hoekstra Twitch (Video Still)

118 The device of a looping video is often used to By emphasizing and drawing focus materially to present a visually seamless, unending video framing devices typically made invisible loop. Like a perpetual motion machine, a looped in the display of work, Hoekstra draws intrigu- video appears to capture the impossible: a ing attention to the labour and production of continuous and endless series of repetitions. a piece of artwork. These works do not exist However, in Aryen Hoekstra’s 3-second video outside of the process used to create them, loop Twitch, the loop in the looping video is as but rather highlight the means of production much a part of the content of the work as the as a significant and important part of the work. titular twitch that is captured on screen. The medium of Twitch, an edited video loop, becomes an integral part of the content of the work. The conceptual trick of the work, that of Much of Hoekstra’s work draws attention to the mirroring of the video jump and the twitch- the framing devices typically hidden in the ing ear, allow for the mechanisms of display to display and production of works. Where a play a prominent part in our understanding of looping video is often used for the purposes of the work. endlessly displaying a seamless video image, Twitch purposefully makes that seam visible. As Amber Landgraff the donkey’s ear twitches, the video loop resets itself, creating a jump in video that mirrors the twitching motion of the donkey’s ear. Like the GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) that it mim- ics, the shortness of the 3-second video loop and its endless repetitions, allow for a potential- ly mesmerizing engagement narrowing the viewer’s focus to one simple movement — the twitch of the donkey’s ear — happening over and over again, forever. Like many GIF’s on the Internet, the jump in the repetitive action of the twitch, becomes highlighted, in a sense becom- ing the focus of the video itself: a purposely stilted rather than smooth repeating of those three seconds.

119 Queenston Quarry Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik October 22- December 9 2013 Jordan Leoppky-Kolesnik Queenston Quarry (Video Still)

121 Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik investigates human Kolesnik (seemingly) takes no direct stance for nature and the material output of cultures using or against the proposed developments of the digital mediums, creating artifacts that mutate quarry. Rather, the series highlights the absurdi- and alter our own perception of the world from ty of human progress and the multiple transfor- which they came. In the video series, Queen- mations of the space. Condos and wine cellars ston Quarry, Kolesnik takes us through an imag- are seen here as new structures incorporated ined and hyper-digital landscape of proposed into the surrounding geography, appropriating tourism developments to a real-world Ontario the natural landscape around them. However quarry of the same name. The work oscillates this landscape is anything but natural; once a between ideals of the natural and industrial, forested area it was then carved and reshaped past and future, the imagined and the real. by the active and expanding quarry. After oper- ations had ceased there, nature reclaimed the area once again. Even so, the mark of human As the title suggests, the series is geographical- activity was forever embedded in the landscape. ly centric to the actual Queenston Quarry, Now we see the site transforming once again. which until recently has been abandoned. It The proposed developments seem to take has now been purchased in order to be rede- advantage of the land’s features as if they were veloped into a resort, tourist destination and natural, but are not; The wine cellar to be built residential areas. Each video within Kolesnik’s inside the man-made cave. All is centered series zooms in and focuses closer on recreat- around a quarry, a place which once was used ed elements of the quarry and its surroundings. for mining raw materials from the earth to be Produced using the free, consumer-grade 3D used in production of any multitude of products modeling software Google SketchUp, the aes- and structures, such as these very expansions; thetic of the entire series reads as very artificial. Kolesnik shows us this oscillating and con- SketchUp is primarily used by architects and founded nature of the site’s past and future. amateurs to create mock-ups, visualizing and pitching ideas before they come to fruition. Well aware of this, Kolesnik’s choice of medium is Each video in the series is unified by an ab- playful. He shows not only the natural land- stract form, which intervenes in almost every scape and how it can be modified, but his own video. The semi-transparent shapes are oth- take on proposed buildings and structures. The er-worldly and surreal; they rotate and hover, videos appropriate a corporate presentation defying gravity as they slowly move in and out style, mimicking the types of videos that may be of a scene. They produce low, ominous hums used in the actual proposals for the forthcom- and tones that recall a choir as we get closer to ing changes to this space. These simple 3D them. They represent something spiritual, a hid- landscapes are rudimentary and are produced den force or aura of the landscape itself, from in a numbed, platonic ideal of each specific which they seem to come from and be a part location. Kolesnik having never personally been of. Their presence is somehow both foreboding to the actual quarry himself, can only recreate and calming, they haunt each scene like some these spaces through what he has researched ancient power that has lived here and survived and seen online, filling in the gaps with what across the Quarry’s multiple generations. has come directly from his mind. Connor Crawford

122 Toronto Harbourfront Marjan Verstappen January 10 - February 25 2014 Marjan Verstappen Toronto Harbourfront (Video Still)

124 There’s nothing cryptic about Marjan Verstap- shaped the way it was.” The saying that “art pen’s sand animation Toronto Harbourfront is life” applies here in a very literal way. The 1688 – 2013. That is, of course, for the viewer animation shows the movement of capital, from the Greater Toronto Area. To others it people and goods over hundreds of years as a could seem like an abstract expression in colour, physical force through mere slight movements texture and movement. But for those familiar of sand. With those researched movements, with how maps plot The Tdot, the coastal line Verstappen charts a Torontonian Anthropocene is bitingly clear and the reference to how the – the current era where humans have become a waterfront has been pruned and polished since geological force. the late 17th century feels convincingly true.

Her choice of stop motion sand animation to do As the sand morphs to reveal the constant flow so forces her to work directly under the camera of human-made contours and the growth of so the last image is always the template for the the Leslie Street Spit, there’s a sense that an current one. It smacks of “transformation.” This intimate knowledge of how the land has been is in contrast to traditional drawn animation shaped is at play. This is impressive considering where the last image is just a visual reference that Verstappen herself is a Kiwi who has only for the current one, which is not physically recently found herself in Toronto. Her sense attached to its predecessor. The artist in that of familiarity has been well earned though case can do what they want relative to the ref- through her passion for cartography, deep erence, whereas in Toronto Harbourfront 1688 archival research of aerial photos, and a vested – 2013 Verstappen has no choice but to work interest to get to know the area. On a personal with the template provided by the last image. In level, a core part of Verstappen’s practice is to this sense, Verstappen makes a deeper case experiment with new art techniques as a way to for what the Anthropogenic transformation of understand her geographic surroundings better. Toronto’s waterfront has really been. Toronto Harbourfront 1688 – 2013 is Verstap- pen’s first animation, a medium that allowed Britt Wray her to play with the sense of time, tell history through shapes, and set static perspectives in motion.

“I made this work a year ago, at the time I’d only been living in Toronto a few months. I come from a very small country so I guess I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. I was trying to gain mastery over this huge city, and trying to understand how it can come about, why it was

125 SemiCycle Juliane Foronda February 25 - April 2 2014 Juliane Foronda SemiCycle (Video Still)

127 There is a type of martini glass popular in the Foronda animates her objects not in isolation, early 2000s that had a squiggly stem. The but in a necessary relation to each other. The squiggle’s only function, for me at least, was to balancing act that Foronda performs depends make me want to wiggle my body in the way on the positioning of the objects both in that I imagine the glass might feel like wiggling. relation to each other and their environment. The movement, sort of a torso-and-hip zigzag, The choppiness of the video gives the viewer is spastic but reasoned. I can never move this a sense of reality over illusion, where the stop way without seeing the glass moving with me and start of the video is used to draw atten- in my head. The glass always looks so comfort- tion to Foronda’s role in balancing the objects, able and pleased with itself, its upward taper rather than contributing to an illusion that the that holds the actual martini reminds me of the objects are moving independently. By including exaggerated smile of someone who brought the implication of her own presence and action, chips to a party but ate them all on the walk Foronda’s video becomes a document of her there. Even though I hardly ever see them personal perception of the objects and her role around anymore, this will be forever my relation- in their movement. ship with these glasses.

In only one minute, the structure crawls and Juliane Foronda’s SemiCycle brings movement leans against itself, growing tall before becom- to static objects, anthropomorphizing the ing short again, borrowing from background objects’ relationships to each other (and their objects as needed, and creating a visual hole environment) in the same way as my anthropo- in the spaces where objects were removed for morphic martini glass wiggle assumes a rela- the purpose of the structure. In this way the tionship between me and the glass - the glass structure can be seen not just as a part of a wiggles with me, and I wiggle with the glass. room, or even specifically a part of the Learning Beginning with a stapler and a short stack of Zone, but instead created in dialogue with the post-it notes, each additional object responds room, and most importantly, in dialogue with to the positioning of the object that preceded it, Foronda herself. and changes again in relation to those objects that come after. The stilted nature of the time Joële Waling lapse draws attention to the imperfect nature of Foronda’s stacking and balancing, where sometimes the placement of certain objects teeter and sometimes they fall down. Foronda is implicated in the movement of the objects, even though she never appears on screen, a ghostly figure pulling books from shelves and arranging them in relation to a bulky cheese grater which stands still while smaller objects use it for balance.

128 HOLY TRANNITY J’vlyn April 3- May 15 2014

“...But who cares? No big deal. I want mooooooore!”

Ariel, Disney’s the Little Mermaid J’vlyn HOLY TRANNITY (Video Still)

130 HOLY TRANNITY is a three part autobiograph- form of misogyny. J’VLYN recites lines appro- ical coming of age story. It is also a critique on priated from Grindr users’ profile descriptions, the narcissism and superficial vanity perpet- selecting those that are shrewdly misogynistic uated within queer culture, lacking in trans* and trans*phobic. J’VLYN’s performance of representation. In the guise of a pop star hero, these profiles is both satirical and confessional. J’VLYN offers the viewer their journey of self J’VLYN mocks the absurdity of users who incite discovery in three parts: THE GRINDR, misogyny, exemplified best in a repeating edit of LAUGHING LADIES and CELEBRATION. them slurring “Uuuuuh”. This journey examines desire and sexual pleasure, while challenging the misogyny of fe- tishized masculine idealism and the objectifica- Their art blurs distinctions that separate a pri- tion of feminine and trans* bodies. Using sassy vate life of sexual desire and a public role and word play and psychedelic video and sound performance as a trans* person and artist. editing, HOLY TRANNITY merges reality tv, J’VLYN recounts their personal experiences as a music videos and Disney to form a self-portrait, trans*gendered through layers of public perfor- a mirror revealing an appearance that is familiar, mance. The roles that social platforms, like Grin- but not quite. dr for example, limit to an idealized hierarchy of physical and personal traits: masculinity, and discretion of sexual desires and encounters. J’VLYN’s identity is performed by a vampy diva: a This exclusive adherence to a strict gender bi- psychedelic idol who is part drag queen, part nary, where “real” men are masculine and “real” cartoon villain. Their role is presented as a women are feminine, is stretched by J’VLYN’s goddess, an exotically feminine creature, who trans* identity. “Real” or cisgender translates to sneers at simple minded misogynists who are “born with genitalia that matches an anatom- dismissive of anything feminine or remotely ical binary: men having penises and women human. But J’VLYN is not an all knowing oracle, having vaginas”. This system continues into the they are human. And like most humans, they performance of gender: men are masculine and are just looking for a potential sex partner, for women are feminine. According to this system, shared pleasure and for self-acceptance. But sexuality limits gender to include only cisgen- where does a trans* body exist within a queer dered people who perform their masculine or culture that is openly intolerant of any feminine feminine gender roles. J’VLYN challenges these traits? binaries by presenting their self within Grindr and then their video work. J’VLYN gives visibility Part 1 to those who exist outside of a system of sexual THE GRINDR introduces a desire for sexual and gender exclusivity. companionship and pleasure for J’VLYN, in Part 2 spite of hostility and intolerance. Grindr is a smartphone application, used by people LAUGHING LADIES is an exploration of identifying as gay or bisexual men, to chat with, physical pleasure and desire. It is an abstract make friends, and potentially meet other men music video, with various rainbow shapes, to engage in consensual sex. This utopian ideal floating and merging, stacking and engulfing of shared pleasure is also an openly misogy- each other. This sequence is a visualization nistic, trans*phobic arena within queer culture, of pleasurable and conflicted feelings during evidenced for example, in a Grindr profile that various sex acts. An amorphous, scallop-edged reads “No femmes”. In Grindrland, the ideal shape hovers, centered by a geometric hole. A sex partner is masculine, a “real” man. Within pink triangle appears, then multiplies, stack- Grindr, men displaying any feminine traits are ing into a phallic tower. Vocals reciting prose undesirable, implicating those who declare their related to sex acts and emotional reactions to distaste for sissy gay men or trans* people, as them, fisting for example, are concluded by a being hateful toward femininity. The practice of repeating line “I’m dead! I’m dead!”. This could equating femininity with weakness and general be read in terms of the French euphemism for inferiority of women in relationship to men is a orgasm “Le petit mort” or “little death”. It could

131 also, as the pink triangle would suggest, stand through video, music, and performance is akin for public acknowledgement of sexual identity to transdisciplinarity, a scientific research pro- in the face of hostility and shame. The pink cess, focusing on the problems limiting specific triangle is synonymous with the expression disciplines for further research potential. By “Silence=Death”, referring to gay-bashing, the crossing boundaries and examining the limits AIDS crisis, gay rights and gay pride, and so within conventional systems, in this case, the on. In this part, J’VLYN is both calling to the insertion of a trans* body and language into a misogynists of THE GRINDR to remember the hetero-normative pop cultural reference, HOLY past struggles of homosexuals in private and TRANNITY challenges those perspectives. public realms, and allying the current struggles of trans*gendered people to be acknowledged, as they fight to gain rights, and have visibility, By conflating the disciplinary roles of perfor- privately and publicly. mance, video and sound art with their sex life and gender, HOLY TRANNITY serves as a Part 3 challenge to disciplinary restrictions and divi- CELEBRATION presents a false idol, an em- sions within queer sexuality and identity. Misog- powered trans* figure, J’VLYN, now wearing a yny toward feminine behaviour and appearance deep purple wig, blows air kisses to their wor- by masculine gay men on Grindr, narcissistic shipping admirers. Those fans are feminine cis- displays of personal experience made public gay men, united in their mutual place outside of by social media, and the fetishized objectifica- the masculine ideal of “real” gay men. J’VLYN is tion of femme pop divas and trans* gendered happy to receive praise and worship from these femmes by gay men are all fodder within HOLY “sissies”, but rejects their fetishizing objecti- TRANNITY. J’VLYN’s journey offers no sim- fication, which is a hidden form of misogyny, ple answers or resolutions beyond their own confusingly buried in seemingly affirming self-discovery and presence as a trans* artist adoration. This celebration is troubled by an who likes to fuck. No big deal. anxious undertone, the novelty of trans* bodies standing in for “sissies” as a saviour figure of Cameron Lee feminine empowerment, or an objectified body to become an accessory for social authenticity for cis-queer men. J’VLYN presents their per- sonal journey for self awareness and accep- tance of their own body and their own desires as a trans* individual. J’VLYN dismisses these cultural vampires instead asserting that this celebration is their own.

HOLY TRANNITY tangles identity and social critique through language appropriated from pop cultural reference. Quoting lines from the song Part of your world from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, “I want to be the girl, the girl who has everything”, delivered with an emphatic pause and a knowing wink to the camera. Using language, J’VLYN’s performance of Part of your world replaces the pronoun “she”, as quoted from the original song lyrics to “they”. The Little Mermaid is a cultural reference, a personal childhood favourite for the artist, which they have now queered to include a trans* subtext. This mix of pop-cultural and personal-political

132 Personal Inventory Cotey Pope May 21- July 2 2014 Cotey Pope Personal Inventory (Video Still)

134 Cotey Pope’s Personal Inventory is an archive of sharp pangs of nostalgia for our high school footage and recordings she has been collecting sleepovers, introductions to new music, draw- since 2011. The audio was all recorded on a ing together and writing letters confessing portable cassette tape player she carried around existential teenage worries. with her, which is also featured in the footage.

In the sequence of recordings and footage I have been friends with Cotey Pope since I there is also awareness that the ways in which was in the 10th grade. She was a year younger, memories are collected can influence how probably 14 at that time and I was 15. We met they are remembered. At one point, there is a when someone pulled the fire alarm at our high short clip of Pope speaking, “this is an audio school and we had a lot of time to kill outside response to your email…I feel like I’m literally while the teachers sorted out the confusion being buried in a shallow grave slowly” which with the cops and fire fighters. I think some kid floats through while footage of her sister run- stood on a car and got suspended but I could ning in the snow wearing a cape goes back- be remembering this wrong. Cotey had on wards and forwards, but stops short after she skeleton tights, red eyeliner and was carrying a says “anyways…” and a finger comes down and Misfits tin lunch box; I was wearing my brother’s presses stop on the tape player, effectively cut- Ninja Turtle belt from when he was a kid and ill ting short, and even placing that memory out of fitting thrift store clothes. This was early 2000’s context. She also recounts a childhood memory suburban “alternative” culture pre-Myspace of a kid stealing her Pogs and teasing her, and Internet time; compounded by the fact that how she ran home angry to tell her dad. In the we lived in the bustling metropolis of Grimsby, process of remembering, recounting, and trying Ontario: population 20,000. She was definitely to hold on to a memory, it always seems to shift the coolest person I had ever met. and change, resulting in the memory being quite different than how the event actually happened.

Pope splices shots of her little sister dressing up next to books sprawled open on a bed, In my experiences, nostalgia comes up most bright lights and shadows, combined with audio often when there is lot of change or upheaval in recordings of telephone conversations and my life, causing me to turn inwards and reflect doctor’s appointments, recounting of childhood on memories that seem more fun, more roman- memories, woven together with her own music tic, more exciting, or seemingly happier than recordings, then rearranged and edited out of my current situation. It’s easy to romanticize sequence to create a new narrative. Through the past; the danger being that even miserable this collection of archived memories, Personal times can seem interesting and beautiful in the Inventory explores nostalgia’s inner workings, distant haze that dulls the especially painful and the way memories fade and change de- parts. In reliving distant memories, your life plays spite our best efforts to hold onto the past. At out like a movie; almost like your experiences the start of the video, the camera out of focus are not your own because of the way they pulls in on a diamond like-object being turned become built up, mysterious, and even magical and rolled in a hand. The sun (or light) glints off events. Personal Inventory plays with the dis- of it, and in the background what sounds like tortions, discrepancies and idealized ways we a toy piano being played. Isn’t it strange and remember our experiences, as well as the ways funny and frustrating all at once the way mem- that we process and recall those memories. ory is like this out of focus diamond? At first sharp and vivid, then slowly over time the edges get smoothed out and the shape changes, Alicia Nauta and eventually it’s really only the glints of light bouncing off that you can actually recall. While watching Personal Inventory, I was flooded with my own memories of our friendship and

135 1997 Byron Chan July 9 - August 15 2014 Byron Chan’s 1997 is an endlessly looping On July 1st, 1997, the crown colony of Hong video that explores Hong Kong’s tense political Kong, which, for the previous 156 years past, present and possible future through a had been under British rule, was returned cumulative erasure of identities and visible on to Chinese sovereignty. An agreement was screen information. made during this transition that under Chinese rule, the colony, now the Hong Kong special administrative region (HKSAR), “would enjoy Originally captured on 8mm film on a ferry in a high degree of autonomy […] and that the Hong Kong in the 1960’s, 1997 is a recontex- social and economic systems as well as the tualization of found material that explores that lifestyle in Hong Kong would remain unchanged region’s cultural transition after being returned for 50 years after.”1 Many were skeptical of to it’s Chinese “homeland” following a century China’s ability to abide by this agreement, and and a half of existing under British rule. feared that China would break it’s promise by drastically minimizing the rights and freedoms that had come to define the colony after Great The piece opens with an orange hued light Britain had acquired the Island in 1842 after leak – an analogue effect that reveals the filmic the first Opium War. Hong Kong had become medium. The light leak fades to reveal the im- a destination for hundreds of thousands of age of a formally dressed Indian family standing Chinese refugees seeking sanctuary once the very still and staring back into the screen. The communist government gained power in China camera pans to reveal a Caucasian business- in 1949. Diversity became a defining feature of man, and two older Caucasian people as they the region, and Chan’s 1997 acts as a visual walk across the frame, also making eye contact representation of its citizens’ fear of loss for with the camera. Then walks a Chinese woman their freedoms and erasure of diversity. in a green dress followed by a Chinese male in uniform who appears to be a worker on the boat. The viewer is once again greeted by the As the video progresses the viewer is witness filmic light leak, only to see the previous shot to a strange visual phenomenon. The subjects rewound, the subjects walking backwards, the in motion appear to be slowly fading away. camera now panning back in the opposite Each time the camera moves left there appears direction to rest again momentarily on the to be less of a visual presence to these individ- Indian family and their active gaze. The piece uals. Their images are vanishing and being re- continues this back and forth repetition as the placed with that of their surrounding landscape. camera pans from right to left, left to right; play- Throughout the duration of the work, one thing ing forward and backward and forward again. remains constant; the camera’s return to the The soundtrack of a film projector mixed with original family, resting on them and their gaze traditional Chinese music mimics the visuals in before panning back to reveal a further disap- direction and in tempo. pearance of the other individuals in the frame. There remain visible some bystanders in the distance, but apart from the opening family, any of the subjects who had previously made facial contact with the camera have now been erased.

137 Byron Chan 1997 (Video Still)

138 Chan has modified a seven second excerpt 1 "Hong Kong's Return To China: Year In Review from Michael Rogge’s short film Cruise to 1997". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Hong Kong in 1964. The original footage Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., was taken by Rogge’s friend Hans Brickmann, 2014. Web. 08 Jul. 2014 . the original footage is shot on film the process used to create 1997 relies heavily on digital techniques. Chan re-contextualizes the already digitized film footage by rotoscoping (drawing) over the images, frame by frame, in order to create the vanishing technique. Although the final product and process are digital, the piece relies heavily on tropes that relate to it’s filmic origins; such as the light leaks and soundtrack of a film projector. The technical re-contextu- alization of the work mimics the re-telling and reconfiguration of histories, specifically the histories of the individuals depicted and that of Hong Kong’s political past. The erasing tech- nique is made intentionally visible by Chan in order to highlight this erasure, and in doing so, 1997 brings to light these problematic histories that have been attempted to be erased by the Chinese government.

Less than 20 years after the shift in owner- ship, July 1st 1997 is still a day when people go on strike in China, highlighting the ongoing political issues in Hong Kong. 1997 intends to represent the impact of such a drastic political shift, and to focus on the aftermath of Hong Kong’s transition – what it means for the region politically and culturally both presently and in the future, the longer China has possession.

Adrienne Crossman

1997 (Video Still)

139 Xpace

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Amber Landgraff Julia Redding Adrienne Crossman Tori Maas Brette Gabel Humboldt Magnussen Alicia Nauta Cameron Lee

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David Hong

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