What the F**K?! Video in the Age of Sublime Uncertainty
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! curatorial incubator v.15 What the F**k?! Video in the Age of Sublime Uncertainty Guest Mentors: Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick * * ? ? screenings DECEMBER 1, 2018 Just Leave Me Alone Curated by Almudena Escobar López Medi(t)ating the Temporality of the Untimely Curated by Masaki Kondo DECEMBER 8, 2018 * Remote Preparation Curated by Mel Day Artificial Tears Curated by *Isabelle Lynch and Sophie! Lynch ! Introduction 3 What the F**k?! 4 Video in the Age of Sublime Uncertainty Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher contents Just Leave Me Alone 7 Almudena Escobar López Program on page 11 Medi(t)ating the 12 Temporality of the Untimely Masaki Kondo Program on page 16 Remote Preparation 17 Mel Day Program on page 23 Artificial Tears 24 Isabelle Lynch and Sophie Lynch Program on page 29 The Artists 30 The Curators 36 * * ? ? with this year’s catalogue. Many thanks to Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Introduction Fisher for bringing their hyper-relevant concept to us at Vtape and for apply- ing their significant skills as editors On the unknown to the writing in this year’s essays. unknowns...* The Curatorial Incubator provides invalu- able guidance in how to actually program and curate media artworks. Participants Admiring as I do, the curatorial and receive “real world” information about editorial rigour of Jim Drobnick and prices, rights, file types and all the details Jennifer Fisher, it was exciting to invite that must be decided upon as a program them to collaborate with us at Vtape as of media artworks is being put together. guest mentors for the 2018 Curatorial As we say, curating is not shopping (in Incubator. Their organizing idea was not spite of what the popular press says). It so much a theme as it was – and still is – a is a research-based process that produces diagnosis of how truly strange our world knowledge through the combination of is becoming. The precise language of works into a coherent thesis, all aided by their call for proposals identified a “crisis familiarity with the technical requirements in democracy”; it clearly struck a nerve. of the medium. What the F**k?! Video in the Age of Sublime Uncertainty received dozens of applications. Thanks to the Vtape staff: Wanda The four awarded curatorial proposals Vanderstoop for her guidance in navigat- from Almudena Escobar López, Masaki ing distribution; to Dustin Lawrence and Kondo, Mel Day and the duo of Isabelle Kim Tomczak for their technical expertise Lynch and Sophie Lynch – were invited in assembling the works into compilations; to participate in workshops at Vtape in to Deirdre Logue and Chris Gehman the spring. Here participants learned for making sure that we have the crucial how to conduct research into Vtape’s support for all our programs at Vtape. extensive holdings. Drobnick and Fisher shared readings, showed works to provoke Thanks to the Incubatees for their hard work in producing* such engaging discussion and advised on the form of the finished curatorial essays. As the programs programs, each developed around a emerged late in the summer, Vtape staff specific idea and approach. played key roles in assuring that works not in distribution with Vtape were available, And, finally, to the artists whose beauti- and that budgets were set and technical ful and unique works have been produced requirements met. apart from each other but are united now under a theme. Brought together to speak The final – and equally important aspect of to and through each other, turning to each the Curatorial Incubator – then begins: the side to greet the other, united in the single editing of the essays. This year, Drobnick time-signature of the now. and Fisher assumed the role of editors for all four of the essays. Editing is an intimate Lisa Steele process; one that requires both an over- Creative Director, Vtape view and an eye to detail: how to preserve the ideas of the writer while finding the (*Donald Rumsfeld’s comment seems right word or sorting out difficult syntax. relevant today as each day brings new This has been beautifully accomplished revelations that induce us to invoke WTF?!) *3 ! What the F**k?! Video in the Age of Sublime Uncertainty responds to the affects of What the F**k?! psychic and cultural shock unleashed by the current crisis in democracy. In Video in the Age of developing a thematic framework for Curatorial Incubator v. 15, we sought to Sublime Uncertainty “make space” amid the current fractur- ing of public discourse, hyper-partisan Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher gambits and moral scandals.1 Instead, the video programs stemming from this residency reflect upon video’s affective Timing is everything in the formation of power to focus attention, forge relations a curatorial concept. The daily barrage and configure ways of collective feeling of previously unthinkable assaults on that might reimagine aspiration, consola- democracy, the media, the rule of law, tion, longing and freedom. Participants intelligent discourse and the notion attended two workshops with us that of a common good breed many reac- explored the dynamics of affect in video tions in the followers of political affairs: art: how affect operates to activate the exasperation, annoyance, frustration, senses and non-verbal cues, energize fear, horror, anger and disbelief. The perception and bodily cognition, proliferation of uncivil or outrageous imbue works with mood and atmo- behavior threatens to dismantle civil sphere, and create connections between society as collective incredulity envel- individuals, the social, the temporal ops an increasingly destabilized and and the liminal.2 Video art of all fractured public sphere. In this affective genres – whether narrative, conceptual, commotion, the utterance “What the ?performative, documentary or experi- f**k?!” gives voice to an embodied gut mental – conveys affect in addition to the reaction. Such an exclamation intervenes elements of narrative or representation. like a jolt coursing through the body Atmospheric registers are communi- followed by an emphatic pause, posing cated through camerawork, soundtrack, an interrogative moment. What can art scale, framing, and pace of editing.3 do? As the current era aligns the sublim- We also discussed how curating video ity of awe and danger with the mood! of art involves considered mediations of urgency and activism, uncertainty reigns. context, juxtaposition and placement.4 The affects of indignation, despair and Affect comprises that energetic capac- alienation arise and are simultaneously ity that connects the sensory to the anaesthetized by the promise of pleasure political and comes into play in a broader and beauty. Speaking truth-to-power historical sense through what Raymond is enacted by the supposed “fools” of Williams calls the “structure of feeling” culture – late-night comedians, artists – a shared sensibility that endows works and other marginalized agents – who of a particular era with a distinctive style, carry the burden of making sense in expression and meaning.5 a world where far right populism has normalized “hate.” * *4 The incubatees – Almudena Escobar program also seek to work through fear’s López, Masaki Kondo, Mel Day, and the problematics to arrive at the opposite: duo Isabelle Lynch and Sophie Lynch empathy, understanding and connectivity. – developed four distinctive and compel- ling video programs. Given carte blanche Masaki Kondo’s Medi(t)ating the Tempo- access to an archive of 5000+ titles by rality of the Untimely responds to the over 1000 artists, they selected a range of increasing pressure, strain, pace and works from the past 30 years that show- reactive compulsions of the digital cased the depth and diversity of Vtape’s age. Counterbalancing the ceaseless holdings. While the videos chosen for flow and overwhelming plenitude of the programs were all completed prior information that generates instability to the contemporary crisis in democracy, and unease, this video program draws they nevertheless speak to and explore from the Nietzschean idea of “the affects that are resonant today. Some untimely” to pose video as a meditation of the works prefigure affects that are of time-out-of-time. Through configur- prominent now, others offer antidotes ing restorative moments that harness to the stressed emotional states currently the calmness of nature, water, forests, being experienced, and others compel and everyday moments, or impel the viewers to transcend present circum- breathing of beholders to slow down stances by imagining a broader perspec- and create an appreciation for simplicity tive. In the programs described below, and stillness, video bears the capacity artists engage with affective states as for contemplation necessary for well- they contend with the world’s upheavals being in an ever-accelerating culture. and conflicts, and seek ways to critique, understand and perhaps ameliorate the Mel Day’s Remote Preparation explores damage to psyches and communities. how artists employ unpredictability as a creative methodology. Building upon Almudena Escobar López’s Just Leave Thomas Merton’s idea of “remote Me Alone presents videos that magnify preparation” – a mindfulness practice the intensities and contradictions of that accentuates the present moment fear. The eight videos consider how fear and embraces the unknown – these seven proliferates across diverse media plat- performance and process-based works forms, such as popular film, television, depict aleatory encounters, miscom- video games, news, soundtracks, nature munications, and uncertain immersions. documentaries, folklore and dreams- While Merton’s practice was directed capes. In the media, fear is compounded toward revolution on a society-wide level, with anxiety and other affects to justify the works in this program enact trans- or enhance xenophobia, the threat of formation occurring on individual and terrorism, the scapegoating of marginal- interpersonal levels. What starts out with ized populations, and the retrenchment an individual can extend out to serve as a of disempowering gender stereotypes. model for a collective reimagining of the While critiquing the use of fear as a possibilities for hope, trust and empathy.