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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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 | I haven't been reading VICE lately. I went off it for no particular reason except maybe boredom with other people's party pictures. Then the other day I brought this issue home for no particular reason other than it was free and I was curious to see what the kids were up to. I have never before in my life read a magazine in order, cover to cover, without even flipping through the pages first. This is the "Natives" issue. It's all about a Blackfeet Indian reserve in Montana. Each story is written by a different person living on the reserve. Simple, brilliant idea, better than AdBusters.* And guess what? It's all online. (*I must confess I've also stopped reading Adbusters for no particular reason other than apathy towards design-as-tool-for-political-transformation -through-emotional-button-pushing-and-stylish-formatting-of-painful -personal-email-entries.) |
On the other hand... the discussion threads attached to the Blackfeet articles have a lot of participation by people living on the reserve. A lot of them seem pretty cheesed off at the lead articles which focus on bars and drinking, and there's all kinds of ignorant racial flaming from what I can only assume are dumb white kids. But there's lots of articles that are about other stuff, like this one, by Charlene Burns who is a bundle holder. Charlene's sister shows up in the comments:
Char is my sister. I live in New York, I live in the white world. Our lives are very different. I love how my sister views life and how she lives life. We can all learn from her intelligence and her heart. She is a true humanitarian. I admire her. The Blackfeet people are lucky to have her. She is actively trying to improve things that need improving, and seeing the beauty in these wonderful people.
Our Quantal Strife catalogue lauch was really fun last night. Thanks to everyone who came! I have a backlog of tasks piled up now, included a bunch of things for the blog. There will be some more content up here soon, I promise. (I moderated a panel on art and science at the Performance Creation Canada Conference - must report!) In the meantime, brains and beans.
A Beginner's Guide to Quantal Strife
Oscillating dichotomies, cognitive assemblages, and the multivalent nature of communication when people make art and other people look at it.
But without all the big words.
February 7: If you prefer to stay downtown, join us at the Cameron House (480 Queen St. West) on Tuesday, Feb. 7th, at 7 pm for a free party with musical selections by DJ Von Bark...door prizes...free snacks...easy games...suprises...other things...and one very cute little art book/catalogue for sale!
(more details at the Doris McCarthy Gallery website)
Pop quiz: what do the movies Elizabeth, Lost in Translation, and Zoolander have in common?
The current show at InterAccess is really good. Both artists are from Finland, where, according to curator Nina Czegledy, "social awareness, art and technology fuse seamlessly." Well, I don't know much about Finland, but I know what I like! Minna Långström created huge Smurfy blue table and chairs that dwarf the adult viewer and make you feel small. There is also a huge dangling crib toy, twice the size of my head. When you clamber up onto the chair you can blow virtual bubbles with a big orange wand. Inside the bubbles are violent video scenes from the war in Iraq. Pulling the cord on the crib toy triggers the sounds of war. The bubbles were not activating when I was there (apparently some overly interactive art viewer had been underneath the table rearranging cables the day before) and so I am going back for sure before the show closes on February 11th.
Seamless is a good word. The installation, by Jaakko Niemelä is also elegant. [SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't seen the show yet stop reading now.] As you enter the gallery you see a wall sized grid of video feeds. There is a war or insurgence or disaster going on. The cameras flip past emergency vehicles, ladders, flashing lights, tumbled down structures, chasm-like spaces, chaos. The sounds are clipped, harsh and anxious-making — sirens, explosions, gunfire, men making urgent calls and giving directions with the tinny voices of megaphones and walkie talkies. The grid of video is always scrolling, like a security console, the cameras numbered at the bottom of each panel. As you proceed into the space you see around the corner, where a cluster of electronic toy helicopters, tanks, ambulances and fire trucks and emergency vehicles are nestled into a jumble of cables, clutter and spinning cameras, their little toy sounds activated and amplified.
Both pieces were immersive and elaborate but simple in design. And both, for me, invoked the infurating combination of cultural infantilization with dire and violent world events.
Paul Butler's exhibition, Getting There is Half the Fun
Wynick/Tuck Gallery, January 14 to February 1, 2006
reviewed by Valeria Rzianina here