Programming 2010 – Video Pool Media Arts Centre

Wake Up Winnipeg: Sandee Moore

Wake Up Winnipeg is a durational performance, during which the artist provides a wake up call service to interested Winnipeg citizens. Video Pool will advertise this free service to members and to the Winnipeg public. The practical, service-oriented purpose of the wake up call is removed – the calls are made when the artist wakes up, not when the participant would like to be awoken. This will hopefully facilitate more room for potential development of relationships. The wake up call will be of a social and political nature and by delivering local news to people and offering the opportunity for interaction, discussion and debate, the artist wishes to stimulate greater awareness and engagement among Winnipeggers in the issues of civic governance.

I and I: Michael Klein

Michael Klein’s video-audio work i and i invites the viewer to share a private experience that often takes place in public, listening to music on a portable MP3 player. Klein asked people on the street what they were listening to. He then captured the results on video. The video consists of two separate audio channels. One channel is a 5.1 surround audio mix that records the ambient streetscape portrayed in the video, played out loud over speakers. The second channel of audio places the viewer into the mental space of the MP3 listeners through headphones. The viewer moves from the public space of the Artspace lobby to the private, internal space of the subject through wearing the headphones.

2010 was the World of the Future

As part of our annual “Art’s Birthday” celebration, Video Pool presented a screening of single-channel video works that deal with concepts of space and futurism, curated by Clint Enns. Enns writes: “Some of us thought the future would never come, but the future is here and it already looks dated. The films in this program deal with the concept of future from the perspective of our place in time, namely, 2010. We are literally in the 21st century, the world of the future. There are no flying cars, there is no world peace (and it doesn’t appear to be coming soon) and we have yet to make contact (or at least that is what the government is telling us). One of the main things that hasn’t changed is that both dystopian and utopian visions of the future are constantly being put forth.”

RIP IN PIECES AMERICA: Dominic Gagnon

Dominic Gagnon’s Rip in Pieces America is a feature-length single-channel video assembled entirely of video clips sourced from YouTube. The video contains numerous first-person critiques of contemporary western culture; focusing on issues relating to the war in Iraq, the recent economic crisis, and various conspiracy theories.