Exhibition & Event Archive

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.”

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.

In collaboration with Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg, Video Pool presented wind coil sound flow. Gregory built an acoustic electro-mechanical system that poetically reproduced the processes involved in operating an Aeolian Kite Instrument in the field, (a wind instrument based on an Aeolian harp). The kite’s towline is acoustically attached to a resonator which amplified the wind-induced vibrations of the towline and resonated harmonically. This process created a large one-stringed guitar played by the wind.

In an effort to have broader community engagement, Video Pool presented Turner Prize’s performative installation, Summer of Dreams. The artists built a geodesic dome in the public plaza at Portage and Main, where they invited the public to come in and share their past dreams.

(in)visible cities included live performances by an array of internationally renowned artists including: Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Vancouver), Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan (Winnipeg), FASTWÜRMS (Creemore, ON), Jessica Thompson (Toronto), and Nhan Duc Nguyen (Vancouver). Cultural theorist Jeanne Randolph (Winnipeg) will act as (in)visible cities’ rapporteur/blogger, providing insightful commentary as festival events unfold.

Staging the Gap is a miniature model of a concert stage with silently animated lights and smoke. The work explores the relationship of fact and fiction in a technologically mediated world. Hengeveld critically
reflects on the mechanisms used to deliver popular culture by focusing on how visual effects – stage lights, pyrotechnics, and dry ice – are used at concerts to shape our understanding of what we hear. Ignoring society’s desire for the spectacle of performance, the stage created by the artist remains empty while a precisely orchestrated light show plays out.

Psychiatrist and cultural theorist Randolph uses psychoanalytic methods and concepts, themselves amenable to productive misuse, to reveal the ways in which technological devices and/or their depictions are open to creative and critical interpretation. Johnson projects digital slides in a manner reminiscent of corporate culture and middle management to support his thesis that technology has ruined art, while Randolph uses a technology associated with yesterday’s middle-school science teachers and art historians – the conventional slide projector – to comment on mass media culture. Through a hilarious presentation based on classical scholarship, Johnson took his audience back to scenes of Lascaux, urging artists to abandon “all this technological nonsense” and to “go back to crushing berries and burning sticks.”

Video Pool Media Arts Centre proudly celebrated 25 years of
support to Manitoban artists through the commission of six projects by seven artists who have made dynamic contributions to Video Pool’s history and to media arts in Canada.

Winnipeg, MB (January
23, 2008) – We can always trust artists to challenge assumptions and to seek creative alternatives to conventional practices. In the case of film and video, this is also true. This screening featured
experimental techniques for moving image creation and manipulation including: machinima (film and video made using avatars and/or video
game environments), computer-based image manipulation, well-established filmmaking techniques such as hand processing, optical printing, and scratch animation, as well as work employing modified cameras or found footage.

At Video Pool, we love art, and we love parties, and we were thrilled to continue our tradition of bringing international Art’s Birthday celebrations to Winnipeg!