This Is A Race

ZOINKS

2009-06-30T23:34:00.003-04:00

Laying With My Father by Ryan Pfluger

Luke Gilford

So I'm in nature now, the crickets are chirping outside my window and I am left in the quiet with my thoughts and still, somehow, a poo-load of work to do. I arrived at my new old home today after seeing both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in one day and then packing and driving all my earthly possessions up here in an overstuffed GMC with a huge iced coffee from McDonald's.

San Francisco was everything I could have hoped for. Such a great place and such a great experience. I managed to escape Pride Day for the most part and go to the beach and Marin Headlands with Parker and Ryan. Ryan Pfluger is a fantastic photographer that I've been following for a long time but for some reason have never linked to him from my own blog before. It was really cool to watch him work and then to be photographed by him on the edge of the ocean and high up on cliffs. I can't wait to see his photos as well as Parker's and mine. Hopefully I'll have my film back by next week. You can see a sneak peek of Ryan's photos HERE and make sure to check out his other work HERE.

I also got to meet another great photographer, LUKE GILFORD, while I was in San Francisco. Luke is a New York based photographer who graduated from UCLA. All around it was a bunch of cute faggots taking pictures in the gayest city on earth. It seemed pretty right.

AWAY

2009-06-23T22:10:00.003-04:00

I have had a really busy few weeks, packing, working, houseguests, and being sick. I don't think I've mentioned it here on this blog, but after VISITING and applying to grad schools I've decided to go to Columbia in New York to do my MFA in Film.

I'm in San Francisco for a while right now, which is fantastic, and then I'll be moving to my hometown for the rest of the summer to save money before going to New York. San Francisco is amazing, New York is going to be amazing, going home will actually be quite nice, but my departure from Toronto really snuck up on me. It was a few days before I left, as I was biking from one informal goodbye dinner to another, that I realized what I'd be leaving. I listened to my music and pedalled from West to East and was hit with nostalgia. It is definitely time for me to leave; I have the same feeling going to New York that I did when I was leaving my hometown for Toronto. A sort of panicked desperation to move on. But this is different. I've been in Toronto for the past 8 years - in some ways they were the most formative and eventful years of my life. Toronto is easy, it's home, it's my favourite place to be in the summer. Leaving high school was like leaving a place I didn't want to be in in the first place.

So I look back on these 8 years and feel a bit wistful, but I like that more than panic.

GOOD QUESTION

2009-06-08T15:21:00.002-04:00

The answer is at your fingertips: WWW.HASTHELARGEHADRONCOLLIDERDESTROYEDTHEWORLDYET.COM

DON'T SLEEP

2009-06-08T14:09:00.003-04:00

Photos and interview - Olaf Breuning in his studio on THE SELBY.

Via WE CAN'T PAINT.

VOI VADA RAGAZZA

2009-06-07T21:47:00.003-04:00

The Canadians at this year's Venice Bienalle were well-dressed in Jeremy Laing pieces from the FW09 collection. I hope this gets him all the recognition he deserves and more! Yay J!

See Jeremy's work HERE.

Read the full article about the fashion presence in Vencie HERE.

DIMENSIONS FOR SALE

2009-06-05T01:02:00.002-04:00

I'll be selling DVDs of my series New Rituals here soon. Stay tuned.

CAW

2009-06-03T12:07:00.001-04:00

I like it when the birdy looks in the camera and cacks.

Video by SEMÂ BEKIROVIC who also does some beautiful photography and has made paper prints for gallery display, which is something I really want to do but have not yet tried. I think I'm learning that I am most excited by artists know the rules and walk around them - not so much by the ones who don't learn the rules in the first place or who feel the need to say "Fuck your rules, man!"

From the series Reflections

From the series (edition?) Paperprints

Via WLYS

MEME WITHOUT YOU

2009-06-03T11:31:00.003-04:00

Grape Stomper

David at the Dentist

Dramatic Gopher

Ceiling Cat

I love THESE images of just the scenery from famous internet memes. The people were taken out of each environment and we're left with just the surroundings. The creator of MEME SCENERY likens his images to PORN SANS PEOPLE.

Click the image to see the originating meme.

REVOLUTION

2009-06-02T22:48:00.002-04:00

Waaaaa I can't wait for the future! Now sucks! I'm sure this technology will be glitchy for a while but when it gets good it's going to be amazing.

Via JEREMY.

MILLICENT WEEMS

2009-06-02T01:09:00.010-04:00

I finally watched Synecdoche, New York. Lovely. The best part was Diane Wiest reading Caden his final blocking notes. I adore that woman. This is heartbreaking writing and she delivers it perfectly:

You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone...As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time.

But I have a theory about the film that I can't find on the internet. The person who watched the movie with me disagreed with my theory, too. That theory is this: That the film Synecdoche, New York, was the document of the play done by the real Caden - the Caden who is not in the movie but exists in the meta-level above the movie - or real life (or perhaps an imagined real life that doesn't exist in reality but exists in relation to the film). It's almost four-dimensional.

If Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden, and he hires Sammy to play Caden in the play, my theory is that the original Caden hired the Philip Seymour Hoffman version of Caden to play him in the movie. It's difficult to explain meta-referential theories, but I think that makes sense. So since the Synecdoche film that you watch is a version of theatre itself, it can afford those bizarre instances of the surreal - like Hazel's house being perpetually on fire or the self-help book re-writing itself or the way time passes. Maybe in Caden's "real" life (outside of the movie), Hazel died in a fire and he uses a house on fire in the film as dramatic license to enhance the emotion of the Hazel story-line. That kind of Brechtian distanciation and absurdism only calls to attention the formal qualities of film and pulls you out of the story, so to me it makes sense that the Philip Seymour Hoffman level of Caden's life in the film isn't real either - which it isn't because it's in a film that we're watching.

To give more credence to that theory, I also noticed that a lot of scenes that were supposed to be the original life of Caden (especially those with Hazel, like when they're in the car outside her burning house) seemed to be lit very much like a play - specifically like the Death of a Salesman play that Caden mounts at the beginning of the film. And finally, Samantha Morton is a fantastic actress, so the fact that she seems to be a really shitty actress at the beginning makes me think that she was supposed to appear to be an actress playing the "real" Hazel who exists outside of the film.

Yes? No?

DOUBLE THIEF

2009-06-01T23:49:00.001-04:00

ÉMILE

2009-06-01T18:19:00.009-04:00

One of my favourite photographers, BETTINA HOFFMANN, just had an installation up at the AGO. I think it's down now but you can see the videos on her site - the piece is called ÉMILE.

She is Canadian but I don't think of her as a Canadian artist. I really think her work is so exciting and progressive in how it straddles that line between art directed and believable. It's like Lukas Moodysson's film SHOW ME LOVE or the TV series Big Love - the art direction and casting and styling are so perfect and right and down to the detail but feel effortless and completely untouched - almost to the point of looking tasteless or devoid of aesthetic. I'm not sure how much Hoffmann "art directs" her staged portraits, but from the effort she appears to put into perfectly staging her subjects I would assume that she takes control of the mise-en-scène as well (if I may be a douche-bag and say "mise-en-scène").

I think I like her so much because her aesthetic is so much in opposition to the Canadian aesthetic of faux-awkward, tritely-contrived, flash-lit, over-styled, under-evaluated, over-appreciated photographs that we've all been over-exposed to. I mean, JIN-ME YOON'S series was great but we have to stop trying to recreate that, am I right?

SCALE MODELS IN FAKE LIFE

2009-06-01T18:04:00.002-04:00

ALEX MCLEOD is unbelievable. His/her 3D creations are breathtaking. I looked at them for a long time until I realized they weren't actual models, but CG renderings. So fantastic - the fun/frivolous scenes imbued with death or disaster or dripping somethings are really great. Dark without having to scream "Hey look I'm dark!" That's not easy to do.

Just click "art" at the top and use your arrows to scroll through the pieces.

Alex is also showing at Switch Contemporary from June 8-July 5 - opening June 11th 7-10 - 2217 Dundas Street West in Toronto (at Roncesvalles).

QUAND JE SERAIS RICHE

2009-05-31T01:30:00.003-04:00

Je vais t'acheter cette petite île.

NOD

2009-05-27T12:49:00.003-04:00

The Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains video Who Do We Care For was just nominated for an MMVA for Indie Video of the Year. Click HERE to watch the video, click HERE to see the nominees.

Weeee! Wish us luck!

AGGRESSION THERAPY

2009-05-22T13:12:00.003-04:00

I made these worlds but they're too pretty. The only problem is that it takes like 5 hours to render a 10 second animation on my computer, so by the time they've finished rendering I can't spend another 5 hours fixing them. Excuses excuses. I think I need some violence in my worlds. Something darker. TBD.

WTF INDEED

2009-05-22T13:03:00.003-04:00

The Mac's Convenience Store VIRAL CAMPAIGN that I did some spots for in 2007 won a bunch of Golds at THE BESSIES last night. I really truly don't understand how they're still eligible for awards, but whatever. I'll just throw it on my trophy shelf of prizes that don't mean anything anymore and didn't do me any good to begin with.

OH YEAH

2009-05-22T12:48:00.003-04:00

This series of stills from Jon Rafman's KOOL-AID MAN IN SECOND LIFE are everything I hope to be. The PROMO VIDEO is amazing.

Via I HEART PHOTOGRAPH.

THE PRELUDE TELLS OF PAIN, NOT REVERIE

2009-05-22T01:28:00.005-04:00

It hurts, but he doesn't show it. I could learn a thing or two from Chopin. Sometimes the day just resolves in a minor chord no matter how good things are.

Jag vill se du när sol stigningarna , och äsch hur den vilja stigning min vännerna.

BEST BET

2009-05-14T02:29:00.005-04:00

The show I'm in with ROBYN, LINDSAY, and KATYA was named a BEST BET for Contact 2009 by Toronto Life! Ya!

It's up till the 30th of May if you haven't been yet:

XEXE Gallery
642 Richmond Street West

Wednesday-Saturday, 12PM-6PM

HEBRIDEAN SUN

2009-05-14T02:12:00.005-04:00

Uh-oh. I'm in a sensitive cycle. Mercury's in retrograde till the 30th and all I want is Jane Siberry and a warm set of arms. I know that's repulsive, which makes me crawl into folk and fetal that much more. Alela Diane will have to do for now. *Sigh* says Charlie Brown. I'll bust out again soon enough.

QUEL HONNEUR

2009-05-12T13:12:00.004-04:00

The Sebastien Grainger video is featured on PROMO MAGAZINE'S SITE, currently sharing the page with Filthy Dukes and Dizzee Rascal. Not bad!

Here's the PERMALINK to the post in case it's gone from the home page.

CATCHUP

2009-05-11T20:41:00.003-04:00

I've been a busy booger lately. Last night, however, I got to see my friend HUBERT DAVIS' new documentary Invisible City. Hubert's first feature-length doc was screened at HOT DOCS, and it won the Best Canadian Feature award at the festival.

Once, Mikey and Kendell's friends boasted they'd never get in trouble and never sell drugs, but by age 15 half of them have done just that. In this beautifully shot and intimate documentary, Oscar-nominated director Hubert Davis reaches beyond his own story-so eloquently captured in Hardwood-to follow two charismatic Regent Park boys as they make the transition from youth to manhood. Each runs into trouble with police, the courts, and school authorities despite having mothers whose love is palpable and Morgan's heroic attempt at mentoring. With none of the privileges of wealth and all of the prejudices of poverty, with absent fathers, a landscape of half-demolished buildings, vacant lots and systemic racism stacked against them, the boys struggle to turn their lives around.

It was a beautiful and quiet film surrounded by the impending destruction of the subjects' homes and community. I was so proud of Hubert for making this happen - he has been working on it since shortly after I met him in 2005. I can't imagine the determination it took to realize such a long project.

Last night was the final screening of the film but look out for it in the future. See the trailer HERE.

BREAKDOWN

2009-05-05T17:24:00.006-04:00

Lindsay Page

Katyuska Doleatto

Robyn Cumming

Mesies

I have new work on display. Here's the info:

BREAKDOWN
Part of the CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival

XEXE Gallery
624 Richmond St. W.

May 7-30
Opening Thursday May 7, 6-9PM
Gallery Hours - Wednesday to Saturday 12-6PM

Breakdown features a group of photo-based artists exploring the construction of deconstructions. In relation to the CONTACT theme of Still Revolution, each artist responds directly to the constantly evolving yet historically reminiscent nature of the still image. Robyn Cumming constructs the climax of moments of chaos and trauma; the resulting photographs depicting an abstracted state of flux, serving as both the event and its aftermath. In looking at the images one simultaneously experiences the performative nature of the presented scenarios as well as the very act of constructing and photographing them. Katyuska Doleatto creates monochromatic still lifes with the use of decomposing elements. Rather than mimic the opulence and seduction of traditional still life, she instead creates minimalist compositions that beg scrutiny; each specimen seems to undulate though it is laden with the ineludible colour and shape of death.

Lindsay Page presents a building/un-building machine that exemplifies tedium and redundancy. Through the use of slide projectors, a now archaic technology, her photo-based installation loops viewers into the futility of an act that can never extend or develop beyond it self. Shooting with a stereoscopic lens, Graydon Sheppard creates animated, photo-based GIFS, which exhibit a simultaneous spatial construction and deconstruction. Each piece oscillates between a still image and one that moves forward and back with an unnatural and stunted sense of time. Both the images and their content give the impression of a quality, that when sought out, seems to disappear.

Statement for the series New Rituals:

The animations in this series were made by taking photographs with a stereoscopic lens and then alternating the left and right channels from the photograph in rapid succession. This technique creates perspective and gives the illusion of three dimensionality. The content of these images came from the desire to make magical scenes that fit that illusion. Taking cues from mystic, religious, and occult iconography I fabricated these tableaus in urban settings.

It's so easy to forget that we live and experience in three dimensions. 3D technology is making a huge comeback. Filmmakers are going to great lengths to create the illusion of depth that we can experience simply by looking around. In that frame of reference, these images become a strange contradiction. They are simultaneously flat and deep, frozen and frenetic. The kinetic energy is tangible and gives the illusion that the subjects could break free and burst into motion at any second.

In looking at these GIFs we can switch back and forth from remembering that they are two dimensional images projected onto a flat wall while believing the experience of depth. It's like looking at a drawing of a cube which switches in or out depending on what we let our mind's eye perceive. In the same way, we can perceive the rituals to be deep when really there is nothing behind them. The man in the cloak in a Christ-like position appears to be floating in the air, but it is easily understood that in reality he is just jumping. These photographs constantly construct and deconstruct themselves in form and in content; they continually collapse upon themselves.

Stereoscopy is hardly a new practice, but the advent and popularity of these GIFs in digital culture today recontextualizes the technique and revolutionizes the medium by doing away with the necessity of a viewing contraption (such as 3D glasses). As an artist who works in both time-based and plastic mediums, this is my missing link between photography and film. It's my zoetrope, even if it's not real.

I'm really excited about this show and flattered to be showing with Lindsay, Robyn, and Katya. I've looked up to them since we were in school and they've all done amazing things, so I hope you'll be able to come to the show!

There will be DVDs of the series that you can buy for $30. They play in any DVD player and are nice, affordable pieces of digital art you can have on when you're not watching Showgirls.

OPENING THURSDAY

2009-04-28T16:05:00.002-04:00

New Work: It's Almost Like You're Here
Where: 107 Shaw Gallery - 107 Shaw Street Toronto
When: Thursday April 30, 2009 - 8PM-11PM
What: Projected GIFs for Love'r Magazine

See you there.

I also have another opening for Contact next Thursday at Xexe Gallery for which I'll post the details soon.