In 19th century France, Paris Salons were the predominant way in which the bourgeoisie could view art. The Salons were heavily censored, as they were juried by the Academy of Fine Art. Pieces that were rejected by the Academy–pieces that didn’t uphold the standards of what constituted as ‘traditional’ art–were displayed in the Salon des Refusés. As a result, the Salon des Refusés of 1863 housed the works of many important Impressionist and Realist painters.
With this at the forefront of my mind, I had certain assumptions about what I would find at the Queer Art Festival’s Salon des Refusés, co-presented by Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium. I was surprised to discover that Little Sister’s was, in fact, a sex shop. The show itself consisted of a single line of photographs hung on a wall above some objects depicting male and female figures performing erotic and sensual acts–nothing like the Salon I had expected to visit.
When Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium was established in 1983, it sold banned magazines and books to the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities of Vancouver. Since then, Little Sister’s has become a landmark case for the Supreme Court of Canada in the fight against censorship and discrimination; the history of the shop itself can be seen as avant-garde. Once I realized this, it became increasingly obvious that the exhibition wasn’t meant to be a literal translation of the original Salon; instead, it represents the values and intellectual freedom associated with the Salon des Refusés. Salons–whether they take place in a sex shop or not–challenge the way in which viewers engage with art by placing it into an unexpected context.
Just as Impressionist painters began to observe the world using light and colour, Salons provide visitors with an opportunity to alter their perceptions of how art ‘should’ be viewed. The viewer’s gaze shifts from a pair of handcuffs to a black and white photograph of a man in bed, then back to a 16” double dong. In this way, looking at sex objects and looking at art become parallel acts, such that ‘art’ is translated into the vernacular. In this context, art becomes widely accessible in a way that the works displayed in the traditional Paris Salons never were.
Salon des Refusés runs until August 7 at Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium. For a full listing of Queer Arts Festival events, check out the festival website.
When I first met international Queer performance artist Coral Short at the Queer Arts Festival’s opening art party, she was wearing boxing shorts and a determined expression. Donning her gloves, she walked onto stage and began to perform her opening piece, Stop Beating Yourself Up, a literal boxing match fought entirely–and mercilessly–against herself. When I met Short a few days later for our interview, she was a radically different person. Relaxed, smiling, and as I discovered later, a little concussed, Short was nothing like the fierce fighter I remembered from a few nights ago.
As we talked performance, meditation, and travel over afternoon coffee, I realized that Short is actually both of these people: open and friendly, but also strong and, honestly, intimidating. Despite her gentle nature, Short clearly has no problem being ruthless when it comes to what really matters: creating powerful, boundary-pushing art.
Coral Short performs Stop Beating Yourself Up, photo by Katie Stewart
SAD Mag: You first performed Stop Beating Yourself Up in 2013 at Edgy Women in Montreal. In a recent interview with Daily Xtra, you said that you chose to add some modifications to the piece for this year’s performance: decreasing the length from the original three hours to one and keeping a paramedic on hand. Why did you choose to perform the piece again, if it was so damaging the first time?
Coral Short: I actually never wanted to do this piece again, but Artistic Director SD Holman, through the General Manager, Elliott Hearte, really wanted me to do the piece and offered to fly me out here. And my little sister Amber just had a baby–the first baby in the Short family, so I said, “Okay, I’m going to do this for this nephew.”
SM: You mean, beat yourself up for her child?
CS: Basically! After [the performance] I sent my sister a text that said, “This will make a good story one day, but my head really hurts.”
SM: Did you get anything new out of repeating your performance? Has your original intention or relationship to the piece changed since 2013?
CS: I think it did. The first time I did it, I didn’t do it with full body awareness. Since that time I’ve been to three vipassanas–ten day silent retreats–and I have a daily meditation practice. Being more inside my body than I used to, [the performance] was more impactual on the cellular structure than it did originally. Each time has been a ritual, but I think this [time] was more like a closure: “I will stop doing this now–stop doing this very literal performance–stop beating myself up.” We all need to move forward from this internal struggle, myself included!
It’s also really, really hard on the audience. This performance, people are more with me than any other performance I’ve ever done. They’re horrified, but they’re with me. There’s blood spurting out of me, but people try to stay the course with me. Psychologically, it’s really hard on people. I can’t make eye contact with them, so I have to look at the wall or the cameras or the floor. I’m a channel for the audience–a visceral symbol for the struggle inside themselves.
They want to protect me–they want to stop me. But no one does. When I first did the piece in 2013, I was asked by my curator, “What if someone stops you?” And I said, “It will just become part of the piece.” But no one stopped me then, and no one stopped me now. I think the audience becomes transfixed with a hypnotic morbid fascination.
Photo by Katie Stewart
SM: Do you think that’s because it’s art, or do you think that’s just human nature?
CS: I think there’s a “This is art” thing going on. But, I think if someone would have tried to stop me, I would have stopped. I think all it would take is just one person.
I think people almost want to see it play out. If you look back across humanity, or to Game of Thrones, there’s always been a love of fighting and blood. The fighting pits, the colosseum, the beheadings –I think there’s an element of humanity that wants to see that. Blood is powerful.
SM: In addition to performing at the festival’s opening party, you also curated a film night this year called TRIGGER WARNING. How did you find the “fearless Queer video art” for that event?
CS: I travel a lot. I have about ten home bases. I move with a lot of ease in the world due to the privilege of being a triple passport holder. I have all these different communities that I have lived and worked in, so I meet so many more creators than the average person. While I’m moving, I talk to other curators, interact with other festivals, other artists, everywhere I go. I come across incredible filmmakers some of whom I have been working with for almost a decade. I’m part of a huge Queer network of cultural producers in Asia, North America and Europe who I can reach out to at any time on the internet. We are all there for each other.
Photo by Katie Stewart
SM: And how did you choose which ones to include? What qualified the videos as too triggering–or not triggering enough–for the event?
CS: It’s actually really hard to find triggering work. I cut out pieces that I found problematic in terms of race and trans issues. I didn’t want anyone to feel unwelcome in the space. In the end, I created a bill that I felt comfortable with and I felt other people would be comfortable with, but there were definitely pieces that push the limit in terms of sexuality.
SM: Were there a lot of strong reactions?
CS: Well, actually it’s funny, I feel like my bill was not triggering enough. Perhaps I have to try harder! There was blood and piss and someone kissing their parents and performance art on the verge of self harm. But it was a fine line, because I didn’t want to make anyone feel so uncomfortable that they would walk off in a bad state alone into the world.
SM: What’s been your experience as someone who works both with film and performance? Do you think people react very differently to the two art forms?
CS: I think people are wary of performance art, because they feel that it’s an unpredictable medium–which it is – that is the joy of it! A lot of my video curations make performance art more palatable in a way. And video makes it possible to get all these artists with dynamic personalities from different locations on one bill. That’s why I love video: all that talent within three minutes. It’s amazing. For example: Morgan M Page, Eduardo Resrepo, and local artist Jade Yumang.
Photo by Katie Stewart
SM: In that same Daily Xtra interview, you refer to Vancouver culture as “very PC compared to the east coast,” and in another interview with Edgy Women, you describe Montreal as “one of the few remaining metropolises that is affordable to live cheaply and create art.” Vancouver culture receives a lot of this sort of criticism–among the well known, of course, is the Economist‘srecent inclusion of Vancouver in the list of “mind-numbingly boring” cities. Do you think our attitude will ever change, or are we forever doomed to be small-minded, unaffordable and ultimately, boring?
CS: I feel like the Vancouver art community is thriving these days! There’s been a much needed show of city support: a bunch of money given to VIVO and the art organizations in that area. There seems to be some new stuff happening; there’s always some great work. I always like to find out what’s happening here–who the new upcoming artists are, like Emilio Rojas, Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling.
Photo by Katie Stewart
SM: Obviously you’re familiar with the theme of this year’s festival: drawing the line. As a performer and artist, you’ve crossed many lines: from hole-puppet protests to physical self-abuse, you don’t seem afraid to “go too far” when it comes to your craft. This might be cliche, but where (if ever) do you draw the line? And why?
CS: When I was a young artist, I used to repeat some kind of mantra that went something like this: to keep pushing through my limits to go to the other side. I really wanted that to be my work: to not be afraid of anything. Push it as far as you can go and then push it farther. That’s where it begins and where my practice has grown – when I take risks and walk my own path.
But my artistic practice has changed since I did vipassana. I’ve started to make places for people to sit down, because people want to relax; it’s a really fast-paced life. So I made a giant, portable nest. I give people rides with these brown, velvet cushions while they hold this egg, and they become very birdlike. People love to sit in it. I’ve also started making this incredible earth furniture that is opulently growing with plants on radical faerie sanctuary land in Vermont and at IDA. I’m building places for people to repose, relax and be comfortable.
Photos courtesy of Nikol Mikus
SM: Is this experience of comfort something you’re trying to communicate in your art? Is that your intention?
CS: I think it just kind of happened. I have almost 15 years of sobriety, and each year I grow into my body and cellular structure a little more. That’s coming through in my work. It’s all tied into meditation and slowing down. The Queer scene is soaked in substances and lack of self-awareness, so living inside our bodies as queers is revolutionary. Self-love is radical.
The Vancouver Queer Arts Festival runs from July 23 – August 7. Event listings are available on the festival website. For more information about Coral Short, follow her on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her website.
Party Tricks by Elliat Albrecht. Press play and begin.
He lit up like a used car lot. Like an amusement park. Like a chandelier shop. Like an exit sign. Like an incoming call. Like a homecoming crowd. Like a fifty year smoker. Like a birthday cake. We had one week.
Wednesday. He collected other people’s letters from thrift stores and kept them in boxes by his bed where he read them when he couldn’t sleep. His insomnia depended not at all on the earth’s rotation or what he ate, but entirely on the content of the news on the radio on the way home from work. Each time a broadcaster announced a tragedy without really hearing what they were saying, he sighed and one more tiny wrinkle appeared above his brow.
Monday. He liked to go for breakfast in the middle of the night. I looked at him across the table. He took a sip of water.
“My mother though,” he said, finally, “is an interesting story. She had me late in life and worked until she was old.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Mostly in restaurants, basement bars and at a factory outside of Detroit. That’s where she met my dad.” He didn’t offer more on the subject.
The table was chipped and sticky with syrup. I watched him fold and unfold his hands.
“What kind of factory?”
“They produced a certain type of drainage system used on pleasure yachts. Something for the
plumbing in the galley I think. It was all shipped to the coast.”
I told him that my grandparents had a sailboat that slowly circled a different Great Lake each summer.
“We grew up across the border from one another,” I said. “In different decades though, I guess.
Maybe that explains why we speak so similarly.”
“Do we?” he asked. “I hadn’t noticed. It seems like the only place where you hear regional accents anymore are cable talk shows.”
Saturday. I met him at a dinner party for the employees of a sleep clinic. The hosts were friends of my parents to whom I was introduced by e-mail before I left home that summer. He sat next to me in the dining room. He wore a white shirt and told me that nightmares account for six percent of dreams for those with normal vision, but twenty-five percent of the dreams of the blind. I dropped my fork on the floor and he passed me his. The generation gap closed when our hands touched. I told him the story of the Russian royals in hiding. He had a sister named Anastasia. Someone turned up dance music on the stereo down the hall. The guests wanted to stay up all night.
Tuesday. We lay on my bed flipping through a teen magazine talking about pop-feminism.
“The problems of Miley Cyrus pale in comparison to those of the women who make her clothes,” I said. He nodded and said he was dismayed that young people had already forgotten the revolution.
“Which revolution?” I asked dumbly. He looked over at me and launched into a tirade about the inevitable failure of inflated regimes. Something about Rome. Something about America. He performed his monologue on self destruction with good rhythm. I swear some of it rhymed.
Sometimes his anger was almost a sonnet. I zoned out.
When he finished, I told him that failure was the most fertile circumstance for possibility. Just after the moment of collapse, I pointed out, new realities are forced to life.
“There’s no organization in that,” he said.
“Does there have to be?”
“Always,” he said. “Humankind is a collection of impulses and habits and requires systems of arrangement to sustain.”
“William Blake said he must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s,” I answered. “Don’t you think life without risk is boring?”
“Tomb follows womb,” he said, and flipped the page. “It’s all the same in the end.”
Friday. He had an audacious hobby of writing personal ads for other people whom he thought were lonely. Sometimes the descriptions were grossly exaggerated, sometimes slightly undersold and sometimes right on the money. Once in a while, he’d open the paragraph with a revealing factoid or trait that would ultimately prove to be the most important part of a relationship.
“Jean gives up an average of forty-two minutes into an argument. She retreats into the bedroom where she would prefer to be left alone while you microwave your dinner. Early forties, loves to hike and try new things.”
He sent them to the local paper with photos attached of his beloved lonely hearts (and he really did do it out of love, he cared for them like kids alone at recess) taken at New Years Eve parties where a heavy flash startled their features but evened complexions in a flattering way.
Thursday. Once before I fell asleep, I left the door unlocked. He arrived with Pop Rocks, put them on his tongue and kissed me. I thought that was what fireworks tasted like. Sugary, blue.
Saturday. He was probably a genius but had a limited repertoire of moves. After he invited me to the amusement park, he forgot and took someone else. I wasn’t jealous, just mildly surprised by his laziness. I forgave it for the time that he told me his party trick was sitting at the piano at the end of the night, very drunk, a cigarette dangling from his mouth but I can’t remember the rest. Maybe something about sliding the keys. He pointed out that the figs in the backyard were ripe the last time I saw him. I sent him home with a box of four or five juicy fruits wrapped in paper. He told me later that they burst on the way home.
I’d never heard of Mungo Thomson before last Tuesday, when I stepped inside the air-conditioned lobby of the Contemporary Art Gallery for a break from Vancouver’s heatwave. In that cool recluse, I discovered Mungo Thomson: Time, People, Money, Crickets—a stunning compilation of some of the LA artist’s latest work—and now I can’t get his name, or the exhibit, out of my mind.
Time, People, Money, Crickets experiments with sound, film, print and space to create an interactive gallery experience. The exhibit features several large-scale mirror works from Thomson’s TIME series, a musical score based on the chirping of crickets (Crickets, 2012-2013), and my personal favourite: a 132-page collection of photographs of gallery visitors viewing seemingly invisible artworks (People, 2011).
June 25, 2001 (How the Universe Will End), 2012 March 6, 1995 (When Did the Universe Begin?), 2012 Enamel on low-iron mirror, poplar and anodized aluminum, Installation view, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
Expertly curated by Nigel Prince, the exhibition cleverly inverts roles of artist and visitor; photographer and model; creator and observer. Upon entering a large, white room, I found myself surrounded by mirrors emblazoned with the iconic TIME Magazine logo. The mirrors faced each other, creating an unending string of reflections. It was hard not to be self-conscious in that space; standing amid a hundred selfies, there were so many versions of myself that I began to feel claustrophobic. The experience was also distancing; I could feel my identity, my entire concept of self, becoming fainter and fainter with each subsequent reflection. Mirrors—I realized—reflect, but they also warp and obscure.
People, 2011 Full color magazine, 132 pages. Courtesy the artist.
A collection of open cardboard boxes stood, seemingly neglected, among the mirrors. Go ahead, grab one, a gallery attendant urged me. Inside was People: a magazine without words, filled with photographs of galleries without art. All that was left, of course, were the people themselves, caught in the act of observation—an act which, when the image has been removed, appears stranger and stranger with each turn of the page. Thomson did phenomenal work editing the photographs, and the effect is very striking. It was an eerie experience—observing people observing things—one that became even eerier when I realized that I, too, was being observed—not by others, but by my own, unending reflection.
December 26, 1969 (Is God Coming Back to Life?), 2012 February 5, 1996 (Is Anybody Out There?), 2013 Enamel on low-iron mirror with poplar and anodized aluminum. Installation view, Mungo Thomson: Time, People, Money, Crickets, SITE Santa Fe, 2013 Photo: Kate Russell
I ended my visit in a small room, almost hidden from view in a nook under the stairs. There I found Untitled (Margo Leavin Gallery, 1970–) (2009), a Super-16mm stop-motion film animation that flips through all the contacts in the business card rolodexes of Los Angeles’ Margo Leavin Gallery (founded in 1970 and closed in 2012). There was something very soothing about the sound of the softly shuffling slides and the repetitive nature of the footage; something meditative about revisiting this now archaic organizational tool. But there was also something disturbing about watching the index cards fall—it was so easy to forget what these cards represent. Before me, I realized, were hundreds of people, each with their own stories, relationships, roles: artists, framers, electricians, collectors, customs agents, florists, critics, exterminators. Untitledis not just an examination of some outdated technology, but an archive of real, three dimensional human beings. Just as the TIME mirrors emphasize and obscure the identity of the person they reflect, these index cards seemed to both celebrate and overlook the individuality of the people they document.
Shaken but inspired, I left the Contemporary Art Gallery and stepped back out into the July blaze. I noticed a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the AC.
Organized by Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver and SITE Santa Fe, Time, People, Money, Crickets runs until August 30.
Imagine this: you’re a Vancouver comic—and dang! You’re pretty good. In fact, you were recently a Yuk Yuks fast tracker (a program where Vancouver’s finest up and comers are hand-picked to work consistent nights, among other perks). Night after night you’re getting out around town and killing it.
The catch? You also get up in the morning and go to your nine to five job. What I’m saying is, in this particular scenario, you may be funny but you put your pants on one leg at time like anyone else and you know it. In real life, this mix of talent and humility combines to make one Stuart Jones.
This month I got to chat with Stuart, a real life nice guy (please refer to his joke about why this may mean you’re not sleeping with him) who loves food but sensibly draws the line at dog. That part actually didn’t make the interview cut, but trust me, it’s true.
Photo Courtesy of Stuart Jones
Stuart Jones: I’m just gonna’ grab a coffee.
Kristine Sostar McLellan: You drink coffee this late?
SJ: Well, not regularly. [Dramatic pause] But on a Friday?
KSM: Cut loose!
SJ: I’ve been pretty wiped. Waking up early and then being on shows at night.
KSM: How often a week do you go up?
SJ: Two or three times a week. On a regular week. On a good week, four or five.
KSM:And you’ve been doing this with a full time job for how long?
SJ: Almost a year.
KSM:Do you remember your first set?
SJ: I was talked into it by some people at work. This was in Kelowna and a colleague was going to try. I thought, I’ll give it a shot. I had a few topics written down, but some people are just natural performers.
KSM:Are you?
SJ: Half and half. I think of all these people who are way more charismatic on stage.
KSM: Your material is probably funnier the way you deliver it.
SJ: There’s a way to perform it… But I’ve also found that it seems like a cheap trick if you put too much energy into it. Because a lot of the time it seems funnier if someone is screaming.
KSM:Totally. Okay, back to the beginning. Was this something you thought about before?
SJ: Sort of. I had a few premises, but it was pretty nerve-wracking the first time. I had six or seven people there for support, and the other comics were supportive.
KSM: I think that comics are generally supportive to first timers here in Vancouver, too.
SJ: Depends on your material.
KSM:How?
SJ: Well, there’s quite a few newbies and all their jokes are just shock. It’s like, this is what you find funny? Can’t you find humour in something else? If someone’s like that, or extremely arrogant, they aren’t going to get much support.
KSM:How soon did you do it again?
SJ: The week after. It was a cool show hosted and run by Tim Nutt who’s an awesome comedian in Kelowna. I remember watching him on the Comedy Network in middle school, so it was really cool that he was there. And he’s got a great laugh. If you can make him laugh, it’s awesome.
KSM:Who are your other favourites?
SJ: I like Doug Stanhope. Bill Burr. I like Brian Regan. He’s like as far as you get here, and Stanhope’s way over there [motions a spectrum]. Regan is totally squeaky clean. That’s his great appeal.
KSM:What do you think you are?
SJ: I never found dirty stuff to be too funny.
KSM:Do you ever enjoy that kind of comedy?
SJ: It has to be clever. A lot of comics have great admiration for someone who can be so funny, and be completely clean.
KSM:There’s an interesting fixation on that. Like how Jerry Seinfeld feels he’s let himself down if he swears because there was another, better solution. But sometimes it just feels good, and it’s funny, and whatever! [Laughs] So what if audiences laugh when you yell or swear? What’s so wrong with that?
SJ: Well that’s the argument. Your goal is to make people laugh.
KSM: I think that anything, if it’s funny, is kind of worth it.
SJ: My friend Amy has this great bit. Both of her parents are clowns, so she’s got this bit about the first time her parents had a safe sex talk to her. It ends with her pulling out a balloon animal balloon and going, ‘so they gave me one of these and said to be safe. I had some fucked up expectations.’ She thought it was kind of cheap to use a prop, but I think it was necessary for the joke. It’s not cheap.
KSM:It’s funny because you’re supposed to be fearless and able to tackle anything. Then there are these weird, arbitrary lines about what is and isn’t okay. Is it more about worrying what other comics think?
SJ: I don’t know. You don’t want to deface the profession of comedian.
KSM:Yes.
SJ: If you’ve been on stage ten times and you’re doing just this horrible stuff. [mocking voice] Oh freedom of speech! Don’t call yourself a comedian. It’s the same reason I can’t go to a music open mic, strum a guitar not knowing what I’m playing, then smash it on the stage after and be like, I’m basically The Who.
KSM: Tell me about your worst show.
SJ: Hmmm. I have a temper.
KSM: Do you? I didn’t know that!
SJ: I’ve gotten very angry on stage before.
KSM:Tell me about that reaction.
SJ: I can tell you what my worst heckle was. It wasn’t even like a true heckle.
KSM: But it rattled you.
SJ: It was a fundraiser in Kelowna. I was doing a joke and a woman in the front row turns to her friend and goes, so am I driving you home? Like, they’re already planning how they can get out of there. It was, ohhhhh, awful.
KSM: I was about to say I love that… [Laughs] But I’m sorry that happened.
SJ: No, it’s funny in retrospect.
KSM:It’s funny because it’s totally different things than people expect that leave you feel feeling gutted.
SJ: Other heckles, like, you suck! They’re like, whatever. Or, you’re not funny! It’s like, well, some people think I am. So there.
KSM: What’s the best way that you’ve dealt with it?
SJ: One time I asked this person who making a lot of noise if they were a smoker and they said yes. So I went, well, why don’t you go for a smoke?
KSM:That’s good! Most people don’t realize that heckling isn’t usually insults. It’s mostly people trying to be helpful. Like, I love that too! And you’re like, shhhhhh, you ruined my punchline.
SJ: And sometimes there are jokes where the entire premise, entire bits, can be thwarted by a quick, simple fact. The whole premise of the joke is wrong to begin with. And then I can’t enjoy the rest of the joke because it’s based on this false premise.
KSM:So you overthink things.
SJ: I find continuity errors.
KSM:But when it’s going fast, the audience doesn’t care. People seem to have an inherent interest in comedy. Actually, the question that I get asked most often is why I do it. What do you say to that?
SJ: I say it’s fun. It’s awesome. It’s a good creative outlet. You have to be creative somehow.
KSM: So what’s your end game?
SJ: I mean, I’m kind of a realistic person.
KSM:I can believe that…
SJ: Yeah. [Laughs] I don’t expect myself to get super famous. That’d be great, but, at this point I would just I would like to be able to live comfortably in Vancouver.
KSM:Off comedy?
SJ: I mean, if I could, and not be broke all the time. I just started a TFSA. [Laughs] I’m trying to play it smart. As a realistic goal, I would like to be able to keep my job and just do shows around BC. Get to Just For Laughs. That would be great.
KSM: I think that’s more than realistic. You will do that. So what, if anything, is off limits in comedy for you?
SJ: I don’t think anything is off limits. But I do think there has to be a joke, or something clever, or a point about it. It just has to be clever. Cause, if you’re doing something that is very edgy or controversial and you’re not making a good point, then you just look dumb.
KSM:I hear two things. It has to be funny and it has to make a good point.
SJ: Ideally. But that’s just my sense of humour. That’s just what I find funny. Some sort of opinion.
KSM:And continuity.
SJ: Yeah.
KSM: Okay, what’s one thing that you think people don’t know about standup.
SJ: I don’t want to say that it’s more rehearsed than people think, but to some people it looks like they’re making it up on the spot.
KSM: If you’re good, yeah, it looks like that. And what’s one thing that people don’t know about you.
SJ: I’m not a very interesting person. Hmmm, let’s see. I could list off a bunch of things. I’ve got really bad eyesight. I could burn things with my glasses. They’re like magnifying glasses. I’m a nerd, most people know that…
KSM: Something we don’t know, please.
SJ: I play magic cards. And I love pizza. Well, everyone knows that.
If you liked Stuart Jones as much as he loves pizza, you can catch him at Yuk Yuks where he will be advancing to the second round of the Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Competition in August.
“No. No. This––I have my money. Take my money. Take my goddamn money.”
They wouldn’t. A man came from the back room and stood beside the cashier; they both looked anxious as they tried to explain to the man with the money why. He crumpled a ten-dollar bill in his hand and then watched as it slowly opened in his palm.
“This ain’t fair. This ain’t no fuckin’ fair.” He whispered.
“We told you, we just can’t.”
A line of tears zigzagged down the man’s face before he staggered out of the store. The cashier and I shared no words as I paid for my beer.
For more, visit the Portraits of Brief Encounters website, or follow Cole Nowicki on Instagram or Twitter.
For the past seven years Vancouver has been home to the Queer Arts Festival. Originally a small community event, QAF has grown dramatically since it’s inception. It now celebrates a wide range of artistic expression—visual art exhibitions, musical performances, and workshops. Held at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre in downtown Vancouver, the festival continues to challenge gender and sexual norms through unabashed, intimate Queer art.
Must-Sees for the 2015 Queer Arts Festival
By Sad Mag
Queer catholic schoolgirls, musical queens, and everything in between—this year's festival is absolutely stacked. Finding it hard to choose? We've whittled things down to our five top picks, just for you.
TRIGGER: Drawing the Line in 2015
By Sad Mag
In 1990, a collection of Vancouver artists put together a boundary-pushing exhibit called “Drawing the Line”. Now, 25 years later, a curated exhibit of the same name pays honor to the spirit of the original project. The show pairs works by 19 different artists with ones from the 1990 exhibit.
Queerotica
By Sad Mag
Expect to be titillated by this evening of steamy, literary reads. Steeped in anti-censorship rhetoric—and of course, saucy scenarios—Queerotica is not to be missed!
Sister Mary’s a Dyke?!
By Sad Mag
This one woman show takes the classic coming of age story and queers it in a major way. Abby is a Catholic school girl who falls in love and is forced to reexamine everything she thought she knew. Drama, drama, drama!
A Queen’s Music: Reginald Mobley in Recital
By Sad Mag
Throughout history the amazing work of both gay composers and people of color has been nearly lost. In A Queen's Music, composer Reginald Mobley and musician Alexander Weimann stage some of the work that has been pushed aside for centuries.
Salon des Refusés
By Sad Mag
Not your grandma’s art exhibit! This community art show features a selection of explicit art by queer local talent. Its name pays homage to the Parisian Salon des Refusés of 1863. Held at Little Sister’s Book & Art Emporium, the exhibit is entirely by donation.
Still finding it hard to choose?
By Sad Mag
It's worth checking out QAF's Flex-Pass deal. Hit four shows for $69. Bring a friend (or three), or enjoy all four shows yourself—you deserve it!
The 2015 Queer Arts Festival runs from July 23 – August 7. For a full event listing, visit the QAF website.
Anders Nilsen is the Minneapolis-based cartoonist responsible for publishing a universally adored series of mini comics called Big Questions that features tiny birds with really deep thoughts on life. His newest book, Poetry is Useless, is a collection of images and doodles from the last several years of his personal sketchbooks. There are no birds in Poetry is Useless, but there are a lot of big questions—about art, why we make art, how we value it, and what it means to be an artist. Marc Bell is a Canadian cartoonist and fine artist who is perhaps most well-known for blurring the line between fine art and doodling. After four years of working in the art world, he’s made what everyone (who knows anything) is calling a “triumphant” return to the world of graphic narrative by publishing Stroppy—a madcap adventure tale about a song writing contest gone wrong. Stroppy also has thoughts on poetry.
Anders Nilsen by Anders Nilsen, Courtesy of Anders NilsenMarc Bell by Marc Bell, Courtesy of Marc Bell
Nilsen and Bell are at Lucky’s Comics in Vancouver on July 17th at 7:00 pm to launch their respective books. Shannon Tien from Sad Mag had the chance to talk to them about authenticity, capitalism, and self-help for writers, among other things. The best of their lengthy phone call is what follows:
Shannon Tien: Something that I think ties both of your books together is thinking about the process of creating art, or poetry specifically. How do your philosophies cross over or differ on this subject?
Anders Nilsen: Boy, that’s a tough one.
ST: It’s a heavy question to start with. I’m sorry.
AN: [laughing] I don’t know if I could do a capsule description of Marc’s philosophy. What do you think Marc?
Marc Bell: Well we made our books independently, but somehow they both ended up referencing poetry.
AN: That’s true.
MB: We did a tour together a few years ago so this is like a reunion tour…I don’t know how to answer that question either [laughing].
AN: I mean I think we both have a little off-the-cuff playfulness in our work. And probably a little—I don’t know how to put this—a little snottiness or something?
MB: Yeah we’re both sarcastic when we reference poetry.
I like writing poetry if I know it doesn’t have to be good. So for example I wrote Clancy the Poet’s poetry and that was super fun because I could do whatever I wanted and I didn’t have to worry if it was good or not. I could write reams and reams of Clancy’s poetry.
ST: But I love Clancy’s poetry!
MB: Right? It’s pretty good, in it’s way.
AN: I think it’s actually extremely deep.
But I think we’re both artists and we’ve both planted ourselves in that existence, but we’re both a little sceptical and like to make fun of ourselves…and the potential for being pretentious.
MB: Yeah and then I can’t exactly knock poetry so much because I do all these drawings and they have random text in them. They’re sort of poetry. Like my stuff is not that far from poetry really.
AN: Yeah, so I think we’re both sort of making fun of the thing we’re also actually doing.
MB: [laughing] Yeah, you got it.
AN: I actually sort of think of my book as my poetry collection, if there is such a thing, you know, making comics.
Clancy Recites a Poem from Stroppy by Marc Bell
ST: Ok. I guess I was thinking that Clancy, he’s a poet, and all his poetry ends up doing for him is…
MB: He’s sort of co-opted by the Schnauzers.
ST: Right. So it’s like the opposite of the idea that poetry can save you.
MB: He was against the song contest idea. He was against all of it. But I don’t want to ruin the end! There’s a twist to the story.
AN: Basically, poetry is a tool of the oppressor and we’re both in revolutionary mode against the aggressor. Right Marc?
MB: That’s it, exactly.
AN: Capitalism.
MB: Society!
Refer to Clancy’s poem called “Society”.
ST: Okay so this is more a question for Anders, but your book is fragments of your old sketchbooks. What ties the fragments together?
AN: Really the only thing that ties the fragments together is the fact that they all were in my sketchbooks. They were all just things that either kind of happened or ideas I had that were worth putting down but not worth turning into an actual book.
Poetry is Useless by Anders Nilsen
ST: And how many years back does it stretch?
AN: I think the oldest pieces in the book are probably from 2008. There are 22 or 24 books. There’s a funny thing about sketchbook collections because you know that they’re sort of bullshit a little. You know the artist is editing a little and not showing you the really crappy pages, which I’m not showing you either. So each of those notebooks, there’s maybe 6, 7, 8, or maybe 10 pages from each of them.
MB: We did a couple crappy pages in one of them.
AN: Yeah last time we went on tour together we made some crappy pages together and I didn’t show those. We promise to be better on this tour.
ST: Speaking of editing, what’s the point of leaving your editorial marks in the published version of your sketchbook?
AN: I try to maintain readability. So if there’s so much crossing out that it feels like it’s going to make it hard for the reader to understand what I’m writing, then I clean it up a little with Photoshop. But in general, it is my sketchbook so part of what may be appealing about it is the fact that it’s a record of me kind of thinking out loud, on the page. So the mistakes are an important part of that.
Also, part of that work is me responding to my own process. So as I’m doing a drawing and then it turns to shit, I sort of have this idea that I want to still turn that page into an interesting page if I can. So if it goes in a weird direction, I want to try to work within the stakes of those unexpected failures.
ST: One of your stick figures in the book asks how to maintain authenticity after the death of the author. Does this sketchbook have anything to do with that question?
AN: [laughing] Ah, you’re probably calling me out for not being as smart as I pretend to be.
Poetry is Useless by Anders Nilsen
ST: But it’s a good thing to think about.
AN: I mean, I sort of don’t believe in authenticity and, you know, the sketchbook has a sort of fake authenticity, as I was saying…you always wonder what’s getting edited out and you’re always getting this sort of idealized view of the artist’s supposed candid moments, which is partly why I’m showing the whole spread of the sketchbook, to show that I’m not picking and choosing the little bits, but the truth is I am. I am not showing the crappy pages. It is work for a finished book. So yeah I think authenticity is highly overrated.
ST: What gave you the idea to draw the back of people’s heads for their portraits? Are they people you know?
AN: Some of them are people I know, but a lot of times when I’m in an audience, like at a poetry reading [laughing], or other events with live speakers, I just want something for my eyes and my hands to do, so I’m drawing them. And also when I’m in public, I don’t always want people to notice, so it’s easier if they’re turned away from me a little bit. I guess I’m a little bit of a coward.
MB: A poet and a coward.
AN: All poets are cowards.
It’s sort of funny. People’s hairdos are really fascinating to draw, as are ears.
ST: I think because you can’t look at the back of your own head, it’s like the most vulnerable part of your appearance.
AN: Yeah sure. That’s a nice idea.
ST: So if poetry is dead, comics are…
AN: Um…stupid?
Actually comics are fucking awesome.
ST: What would you say Marc?
MB: STUPID!
ST: How was the transition moving back to narrative, Marc, after working in the art world for a while?
MB: It was difficult. I’ve mentioned this in a few interviews I think, but I was kind of scared and I started reading self-help books. The equivalent of a writer’s self-help, or if someone wants to get into the film or TV industry, this is the equivalent of self-help books, like books about writing screenplays. They sort of helped, I think.
ST: Do you mind me asking which ones?
MB: I wish I could remember the titles. One I looked at, it was very basic. It was just about the 20 different kinds of stories people tell.
AN: Which number is Stroppy?
MB: Oh man. I don’t even know if Stroppy…
AN: Maybe it’s 22.
MB: Maybe it’s 23. I made a new form of story for Stroppy.
AN: By the way my new graphic novel is going to be number 16, so…
Stroppy by Marc Bell
ST: Oh yeah? Is this book called STORY? Because I feel like I was reading the exact same book earlier this year when I was trying to write a novel.
MB: That could be it. Was it an orange book?
AN: Marc doesn’t care about titles. He only remembers the colours of books.
MB: Not interested in titles!
ST: No, mine was purple.
MB: Maybe it was a different edition! They were like the orange one didn’t sell so let’s throw purple on there. People LOVE purple.
Did it help you with your novel?
ST: No, not really.
MB: Well I actually wanted to try and find a formula to follow, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to do that.
AN: I’m trying to find a formula too. And I was thinking of inserting one of Hans Christen Andersen’s tales into my new graphic novel.
ST: Oh yeah! That would be great. He’s a weirdo. So the formula didn’t work out for you Marc. Did any other self-help books help you with building narrative?
MB: Oh no. There was one I was supposed to read…
AN: The Bible?
MB: [laughing] No. I never got around to reading the one I was supposed to read. I just started.
ST: Well, I think it turned out well. I like Stroppy.
Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber are the creative brains behind Pendula, an interactive art installation that uses the movement of swings to create music and projections, which premiered at Vancouver’s 2015 Jazz Festival. Nancy, the swing set builder, is a VJ, filmmaker and new media artist. Kiran, the music programmer, is a composer and performer whose artistic interests lay at the intersection of technology and music. Below, Sad Mag’s Shannon Tien talks to the duo about agency in art, teamwork, and the community value of swing sets.
Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber
Shannon Tien: Tell me about Pendula.
Nancy Lee: Pendula is a multimedia, audio-visual, interactive installation. We use both hardware and software to take the swinging motion and turn them into audio or visual parameters, which means their effects that can be seen and heard during our installation. Using swing sets.
ST: How did this idea come together? What was the inspiration behind it?
NL: I started building outdoor swing sets as a public interactive installation piece. And then I did an event where I installed 8 swing sets indoors during an electronic music night that I organized. And there I met Kiran for the first time–Kiran was there swinging on the swings. And at that time she thought, “Hey, maybe we could make this swing into an interactive piece.” I’d also had projections installed. At that time it wasn’t an interactive piece, I just had projections over the swing area.
And then we later met again at New Forms festival working as production assistant volunteers. And that’s when we had time to sit down and talk about the project and our vision for it. The swing set I had at the event wasn’t my full vision that I had for it in my mind. I wanted the projections to reflect the social interactions that happened within the swinging area.
Kiran Bhumber: Having seen the swings at Nancy’s party, not interactive, I was very inspired by the idea of making the visuals interactive and also adding audio elements [and a] musical performance element, which was amalgamated into the installation at Jazz Fest. We had a musical performance at the top of every hour where I played clarinet and we had a cellist and I programmed the swings to be an actual instrument and act as an effects pedal. We had the swings changing the sounds of these acoustic instruments.
Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber
ST: What was the timeline for this project to come to total fruition?
NL: About 8 months on and off.
ST: Can you tell me about the experience of performing it at Jazz Fest? Was anyone allowed to go in and swing?
NL: Yeah, after every performance, we invited people to come use the swing sets. And it was interesting, during the performance, because I’m playing the swings, it was interesting to see people’s facial expressions, how they reacted to the piece. You could see their “aha!” moments when they figured out what the swings were actually doing. I enjoyed seeing that moment.
ST: And how did you start working with swings? I’m just wondering because there used to be a public installation by my bus stop in Montreal where swings played different musical tones.
NL: Oh yeah I’ve heard of that! I started working with swings because I like climbing trees and I like building things out doors. Swings are kind of an easy thing to build. You just need rope. And I was dumpster diving and salvaging construction wood that I would use for swing seats. It costs very little to build a swing and the kind of return you get for the community or user is so much greater than the financial cost of building it. It is a really great investment for the community to build swing sets. You generate so much joy from it.
Usually we’re used to art installations being behind glass or a “do not touch area”. There’s a very definitive boundary between the observer and the art piece. And with this swing set, people do come up to us and ask, “Are we allowed to touch it?” But when people can play on the swing set they kind of become the piece. And some of the people who were using the swing sets, they kind of understood that, you know, “I’m becoming a part of the installation.”
KB: And also the addition of individuals on each swing. The piece is going to be different depending how many people are on the swings. So, the social adaptation and amalgamation of their swinging motion to create more aspects of the piece.
NL: We have three swing sets, so they’re kind of a three-piece ensemble. And [the people] all play the swings in a different way so the collective audio-visual output is different every single time.
ST: Did anybody get really into it at Jazz Fest?
NL: I think at the Jazz Fest, because of the setting, people were into figuring out the swings. People tested out different things. I think with public art installations, people are still pretty shy. People were more into figuring out how it worked than playing it as an instrument.
Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber
ST: Is this the first time you’ve set this piece up?
NL: It’s the first time that we’ve done the three swing sets with the audio and visual.
KB: It’s been challenging incorporating the audio into a space that will allow it. So there’s no sound bleed. That’s an issue we had with Jazz Fest as well. The previous installs have been just visual because of that.
ST: How did you overcome that challenge at Jazz Fest?
KB: We got bigger speakers. ST: Have you two collaborated before?
NL: This is our first collaboration together, but this is just the beginning of something. We plan to do more interactive musical pieces and performance pieces as well. We have so many ideas in our head that we would definitely like to explore in the future.
ST: Do you have any upcoming events?
KB: I just had my upcoming event today actually. I curated a show for Jazz Fest that was all based on interactive works. So technology and music. But at this moment Nancy and I are going to Kamploops in a couple days to start working on a new project. It’s kind of more vague now. We’re just going to check out the site.
NL: It’ll also be interactive, but more on the exhibition side of things, rather than a performance.
Pendula was on exhibition in Vancouver June 20 and 21st as a part of the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Visit www.swingwithpendula.com for further information on the Pendula Exhibit, and www.coastaljazz.ca for more information on the festival.
This interview has been edited and condensed. Thank you to Jelissa at Classics Agency.
Talking Heads is an interview column devoted to contemporary arts and culture in Vancouver. Once a month, Sad Mag‘s Helen Wong sits down with a couple of interesting, unique individuals to discuss a topic of her choosing. This month’s topic? The prevalent and renowned artist Paul Wong and the ubiquity of his mediums of choice.
Walking into Paul Wong’s studio is like walking into another, way cooler, dimension. Filled with an archive of televisions, recorders, monitors, and cameras; it’s every media artist’s dream. I got the chance to interview Paul about his latest projects for ISEA 2015 and Le Mois de la Photo in Montreal. It’s always interesting to hear the perspectives of other individuals, because although technology is something I do not have an affinity for, it’s a necessity for the expression of the self for Paul. He creates a notion of a new, cyber-connected, self-aware other that constitutes a way in which we can all participate in our world today.
Still, Rainbow Swirl by Paul Wong
Helen Wong: You primarily practice with digital media and video. How do you choose what to focus on when there are so many stimuli going off at one moment, in tandem with this being magnified by our society today?
Paul Wong: You have to make choices all the time; you are always subconsciously making a choice on what to see and focus on. You’re constantly filtering. What have I done today? Recently I’ve been playing with Generate, an app developed by Hybridity Media here in Vancouver. It allows artists to mix live and recorded visuals and sound. A significant event on social media today was the legalization of gay marriage in America. That’s a huge victory, especially at time of year, when the world celebrates Pride based on the Stonewall Riots that took place in June 1969 in NYC; the LGBT community fought back against the homophobic and discriminatory actions and raids at the Stonewall Bar. These are considered as landmark events for the gay rights movement. With this topic in mind, I took an image of the rainbow flag that MOMA posted and applied my favourite ‘swirl’ filter and mixed it with Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’. By doing this, I’m riffing on social media and it subsequently becomes today’s response to a significant moment. This also extends to my practice as I’m constantly thinking about colour, such as RGB and the colour bar. I’m working on a major public art commission, a neon that incorporates every possible colour available in hue form; every argon gas and every neon colour in direct reference to the idea of how the rainbow is a symbol for inclusion, diversity, and peace. This is how I incorporate the everyday into my work.
HW: In our society, there seems to be an incessant need to document and capture everything. Do you think this causes us to construct our own realities rather than live presently? How does this notion apply to your artistic practice?
PW: As an artist, I am conscious of the democratization of media; I’m given the tools to turn my eye/ camera away from the mainstream doctrine. Instead, I actively choose to turn the camera towards myself and my community in order to tell my own story and to share our thoughts and images. This has always been my politic. In this way, we are constructing ourselves as our own realities. It’s turned things upside down for mainstream media because we now have a multimillion-channel universe and we are no longer subjected to only 13 broadcast channels. Suddenly, whatever platform I decide to use becomes my own network to share, to take, to make, or inhale or exhale. In this regard, we’ve come a long way from Narcissus on his knees looking at his own reflection. What we see, what we get to make, and ways of looking and seeing are radically different than what it was in the past. We are no longer being fed information and images because the control on what we can or cannot see, what is true or untrue – this monopoly on cultural history – has radically shifted. It takes a lot more work but we are creating this new other.
HW: In this thread, you play on the idea of Bressai, a surrealist, who stated that the world of the real is continuously making art and that we become quiet observers. Do you view yourself shifting into this role as social media dominates?
PW: My practice is really based on observations and stories from everyday life: things that are immediately around me. What I find constantly around me includes the Internet. Looking Looping and Listening, Flash Memory, Year of GIF, and Solstice are four works that are covering shooting everyday stuff over the span of 6 years, its part of a larger body of work called the Multiverse.
HW: Video gives the notion of immediacy; do you feel hindered by how fast technology is changing? How do you continually adapt to new forms and modes?
PW: I don’t think technology is changing too fast at all, in fact I think technology is still very primitive. The fact that your phone wasn’t working the way it did an hour ago, theres no wifi in places, the wifi isn’t strong enough, you’re running out of memory, you have low battery, or the camera isn’t good enough, are evidence that it’s still primitive. Technology is not there; I’ve been waiting for the promise of technology for 40 years. The promise has been dangling in front of me for my entire life and career, to the point where it’s still a promise. The amount of time and money I spend on staff and resources, troubleshooting, rebuying, downloading, uploading, reconfiguring, upgrading, and updating on a weekly basis is insane. But on the other hand, the post photographic condition has been making the evolution from the analogue world to the promise of digital a possibility.
9 Full Moon Drawings by Paul Wong
HW: You’re presenting work at the ISEA 2015 (International Symposium of Electronic Art, August 14 to 19) are you able to tell me a little bit about your work? Or at least provide a little spoiler?
PW: We’re debuting a project we’ve been working on for a couple of years called the MIMMiC Mobile Interactive Modular Multiscreen iPad Canvas. Patrick Daggitt and I wanted to create a work for multiscreen, to synchronize and de-synchronize 9 iPads so that they can talk to each other using gestures in order to create something very interactive. The iPad hit the market in 2010 and the iPhone hit the market in 2007, so suddenly touchscreens have become our main form of interaction. We’ve gone from flipping pages to scrubbing, stroking, and feeling a screen. I was doing an interview via Skype on my iPad with this lovely young man and I realized after 45 minutes I was cradling and holding him as I was moving around my studio; it was a very beautiful, intimate experience that made me realize the possibilities of gesture. For the MIMMiC Project we are creating a work that allows one big image, 9 images or 9 parts to be manipulated by colour, timing, and sound, so that the viewer can construct their own work within the boundaries we set up. The first work ‘Westcoast Wave Cycle’ was shot in Tofino. We will be premiering this at ISEA along with demonstrations of three artists we have commissioned: Sammy Chien, who will be doing a sound based live performance; Evann Seibens, who is developing a work using the hand gestures of herself, her mother, and daughter; and Adam Myhiil with Christine Wallace, a cinematographer and a body builder, who will explore ideas of sculptural genderbending between form and content.
HW: The post photographic condition is the theme for Le Mois de la Photo [The International Biennial of the Contemporary Image in Montreal]; what do you think this condition is? Photography always has a hint of loss and death, so post photography is seemingly an attempt to reestablish the link between history and the present.
PW: With the recent improvements to the iPhone 6, its improved video and photo quality, along with the fact that I have 128MB, it has become my primary creative tool. I shoot all my video and photographs and edit them on my phone. The post photographic condition is letting go of the fact that photos need to be shot in high resolution, or with 300dpi for editorial; letting go of the fetishization of the big format photo which was never my thing anyway. Conventional print media of magazines and books are disappearing, not entirely, but there is huge distribution on the net and other media where you only need 72dpi. The post photographic condition is letting go of all those previous expectations of the former realms of analogue photographic practices. Instagram is a great platform; more people can see what I do than ever before and I can see their stuff too and I can do all this without leaving the bathroom or the bed!
HW: As a Chinese Canadian, I often find myself between two sets of identities, almost in a constant state of dislocation. Does this idea pertain to you? How do you remedy this?
PW: In reference to the letters, I find myself literally in between two languages! That is cultural difference. In 2014 I made a neon piece titled #hashtagplus. I put the symbol of the hashtag on a metal box in the shape of a plus sign. In this way I’m taking the current use of a hashtag and its initial use as a pound sign and paired it with the plus sign, which looks like a geometric piece of art, but can also look like a Chinese character. I took a successful symbol and addressed its different applications in its form and language and presented what it was and what it has become. It’s a comment on how you can make an art object out of an ephemeral stroke on your keyboard; to amplify it’s meaning was a very successful pop art thing to do.
#hashtagplus by Paul Wong
HW: You are known as one of the Main Street artists, how do you actively try to incorporate your Chinese heritage and Vancouver roots into your work?
PW: At the moment, I have someone who reads and writes Chinese organizing and translating 700 letters written to my mother over the last 50 years. There are over 100 writers in these letters so it becomes an interesting narrative between my mother in Vancouver and her relatives and friends in China. It’s a portrait of my mother and her generation woven around the absence of her direct voice; it’s a story of an extraordinary half century 1950-2000. I’m trying to navigate through all the interesting history, timelines and perspectives
I can’t read or write Chinese, and it gets tricky because I only understand a very specific regional dialect of Cantonese. I need a translator who can read and write to tell me what’s in these letters. The translator I have speaks Mandarin from Taiwan, and I also need a trilingual translator from Toisan. There is this concept where we communicate through common language, but the loss of language and what is further lost through translating illegible calligraphy makes it even more challenging and interesting.
I like the ambiguity.
HW: Seeing as summer solstice just occured, talk about your work Solstice in which you condense 24 hours into 24 minutes. How does the ability to manipulate time and cycles in such a way speak to the integration between technology and life?
PW: Solstice was a work based on the summer solstice a couple years ago; it was a camera recording out of the 4th floor building at Hastings and Main. It’s an observation of 24 hours. The camera took one frame every 10 seconds creating a series of still photos. I used an Aftereffects filter to fill in the missing information that happened in-between the 10 seconds. In this way, I’m using digital means to generate data to artificially fill in the gap between two real moments.
I find the human condition and the planet endlessly fascinating. We’re always trying to figure out who we are and our place in relationship to everything else. History, science, medicine, and capitalism all try to lay it out in a linear understandable fashion; however, it’s really such an abstract notion. So the fact that I can create moments of how I can look at you in another way is kind of cool. I can slow something down, I can alter the framing, I can position things in different contexts, and all these contribute to a reawakening of a whole other way of looking, listening and feeling.
In the end I am drawing with light, because that’s what I’m interested in: light.
Still, Solstice by Paul Wong
Find more of Paul’s work on his Facebook, his Instagram, and on his website. You can see more of #hashtagplus and Solstice here and here.
