26 May 2011

LANGUAGE FORMED IN LIGHT, debuts with a screening of selected work by SHANA MOULTON!

Please join us Tuesday 31 May @ 7PM for this inaugural screening of Language Formed in Light, guest-curated by Clint Enns.

All screenings will take place at The Black Lodge Studios and are free + open to the public.

PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts is excited to announce a new screening series to be presented over the next four months. Language Formed in Light is comprised of four different film screening nights featuring experimental films and video art by four recognized artists from Canada and the United States. The works in this series were selected due to their innovative use of cinematic language. Some of the titles create an entirely new filmic language, while others focus on expanding the established cinematic vocabulary. This screening series will be the part of a serial presentation guest-curated by Clint Enns for PLATFORM and recognizes the work in film and video by note-worthy contributors to the medium.

The first installment of Language Formed in Light is a selection from Shana Moulton’s Whispering Pines series. The Whispering Pines series incorporates “live animation” techniques, lo-fi aesthetics and generally hacked objects. Moulton’s use of cinematic language can easily be seen as an expansion of the narrative methods developed by Maya Daren in Meshes of the Afternoon. In her work, Moulton uses repetition and circular narrative to examine the interplay between consumerism, psychedelia, New Age philosophy and the mundane. However, Moulton’s videos are anything but bland.

The objects in Cynthia’s (Shana Moulton’s alter ego) possession act as portals into her own overactive subconscious, wherein hallucinatory sequences explore the nature of material and spiritual concerns in contemporary culture. Thomas Beard (Light Industry) has stated, “As a serial form, however, Whispering Pines is not so much a soap opera as a one-women Twin Peaks.” In addition to variousWhispering Pines episodes, we will also show the related video The Mountain Where Everything is Upside Down, a video in which Moulton as her alter ego Cynthia performs a hallucinatory exercise routine involving a work-out ball and magic crystals!

Program:
Whispering Pines 1
Whispering Pines 2
Whispering Pines 4
Whispering Pines 6
Whispering Pines 7
Whispering Pines 9
Feeling Free with 3D Magic Eye Remix
The Mountain Where Everything is Upside Down
The Galactic Pot Healer

Shana Moulton creates evocatively oblique narratives in her video and performance works. Combining an unsettling, wry humor with a low-tech, Pop sensibility, Moulton plays a character whose interactions with the everyday world are both mundane and surreal, in a domestic sphere just slightly askew. As her protagonist navigates the enigmatic and possibly magical properties of her home decor, Moulton initiates relationships with objects and consumer products that are at once banal and uncanny. Moulton studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, where she received her MFA. Moulton has also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine, and studied at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. Her video work has been screened and exhibited internationally, including at Art in General, New York, Migros Museum, Zurich; Contemporary Museum of Art, Uppsala; Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin, Paris; Aurora, Edinburgh; Dark Light Festival, Dublin; Impakt Festival, Utrecht; Internationale Kurzfilmtage, Oberhausen; Broadway 1602, New York; and Gimpel Fils, London. Moulton's performances have been presented at venues including The Kitchen, New York; PERFORMA 09, New York; Aurora Picture Show, Houston; Electronic Arts Intermix, New York; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; among others. Moulton lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Clint Enns is a video artist/filmmaker and curator from Winnipeg, Manitoba, whose work primarily deals with moving images created with broken and/or outdated technologies. His work has shown both nationally and internationally in installations, festival screenings, alternative spaces, and mircocinemas. He has recently completed a master's degree in mathematics at the University of Manitoba, and his interests include model theory of rings and modules, structuralist film, destructuralist video, and mathematics in art. Enn's past curatorial projects in experimental film and video have been presented at Video Pool Media Arts Centre (Winnipeg), and DIM Cinema / Pacific Cinematheque (Vancouver).
PLATFORM wishes to acknowledge the support of its membership, board of directors, volunteers, and staff. Language Formed in Light is made possible with funding received from Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.
For more information about this exhibition or other PLATFORM programming, please contact the Centre directly: PLATFORM | 121-100 Arthur Street [Artspace Building] | Winnipeg, Manitoba | R3B 1H3 | 204.942.8183 | www.platformgallery.org

12 May 2011

University of Manitoba Thesis in Photography 2011, Graduating Exhibition Exhibition 13 - 21 May 2011 Opening Reception Friday 13 May 7PM
Join us in celebrating the accomplishment of these three emerging Winnipeg photographers who make make up the 2011 thesis photography class of the University of Manitoba's Bachelor of Fine Arts Program. Ashley Gillanders, Jamie Starosilec, and Agnes Neufeld will be presenting work from their thesis year. This annual thesis exhibition gives the greater Winnipeg community a chance to get a glimpse at the upcoming generation of lens-based artists in Winnipeg. Come and view the exhibition and meet the artists at the opening reception held Friday May 13, 7PM. Refreshments will be served.
Ashley Gillanders' most recent body of work attempts to recognize the emotional reign environmental design has over individuals, and its function as a reflection of personality. Her work uses photography to redefine space while exploring objects within a domestic environment.
Jamie Starosilec has focused on portraiture over the last few years. She is mainly interested in capturing people's genuine, honest expressions. Agnes Neufeld is interested in portraiture in photography because it provides a way for her to make observations about a subject as an individual or as in individual within a group. "Portraits are more compelling when we feel that we are seeing past the facial expression, pose, and dress to imagined zone of privacy (Alice Neel)." In the photographic process, vulnerability and intimacy often are a result for both the subject and photographer. Neufeld's work is a synopsis of a greater body of work from: "Friends", "Agricultural Producers", "Women", "Family" and the "Farm workers" series.
PLATFORM acknowledges the support of its membership, Board of Directors, staff, and partners in presentation. Operating and project assistance for PLATFORM programming is provided by: Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, The Winnipeg Foundation, and The W.H. & S.E. Loewen Foundation.
For more information about this exhibition or other PLATFORM programming, please contact the Centre directly: PLATFORM | 121-100 Arthur Street [Artspace Building] | Winnipeg, Manitoba | R3B 1H3 | 204.942.8183 PLATFORM is open Tue-Sat: 12-5PM