Building on the conclusion that throughout the 1990s, Anglo-Saxon artists subscribed to a kind of widespread cynicism, the curator Michael Mazière selects artworks that run counter to that trend. They expand technological language by making connections with philosophy and memory, valuing emotions, beauty, sensations and psychological states, and combining subjectivity and poetry.
artists
Works
- Let's Call It LoveBreda Beban, 2000
- One with EverythingDaniel Reeves, 1998
- CloserDryden Goodwyn, 2001
- Hotel CentralMatt Hulse, 2000
- BlackoutMichael Mazière, 2000
- DeliriumMichael Mazière, 2001
- Love Is AllOliver Harrison, 1999
- Furniture Poetry (and Other Rhymes for The Camera)Paul Bush, 1999
- FermentTim Macmilian, 1999
Curator's text Michael Mazière, 2001
THE POETIC NECESSITY
Over the last decade, in Anglo-Saxon culture, much of the attention in visual arts has been centered around the celebration of concepts, attitude and irony. As this wave of work fades, this programme brings us a fresh perspective on art which engages with beauty, emotion, technology, memory, love and philosophy. These works are exploration into psychological states, affects, the subconscious, as much as celebrations of the expansive language of technology. They are often process orientated as opposed to concept driven so that the unravelling of the work becomes as important as the ideas behind it.
As an ever increasing number of visual artists engage with the moving image through film and video installation and interactive works, distinct traditions in video art experimental film and the visual arts have dissolved. The artists presented in this programme all have a very defined commitment to cinema and the visual arts, and many operate in both worlds. They provide a unique bridge between these separate practices. These artists can be deemed to be of a hybrid nature, further reflected in their sophisticated exploration of the diverse worlds of technology and emotion. Matt Hulse’s "Hotel Central" is a surrealist piece which celebrates the dream text as a dramatic structure, while Paul Bush’s "Furniture Poetry" literally animates static objects in a moving philosophical tribute to Wittgenstein. In "Ferment", Tim Macmillan's Time Slice Camera inverts the logic of cinema, by literally moving through space while it freezes time. Oliver Harrison’s "Love is All" use film animation and experimental techniques to create a beautiful and surreal tribute to love.
Subjectivity and intimacy are key process to the work of Breda Beban, Dryden Goodwyn and myself. These works bring emotions to the forefront of art by exploring territories of the self and of the other in up close and very personal ways. They operate on the fine lines between melodrama and emotions, the personnal and the universal, language and the unconscious to present texts which are often dark yet always enlightening. My own "Blackout" and "Delirium" are poems which explores human psychological conditions and the universal yet private emotional landscape which surround them. These psycho-poetic texts are unashamedly subjective works of visual sensuality and archaeological digs into the unconscious.
On a lighter note, Daniel Reeves spiritual narrative "One With Everything", on the existential challenges of Buddhist monk, provides a humourous confirmation that there is definitely a poetic necessity in all understand- ings of the world.
ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL, "13º Festival Internacional de Arte Eletrônica Videobrasil": de 19 de setembro de 2001 a 23 de setembro de 2001, p. 181, São Paulo, SP, 2001.