Sunday 20 May 2012

Global Navigators, following the Path


Today I'll mainly talk about videos. I've never gone deeper in this field than watching something on youTube and reading about the existence of this artistic "support". I'm not an expert, but I'm deeply convinced about the fact that the line between a go video and just rubbish is very thin.

At the Wood Street Galleries is possible to visit some video-installation that really left me amazed. Special thanks to my friend Kevin for showing me the best of Pitt and the coolest Galleries! The Galleries are located all around two block in the Downtown, but here I'll present you space by space, following the order we followed yesterday.

WOOD STREET+6TH
It's the main space, just above one of the T-line stops. You can visit two spaces (for two installation) with a video each.
At the 2nd floor you'll be able to see Peter Bogers with Unleashed content, 2011.

see the video here

To complete this installation, made of 36 small screen (all projecting different videos from each other) Peter collected an incredible amount of videos according to "key words" and then composed them to obtain a huge video. 
Small loudspeakers are hanging from the ceiling and they transmit the audio of each screen, but in a very delicate way. It's not annoying, but very effective instead: if you stay near those, you only hear the sound of a video, while if you stay far, the final effect is clear and winning, giving you a sense of unity even in the multiplicity.
Few notes about this: the amount of nonsense videos it's simply incredible. Peter Bogers did a great job, also from an anthropological point of view. What a faces...!

On the second floor, instead, you can see a completely different video about  a performance by Guido Van der Werve. He keeps walking near the North Pole, while an icebreaker is following him. Astonishing and weird, totally absorbing. 
The video you can find here is in very low quality, but gives you the idea. 


Another piece by Guido van der Werve was guested at the SPACE  707 (Penn Ave)
with him standing for 24 hours at the north pole, this time with suitable clothes (in the previous one, he was wearing blue jeans and simple coat).

At the SPACE 709 Penn Ave, changing environment and artistic technique, here you are the freezed images from the exhibit Girl 'n Guns. Working on the concept of shooting: with a gun & with the camera (very short opening times, to grab every little movement and "freeze" the image). She fires the still life compositions, and the final effect is as magic as upsetting. 




A little praise for the mice pictures... very nice, and not banal from a technical point of view. Colors well balanced and interesting composition. Extra score for the concrete frame, perfect for the subject. 

We stopped also at the SPACE 812 LIBERTY AVENUE. Here I appreciated the video interaction between man and machine, arranged by Geert Mul. Interesting but I'm not sure it is that meaningful. Nice video toy, maybe. Didn't seem something new.

Definitely more interesting the PATH SPACE (943 Liberty Ave) and almost scaring! 
Here you can enter a completely dark labyrinth, build with plywood, all white painted (but ou don't know that). As you go inside, you can explore the space waiting to see the few light cuts Elin Hansdottir created. I entered alone and almost got lost in 6'x6' complexive space. The Gallery used to be an adult book store... now only the walls are there, everything is empty. My friends asked me what kind of space (before being gallery) I thought it was and I said "Fast food?". Then they told me the truth... 
The labyrinth see from a private space, kind of hidden mezzanine above the installation. 


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