Cross Examination, An Inquiry | Josh Weinstein | 2006 | 5:40 min.
In Cross Examination Josh Weinstein asks strangers questions about himself as a form of inquiry into the mechanisms of how surfaces evoke perceptions about identity. Multiple levels of simultaneous evaluation erode conventional interview protocols and challenge the construction of perception and identity.
How do we construct our identity? How do we evaluate others? Josh Weinstein investigates these questions through social experiment, working both as an artist and corporate consultant. His work inverts conventional media processes such as interview, street shooting and voice over. By deconstructing these processes he calls into question both the convention behind the construction of meaning in media and the parallel constructions of identity in the individual. Our self-perception and our perception of others are both the source and subject of the work.
Strathmin | Jessica Mein | 2006 | 4:10 min.
The text and the video are a loop of overdescription and anxiety, in which there is no hierarchy of meaning. It is a mental, claustrophobic space, and one mental and literal image mends with the other to form a space with no escape and no end.
Jessica Mein was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She has shown at the Museu de Arte Contemporanea in Campinas and Museu de Arte de Ribeirao Preto in Brazil. In 2004 she participated in a group show at Slought Foundation in Philadelphia, and last year she screened one of her videos at the DUMBO Arts Festival in Brooklyn, NY. She participated at the 20a. Mostra de Video in Santo Andre, Sao Paulo, Brazil last month. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree from Duke University and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Hunter College. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Trauma Room | Ido Fluk | 2006 | 6:00 min.
Trauma Room is an exploration of the famous heartbreaking scene from Disney's popular animation film, Bambi. Using repetition and image manipulation, the work explores the underlying currents of panic and potential trauma that lie beneath the childish animated presentation.
Ido Fluk was born in 1980 in Israel. His work has been shown in galleries and museums such as Artist Space and 92Y in New York, Black Lab in Seattle, the Federal Exhibition Hall in Bonn, Germany, and the Museum of Contemporary Art museum in Sao Paolo, Brazil as well as worldwide festivals such as Dumbo Arts, Invideo Milano, Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin and Videolisboa Portugal. Fluk is the recipient of such awards as the Warner Bros. Pictures film production award, The Israeli Council for the Arts travel and presentation grant and the Jerusalem Film Festival's Young Director's award. He holds a BFA in Film & TV Production and Art & Public Policy from New York University.
LE MIS POPOTE [The Erroneous Earth Kitchen] | Anders Bramsen | 2006 | 19:00 min.
LE MIS POPOTE (The Erroneous Earth Kitchen) is a kaleidoscope of real and subconscious images: Swans in a pond. A
float in a communion parade. A young man punching his reflection in a mirror. A man falls out of a window. Swans
again. Snow falls on evergreens. An aerial shot of New Jersey’s industrial parks like a family of Giacommetti sculpture
standing in the snow belching smoke. Peace. Violence. Juxtaposing beautiful images with an undercurrent of rage and
uncontrolled excitement.
Born: 1974 Copenhagen, Denmark. Lives and works in New York City.
Since 1996 he has created a number of experimental films and dramatic shorts. Bramsen's work emerges from situations where personal isolation, inner lives and surreal fantasies rule. Often his themes are based on observations of life's conflicts and pains, and the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with existential choices. Dreams and adventures, poetry and aggressive rawness.
Temper Tantrum | John Richey | 2006 | 1:00 min.
A temper tantrum is an unplanned, unintentional expression of anger, often with physical and verbal outbursts; it is not an act to get attention, as is commonly thought. During a temper tantrum, children typically cry, yell, and flail their arms and legs. Temper tantrums usually last 30 seconds to 2 minutes and are most intense at the onset.
In Richey's characters, the outburst carries everything and nothing - A universe of emotions and yet, nothing but a tiny glitch. (C.S.)
John Richey is a cross-disciplinary artist who creates intimate works about the paradoxical situations of fear and control. He received a BFA from The University of Arizona in 2001 and a MFA from the University of California, San Diego in 2004. His animations have been exhibited nationally and internationally and were mentioned in the “Best of 2004” issue of ARTFORUM International. Richey currently resides in Brooklyn, NY and is the Head Preparator at Greene Naftali Gallery.
Rendez-vous | Maya Weimer | 2005 | 5:00 min.
During the past fifty years, more than 200,000 Koreans have been adopted internationally. Thousands of these adoptees return to Korea every year to search for biological kin. This is one woman's experience of meeting her birth mother. Conflating the story of reunion between a long lost daughter and mother with the trajectory of an illicit affair with a married woman, Rendez-vous presents an intimate glimpse into a widespread transnational phenomenon.
M. Weimer is a videomaker and artist who lives in Los Angeles and New York.
Happy | Abbey Williams | 2006 | 4:00 min.
Happy: unhappy, loaded, expectation, optimistic, meaning, pessimistic, one-night-stand, pillow-talk, lucky, impact, overlooked, implicit, tone, bullshit, inferred, placate, score, hope, self-esteem, follow, the inscription, reading, Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
After receiving her MFA from Bard College in 2004 Abbey Williams work has been shown internationally, most notably at Tate Britain in London, Renia Sophia Mususm in Madrid, The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and at PS1/MOMA as a part of the most recent Greater New York exhibition. Next month she will open a solo-exhibition at Sarah Lawrence College. Abbey Williams lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.