July 23 – 26, 2015
They lied to us. They taught us how to be more sensitive, but out here in the real world people are less sensitive – over saturated and numb. How can we make art for this world?
“Under the conditions of modern shock – the daily shocks of the modern world – response to stimuli without thinking has become necessary for survival… In industrial production no less than modern warfare, in street crowds and erotic encounters, in amusement parks and gambling casinos, shock is the very essence of modern experience.”
(Susan Buck-Morss, “Aesthetics and Anaesthetics,” OCTOBER, Vol. 62)
Connexion ARC has partnered with Fredericton’s Shifty Bits Cult to co-curate a series of six embedded video art installations, probing experiences of dissociation and over-stimulation that are characteristic of the lives we lead online and inside post-industrial cities.
Both visually compelling and physically unsettling, videos from “Where the sun is silent…” will be presented in and around the Shifty Bits Circus INF4RNO – a four-day-long music festival happening at various venues in downtown Fredericton.
“Endless Luv” (9:27) Marchien Veen In a slow, subtle performance-for-video, Marchien Veen’s “Endless Luv” considers gendered desires and anxieties – affecting the tropes of advertising and obsessive acts of self presentation.
“Grey Travels” (1:22) Tong (Raine) Shen Using mirrored stop-motion animation, Tong (Raine) Shen’s “Grey Travels” speeds through 1000 abstracted drawings made with paper, vinegar, India ink, olive oil, and soy sauce, creating a space of disjuncture and confusion.
“Super Actuality #17: Heliolision” (18:44) Miles Forrester As part of Miles Forrester’s long-term performance project, “Super Actuality #17: Heliolision” uses absurdity and humour to call attention to the hopeful but unaccountable and vague language so often employed by corporate, political, academic, and religious bodies.
“shitfood” (10:36) Robin & Erin Goodine In their sarcastic use of 1960’s advertising tropes, Robin & Erin Goodine’s absurd “shitfood” disturbs the seamless and sterile commodification of food, sexuality, and other human appetites.
“Meditation Hall” (5:46) Perry Hohlstein Held together by a vague expectation of narrative, Perry Hohlstein’s “Meditation Hall” tunnels through still and moving images. A recurring emotion is buried under chains, flowers, a still life painting, seagulls, stone sculpture, and Modernist architecture. …We are trying to be spiritual.
“We’ve met before” (4:33) Maya Ben David Focusing on a fetish desire to be consumed whole or to consume another person or character, Maya Ben David’s “We’ve met before” occupies a space between desire and repulsion, in a moving montage of found, animated footage.
IMAGE: Marchien Veen, “Endless Luv” (video still) (2014)