From: Thomas Beard (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jun 30 2008 - 09:08:30 PDT
Light Industry
http://www.lightindustry.org
Half of the People Are Stoned and the Other Half Are Waiting for the Next
Election*
Curated by Nick Hallett
Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 8pm
55 33rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY
*A line written by Paul Simon for Leonard Bernstein's Mass (1971).
A screening of activism-oriented video, performance documentation, and new
media from 2004.
As the race to the White House consumes our nation's collective attention,
let's take a look back to the 2004 election and celebrate the unique spirit
of that year when the art world in New York and across the country took up
the mantle of this country's great activist tradition.
Many artists who make political work do so regardless of their calendars,
but the high stakes of '04 yielded contexts for agit-prop art and
performance unseen since the late 1960s. Initiatives like Downtown for
Democracy and the Imagine Festival united New York's artist communities
against the Bush administration as the RNC rolled into town. The Internet
matured as a critical venue for countercultural action in attempts to revise
standard models of protest. Audiences and critics, eager to experience their
own distaste for the current state of affairs distilled into forms of art
and entertainment, gave greater voice to explicitly political work.
Guerrilla theater filled the streets at every opportunity for nose-thumbing,
resulting in countless arrests, while cellphone cameras rolled to create a
new kind of folk-documentary. Culture and politics collided in vivid and
memorable fashion.
This collection of work from four years ago offers itself as something of a
time capsule, although not enough time has passed for true nostalgia to set
in. Yet the 2008 election is playing itself out very differently than its
predecessor. Without a concrete enemy to inspire rage, Americans--artists
included--seem to be placing their faith in the system and its candidates.
But how different is our country's situation? Aren't we even worse off than
four years ago?
I Need a Contingency Plan, Taylor Mac, video document of Live Patriot Acts:
Patriots Gone Wiiild!, 2004
Campaign Spots, Guy Richards Smit/John Pilson/Lou Fernandez, video, 2004
March for Women's Lives, April 25 2004, Pink Bloque/Blithe Riley/Dara
Greenwald, video, 2004
Keanu Reeves for President, Laura Parnes, video, 2004
Folk Music and Documentary, Seth Price, video, 2004
2304 Is a Beer Drinking Year, Jen Liu, video, 2004
KerryRocks.net, Cory Arcangel/Jonah Peretti, video download, 2004
The President of the United States, James Tigger! Ferguson, video document
of Live Patriot Acts: Patriots Gone Wiiild!, 2004
Arnold's Ass, Laura Parnes, video, 2004
Big Screen Version, Aaron Valdez, video, 2004
Play the Game, Imaginary Company/Peter Glantz/Ben Jones, television
advertisement, 2004
Fuck the Vote, Carbon Defense League, video, 2004
See the Elephant! (excerpt), Ryan Junell, multi-channel installation mixed
to video, 2004
(includes document of musical work Ringing for Healing by Pauline Oliveros)
Jamming: By the Waters of Babylon (excerpt), Saul Levine, 16mm transferred
to video, 2004
Listen (excerpt), Aldo Tambellini, video, 2004-05
White Man, Suicide, video document of live performance shot by Punkcast/Joly
MacFie, 2004
Vote for Bush or Burn in Hell, Laura Parnes, video, 2004
TXTMob, Institute for Applied Autonomy, video, 2004
A World With No Bush, Julie Atlas Muz, video document of Live Patriot Acts:
Patriots Gone Wiiild!, 2004
Up Came Oil!, The Yes Men/Patrick Lichty, computer animation and video, 2004
Libber, Wynne Greenwood, video/performance, 2004
Total Running Time: 80 mins
Nick Hallett is a musician and curator interested in the intersection of
music and visual media. He has programmed at The Kitchen, Netmage, Aurora
Picture Show, All Tomorrow's Parties, Artists's Television Access, Pacific
Film Archive, Ocularis, Monkey Town, Issue Project Room, New York
Underground Film Festival, Chicago Filmmakers, Chicago Underground Film
Festival, Mass Art Film Society, and Secret Project Robot among others. His
music series, Darmstadt, hosted with Zach Layton, was included in the New
York Times's "Best of New Music 2007." He originated the band Plantains,
which from 2000 to 2003 performed as a live multimedia outfit, incorporating
electronic music and video. Nick enjoys performing music of several
varieties, namely experimental contemporary art song of his and other's
doing, and has sung recently at The Kitchen and Joe's Pub.
Tickets - $6, available at door.
About Light Industry
Light Industry is a new venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New
York. Developed and overseen by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the project has
begun as series of weekly events at Industry City in Sunset Park, each
organized by a different artist, critic, or curator. Conceptually, Light
Industry draws equal inspiration from the long history of alternative art
spaces in New York as well its storied tradition of cinematheques and other
intrepid film exhibitors. Through a regular program of screenings,
performances, and lectures, its goal is to explore new models for the
presentation of time-based media and foster a complex dialogue amongst a
wide range of artists and audiences within the city.
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.