...:::VIVO MEDIA ARTS 2009::::...

VIVO Media Arts Centre will be closed from August 2. We will reopen production and distribution facilities on September 1 2009.
The gallery will stay open from August 15- 29 for Noam Gonick's exhibition NO SAFE WORDS.

NO SAFE WORDS by Noam Gonick
NO SAFE WORDS
Noam Gonick
August 15—29, 2009

Artist Talk August 15, 2pm, Reception 3—5pm

Open Wed—Sat, 12—5pm

What is ironic about the police and military presence in the Pride Parade? Have we forgotten the raids? The bashings? Systemic homophobia? Winnipeg artist and filmmaker, Noam Gonick has an active memory and his critique of the paradoxical existence of the military and police forces at Pride points to their use of S&M techniques as a method of humiliation and torture.

"Conquest is not only about territory, or oil, or puppet dictatorships," says Gonick "It's sexual, too." With the help of the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery at the University of British Columbia, he has collaborated with members of the UBC football team, The Thunderbirds, to produce Dionysian frivolity in the face of such grave subject matter. In lurid colour, with bombastic graphics, and camp timing, Gonick plays with his references to invert the visual iconography of late empire.

“NO SAFE WORDS was intended to be an affront to the one million marchers and their supporters at Toronto Gay Pride, foregrounding the fascination with fascism in queer culture. In documenting this JumboTron piece during the march, I found the paramilitary nature of the parade repositioned my work as an accessory to a chilling historical process rather than an irritant.”

Gonick will be in town for the artist talk and reception on August 15. His installation at VIVO Media Arts Centre will be open during the Queer Film Festival.

Curated by Emilio Rojas and Kika Thorne.

Noam Gonick, 1919 (1997), Hey, Happy! (2001), Stryker (2004), has presented his films at the Venice, Berlin, Toronto, Sundance Film Festivals and MOMA. Gonick has produced for performance artist Rebecca Belmore, including Fountain at the Venice Biennale. Wildflowers of Manitoba, his collaboration with artist Luis Jacob, premiered at the Montreal Biennale, the Toronto and Berlin International Film Festival and was purchased by the UBC Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.

This exhibition is supported by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery of the University of British Columbia.

PAST EVENTS

FAKE SLEEP
July 31

$8 Doors 9pm Music 10pm
1965 Main Street

A semi-regular evening of experimental drone music,
hypnotic visuals and other curiosities...

Freida Abtan
A Montreal based multi-disciplinary artist and composer, her music falls somewhere in between musique concrete and more modern noise and experimental audio. Part of the Nurse With Wound live ensemble.

Empty Love
Haunting analog synth drones, walls of bass, deep resonance attacking your organs.

Secret Pyramid
Solo work of Amir (Solars), using analog synthesizers, guitars, and whatever he feels like bringing out of the house.

The Robot Rim
Visually minded reclusive drone artists Tim (half of the mysterious Frozen Rabbit) and Jay use any musical item they can find to create melodic drones, while focusing on experimental, multi-projector visuals to accentuate their sounds.

A Fake Sleep + VIVO Media Arts Centre Co-production

JEM NOBLE
MAGNETIC CITY – a VHS story

JULY 22 2009
7PM ARTIST TALK + INSTALLATION
9PM SCREENING
FREE

VIVO Media Arts Centre + Limelight Video present Jem Noble Artist In Residence talk | installation | screening

Visceral mechanics and the aesthetics of circulation

7pm Artist talk + installation | 9pm Screening of Harold and Maude on used VHS

“VHS video has carried significant influence across global cultures since its launch in 1976. From the mass democratisation of moving-image archive to the unforeseen explosion in domestic motion-picture distribution, the story of VHS is a dense narrative in which the long history of magnetic-tape recording technology, catalysed by the strategies and contingencies of competitive commerce, translates into a distinct veneer of visual aesthetics; into complex patterns of material circulation; into proliferating pathways of demand and desire.”

“As popular culture embraces an ever-accelerating cycle of commercial supercession and redundancy in video formats, what emerges and what fades with the dwindling use of VHS? How does the format look today, in the year after production of its cassettes and stand-alone VCRs finally ceased? How does this look speak to an aesthetics of nostalgia? What does it signify with regard to personal and social memory, to our changing habits of engagement with material culture and landscape?”

These are questions posed by VIVO Artist In Residence, Jem Noble (UK), framing a three-month research project supported in part by Limelight Video in Kitsilano, addressing VHS rental as a unique form of social inscription – “a disappearing phenomenon of exchange through which social forces are materialized in cumulative patterns of magnetic distortion. Drawing on a cast of diverse influences including the lacerated–poster appropriations of Jacques Villeglé and Raymond Hains, the language of deterioration in Christian Marclay’s vinyl installations, and the discourse of agency, movement and landscape in proximity to land art practices,” Noble’s project is an idiosyncratic exploration of “entanglement between people, places and media in specific material form.”

“Distilling the potentially vast field of research into a relationship with a single video-tape from a single video store, the project has taken shape around the image quality and rental trajectory of the movie Harold & Maude, released on VHS in 1980.” Made possible by Limelight Video manager, Adam Thomas, and owner Don Newton, with their generous gift of access to the store’s rental database, the artist’s undertakings include a bicycle journey, approximately tracing the “elastic movement of the cassette through the city as far back as records allow.” In conclusion to his residency at VIVO, Noble will present a series of installations accompanied by a talk on the development of his thoughts around the subject. After an intermission for food and conversation, these will be followed by a screening of Harold & Maude from the original VHS tape at the centre of the work.

JEM NOBLE

Born: 1974, Stone UK “An evolving palette of gestures, materials and media”, Jem Noble’s practice is loosely defined by concerns with “the phenomenology of attention, and tensions between individuation and interdependence in different forms of human engagement. Using production and appropriation strategies in collaborative and solo contexts across a range of disciplines including sound, music, video, sculpture, text, social encounter and performance,” Noble’s work often draws on elements of “intimacy and alienation, exploring spectacle as a means to amplify complexities that underlie the processes and relationships we take for granted in the everyday.” Recent group exhibitions: Signal & Noise 09, Vancouver; SMART Project Space, Amsterdam (2009); Manifesta 7 (in collaboration with Piratbyrån), Tate Britain, ICA London (2008). Solo exhibition: Spike Island (2008).

LIMELIGHT VIDEO

2505 Alma Street, Vancouver, 604-228-1478 Limelight Video began life in 1983 as Video Stop, specializing in foreign and independent movies. The store and its impressive film collection came to the attention of Don Newton, who was operating one of BC's first video rental businesses on Robson Street in Downtown Vancouver. In 1992, Newton purchased the business from Paul Norton, changing the name to Limelight Video shortly afterwards and moving to Kitsilano after untenable increases in Downtown rents. At that time, the video business had changed dramatically, with large franchises destroying small independent stores. Newton recognized that in order to survive in the increasingly competitive marketplace Limelight had to develop its specialism further, to create a video store that was unlike any of the multi-national competitors and expand its niche. The store continues to purchase foreign and independent films and over the years has built up a diverse stock of documentaries, historical films, war films, musicals and music films, Academy Award winners, spiritual films, stand-up comedy, films about art and artists, travel films, science fiction and horror films, and many more. In addition, it has grouped together large numbers of works by world-famous directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini and Werner Herzog, to name a few. Including works by a broad spectrum of lesser-known directors, the Limelight collection of over 25,000 titles represents almost every film-producing country in the world, including a comprehensive archive of nearly every Canadian feature film ever released on video.

Harold and Maude (1971) dir. Hal Ashby 91 mins

Harold is a depressed, death-obsessed 20-year-old man/child who spends his free time attending funerals and pretending to commit suicide in front of his mother. At a funeral, Harold befriends Maude, a 79-year-old woman who has a zest for life. She and Harold spend much time together during which she exposes him to the wonders and possibilities of life. After rejecting his mother's three attempts to set him up with a potential wife, and committing fake suicide in front of all of them, Harold announces that he is to be married to Maude. However, Maude has a surprise for Harold that is to change his life forever.

HER JAZZ: WOMEN'S STUDIES

May 28
8:30 door show at 9pm
5-10$ sliding scale

dj ruggedly handsome

Performances:
brady marks
dinka pignon
bonne maman
her jazz and dance troupe practice collaboration

In addition: Craft fair and Installation works by Aja Rose Bond, Yuriko Iga (Blim), Amberleigh, Rachel, and more.

Presented by Her Jazz Collective and VIVO Media Arts Centre.

Her Jazz Noise Collective is a Vancouver (coast salish territory) based anarcha-feminist network & affinity group created to encourage more women to play noise and experimental music. We share our skills through open jams, performances, workshops and organizing. In doing so, we aim to create supportive spaces for women to meet, play and be inspired by one another. We put on shows featuring mostly female artists, release recordings and collaborate with like-minded people in other places. We host open jams for which no invite or experience is needed. Her Jazz is multifaceted entity, we are transgender inclusive and there are many different ways to be involved. This is not a band; it's a radical, posi-core community interested in dialogue about equality, privilege, gender, power and personal experience.

VIVO Media Arts Centre gratefully receives ongoing annual support from The Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, The Government of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver.

BARRY DOUPÉ | PONYTAIL MAY 22 2009
7PM SCREENING 9PM ARTIST TALK $10/8 MEMBERS

Vancouver-based filmmaker Barry Doupé delivers his first feature-length animation Ponytail. He creates bewildering rudimentary scenarios, serving as living space for his Sims-look-alike avatars. Set in supernatural light, crystalline, glowing, the shapes and colours in the film seem to compensate the characters' lack of determination. All of them are calm, stigmatized with anxiety and a severe inability to live out their personal desires. This makes the quiescent flow of Ponytail both inspiring and alarming. Emily Carr graduate Doupé took two years to complete Ponytail. After screenings in Whitechapel in London and Pleasure Dome in Toronto, VIVO Media Arts Centre is proud to present the Vancouver premiere on May 22nd 2009.

Curated by Kika Thorne and Constanze Bauer

VIVO MEDIA ARTS CENTRE PRESENTS
THE 9TH SIGNAL + NOISE MEDIA ART FESTIVAL
APRIL 23 TO 27, 2009

http://signalandnoise.ca

Jeffrey Allport * Sobhi al-Zobaidi * David Askevold * Brandon Blommaert * Nick Briz * Kevin Lee Burton * Chris Chong Chan Fui * Wayde Compton * Michael Bell Smith * Scott Billings * Sylvain Daval * Amber Dawn * Jason de Couto * Francisca Duran * Kevin Jerome Everson * Fastwurms * Leigh Fisher * Sara Gold * John Greyson * Robert Hamilton * Oliver Husain * R Kelly * Mike Kelley * Jeff Langille * Kalup Linzy * Fazail Lutfi * Daniel Menche * Julia Meltzer * Hannah Miami * Marianna Milhorat * Shana Moulton * Monique Moumblow * Fred Muram * Takeshi Murata * Organelle Design * Alison Pebworth * Portia Priegert * Geoffrey Pugen * Radical Software Group * Helen Reed * Vanessa Renwick * Emily Rosamond * Jay Rosenblatt * Naoko Sasaki * Semiconductor * Harlan Shore * Stephan Schulz * Guli Silberstein * Anju Singh * Althea Thauberger * David Thorne * Ryan Trecartin * Rafael Tsuchida

http://signalandnoise.ca

Photo: Geoffrey Pugen, Claots & Jossger (2007), courtesy of Angell Gallery, Toronto.

net(work): a performance art fair

Thursday, March 20, 2009, 8PM
$4 ($3 at the door if you bring an unneeded object from home)

Performances by:

Anna White
Ashley Howe
Dalia Levy
Emilio Rojas
Francis & Patrick Cruz
Francisco Fernando-Granados
Genevieve Cloutier
Glena Evans
Ikbal Singh
Jaclyn Blumes
Jason Fielding
Manolo Lugo
Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa
Ram Rung Kaur / Martina Comstock

http://www.viisionquest.com/

HER JAZZ: WOMEN'S STUDIES

May 28
8:30 door show at 9pm
5-10$ sliding scale

dj ruggedly handsome

Performances:
brady marks
dinka pignon
bonne maman
her jazz and dance troupe practice collaboration

In addition: Craft fair and Installation works by Aja Rose Bond, Yuriko Iga (Blim), Amberleigh, Rachel, and more.

Presented by Her Jazz Collective and VIVO Media Arts Centre.

VIVO Media Arts Centre gratefully receives ongoing annual support from The Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, The Government of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver.

VIVO Members Events

VIISION QUEST

Thursday, March 19, 09
Doors at 7:30PM, Screening at 8PM
Free Admission

This program of new videos from Montreal and Vancouver includes a selection of fantastic landscapes, visionary myths, mind-bending
freakouts and heavy brain waves. Featuring a performance from local harsh noisemakers Haunted Beard with live visuals from one half of the
misbehaving Vancouver video outfit DNGROUS ADDRESS.

New videos from:

Danna Vajda
Brendan Reed
Bridget Moser
Ice Planet Calme
Willie Brisco
Allison Trumble
Olivia Pojar
Jordan McKenzie
Emi Honda
Kevin Sandgren
Sam Scott

www.viisionquest.com

SHIRO YAGI

Saturday Feb 28, 09
8pm, 8:30pm, 9pm
Seating only 15-20 per performance.
For bookings contact ruthie@theatrereplacement.org
Presented by Theatre Replacement, VIVO Media Arts Centre and Powell Street Festival.

In March of 1927, somewhere in Shikoku, Japan a 24 year old tanka poet composes a piece of music. Mysteriously, a giant whale shark goes missing from the local historical museum and a woman turns old waiting by the radio...

shiro yagi is a new work in development by Cindy Mochizuki that explores the old Japanese silent film era and the art of film telling. Using her grandfather's composition and poetry, three out of six hybrid short media works will be created and told by performers James Long and Maiko Bae Yamamoto with musical accompaniment by Antoine Bédard, mimi's ami, and Takeo Yamashiro.

This project was made possible through the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Theatre Replacement, and VIVO Media Arts Centre.

COMPOSING CHAOS
WORKSHOP WITH ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI

Sun March 1, 6-9 pm at VIVO (1965 Main Street)
FREE ADMISSION

Presented by Education at VIVO Media Arts Centre and the CRES Media Arts Committee, in collaboration with New Music, Western Front.

Zbigniew Karkowski is a Tokyo-based musician and composer. Best known for his work with live electronics and noise, which he has been pursuing since the early 80's, he has also composed many electroacoustic pieces for tape and written instrumental music for chamber ensembles, large orchestras and opera, moving comfortably through the genres, within and between the realms of the experimental and the academic. He has studied music with giants such as Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen and Georges Aperghis, and collaborated closely with underground icons such as Francisco Lopez, Daniel Menche and Hafler Trio. Originally from Poland, he lived in Sweden and Netherlands for many years, and is now situated in Japan. He strongly believes that "geographical, political and social exile is a necessary condition for true and honest creation" and that "all musical theory and systems as cultural concepts must be destroyed". His main concern in his present work is the creation of sonic drama, "electronic and acoustic walls with the architectures of ruins transcribed in the scores".

In his workshop at VIVO, Karkowski will present his work, speak about various methods and techniques he has developed for his composition and performance, and demonstrate the workings of the tools he is using, such as Max/MSP and SuperCollider. After the workshop, Karkowski will perform in the event that follows at VIVO.

This workshop is programmed by Dinka Pignon, VIVO Education, in collaboration with the CRES Media Arts Committee (MAC). It is given in conjunction with Karkowski's performance at the Western Front on Friday Feb 27.

LA EXPERIMENTAL + ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI/DANIEL MENCHE
MARCH 1 10PM

Noisy-electro kids from LA meet Vancouver's fake jazz inspired noise. This night offers a colourful array of noise, experimental-electro, japanese influenced sound, and performance art. Experience what LA's experimental world is spewing out!

guest spot by Zbigniew Karkowski
Daniel Menche
BIRTH! (Los Angeles) www.myspace.com/thisheadisforburning
Kwaiietly Please (Los Angeles) www.myspace.com/kawaiietlyplease
Vampire Pussy (Los Angeles)
Burrow Owl.
Dullmoofs

Co presented by VIVO Media Arts Centre. Curated by Anju Singh.

VIVO Media Arts Centre gratefully receives ongoing annual support from The Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, The Government of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver.

HER JAZZ: WOMEN'S STUDIES

March 7

dj tapes

Performances:

cris derksen
bridgette
attn:diamond shoppers
her jazz noise collective vs dance troupe

In Addition: Electroacoustic listening session with eletroacoustic pieces by Anju Singh, Jennifer Clarke, Amberleigh, students from SFUs electroacoustic music program, and more.

Note: Listening session will be from 9-10pm. If you miss the session, there will be listening stations set up in the space to listen to the pieces afterwards as well.

doors open at 8:30pm, events always start at 9pm.
5-10$ sliding scale

Presented by the Her Jazz Collective and VIVO Media Arts Centre.

"Who mixes blanket forts and band practice, hand holding and harsh noise, circuit bent toys and dissonant solos, feedback and the female voice? Her Jazz Noise Collective.

"Her Jazz is a group of self-identified (trans inclusive) women who are sound artists, noise musicians and those eager to learn in Vancouver, and more specifically, the Coast Salish Territory. Not in fact a band, Her Jazz is ‘a radical, posi-core community interested in dialogue about equality, privilege, gender, power and personal experience," according to their mission statement.’
Mel Mundell, Discorder, Her Jazz Noise Collective

VIVO Media Arts Centre gratefully receives ongoing annual support from The Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, The Government of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver.

VIVO Media Arts Centre and Father Zosima Presents:
YOUR HIT PARADE

February 18-20, 09
8:00PM/ Tickets Available at the Door/ $10 per night-$25 for three nights
VIVO Media Arts Centre/ 1965 Main Street, Vancouver

Featuring the newest, bravest, and most innovative sounds from the world's most acclaimed artists, three provocative nights of genre-shattering live performances.

The objective of Your Hit Parade is to bring major international musicians to play for local audiences, as well as hosting innovative improvisers from Vancouver and Canada. The musicians showcased at Your Hit Parade all share a great many ideals with contemporary art, and can be closely associated with the impact of relational esthetics as well as the enduring traditions of performance art and conceptual art practices. Like these art movements, the musicians chosen for Your Hit Parade also raise questions as to the ontology of music itself, making music that enquires into the very meaning of sound, and asks that the listener be included in this discussion.

Jonathan Seilaff (Portland) – bass clarinet
Christine Sehnaoui (Paris) – alto saxophone
Jeffrey Allport (Vancouver) – percussion
Greg Kelley (Boston) – trumpet
Jaime Fennelly (NYC) – organ/electronics

The International Nothing
Kai Fagashinski (Berlin) – clarinet
Michael Theike (Berlin) – clarinet
Josh Stevenson (Vancouver) – modular synthesizer

Attn: Diamond Shoppers
Lee Hutzulak (Vancouver) – turntable
Rachael Wadham (Vancouver) – amplified objects
Tyler Wilcox (Bellingham) – soprano saxophone
Crys Cole (Winnipeg) – electronics
Lief Hall (Vancouver) – voice
Robert Pedersen (Vancouver) – electronics
Ken Roux (Halifax) – electronics

Wednesday February 18th

Sehnaoui/Roux
Kelley/Fennelly
Attn: Diamond Shoppers [Hutzulak/Wadham]
The International Nothing [Fagashinski/Theike]

Thursday February 19th

Hall/Kelley/Pedersen
Fagashinski/ Allport/Cole
Stevenson/Fennelly
Theike/Wilcox/Seilaff/Sehnaoui

Friday February 20th

Kelley/Sehnaoui/Allport
Hutzulak/Seilaff/Pedersen
Stevenson/Cole
Wadham/ Hall/Roux/Wilcox

CINEMA AND DISJUNCTION

Monday Feb 9 09

Presented by DIM | at Pacific Cinematheque | 7:30pm | $9.50/ $8 students + $3 membership | dimcinema.ca + cinematheque.bc.ca
Curated by Ben Donoghue.
Filmmakers in person. Panel discussion to follow screening.

This Vancouver premiere screening of Adrian Blackwell's Night Equals Day and Daniel Young and Christian Giroux's Every Building, Or Site, That a Building Permit Has Been Issued for a New Building in Toronto in 2006 bring two recent structural approaches to development in Toronto to the West. These two new silent 35mm architectural films form the initial parts of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT)'s "Cinema and Disjunction" commissioning and production support project for critical architectural film works. Drawing inspiration from art historical precedents and contemporary critiques of the urban form, the initial projects presented under this framework defamiliarize and interrupt Toronto's visual narratives with new questions and alternative possibilities. To express our intent in Bernard Tschumi's terms, these films "reinscribe the movement of bodies in space, together with the actions and events that take place within the social and political realm of architecture."

Blackwell's Night Equals Day employs complex camera control to record a day at a single point of Regent Park's (Canada's oldest public housing development and now the site of significant condominium development) Sackville and Oak streets intersection, compressing a twelve-hour equinox day to thirty minutes of film time, one frame per second, and one three-hundred-and-sixty degree camera rotation per hour. In Young and Giroux's Every Building, one experiences a comparatively accelerated city represented by one hundred and thirty odd buildings or building sites captured in short static shots. These highly aestheticized images, shot all over Toronto's boundaries, develop a time-based response to photo-conceptualism's language of architectural photography, reframing Ruscha within contemporary practice. – Ben Donoghue

Feb 11 09 | Emily Carr University | 7pm | Free | ecuad.ca

Film does not equal Sculpture: Two Toronto sculpture practices experiment with film.

Young, Giroux, and Blackwell will briefly introduce excerpts of their recent film projects, followed by two short talks investigating the relationship between these moving images and their ongoing investigations of physical space.

Feb 24 09 | Cineworks | 6pm | Free | cineworks.ca

Thought on Film: The Condition of Post-modernity

An excerpt from David Harvey's The Condition of Post-modernity will be presented for group reading and discussion. Harvey's answer to Fred Jameson's Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, and Jean-François Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition is a significant influence on Young, Giroux and Blackwell's work because of Harvey's rigorous basis of his analysis of cultural and social change in the economic and his special emphasis on social geography and the production of space.

Co-presented by The Pacific Cinematheque, Presentation House Gallery, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society and Emily Carr University.

DIM is a monthly evening of contemporary short form moving images and cinematic collaborations. DIM is focused on expanding the visibility of Canadian and international experimental artists and their practices in the cinema; and illuminating underground moving image culture in Vancouver. Programmed by Amy Lynn Kazymerchyk.

HER JAZZ: WOMEN'S STUDIES
Saturday Feb 7 09

Doors open at 8:30pm. Event starts at 9pm.
Cover: 5-10$ sliding scale

dj vera

Performances:
ora cogan
square root of evil
holly holt and tyler greentree
her jazz scores an Amber Dawn film

In addition: animations by Asa Mori and Lief Hall

WOMEN'S STUDIES is a series of nights of experimental music, art, performance art, video, and dance curated by the members of the experimental-noise collective, Her Jazz Noise Collective. We kick off our Spring 2009 series on February 7th at VIVO Media Arts Centre. In addition to sound/music/noise/dance performances on each night, the nights will feature interactive themes specific to each event (February-Video, March-Electroacoustic Music, April-Craft/Installation Pieces). The performances contain mostly women playing mostly free-improvised music and sounds using random materials, computers, or instruments. All are welcome to attend the event. Under 19ers get in for free. This event is co-produced with VIVO Media Arts Centre.

Please watch for upcoming Her Jazz events March 7 and April 11

TREASURE MAMMAL +

Saturday Jan 31 09
Doors 8pm, show starts at 9pm
Door $5

A night of experimental punk, noise, Jane Fonda workout tapes, electro-dance, and self-help. Co-presented with VIVO Media Arts Centre.

Treasure Mammal (Phoenix)
GR8-2000 (Vancouver)
Stamina Mantis (Vancouver)
Shearing Pinx (Vancouver)
Sex Negatives (Vancouver)

A review of Treasure Mammal

88 BLOCKS * ART ON MAIN
INSTANT COFFEE: BRIGHT FUTURE

Saturday Jan 17 09 7-10pm
Launch Event and reception for the artists

The inaugural exhibition for 88 BLOCKS Art on Main--a public art program for the Main Street corridor in Vancouver, BC--is A Bright Future by Instant Coffee which comprises a suite of temporary and permanent public artworks. The temporary artworks are on display until 30 April 2009 and are installed on three articulated trolleys that service the #3 Main bus route and in a bus shelter on Main Street.

Blanket Bus completely wraps an articulated trolley in five different crocheted afghan blanket patterns.

Instant Coffee 500 will fill the inside of a second trolley with artworks commissioned by Instant Coffee from artists from North, Central and South America and Europe that will be displayed in place of the usual commercial advertisements inside the trolley. People are invited to vote for their favourite artwork inside the second trolley via text messaging to 604.779.0008 or online at www.instantcoffee.org to select a piece which will be displayed at a larger scale on the outside of a third trolley to be launched at the end of January 2009. The winning artwork will be announced at the opening launch event on Saturday, 17 January 2009 with a cash prize awarded to the artist.

Instant Coffee Light Bar Bus Shelter is an installation in the bus shelter on the west side of Main Street at 20th Avenue which provides the public with S.A.D. light therapy while waiting for the bus.

Say Nothing in Bright Colours is Instant Coffee's permanent public artwork which includes seven brightly painted sandwich boards bearing hand-painted slogans installed on the Main Street sidewalk near the intersections of 22nd Avenue (east and west sidewalks), 20th Avenue (east and west), Broadway (west) and Kingsway (east).

Instant Coffee is an internationally recognized artist collective based in Vancouver and Toronto which developed, in part, as a response to the division and exaggerated difference between studio and exhibition practice. Through formal installations and event-based activities, it builds a public place to practice, where ideas, materials and actions can be explore outside of the isolated studio and in a manner that renegotiates traditional exhibition structures, but is still supported by them. Instant Coffee's most consistent members are Cecilia Berkovic, Jinhan Ko, Khan Lee, Kelly Lycan, Kate Monro and Jenifer Papararo. See www.instantcoffee.org for a comprehensive listing and detailed descriptions of their past projects.

The Instant Coffee Blanket Bus and Instant Coffee 500 artwork trolleys will be parked outside of VIVO and available for viewing during the launch event. The launch event is co-hosted by VIVO Media Arts Centre.

88 Blocks Art on Main is presented by the City of Vancouver and TransLink in partnership, through Transport Canada's Urban Transportation Showcase Program. Planned and implemented by Maureen Smith of id Public Art Consulting, 88 BLOCKS is a public art program for Main Street in Vancouver, BC with five planned exhibitions. The program will launch the exhibitions in series over a three year period that will offer changing artwork on three articulated trolleys servicing the #3 Main route, several temporary artwork installations and at least one permanent installation in each exhibition at various locations along Main Street. In the months ahead, watch for Germaine Koh's suite of artworks to be launched next.

PAST EVENTS 2008

THIS SUMMER'S GONNA BE A GIRL RIOT

Riot Grrrl Music Video Dance Party on Friday December 12 2008
Presented by VAG! WACK! INTERVENTION! and VIVO Media Arts Centre
Music 9:30 Revolution 10pm | 1965 Main Street Vancouver BC | $5

Music videos and documentation from the Riot Grrrl Movement
Performances by the Bash Brothers, Oh I See & Her Jazz Noise Collective
Mix Tape Marathon with DJ Ruggedly Handsome, DJ Tapes & DJ Doll Parts
THE AFTER PARTY installation: Un-packing the pants of vaginal imagery in feminist art by Paige Gratland, Onya Hogan-Finlay and Hannah Jickling.

THE AFTER PARTY presents...our response to WACK!

All (gender)Inclusive Weekend Package: Un-packing the pants of vaginal imagery in feminist art
Dec 11-14, 2008, Vancouver, BC, Canada
VIVO and various locations in Vancouver
Deadline for contributions: December 8, 2008

We THE AFTER PARTY, invite you, feminist collaborator, to contribute to our respond to WACK! during our “All (gender)Inclusive Weekend Package: Un-packing the pants of vaginal imagery in feminist art” Dec 11-13, 2008. Presented together with VAG!WACK!INTERVENTION! and VIVO Media Art's Centre's This Summer's Gonna Be a Girl Riot Dance Party on December 12, 2008, this project is a nod to the earlier work of our 2nd wave foremothers in WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, currently being exhibited at The Vancouver Art Gallery.

In the spirit of Feminism, THE AFTER PARTY will host an “All (gender)Inclusive Weekend Package” with 3 key events in Vancouver: A Thursday night group walk-through of WACK! exhibition at the VAG, followed by a day-long hands-on cardboard craft workshop and two temporary installations at VIVO's Friday night Riot Grrl event, and finally a Sunday bondfire at Wreck Beach.

The “All (gender)Inclusive Weekend Package” will have the feel of something between a debauch Feminist clubhouse, santa's workshop, and a DIY, dumpstered cardboard utopia. Together we will create two installations with artist multiples and hand-crafted cardboard objects at VIVO for one-night only (December 12, 2008)! This work will respond both to WACK! and to Judy Chicago's “The Dinner Party” (1974-1979) which featured place settings honoring women icons and aimed to “end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record.” Objects will be suspended like mobiles from VIVO's ceiling or will join an assemblage of limited edition multiples on a table in a staged “after-party” scene. In assemblage-style combination, artist multiples will join both the cardboard re-makes, (suspended like mobiles from VIVO's ceiling), as well as the staged “after-party” scene.

Cut-up some cardboard, cut out the patriarchy and let's make this happen together!

- Riot Grrrl Manifesto 1991 -

BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.

BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.

BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own moanings.

BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo.

BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things.

BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can't play our instruments, in the face of “authorities” who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and

BECAUSE we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn't.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary “reverse sexists” AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.

BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock “you can do anything” idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.

BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/heari ng cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.

BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process.

BECAUSE we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of being cool according to traditional standards.

BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.

BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.

SLAB 2: VOTES FOR SLEEPWALKERS

HITO STEYERL

For those who missed her screening:

Europe's Dream (1999)

The (W)hole of Babel (2000)

Culture and Crime (2000)

Can the Subaltern Speak German? (2002)

The Articulation of Protest (2002)

Documentarism as Politics of Truth (2003)

The Institution of Critique (2006)

The Language of Things (2006)

The Subalterns' Present (2007)

The Empire of Senses (2007

THE VIDEOS OF HITO STEYERL AND ARTUR ZMIJEWSKI WHICH WERE RECENTLY EXHIBITED AT VIVO MEDIA ARTS ARE ACCESSIBLE FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES IN THE VIDEO OUT DISTRIBUTION VIEWING ROOM.

Video In Studios gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, B.C. Arts Council and the City of Vancouver.