MOMENT: A Video Exploration

Video and other time-based digital media have opened up expansive new visual terrains for artists to explore. These media present artists and viewers alike with opportunities to investigate the development of new forms of expression as well as the impact these forms have upon our physical environment, social relations, and visual perception. Digital media thus emerge in this exhibition as both the subject and object of inquiry.

The works presented here also provide subtle points of resistance to the proliferation of rapidly flickering screens in our lives and alternative visions to those of the mass media. The current sense that time is always rushing forward and fragmenting into ever more masticated bits, finds its counterpoint in the works of Zack Bent and Jacob Galle. These artists slow time down, offering to viewers expanded and lingering moments for contemplating everyday experiences.

Our relationship to our bodies too has been transformed as we develop new ways of representing ourselves and our physical relationships to the world. Kent Anderson Butler and CM Judge present the body as it comes into contact with the sensations of fluids and sounds and reaches its own physical and psychical limits.

As we grow accustomed to new media we increasingly find in them moments of familiarity. Ron Hollingshead embraces the GIF’s familiar format, only to make it again unfamiliar through cunningly humorous visual strategies and by recontextualizing it in new spaces. Ann Beal creates works that resonate with the pleasure found in the traditionally handcrafted but her videos then set these forms in motion in suggestive if beguiling ways.

Ultimately, for all the common themes one may find coursing through these works, this exhibition represents a cross section of current practice. Like the videos themselves, it does not provide a particular narrative but instead allows the viewer the space to reflect upon the ways in which these artists use these by now common media for uncommon purposes.

Thanks to John Christ for writing the above introduction. 

This exhibition was curated with support from Jason Swift, and was designed in collaboration with the artists. The intention was to create a dark room where audiences could immerse themselves in the physical experience of the videos.

Artists included in this exhibition:

Ann Beal:http://www.annebealanimation.com http://www.vimeo.com/annebeal

Zack Bent: http://zackbent.com/video/

Kent Anderson Butler:http://www.apu.edu/cma/vpa/faculty/krbutler/ http://www.kentandersonbutler.com/videos.html.

Jacob Galle:http://ajacobgalle.com/ https://vimeo.com/4844768.

Ron Hollingsworth:http://www.ronhollingshead.com/#!tgif/c1u3c

C.M. Judge: www.cmjudge.com https://vimeo.com/cmjudge