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Past

Peripheral Fixation

collage-web

August 19 – September 26, 2015

Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 19, 7–9 PM

Artists: John Boyle Singfield (Montreal), Serena Lee (Toronto), Jenn E Norton (Guelph), Zeesy Powers (Toronto), Soft Turns (Sarah Jane Gorlitz and Wojciech Olejnik (Toronto)), Jessica Vallentin (Toronto), Daniel Waldman (Maple, ON), Tobias Williams (Toronto)

For our final exhibition in Suite #376 at 401 Richmond, Trinity Square Video is excited to announce an exhibition of work from its most ambitious themed commission yet. This year, Trinity Square Video has commissioned eight artists to produce new work that investigates the entanglement of perception, materiality, and technology. The selected projects engage with the mechanics and philosophy of perception using both emerging and historical technologies—probing the limits of perception and the tools with which we interpret the world and our lived realities. The commissioned works incorporate virtual reality, 3d scanning, optical illusion, offset printing techniques, olfactory installation, audio, colour theory, interactive video, and marketing tactics to present diverse approaches to the material conditions of perception and its interrelation with technology.

Commissioned Works:

baraka-getty

John Boyle-Singfield – Remake

Remake is a recreation of the movie Baraka in its entirety, presented simultaneously with it’s original counterpart. This pastiche was done by using watermarked stock video footage found on popular sites such as Getty Images.

John Boyle-Singfield is a Canadian born artist based in Montreal. His work primarily manifests a society in which the effects of technology and late capitalism have been absorbed into our bodies and altered our vision of the world. Within these transformations, complex systems of behavior arise. A depiction of this human entropy forms the base of his practice, questioning relations of power, language and memory in a society where attention-economy is the driving force. He is interested in banal forms and everyday objects, especially when they incarnate the new speed of identity-consumerism, and become art when they renounce their likeness to the living.

 

Taste-still-5

Serena Lee – The Taste of the Name

“The object is to name each of the three hundred and thirty shades of blue in every possible language, in order to ascertain the extent to which names for colour are universal.  The task should take about forty minutes. It should be performed on a sunny day, if possible in the shade, not in direct sunlight.”
A study in translation and taste; for solo viewing pleasure.

Serena Lee was born in Toronto and has lived, worked, and exhibited internationally. She holds an MA in Fine Art from the Piet Zwart Institute in the Netherlands, and Associate Certification in piano performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music of Canada. Until recently, Serena worked with migrant domestic workers and modernist furniture in the UK; currently, she is based in Chinatown.

 

Weighted Light

Jenn E Norton – Weighting Light

A stereoscopic projection of a figure that seemingly carries the weight of its own existence above its shoulders. Inspired in part by the art nouveau designer François-Rupert Carabin’s motif of women providing structural support in decorative furnishings, Weighting Light creates the illusion of the video’s content supporting the actual weight of the emitting technology. A CGI animation of a woman, standing as a mercurial caryatid, holds a shelf above her head, which supports the very source of her likeness, the projector itself. The projection aims outwards, towards a mirror that reflects the image back to the wall, producing the figure’s image.

Jenn E Norton is an interdisciplinary artist often using stereoscopic interactive video, animation, installation, sound and kinetic sculpture, working intimately with technology in a DIY capacity, marrying intuitive and formal processes.   Compositions of disjunctive imagery are bound together in post-production to render familiar landscapes, objects and activities, strange in order to open new dialogues, reframing longstanding expectations. Often performative, the work exists within liminal states where oppositions intersect.

 

Zeesy

Zeesy Powers – Model for an Averaging Mirror

Facial recognition is used to distort the viewer’s image beyond recognition, allowing the machine to see you as you cannot see yourself.

Zeesy Powers is an interdisciplinary artist who works with performance and rules. She is based in Toronto.
Fluorescence

Soft Turns – Fluorescence

Flu0rescence is a multichannel video sourced from printed images in various editions of a plant biology textbook, which slowly transform, becoming iridescent under the light of a laptop. Building on the idea that in scientific modes of viewing, touching and seeing are often related, it considers the possibility of an expanded conception of surface.

Soft Turns (Sarah Jane Gorlitz and Wojciech Olejnik) have exhibited their video-centered installations widely in Canada and internationally. Their work has been recognized by the Edstrand Foundation, the Toronto, Ontario and Canada Councils for the Arts, and the latter also awarded them the Joseph Stauffer Prize (2008) and a Paris Residency (2013).

 

Vallentin

Jessica Vallentin – Suite 376 (piss in my corner)

A score in sound and smell will unfold in the gallery space of Trinity Square Video throughout the duration of the exhibition. This score is a subtle exploration into public and private actions, specifically within urban space.

Jessica Vallentin’s practice is site specific, reacting to environments through exploring methods to engage the body and create non-visual experiences. Common themes within her works include the use of olfaction, explorations in public performance, and elements of socio-geographic research. She is based in Toronto.

 

Waldman

Daniel Waldman – How to drown (a user’s manual)

A brief character study of a financial predator overlaid with found footage and GIF images.

Daniel Waldman is an artist residing in Maple, Ontario who has been working mostly in video and performance since June 2009. Prior to making videos, Daniel was a member of the now-defunct internet art collective #spamfm. Daniel’s videos are overwhelmingly low budget and made using the cheapest possible equipment.

 

Tobias

Tobias Williams – Digital Ontology

Digital Ontology is a series of animations and sculptural works that explore the relationship between physical world and the notional digital word. 3d scanning and rendering software are used to digitize and transform sculptures into short looping animations.

Tobias Williams is a Toronto based artist and educator. His work is concerned with exploring the historic and contemporary relationship between technology, culture and creativity. His art practice is primarily based in print and digital media.

 

Documentation: