i/o: push, shift, drift; puncture, cut, move; slice, shimmer, trace
work/projects by students in Video Installation 1, Fall 2005

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 3, 2005
Project Space and Gallery 2
School of the Art Institute of Chicago course-driven projects
Opening reception: Friday, November 4 / 6-9 pm

Artists: Catherine Acosta, Daniel Baird, Olga Benitez, Allie Compton, Carrie Dyer, Eun Sun Lee, Min Kyung Lee, Samia Mirza, Nicholas O'Brien, Esteban Schimpf, Timothy Shaw, Edyta Stepien, and Marco Aurelio Torres.
Mary Patten, Instructor; Ho Yun Son, Teaching Assistant.

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REPRESENTATIVE WORKS AND BIOS OF ARTIST-PARTICIPANTS

Catherine Acosta is interested in exploring the dichotomy between constant motion and stillness through video. In her project for "i/o," she explores a communicative exchange - yawning, biting, drooling, and gnashing - between projected images of two different human mouths.

Daniel Baird is focused on the effect of science and technology, in conjunction with the image, in relation to the now ever-temporal world. His installation is a representation of the blurring state of individuality in the age of digital technologies.

Olga Benitez believes that 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form." Her installation is a physical exploration of ritual, in search of meaning and transcendence.

Allie Compton's "Window Exercise" explores the physicality of community, inviting the viewer to watch and participate in the "grey line" between the public and private space of windows. In her work she explores gender socialization, specifically women's roles, through allegory, colloquial phrases, and popular tropes through various media.

Carrie Dyer is interested in documenting events that weren't supposed to happen, events that involve an emotional experience where time and its effects on the psyche play a subsequent role. Her work is formed through the creation of abstract narratives typically involving the symbolic use of an animal along with the representation of an emotional state.

Eun Sun Lee's "Bubble Mumble" continues a series of films and videos that embody gestures, movements, and spaces between people to represent their relationships

Min Kyung Lee wants to create pieces through video that can also be considered as "paintings." She uses the camera to shoot her own paintings and drawings, then edits them using various experimental techniques. The results are projected onto empty white canvas, provoking the question: is this a real painting? or a fake?

Nicholas O'Brien's work consists of lo-fi representations of abstract imagery, rooted in thinking about the processes of memory. His single channel piece in "i/o" consists of original experimental footage and a slowed-down camera to create structurally aestheticized moving images.

Samia Mirza's latest work revolves around the act of masking and veiling conventional objects with the charm of her aesthetic eye. Samia makes deliberate choices to invigorate mundane and banal objects with materials ranging from paint to video. Her re-imaged objects seem to reiterate their own meaning in a heightened form due to the artist's interventions.

Esteban Schimpf's art moves between drawing, painting, performance, photography, video, and sculpture. His current interdisciplinary work deals with the attempt to remedy the daunting aspects of death with visual pleasure. Intoxicating materials and imagery challenge the visual and mental oppression that ideas and images of darkness can have on us.

Timothy Shaw is a multimedia artist who works mostly with video, sound, and digital art. His installation piece in "i/o", entitled "letum.speculum," is an immersive environment incorporating pre-recorded video and sound and live feed, producing a space of self-reflection for the viewer.

Edyta Stepien, in her three-channel video and sound installation "Synthetic Landscape," questions our relationship to landscape and the extent to which we are able to accept its modification. Based in footage shot while traveling through various parts of the United States, the piece creates an environment that is part organic and part simulation.

Marco Torres is currently interested in the opposition between the conception of the moving image as text and as an imprint of "reality." For his piece in i/o, he uses spatial relations and a live feed to create a social/phenomenological tension between the "realness" of found footage and the politics of viewing.

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VIDEO INSTALLATION 1 - FVNM #3705-001
Studio/Production/Seminar/Critique
Mary Patten, Instructor. Ho Yun Son, T.A.

This class combines studio practice, critiques of student work, screenings, discussion, and site visits, as we examine the diverse histories and practices of video-based installation, multi-channel, and interactive video works. Each student is expected to experiment, workshop, develop and install a completed work for the class show at Gallery 2. Students preparing for their B.F.A. and M.F.A. thesis shows are encouraged to use the class as a laboratory for their projects.