First Friday at Vox Populi

Picture used with the courtesy of the Vox Populi Gallery

http://www.voxpopuligallery.org/

Magnetic Movie, by artists who call themselves "Semiconductor," is a squeaky, spastic, scientific digital animation (projected on a screen in a secluded dark room) of what magnetic fields and particle movements hypothetically look like (a video still can be seen in the picture above at the bottom right). The work could be viewed as "just" a glorified diagram of the potentiality of physics but it's an enthralling one. Part of what makes the video so enjoyable is that the graphic animations are contained in real environments. One watches neon magnetic fields expand and particles buzz, pop, and fire through what seems to be experimental laboratories. A highlight is when the "real space" seems to get caught in a matter 'quake, blurring the lines between the graphically altered and the actual.

I'm not one who usually likes to bring up the question "What category does it fit into?" but in this case, I can't deny the inquiry. Is it science or is it art (or both)? This dilemma reminds me of Eadweard Muybridge's stop-motion photographs from the late 1800's (which I learned about from Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age by Margot Lovejoy). Muybridge's photos are considered scientific but not science because it was revealed that he "freely edited" his photographic sequences for the sake of continuity.

Eadweard Muybridge The Horse In Motion. 1878
Used with the courtesy of http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/images/muybridge_galloping_horse.jpg

Whereas the results from Jules-Étienne Marey's "phot-graphic gun" are considered hard science because they are precisely captured multiples without any post-production alterations. So, the distinction between what is and what is not science, according to this example, is a matter of whether or not the photographer's hand distorted the results. In the case of Magnetic Movie, the animations are based off of science but the results are creative interpretations. The artists took the blueprints for what particle movement and magnetic fields could look or sound like and pushed them into artistic territory.

There are two other video works at Vox but neither have the jolt of Magnetic Movie (not that I necessarily judged them comparitively, for they were all of different genres and it would be unfair...I'm just noting what I liked and didn't like). Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib's Black Hole is, simply put, disappointing (top right in the picture above). The room that Black Hole is in is more impressive than that of Magnetic Movie because it's larger and darker. The film seems to engulf the viewer which made the video, in part, live up to its name. However, the content is confused and the progression is suspect (images enter and reappear without registering).

I appreciate the chiaroscuro and some of the light play (they mesh with my video art aesthetic) but there was an attempt at a narrative that fails. I left thinking, "What was that?" After I exited the room, I found a gallery statement that discussed isolation (a favorite topic of mine), political metaphors, film noir, and cinematic conventions (so, there was an attempt at conveying meaning-- it wasn't meant to be a display of the destruction of information) but I didn't get any of that from the work (two people I watched the video with remarked on the division between the art and the statement as well).

Lauren Kelly's Big Gurl is shown on a tv screen hung on the wall in normal lighting (bottom left in the above picture). It's a stop-motion video with Barbie-like dolls that is difficult to sit through due to its inherent awkwardness but that is not the reason it's unsuccessful. It fails because its too "messagey." I don't discourage feminist messages, the truth is quite the contrary, but all the characters in this narrative are simply representations of sexist issues instead of being complex characters that we could connect with. All the men are over-the-top sleezeballs or morons trying to pick up attractive women. I'll admit that I didn't make it through the entire piece but I watched three "skits" and all three fall under this description (you could watch it for one minute and "get it"). In other words, take away the "I'm going to beat you over the head with my message" element and we're left with cleverly arranged backgrounds.

This blog is getting too long so, I'll wrap it up (I focused on video art because it's my medium but there are other works as well...Carl Baratta's paintings are fun--the middle right image in the top photo). In the end, Magnetic Movie is deeply affecting and certainly worth the trip.

Thanks for reading!