Sunday May 17 – Wednesday May 20, 10:30pm ET
Across the Universe
Cristóbal Cea, Bobby Davidson, Joseph Desler Costa, Danielle Ezzo and Anton Marini, Carolyn Lambert, Alexandra Lerman, Camila Marchon, Lisa McCarty, Rosa Menkman, Yehui Zhao
Organized by Zach Nader
Live chat w/ the artists at 8:45pm ET
Microscope is pleased to present an online screening program organized by Zach Nader, whose work is currently on view in the online solo exhibition “suspicious packages,” featuring video works by Cristóbal Cea, Bobby Davidson, Joseph Desler Costa, Danielle Ezzo and Anton Marini, Carolyn Lambert, Alexandra Lerman, Camila Marchon, Lisa McCarty, Rosa Menkman, Yehui Zhao.
The approximately one-hour-long program includes ten works completed between 2009 and 2020 considering our experience as it relates to our physical location, from personal spaces to the web, from cities to deserts, and in relationship to the wider universe.
Zach Nader says:
“Through the lens of compression artifacts, expanded news footage, narrative journey, advertisement, found footage, nature, and space travel, each video here reorients the past towards potential new futures. A sense of longing, of mediated wandering, and an uncertain road ahead permeate through this group made over the last decade. They are a meditation on how we might locate ourselves in time and space, and varying approaches of connecting with ourselves and each other.”
Zach Nader and several of the artists will be available for a Q&A post screening via live chat at 8:45pm ET. The chat window is situated below the video program. A pre-recorded introduction opens the night. The program remains viewable through Wednesday May 20th, 10:30pm ET.
Passes for give full access to program, video introduction, and live Q&A.
General admission $8 (Valid through May 20, 10:30pm ET)
Member admission $6 (Valid through May 20, 10:30pm ET)
Program:
Dream Date (The Video)
by Joseph Desler Costa
UHD single-channel video, 2020, 7 minutes 20 seconds
Dream Date (The Video) is a meditation on love, ego and memory in a time of hyper-connectivity. Part memoir, part email exchange, part perfume commercial, the video collages text from disparate sources such as twitter, magazine articles, classic cinema and the artist’s own journals. Pulling inspiration from Chris Marker’s 1983 film Sans Soleil, the video pictures the smooth and technologically affected reality we increasingly are forced to inhabit. Sleek commercial looking images coupled with call-and-response narration and a softly pulsing soundtrack combine to both question and mark what is significant in a time of eroding personal connection.
Artist as Reclining Nude as 3D Model, IIby Danielle Ezzo & Anton Marini
HD single-channel video, 2016-17, 2 minutes 18 seconds
One in a series from the project, The Two Body Problem. Danielle Ezzo is a photo-based artist and Anton Marini is a graphics programmer. Together they are curious about where imaging technology and the human form meet. In, The Two Body Problem, they attempt to create a virtual union between lovers, all the while, realizing that technology both facilitates connection while mediating it. By simultaneously photographing and filming one another, Danielle and Anton, create 3D models generated from this data. The disparity between visuals cues, physical anatomy, and programatic error create pause.
Across the Universeby Camila Marchon
HD single-channel video, 2020, 1 minute 52 seconds
Across the Universe (1’52”) is one of the videos of a three-channel video installation that approaches existential questions about God and the beginning of the universe. It shows pages of an old atlas replaced by Google street view, while we hear Google’s voice singing or reading this famous Beatles song.
Dear Opportunityby Lisa McCarty
HD single-channel video, 2019, 10 minutes 6 seconds
When NASA declared Opportunity, also known as Mars Exploration Rover – B, inoperable after 15 years of exploration, an unusual archive of public mourning was inadvertently created. This piece pairs images and sounds made by Opportunity with messages sent from mourners around the world via NASA’s digital postcard service. Structured though an application of the Kübler-Ross model, or the five stages of grief, these virtual sentiments and images reveal a rare moment of collective humanity.
The Return of the Return of the Giant Hogweedby Alexandra Lerman
HD single-channel video, 2019, 4 minutes 58 seconds
Soundtrack by Kel Valhaal
The video is centered on the history of the photo-toxic Giant Hogweed plant. Native to Central Asia, it was brought to Europe and the US as an ornamental plant, while in the Soviet Union it was cultivated as innovative cattle feed. The photo-toxic property of the plant is revealed when the sap of the plant comes in contact with human skin activated by sunlight causing third-degree burns. Giant Hogweed spreads rapidly and since it’s been brought from its natural habitat has surpassed its exotic decorative and cattle feed purpose becoming “invasive.” The video is an updated version of the song The Return of Giant Hogweed released by the English rock band Genesis in 1971. The song warns of the spread of the toxic plant after it was “captured” in Russia and brought to England by a Victorian explorer. The song’s lyrics humorously suggest the plant is attempting to take over the human race. The updated version is told from the point of view of the plants in the Russian language telling the history of the Giant Hogweed in the Post-soviet block. The questions Lerman is grappling with is the state of ecology, the detrimental role which human progress plays in the man-made climate catastrophe, and what happens when nature is displaced and starts to “retaliate.”
Xunby Yehui Zhao
HD single-channel video, 2 minutes 39 seconds
Xun (寻) means “to search” in Mandarin, without a purpose of finding anything, to drift timelessly and be lost in the world of disorientation. A surrealist journey of locality and time, Xun is an exploration of distance, home and invisibility. The film measures the distance of a lost past and the distorted present through the juxtaposition of paintings, animation, live action and still images.
Principiaby Bobby Davidson
HD single-channel video, 2014, 8 minutes 30 seconds
Musical score written and performed by Aaron Gustafson
This hypnotic grouping of imagery inspired by one of the most celebrated pastimes is compiled into an unending tension set in the vastness of the desert. Drawing inspiration from Eadweard Muybridge’s 19th century motion study experiment, this film looks at the role of the pitcher, the one position with the most influence on the passage of time. Depicting something so ordinary, the pursuit of divorcing motion from time comes together to play out in a drama-like struggle between speed, force and gravity.
Ghosts of Concordiaby Cristóbal Cea
HD single-channel video, 2016, 5 minutes
Starting from a 1 minute newsclip, Ghosts of Concordia recreates the floods of Concordia (Argentina, December 2015), using a variety of 3D Animation and Digital Postproduction tools, in order to restore the gaze towards this now forgotten event: Ghosts, Virtual cameras and 3D performances recreated from the little information available in the digital newsclip, configure a looping narration based in impossibility of knowing if these problems where ever solved: the inconsolable distance that separates event, witness and spectator.
Dear Mr Compressionby Rosa Menkman
Single-channel video, 2009, 3 minutes 39 seconds
Corrupt tango / There is not sufficient data. / Please enter data / Your file has invalid markers. Enter new markers / Your dimensions do not correspond. Change dimensions / ERROR / Goto data therapy and repair your registry / Your keyframes are missing / Your codecs are not supported / Please respect the software / Now it is too little too late / [system shut down] / Dear mr compression / I write a 1000 poems to you / Is this what they call progress? / Warmly yours, / the noxious angel of history
Permanent Landscapeby Carolyn Lambert
HD single-channel video, 2014, 10 minutes 41 seconds
Permanent Landscape is an experimental, fragmented nature film, motivated by a desire to compose an alternative to popular narratives around the specter of climate change. Deferring a singular narrative, a collaged voice-over navigates desire, anxiety, concepts of nature, and attempts to imagine a future society over a montage of insects, bodies, real and simulated landscapes.
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Cristóbal Cea (1981) is a Chilean artist that work across a variety of mediums, from 3D animation to sculpture and drawing. A determination to inhabit the mediated distance that separates us from complex social, political and historical events are a constant component of his practice, which has been part of group shows in spaces like Lunds Konsthall (Sweden), Alcalá 31 (Spain), Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art (Argentina), and several solo exhibitions at museums and galleries in Chile. As an artist and teacher, his has been awarded among other recognitions the Fulbright Grant, RISD Bridge Research Grant, National Founding for The Arts (Chile, 2010-2016), the Museum of Visual Arts (MAVI) Contemporary Art Prize, the CCU Scholarship and several research and creation grants at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where he currently teaches New Media, Videogames and 3D Animation courses.
Joseph Desler Costa is an American / Italian artist working in photography, video and new media. Costa’s practice explores consumerist dreams, pop culture, nostalgia and desire. Employing multiple exposure, re-photography, as well as laser-cut, layered prints, Costa produces almost machine-made looking photographs and films that question and embrace the offerings of commercial culture. Costa currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an advanced degree from ICP-Bard College (MFA) and attended the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba. Exhibitions include Eden, Metronom Gallery, Modena, Italy,Them!, Transformer Station, Cleveland, USA; The Drowned, Alabama Contemporary, AL , USA; Thread Count, Unseen Photo Fair, Amsterdam, NL; Photography is Magic, Aperture Foundation, NY, USA; The Art of Now, The Hearst Galleries, NY, USA; and Expanded Geographies, Lianzhou Foto, Lanzhou, China. Photographic works are included in the permanent collections of the Leonard Lauder Collection, the Cleveland Clinic Art Collection, BNY Mellon Collection, the Bidwell Collection and the collection of the International Center of Photography.
Bobby Davidson is a New York City based artist and cinematographer. His practice often dissects the practicality of any one giving exploration. Through the use of photography, video, sculpture and installation, Davidson seeks out a greater meaning of perception, identity and consumption. His work has been exhibited with The Center for Photography at Woodstock, MoMA PS1, The Hillyer Art Space, Red Bull Arts, Stephen Kellen Gallery, The Alabama Contemporary Art Center ,The Aperture Foundation and The SCAD Museum of Art. In 2013, Davidson was selected for PDN’s The Curator. His work is part of the permanent collection at The SCAD Museum of Art.
Danielle Ezzo is a MFA graduate of Lesley University College of Art & Design. Her recent interests lie in contextualizing digital retouching practices and other mechanisms that create the photographic experience. To her, the process of image-making is as exciting as the photograph’s evidential components. She has lectured at HISTART in Istanbul, Turkey, written for the New Inquiry, exhibited nationally, and has work in the permanent collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
Carolyn Lambert engages with the vulnerability of living in a time of environmental turmoil and mass extinction through work in video, installation and performance. Lambert has exhibited nationally and internationally, at venues such as the Drawing Center and NUTUREart in New York, the European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück, Germany, and most recently, at MUMOK Kino,Vienna. She splits her time between southeastern Tennessee and upstate New York.
Alexandra “Sasha” Lerman (b. 1980, St. Petersburg, Russia) is a New York-based artist whose work interrogates systems governing the post-industrial landscape of immaterial labor through photography, sculpture, video, and performance. The themes of her work locate themselves in historical moments in which natural ecosystems, language, bodily gesture, and expressive freedom come into conflict with the corporate and governmental systems of control such as agricultural and technical innovations, copyright law, and the built environment. Lerman’s work has been shown at the SculptureCenter, Tina Kim Gallery, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Anthology Film Archives, Artists Space, Whitney Museum, New Museum in New York, Signal Center, Malmö in Sweden, MUSAC in Spain, the Museum of Hygiene in Saint Petersburg and Ground Solyanka in Moscow, Russia among others. Alexandra took part in the LMCC Workspace Program, Open Sessions Residency at the Drawing Center, LabVERDE residency in Manaus, Brazil, and Banff’s A Position of DOCUMENTA (13), Alberta, Canada. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art.
Camila Marchon (Rio de Janeiro, 1984) is an artist and filmmaker. She holds degrees in Communication Studies and Photography, Image and Memory. Her works were exhibited in Brazil, Spain, Egypt, South Korea, Japan, Venezuela, EUA, Portugal, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Hungary. She has 29 pictures and one book in Joaquim Paiva’s collection, the most significant photography collection of Brazil. This collection belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. Lately, she’s been working on a visual art show and game about surveillance systems.
Anton Marini’s work focuses on improvisation and realtime manipulation of video. He plays, bends, rips, tears, shreds, morphs, molds, glitches and synthesizes pixels to form new visual experiences. He is a former artist in residence at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center and researcher in residence at NYU’s Brooklyn Experimental Media Center. He has also taught at Parsons/New School Design and Technology Department and performed and taught workshops at many new media and video festivals around the world. He designs open source tools to help facilitate the realtime video performance medium.
Lisa McCarty is a photographer and filmmaker based in Dallas, Texas where she is Assistant Professor of Photography at Southern Methodist University. McCarty has participated in over 70 exhibitions and screenings at venues such as the Carnegie Museum of Art, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, the Nasher Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Visual Studies Workshop. McCarty’s photographs have also been featured in a variety of international festivals including Noorderlicht, Internationale Photoszene Köln, Picture Berlin, and Sören Kierkegaard in Images, while her moving images have been screened at the New York Film Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Experiments in Cinema, Cairo Video Festival, Encounters Short Film & Animation Festival, and Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival.
Rosa Menkman’s work focuses on noise artifacts that result from accidents in both analogue and digital media (such as glitch and encoding and feedback artifacts). The resulting artifacts of these accidents can facilitate an important insight into the otherwise obscure alchemy of standardization via resolutions. The standardization of resolutions is a process that generally imposes efficiency, order and functionality on our technologies. It does not just involve the creation of protocols and solutions, but also entails the obfuscation of compromises and the black-boxing of alternative possibilities, which are as a result in danger of staying forever unseen or even forgotten. Through her research, which is both practice based and theoretical, she uncovers these anti-utopic, lost and unseen or simply “too good to be implemented” resolutions — to produce new ways to use and perceive through and with our technologies.
Yehui Zhao is a filmmaker and artist, whose work addresses diaspora and womanhood, invisibility and distance, memories and non-recorded history. She enjoys exploring intersections of family history, womanism and post-colonialism. Her work has been shown recently at ThePeople’s Forum, and she is a candidate for an MFA in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College.
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Microscope Gallery Event Series 2020 is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC).