Installations, Performances, etc....
click image for details when indicated
Reading (Halifax, June, 2001)
A work performed with Michael Fernandes, based on the reading of a text which was developed during a residency at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. There are two performers. One climbs up and sits on top of a pile of four wooden chairs to read. The other is seated directly in front of the audience. (click image for more)
POTATO (March, 2001)
A computer font based on type designer Paul Renner's classic modern font, Futura, retooled through the process of potato printing; each letter carved out of a potato; printed and re-digitized. (click 'W' for more)
To begin with; a river and a tree (1999-2001)
An installation in a completely darkened space (last show at Artspace, Peterborough, spring, 2001). A video projection of a river onto billowing fabric; a projected image of a single tree; a recorded voice moves, at a walking pace, around the perimeter of the space. (click image for more)
TRIO (dedicated to you) (1999)
(installation in a storage locker)
An altered chair and a set of headphones hanging from the ceiling. Standing
on the chair to reach the headphones one can hear an old jazz song, "Dedicated
to You" sung repeatedly, in my voice, unaccompanied, sometimes
in tune, sometimes not. (click image for more)
My Favourite Things (1993)
(installation with audio; texts on cards, photo panels are 48"x48")
Circling
aroud the cube the viewer can pick up business cards on which are printed
short texts. One relates the story of a wolf approaching
and circling; another is the story of a child panic at being lost; another
a questioning of the possibility of expression. Triggered by a motion
detector, a recording of John Coltrane improvising on the melody if My
Favorite Things can be heard very faintly for a few minutes.
(click image for more)
That Time (Samuel Beckett) (1996-8)
(performance for recorded voice and a single performer)
The 'listener' is a diembodied head floating 12' above the stage in complete
darkness. his eyes are open to begin with , then close as a voice comes to
him from three directions. These are overlapping litanies of memory each in
turn cutting off the other. they seem to be from three distinct periods of
life. Both the voice and visual element
of the piece operate at the threshold of perceptibility. The voice is a whisper,
the minimal light focussed on the head causes it to shimmer as it burns a
trace on the retina. (with Michael Fernandes)
de memoire (1991)
(photo glued directly to the wall, framed text; approx: 2.5m x 3.5m)
A photo of the barber shop of a neighbour in Montreal, who had fled
from Germany in the 1930's. A small framed text of a poem by Russian poet
Ossip Mandelstam. The stripes in the photo are re-painted in red (I had
painted the original stripes). Along the floor under the image is a pile
of hair, sweepings from local barber's shops. (click
image for more)
from here we can see the clouds in the sky (1996)
(installation with projections onto transluscent banners, video)
In
a darkened space the image of an air-crash on a green mountainside is
projected, in fragments, onto 12 sheets of transliscent vellum hanging
from the ceiling. Fans cause the images to sway gently.
Elsewhere a text is projected onto the back of a TV on
which a video of rolling titles plays, each title suggesting a different
potential story.
(click image for more)
Smart Boy (2003)
Wall text (5'x2') contributed to "We Were Thinking: a group show celebrating 35 years of conceptual art in Nova Scotia" at Annaleonowens Gallery, NSCAD, Halifax, 2003.
(click image for more)