In
contrast to the prehistoric discovery of fire as a tool for the creation of
leisure time and the opportunity to build culture, contemporary television
turns the tables by adapting us to someone else’s idea of what culture is
supposed to be. Franklin Street Works’ latest media exhibit, Your Content Will
Return Shortly, dissects this seductive and ubiquitous tie between viewer and
TV from the perspectives of commerce, technological perception and development,
as well as the overall psychological sculpting of society.
“This
show was inspired by a desire to connect my own research on historic video
exhibitions and readings in media theory—including texts by David Joselit and
Marshall McLuhan,” explains Terri C. Smith, the exhibition’s curator, “with
observations of our own contemporary relationships with ‘television,’ which for
many is streamed at will via a laptop, bypassing the TV set altogether.”
Preceding
the 5:30-7 pm artists’ tour and café discussion this evening with Siebren Versteeg
and Jeff
Ostergrem (both of Brooklyn) and New Haven-based Catherine Ross, Franklin
Street Works has arranged with the University of Connecticut to present its
second ekphrastic poetry reading beginning at noon, courtesy of Pamela Brown
and students from her UConn writing class, whom, as post-VHS/CRT-era adopters of the latest iteration of technology,
like live streaming video, iphones and Blueray DVDs, will offer generation-specific
interpretations of the works on display.
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Catherine
Ross, IFO, 2006, video still,
courtesy the artist
|
Among
the eleven artists participating in Your Content, Jeff Ostergren contributed
Stimulus, a timely two-channel video
display that uses the details of pharmaceutical ads to demonstrate how, with sirenic
finesse, TV delivers viewers to advertisers as a captive audience, while
pretending to primarily serve their entertainment and information needs. Sports
coverage and sitcoms aside, “commercials ARE the content,” Jeff reminds, as “the
programming they surround are sublimated by the lurking capital that funds them,
that relates to the content that is geared towards a… focus group-determined
viewer.”
 |
Emily Roz, Presidents,
2006, 20 Polaroid prints, courtesy the artist
How
TV gets us to compartmentalize elements of current events and fiction with equal
rigidity is demonstrated in Emily Roz’s Death
by Mel, wherein Polaroid photos of TV images from various films featuring Gibson in the role of a killer are displayed side-by-side, removed from
their individual contexts. A complementary sequence of cinematic presidents drives the point home with disturbing impact that, despite the fact most viewers would have more familiarity in their lives with the latter encounter (as mediated via TV news) than the former, the vital distinction between the entertainment industry's interpretation of 'real-life', as opposed to 'realistic' no longer matters: Each piece “brings to mind an entire genre… and
(encourages viewers to) accept certain pretexts without question.”
|
Made
possible in part through the support of the Community Arts Partnership Program
awarded to Franklin Street Works by the City of Stamford and a two-year grant
from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Your Content Will Return Shortly
opened on January 24 and is on display through Sunday, March 24. In addition to
Jeff Ostergren’s and Emily Roz’s pieces, the program features the work of Christopher
DeLaurenti, Eric Gottesman, Jonathan Horowitz, Sophy Naess, Lucy Raven, Martha
Rosler, Catherine Ross, Carmelle Safdie, and Siebren Versteeg.
Situated in an old row house
near the UConn campus, Franklin Street Works is less than one hour from New
York City via Metro North and about one mile (a 15 minute walk) from the
Stamford train station. On-street parking is available on Franklin Street
(metered until 6 pm except on Sunday), and paid parking is available nearby in
a lot on Franklin Street and in the Summer Street Garage (100 Summer Street),
behind Target.
When:
Thursday,
March 14, 2013
Noon-1:15
PM, UConn Poetry Reading
5:30-7
PM, Artists’ Walk-Through & Café Discussion
Where:
41
Franklin Street
Stamford,
CT 06901
Phone/e-mail:
203-595-5211
___
Additional
Information:
Michael
Parenti, Make-Believe Media: the Politics of Entertainment, St. Martin's
Press (1992)
Postponed until next week due to today's storm, New York artist Ingrid Burrington’s Valentine’s Day-themed talk Connection Over Missed Connections at Franklin Street Works will scrutinize romantic longing across various cities as mapped out through a leading Franklin Street Works online classifieds hub. “Analysis of Craigslist Missed Connections postings and communities,” notes Ingrid of her show Taxonomy of Missed Connections, “offers a glimpse into the loneliness and sexual tension that serve as the linchpin of any thriving metropolitan environment.”
Part of FSW’s Neuromast: Certain Uncertainty and Contemporary Art exhibition, Taxonomy of Missed Connections is also a component of Ingrid’s Center for Missed Connections project and its mission to encourage a collective embrace of loneliness, both poetic and banal, within public spaces.
