An art wave hits Granville and Robson
he two giant video screens at Granville and Robson normally snap and crackle with quick-hitting, colourful ads for companies such as Telus, Fido and WestJet. But next week, they’ll be showing something something completely different: two short films by internationally acclaimed artist Antonia Hirsch.
Zero in on a new wave
Nestled among flashy ads and quick-bite movie trailers at Robson and Granville is a new experience from visual artist Antonia Hirsch called Vox Pop. The Video project features two separate sequences, one in which the camera pans the stadium at the same rate as the sporting-event fans’ wave would be followed. The camera then rests on a sole male spectator, who rises as if taking part in the wave. Both one-minute sequences are inserted between ads.
Pipilotti Rist: Open My Glade Video
Other Sights is pleased to present Open My Glade by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist. The artwork consists of a series of 9 one-minute videos inserted into the flow of outdoor advertising screens. The works sardonic humour and insights intrude on our encounter with urban social space and exert a powerful and sensual presence.
What Are We Now?
Lynne Marsh’s Stadium (2008) and Antonia Hirsch’s Vox Pop (2008) revolve around solitary figures within sports arenas. Grid-like formations of fixed, empty seating serve as both backdrop environments and the presence of absent crowds. Each work adopts the seamless production values and structural familiarity of contemporary advertising and televisual entertainments. Vox Pop is a silent two-channel video work one minute in duration.
Looking Up
Looking Up was a curated program of one-minute artists’ projects inserted between advertisements on the Bonnis Media CoreVision dual outdoor screens at Granville and Robson Streets in downtown Vancouver.
Shaun Gladwell: Storm Sequence
Other Sights is pleased to present an excerpt from Storm Sequence, by Australian artist Shaun Gladwell. Although filmed on the other side of the world, Storm Sequence evokes our own rainy coast in conjunction with the global urban subculture of skateboarding.
Pipilotti Rist: Open My Glade
Other Sights is pleased to present Open My Glade by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist. The artwork consists of a series of 9 one-minute videos inserted into the flow of outdoor advertising screens. The work’s sardonic humour and insights intrude on our encounter with urban social space and exert a powerful and sensual presence.
Aaron Carpenter: Ffinnigans Wwake
As an OFFSITE extension of the Literally exhibition currently installed at Artspeak, Aaron Carpenter’s new video, Ffinnigans Wwake, will be shown on the outdoor screens at Robson and Granville Streets. In consort with his drawings for the exhibition, Carpenter has taken James Joyce’s text and rendered it as a dramatic text crawl akin to the one at the opening of the Star Wars films.