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Press Release DOOM and GLOOM ANGIE ENG Solo exhibition with music by Rhys Chatham Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center Known for her experimental video art in collaboration with electronic composers, Angie Eng is ending 2015 with an ironic twist in a solo exhibit, Doom and Gloom at Harvestworks, the pioneering abode for downtown artists with a proclivity for new technology and hybrid forms including sound, moving image and interactivity.She presents three single-channel videos created over the past seven years: Endings (2008) a remix of archival Hollywood film credits made in honor of the closing of the Mayan calendar with its finale being over-consumption, Monsters (2009) horror classics hyper sped up with live drawing of munchian portraiture to illustrate fear of marriage (a personal account) and Nasatak (2014) a visualization of economic crisis and booms through bite-size video clips sampled from hundreds of titles, such as Rio Bravo, Bringing up Baby and Sunset Boulevard– a pop quiz for the late Kim’s video, film buff clerk.The second part of the exhibit showcases her series, Man Made (2013-15) interactive video paintings inspired during an art residency in Beijing where the World Air Quality Index on a clear day hovers around 350 (Los Angeles is 75 on a bad day). Poisoned horizons were created with local plastic flip-flops soaked in Chinese ink and stamped on rice paper. Bird’s eye views of town squares from various cities are gaussian-blurred into billowing clouds of pollution mapped onto the paintings. As the visitor approaches the work, moving images gradually morph into shots of one-on-one confrontations of tourists taking photos ostensibly of the spectator. Bizarre analogy, it may appear, Man Made is a subliminal critique on our voyeuristic response to crisis in an epoch of mass/social media overkill, whereby narcissistic disorder plus entertainment value are part of every equation.
Included in the exhibit is music from the latest release of downtown New York experimental minimalist composers, Rhys Chatham and Charlemagne Palestine. In addition French noise musician Jean-Philippe Gross is featured in the video, Monsters. |
| Angie Eng is a visual artist working in a variety of mediums including: video, installation and performance. After having spent 15 years in New York City establishing herself as an experimental video artist, she relocated to Paris where she now lives and works. Her work has been performed and exhibited at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, Lincoln Center Video Festival, The Kitchen, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, Roulette Intermedium, Bronx Museum, Artists Space, Art in General, Anthology Film Archives, Experimental Intermedia, Le Cube and Cité de la Musique. She has received grants and commissions: New Radio and Performing Arts, Harvestworks, Art In General, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Alternative Museum, and Experimental TV Center Finishing Funds and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Harvestworks’ presents experimental art in collaboration with their Technology, Engineering, Art and Music (TEAM) Lab. Since 1977 they have been supporting the creation of work that explores new and evolving technologies. In line with the historical E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology) they provide an environment for experimentation with technicians, instructors and innovative practitioners in the electronic arts. Former Harvestworks’ residents, who have also used remixing in their art process, include established artists, such as Christian Marclay, Luke Dubois and Cory Arcangel.
Man Made was made possible in part by a Red Gate Art Residency Nasatak was made possible in part by a MacDowell Colony for the Arts residency
Special thanks: David Blair, Bethany Bristow, Daniel Belquer, Rhys Chatham, Alain Cieutat, David Goldstein, Jean-Philippe Gross, Jerome Hugot, Lynn and Harald Husum, Charlemagne Palestine and Carol Parkinson Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center 596 Broadway Suite 602, New York, NY 10012 |
