Emma Hart & Benedict Drew Perform at MOCCA

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON

Video AFC

“By inverting the technologies used to create and project images, Hart and Drew create anarchic systems which make the process of their creation explicit.” Images Festival

Despite the convoluted project description above I still went to  Emma Hart & Benedict Drew DIY performance at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art this weekend. Presented in conjunction with Images Festival, a week long event showcasing moving image, Hart & Drew combined a bunch of working slide projectors and film reels with more traditional instruments on a slightly elevated stage. Live videos capturing visitors where projected on opposing walls, and the room was dark. The piece was basically a more complicated version of a low-fi Pauline Oliveras collaboration, asking attendees to spend a little more time looking while they listened than they might normally. The ingenuity in crafting the instruments was impressive, and the sounds weren’t bad either. They don’t quite measure up to likes of Oliveras, but to be fair, few people do.

Regrettably, I’ll  miss the majority of the Images Festival in Toronto this week as I’m headed back to New York Tuesday. Those in the area however should consider checking out The Monkey and the Mermaid this Sunday, a collaboration by visual artist Shary Boyle and musician Christine Fellows. Apparently the piece “travels underneath and above the narrative of gravity,” whatever that means.  As readers might have noticed, IF’s work descriptions don’t give an attendee much to go on, so I asked artist Lorna Mills what she’d recommend. She told me that and Daniel Barrow’s off screen exhibition at AGYU beginning Wednesday. I leave tomorrow night, so I’m going to the Power Plant to check out Sharon Lockhart, Ryan Trecartin, Peter Campus & Joachim Koester. I’ll report back on that show later in the week.