The New Situationists
A collection of artists' videos

Curated by Paula Booker
Kah-Bee Chow
Kylie Duncan
Gaelen Macdonald
Richard Orjis

At Canary Gallery, Auckland 21 March - 1 April 2006
and SQUARE2 City Gallery, Wellington 23 March - 19 April 2006

Presenting a Canary Gallery video show for a Wellington audience enabled my evaluation of contemporary makers in video in general and those artists to whom I have access in particular. This exhibition presents a sample of some friends of Canary, friends of mine under the title The New Situationists.

A preoccupation with cities and spectacle was held by the Situationists, who were active between 1968 and 1972. They were young, mainly French activists calling for a re-examination of the sign - as they saw it - absorbed by capitalism to capitulate its control of the masses. The New Situationists presents the body as a site, the city as a location and performance as the spectacle by which to examine their rather less political and more personal motives.

All of these works explore the idea of video as a contemporary self-portraiture, the moving mirror. From its inception, artists quickly adopted the video medium - video art has expanded the possibilities of narrative in art, especially personal and autobiographical stories. Thus embedded, video cameras and lenses have become everyday, surveillance is commonplace; these collected works all feature the digital eye, a detached and de-personalised view reflecting the oft discussed viewer’s gaze, to perform personal narratives that communicate the artists' isolation in crowded spaces, the futility of their acts of improvement, failure to achieve expected outcomes and exploration of their limitations as performers and personal physicality. These minor acts of social revelation captured by the video lens show artists exploring the potential of spectacle to bring about examination of contemporary concerns.

Kah-Bee Chow Nine Dancing Ladies 2004 features a series of dances based on musical scenes from three films performed in the Britomart precinct, downtown Auckland.

Kylie Duncan presents Edit 023 2004 in which a performance banned from showing in Window Space due to heath and safety concerns is reseheuled a few hours later in the darkened Canary Arcade. Edit 023 features attempts to start a motorbike, rolling smoke and fog, shouted instructions and the artist filling roles of performer/director/camera/live video editor.

Gaelen Macdonald shows STILTS - Kent Institute of Art & Design - Canterbury UK. 2000. In this performance it is apparent that Stilts seemed like the perfect skill to try and master whilst on an exchange trip; I made myself some wooden stilts, set the camera rolling and, with an early enthusiasm, diligently attempted a forward stilt-walking motion.

In Sap 2004 by Richard Orjis, a viscous stream of syrup is poured over the artist’s face as he lies prone on a straw floor. Alluding to the body and its fluids the syrup a signifier for our physical and pyschological struggle with the body, its effect of repulsion/attraction.