FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY Some time ago, a friend and I were talking outside a gallery, when suddenly we saw a bright green object sear through the night sky. Assuming it to be a stray firework, we waited for the expected explosion and crackles. We waited and waited, then waited some more. We finally stopped anticipating the sound and continued our conversation, but that moment left me feeling shortchanged. (What we saw that night was a stray meteorite—as subsequently reported on the news.) Later, I thought about sound and vision, and how they often occur not in that order nor in that combination. How often do our eyes deceive us and how often do we consider silence? Is silence a beginning, an ending, or is it even considered an event at all?
Charles Stankievech has an acute understanding of how our imaginations work and how images and sounds resonate with us and yet remain intangible. Radio and sound in general, ephemeral as they are, resonate throughout his body of work. His oeuvre occupies the space between what you can’t see and what you are told to see. And while his work dives into conceptual and political quagmires, it can be approached with playfulness, its humour achieved by shifting the frame of perception.
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Image: Installation view of DEW Project, atop the frozen confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, Yukon Territory, Canada. Image by: Charles Stankievech
Laura Paolini is an artist living in Toronto. She also considers herself a professional writer, arts administrator, curator, sometimes educator and internet-kitty enthusiast. Her artwork is primarily conceptual and is executed in media-based installations. Laura has been involved as an artist and/or staff person at several media arts institutions, including Vtape and InterAccess. A career highlight includes curatorial research at the Experimental Television Center, a studio that has been instrumental in the field of video and electronic arts. Her most recent solo show, I’m Tired of Being Fucked, was exhibited at XPACE Cultural Centre (Window Gallery) November 15-December 12th 2011.