The Artists
Frank O'Toole | Miwa Koizumi | Simon Boudvin | Daisuke Yamashiro | Reuben Lorch-Miller | Cécile Paris | Kerry Downey | Jayeon Kwon | Celine Coville | Nick Normal | Yuji Oshima | Olivia-Jane Ransley | Karin Campbell | Elodie Huet | Seulgi Lee | Robert McCarren | Marco Scoffier, Miwa Koizumi | Amy Hsieh | Eric Baudart |
Frank O'Toole
Physiognomization
"You might be particularly tired, or anxious, or simply relaxed. From the wood grain, from the pattern of folds at the curtain's base, in the mottled concrete floor - a face emerges. Sometimes it slips away immediately, sometimes you stare at it until it transforms into something else, or a group of faces appear, but if your attention (half attention?) is taken away, there will be only randomness when you look for the face again. Everyone experiences this to one degree or another; if it happens to a degree that is problematic, it is labeled 'physiognomization'."
Miwa Koizumi
kite project
"Working off of some images we made for Flutter, (those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags which float around NYC like no other city it seems) Miwa wants to build a kite, adding more and more grocery bags. Can we make the thing fly ? The Caribbeans in our neighborhood love to fly kites in the park. Can we build one with trash?" --Marco and Miwa
Simon Boudvin
Photos
Simon takes pictures of architecture, and lets his imagination transform what are otherwise common scenes. He has several series of photographs from the US, Korea and France. He has modified an image taken in Queens, NY especially for this show.
Daisuke Yamashiro
Yawn Communication
video installation. Viewer's presence causes the video figure to yawn, and then the viewer to yawn also.
"I yawned in the train on the evening of a certain day. Then, the girl who had been sitting on my front saw my yawn, and she yawned. Then, the old man who was sitting right side of me saw her yawn, and he yawned."
The alarm rings every hour
installation of a wristwatch in the gallery space. Same wristwatch which the artist wears. Every hour both watches go off. One in NY one in Japan.
"Each person has a different feeling of the length of one hour. A synchronous event can cross space and connect distant people to the same time."
Reuben Lorch-Miller
fluorescent lights
acrylic sheeting, audio equipment,
hardware, speakers, cd, sound,
3" x 7" x 50", 2000
Both objects in this piece contain a speaker. Played through each speaker is a recorded sound track of me imitating the electric hum created by fluorescent lights. The sound track runs infinitely.
Cécile Paris
50
"This drawing is a tracing from slide which I took in NY. It is an image of an American flag catching the wind. I have kept only the red stripes. I'd like to reproduce this drawing on the floor in red chalk."
Kerry Downey
White-washed
"Working directly on one of Flux's gallery walls- already rich in history- I will build up new layers of surface, essentially creating a wall painting. Drawing on the integrity of labor of those workers who paint over graffiti and who clean up gallery walls, I will paint over my work with that ubiquitous five gallon drum of white latex paint. My first painting becomes the underpainting once it has been white washed. The painting will be almost entirely erased. Almost. Surface tensions will remain."
Jayeon Kwon
Sleeping Dolls
"My daughters love dolls and they have quite a collection of them since they were in Seoul. One day, when I came back from giving them a ride to kindergarten in the morning, I found dolls lying with a pillow and a blanket, bottles in their mouth, in my bedroom, in my kitchen, on my sofa, etc. From then on, I often found these dolls sleeping in my house somewhere and I took photos of them. It was an interesting feeling of oxymoron - funny but scary at the same time - when I first saw it and I thought I should keep an archive of these pictures to see what I can do with them."
Celine Coville
Performance
Performance based trickery. Celine has turned galleries into swimming pools, hijacked a group of critics, made events. We have requested the Swimming piece but do not know what to expect...
Nick Normal
There, that is the power
"Cities are constructed over time, installing new technologies underground (fiber-optic lines, sewer channels, etc.) and above-ground (wireless transmitters, skyscrapers, etc.). Buildings and structures are contained within themselves yet linked to the outside world through conduits, channels, plumbing, etc. A place such as Flux Factory is largely constructed from within by its own members, with walls built and wiring of devices installed to suit the needs of Flux Factory's members and projects. Quite often these methodologies are not recognized or acknowledged as artworks in and of themselves." --Nick
expansive library books
Nick Normal creates facsimiles of books. He has agreed to mix some of these "fakes" in with the reference materials and other projects which will be presented in the references/background materials section of the show.
Yuji Oshima
alliance for progress bossa nova
"From the 25th floor of Copan Building in Sao
Paolo, I had a strange feeling of the presence of supernatural
phenomena. The urbanism with its constructions of modern
architecture made a mysterious impression to me. It doesn't have
this clear structure other modern cities do.
I wouldn't be amazed if one day an UFO lands in Brazil before any
other place on earth."
Olivia-Jane Ransley
Untitled Video, 2004
Olivia-jane Ransley makes work concerned with process and the everyday. By isolating actions and situations she invites us to really consider them, find the mysterious in the ordinary. She is interested in the performative aspect of our lives, the things we do when we feel we are being watched and are overly conscious of ourselves. Olivia-jane's practise includes drawings, video, photography and slides. Her work examines the humour of how we react in particular situations and what is socially appropriate or inappropriate. It uses the mode of the DIY or etiquette manual. Her films are about endurance, in their subject and in the experience for the viewer. They depict an action which is known and commonplace, as we watch the action begins to change and becomes something different.
appropriate and inappropriate greetings
"My work is concerned with the everyday and making the ordinary special again. I like to look at things that are usually un thought of and making the viewer really consider them again. Often I take influence from instruction diagrams taken from old household manuals to describe everyday actions in their simplest forms."
Karin Campbell
Horus
"Horus is a projection of the projection of the shadows of pigeons walking back and forth on top of a roof. The shadows appear on an adjacent wall of corrugated iron (just like the ceiling by the way of the Flux Factory). [...] I want to at least double the width of the video so that it would fill the space above the windows. The shadows of the pigeons become like judges."
Seulgi Lee
Fly
"This idea came to me thinking about your project and watching my cat chase a fly. I imagined a white cat against a white wall chasing a fly. Because of the white on white, only the fly would be visible, which I found nice in respect to "almost something"... I thought that planes don't come in black... I am interested in provoking the imagination of others.
Robert McCarren
Observation Post
Robert McCarren makes observation posts, places from which to look. He will be intervening by building a platform from which to view the show and identifying views for the visitors to experience. J.M Tyree who brought this artist to our attention will be writing a critical essay about his work.
Marco Scoffier, Miwa Koizumi
seeing silence
"seeing silence is a project we would like to propose to the MTA, a system of led lights which blink like fire-flies but only when there is no sound. At certain times at night, for a few moments there is silence in the Subway, and the twinkling will start-up. We will have a prototype of the system installed at an interesting location near Flux." --Marco and Miwa
Amy Hsieh
Electro-reception
"I use everyday objects to represent fragments of the physical world found in the landscape. My landscape sculptures/installations illustrate the ancient principle of the Tabula Smaragdina: "What is above is like what is below." Laundry drying racks remind me of electric transmission towers. I am building a personal transmission tower. Through its elaborate circuitry, its radiating transmission lines will channel information to me about the universe. I am tuned to the right frequency, but unfortunately fail to hear anything."
