The Passage of Light Can Be Bent: toward horror (as a genre) and narratives of consequences in the (post-)post. Friday, October 27, 2017, 6pm
Please join us on Friday, October 27, 2017, at 6pm for “The Passage of Light Can Be Bent: toward horror (as a genre) and narratives of consequences in the (post-)post,” a night of presentations (lectures, art, performance, audio) that seek to make useful the (meta)narratives of the genre of horror, by impressionistically exploring their applicability to current and ongoing crises. The exhibition frames a network of links, from plural perspectives, between fictional evils and the sociocultural realities that produce these horrors. As much in philosophical currents as in artistic ones, horror simultaneously imitates and opposes reality, via the unknown, the occult, the enigmatic.
The present, the “modern day”, and therefore the future, are darkened by uncertain catastrophe, a form of horror (read here also terror) in itself. Our current dangers are not only imminent, they are also ongoing. Multiple calamities seem inevitable. This perpetual fear is also physiological; like your heart racing, and pulsing in your ears, like sweat, like a tenseness held (in multiple tenses), or tunnel vision. As in horror, there are monsters that are invincible against (normal) human intervention. The works presented in “The Passage of Light Can Be Bent” explore the possibility of narratives that confront and remain within consequence, consequences that will certainly outlast us, and which may not have a happy ending.
Presenters include:
Jennifer Lord, with a series of mixed-media/collage based 2D works inspired by butoh and circling around the themes of sexual violence (against women) and primordial/cosmic darkness. There will be 8-10 framed works on paper. Jennifer Lord is an artist and teacher. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Naropa University in Visual Arts and Tai-chi Chuan. She exhibits her work locally and nationally. Her work is held in several private collections. Lord’s most recent events include a Tai-chi workshop at Denver’s TITWRENCH Fest and the Open Space and Mountain Parks exhibition at Boulder Public Library’s Canyon Gallery. She has a forthcoming collaboration with the MÚSED fashion house. Lord’s upcoming collaboration TEAM-UP! with Noah Travis Phillips will be published by +4 Press. She lives, works, and teaches in Boulder, Colorado. Find her online at www.juniperlord.com @juniperlord
Julia Madsen. A selection from an essay film that situates itself within the Midwestern Gothic as genre, and is specifically tied to Madsen’s small hometown in rural Iowa. The essay film investigates personal/family history (including the murder of her great-grandfather), alongside broader issues and concerns including class and politics in the Midwest. Julia Madsen is a multimedia poet and educator. She received an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University and is a doctoral student in English/Creative Writing at the University of Denver. Blue-collar born and raised in the rural midwest, she is currently thinking about technology and the working class. She is the video editor at Reality Beach, and has shown video poetry at Outlet Fine Art Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, and No Nation Art Gallery in Chicago, IL. Her video work has appeared in VICE’s “The Creators Project,” and her poems and multimedia work have also appeared or are forthcoming in jubilat, Drunken Boat, Caketrain, Flag+Void, Word for/Word, Cloud Rodeo, Small Po[r]tions, Deluge, Dreginald, Tagvverk, Alice Blue Review, Devil’s Lake, Versal, Cartridge Lit, Cutbank, Black Warrior Review, TL;DR Magazine, PoetrySeen, Dream Pop Press, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, “DROMOLOGY,” is forthcoming from Reality Beach Press.
Noah Travis Phillips presents an abstract multimedia lecture exploring ideas of the Other/alien(ated), amplified reproduction, being locked in and overwhelmed by a technological environment, consequence(s), as well as vengeful nature, through a mild science-fiction multilinear narrative. Noah Travis Phillips is a multimedia artist and investigator. He received a Bachelor of Art in Visual Art and Environmental Studies from Naropa University. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Denver in Emergent Digital Practices (EDP), a highly innovative program existing at the dynamic convergence of art & technology. Recent investigations have centered around AI and neural networks as collaborator. Phillips works in a variety of forms, focusing on anonymous internet media and art historical sources that intensify personal mythology while engaging broader cultural discourses. His works have been featured in the 2015 Biennial of the Americas, Prosthetic Knowledge, and forthcoming in ReLity Beach. His most recent exhibitions were at Dateline (Denver, CO), Contemporary Art on Wheels (Marfa, TX via Santa Fe, NM), and SPAM’s (via the Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, TX). He can be found online at http://noahtravisphillips.com.
Trace Reddell presents a live audiovisual performance incorporating some of his horror writing. derived from a current novel project. Trace Reddell is a writer, artist and theorist exploring the interactions of sound and the cosmological imagination. Trace’s live cinema performances and video works have screened at over thirty international venues including galleries and new media festivals in New York, London, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich, Sao Paolo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Tehran. His net.art and audio projects have appeared regularly on the Web since 1999. Trace’s short fiction has appeared in Fiction International, Sniper Logic, American Goat, Black Ice, and the anthology, Midsummer Night’s Dreams (Rhinoceros). Most recently, his short story, “The Hindenburg Incident (A Medicine Man Adventure),” appeared in the anthology of original superhero stories, Alter Egos, Vol. 2 (Source Point Press, March 2014).
Nicolas Saltrese. A bedraggled traveler awakens at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to witness the building of the Sky Walk, looking up at this bridge into space, along with all transparent details, he embarks on an unexpected journey all within the space of a neural connection. Born in Denver in 1983, raised in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Florida, he studied literature and film at the University of Iowa and CalArts.
Anna Winter presents “head room,” a warm greeting exchanged between strangers + operatic exhumation of love and desire resting in future/past bowels = a love letter. Anna Winter is a digitally depraved artist working in new media. She chooses to work primarily with video to subvert, play with, and make a mess of formalities. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from University of Colorado, Boulder. She is currently an MFA student at the University of Denver in Emergent Digital Practices. She is founder and co-curator of ChitChat, a collaborative project with fellow artist Laura Conway, where they are currently programming a participatory film tour that will take route in Texas and Mexico. For more information, find Anna and ChitChat at gakfactory.com and chitchatchitchat.org respectively.