Peacehead

A new video by Michele O’Mara
A three-screen video shaped by mystery and thriller films made between the late 1960s and early 1980s where someone is wrongly accused of a crime. In many of these films, one of the central characters plays detective discovering not only the false indictment but also that corporate or government corruption is at the root of the crime. The dialogue in Peacehead are drawn from various films: Klute (1971), The Parallax View (1974), The Conversation (1974), The Formula (1980), and The Osterman Weekend (1983). Combining screenplays from these films and replacing the detective figures with six different women actresses (each monochromeatically dressed in a rainbow color), Peacehead tells and discusses a story of crime and justice. Its final scene, taken from the film _Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice (1969), is optimistic.

Video Stations

VS1: Shorts on the Self
Presents concise and brief videos where the artist appears silent and concentrated, doing action or performance for the camera. The performances enacted are generally absurd and direct, functioning as self-reflexive, comic, or tragic portraits.

Abbey Williams, Giver, (2002, 5:00 min., New York)

AK Burns, Loss in Exchange, (2005, 5:00 min., New York)

Kate Gilmore, With Open Arms, (2005, 5:40 min., New York)

Inés Szigety, Stapling myself, (2004, 7:00 min., Buenos Aires)

Juan William Chavez, Untitled (Tribute to Rubén González), (2003, 5:36 min., Chicago)

Xaviera Simmons, Untitled (Return of the Repressed), (2005, 10:10 min., New York)

Jim Skudit, Chew, (2002, 3:43 min., Los Angeles)

VS2: Journeys, Tours, and Travelogs
Presents video works that both document and become a walk-through of a city, an industry, or a culture. Each video has a different departing point, but all have a shared anthropological address to their subject.

Paul Chan, Baghdad in No Particular Order, (2003, 51:00 min., New York)

Rene Gabri, Movements, (2004, 42:00 min., New York)

Old Habits Die Hard

A video project organized by Lise Helleman and Heman Chong for the Berlin artists-run space Sarwasser HQ.
Fifty artist-run spaces, collectives, and artists’ networks were invited to submit what they considered the best video art work they encountered. Old Habits Die Hard maps fifty international artists’ collectives and networks operating today, and collects fifty works by international artists. As part of the project, Sparwasser also created an online catalog (“www.oldhabitsdiehard.org”http://www.oldhabitsdiehard.org) that includes notes on the videos, information on the artists, and a database with links to the participating artists’ organizations. This project and video collection is organized in nine programs. These videos will and catalog will later be available at the Library of the Goethe-Institut New York, where visitors can consult the video programs individually.

PROGRAM 1 (56:50 min.)
Henriette Pedersen, Is the QUEEN getting bigger G.U.N. Galleri Uten Navn (Oslo, Norway)*
Cecilia Lundquist, C Sauna (Stockholm, Sweden)*
Natalie Djurberg, Hardcore Signal (Stockholm, Sweden)*
Gernot Wieland, Unter aderen Voraussetzugen offspace (Malmö, Sweden)
Tim Braden, The Sound and the Fury Raid Projects (Los Angeles, USA)
Craig Mulholland Smile in the Crowd Switchspace (Glasgow, Scotland)
Nikos Glavropoulos, Pieta Fournos (Athens, Greece)
Ann Elise, Untitled The Danger Museum (Oslo, Norway; Tokyo, Japan; Singapore)
Francis Lamb, The Fanatasist Norwich Gallery (Norwich, UK)
Dominic Redfern, Electro West Space (Melbourne, Australia)

PROGRAM 2 (60:48 min.)
Nicole + Ryan, Mirror mirror Western Front (Vancouver, Canada)
Hanna Hasslahti, Solarium AV-ARKKI (Helsinki, Finland)
Tim Etchell & Hugo Glendinning, Kent Besson is a Classic & an Absolutely New Thing (Manchester, UK)
Masayuki Kawai, a not = a or For Devatas Who Keep on Dancing VIDEOART CENTER Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan)
Daniel Borins, The Apotheosis of Everything FAMEFAME (Toronto, Canada)
Lee Walton, 35 Pounds Glowlab (New York, USA)

PROGRAM 3 (58:18 min.)
Kristen Smith, MS is short for… THE SWOLLEN PLATFORM (Berlin)
Marcus Lerviks, Untitled Platform (Vaasa, Finland)
Duncan Campbell, Falls Burns Malone Fiddles Transmission (Glasgow, Scotland)
Teresa Andrew, touch me–not Blue Oyster Gallery (Dunedine, New Zealand)

PROGRAM 4 (48:00 min.)
Avi Mograbi, Deportation 16 Beaver (New York, USA)
Thomas Vanek, praha-berlin 24/9 2003 PAS (Prague, Czech Republic)
Rebecca Milling, Circle Generator (Dundee, Scotland)

PROGRAM 5 (57:12 min.)
Ola Pehrson, NASDAQ vocal index Untitled New-Works (Stockholm, Sweden)
TC McCormack, Auto Calcalcade 51 Artspace (Sheffield, UK)
Markmid, Markmid Galleri Hlemmur

PROGRAM 6 (59:42 min.)
Robin Hely, Traverse Kings (Melbourne, Australia)
Xander Marro, Fine Dishes for Fine Bitches The Dirt Place (Providence, US)
Finnur Arnar, The Essence of my own nature 2 O2 (Akureki, Iceland)
Morten Larsen, Foxie Cutting Birthday Cake run46 (Aarhus, Denmark)
Selina Trepp, Brickwall Video Message Salon (Zürich, Switzerland)

PROGRAM 7 (54:30 min.)
Tessa Laird, Prime Ordeal Cuckoo (Aotearoa, New Zealand)
Art Oriént Objet, 03/03/03 bordercartograph (Paris, France)
Kevin Schmidt, LongBeach Led Zep Instant Coffee (Toronto, Canada)
Kika Thorne, work Mercer Union (Toronto, Canada)
Vassiliea Schmidt, do you want to kill me, baby? Capri (Berlin, Germany)
Meiro Koizumi, Fhe Wav a Very Beautiful Woman AIT (Tokyo, Japan)
Monochrome (J. Grenzfurthner/L. Sauermann), IRARK Program Angels/lothringer13 (Munich, Germany)
Deborah Ligorio, Landscape Sparwasser HQ (Berlin, Germany)
Ellen Pau, For some reasons Videotage (Hongkong, China)

PROGRAM 8 (57:42 min.)
Tere Recarens, Besenrien SMP (Marseille, France)
Rachel Mayeri, Biospheres RAIN (Los Angeles, US)
Morgan Showalter, BALKAN MOMENTS The Deste Foundation (Athens, Greece)
Amy Howden-Chapman & James Findlater, been there, done that Enjoy (Wellington, New Zealand)
Ivan Yegoroff & Alexander Podoprigorov, Lisbon Stories >projektgruppe< (Hamburg, Germany)
Saso Vrabic, PRIVAT P74 (Ljubjana, Slovenia)

PROGRAM 9 (33:00 min.)
George Cazenove, Untitled le forum intérant (Strasbourg, France)
Klaus Weber, Surplus Cubitt (London, UK)