[spectre] TORONTO VIDEO ART EVENT: E.U. NITE

[EURONIGHT ’06 TORONTO]

E.U. NITE Committee  -  Euronight '06

>From 7 pm on Saturday, September 30th
to 7 am on Sunday, October 1st, 2006.

On the occasion of the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche in Toronto, the official cultural representatives of seven member countries of the European Union present major video artists from the European Union. This outdoor garden exhibit will feature more than a dozen installations by renowned European video artists. Many videos are Canadian premieres, each exploring the vanishing line between reality and fiction in our global world.



EURONIGHT  06 VIDEO ART Programme
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FILAND
Miklos Gaál
Juha Mäki-Jussila
Sari Palosaari

FRANCE
Maïder Fortuné

GERMANY
Bjørn Melhus

GREECE
Myrto Apostolidou

THE NETHERLANDS
Eeleco Brand

IRELAND
Conor Kelly

ITALY
Stefano Cagol


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FINLAND
Subway lines, by -  Miklos Gaál  - was created in New York City, and consists of sequences taken of and from moving subways, sometimes speeding along in a blur, sometimes slowing to reveal vignettes of people in a passing window or along a platform. In his work, Gaál brings abstraction and figuration, sharpness and haziness playfully together.
Hanger-on (Roikku) by -  Juha Mäki-Jussila  - is an off-the- road movie, taking place in Finnish forests. We follow a solitary and aimless wanderer hanging from Tarzan’s liana. He is forced to face not only harsh nature but also himself along his journey.
Woolyworld by  -  Sari Palosaari  -  mixes architectural models, build-it-yourself toys, urban film scenes and organic spaces of science fiction. It is a flyover of a metropolis constructed entirely out of hair rollers.

FRANCE
Totem and I wasn’t crying but the ground wasn’t still by -  Maïder Fortuné  -. Fortuné has her own theatre company where she produced several happenings and pieces involving her own body. Her exploration of body, movement and space led her to work in video and sound explorations. Fortuné’s work has evolved toward the realization of performance-based multimedia installations.


GERMANY
The Oral Thing by -  Bjørn Melhus  - links the manners of daytime talk-shows and televangelism in the form of ritual repetition. The artist plays all the roles himself: The host, the two warring participants as well as a chorus of identical audience participants, cloaked and hooded in a manner reminiscent of monks or even cloned grim reapers. The artwork suggests that the boundaries of the private are created by the public confession on television. Melhus reveals that the direct personal reassurance of not being alone, appears as a false promise though the comforting yet deadening effect of this world of tele-mediation. In The Captain by Bjørn Melhus the director slips into the role of the captain of a space ship, accompanied by an elderly man and a young boy in a communion suit. Threatened by a dark power and lost in dialogues taken from real sci-fi series the three protagonists face the question if they shall surrender to the “executor”. Melhus’ bizarre montage compromises how Hollywood´s association with strangers changed in the 1970s and 1980s. Openness and curiosity turned into mistrust and readiness to fight.
*presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto and the German Consulate General Toronto.

GREECE
Family Tree by - Myrto Apostolidou -. The video creatively mixes new media techniques in combination with the use of old photographs. Through the old photos the new reality of the protagonist emerges as the video is all about a girl, haunted by her family's stories, which do not lead her to liberation.

THE NETHERLANDS
A screening of an ensemble of fragments from video art
of six different animations by -  Eelco Brand  -.
*courtesy of the Torch Gallery of Amsterdam.

IRELAND
Audio-Visual Aerophone, by -  Conor Kelly  -, is an exhibition involving new video and sound works, which shows how all sound ultimately involves the movement of air regardless of its source mechanism.The term Aerophone was coined by two ethnomusicologists, von Hornbostel and Sachs. It refers to one of four methods of generating sound, and would usually be associated with wind instrument.

ITALY
Atomicwek, by -  Stefano Cagol  -, is a video from 2005 that mixes images of atomic experiments as symbols of continuous wars with the image of a young girl dancing. The music in a Tokyo club is united with the roar of the explosions that erases everything, while the young girl continues to dance indifferently and unaware.


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On the occasion of the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the official cultural representatives of seven member countries of the European Union (Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands), coordinated by Martin Stiglio, director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Toronto, have organised a cultural event called Euronight 2006 at the Consulate General of Italy’s garden at the corner of Dundas St. and Beverly St., Toronto. (Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Venue 24)

Euronight 2006, which will last the entire night of September 30th from 7.00 pm to early morning October 1st, wishes to celebrate the vibrant cultural panorama of contemporary Europe and promote with the Canadian public, through different cultural offerings, a better understanding of the role of the European Union.

Finally for one sleepless night the garden of the Consulate General of Italy will become the artistic playground for celebrated European video artists. Visitors will enjoy more than a dozen video installations that will challenge and entertain. Many videos are Canadian premieres, each exploring the vanishing line between reality and fiction.

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>From 7:00 pm on Saturday, September 30th to 7:00 am on Sunday,
October 1st, 2006.
All events will take place in the garden of the Consulate General of Italy
136 Beverley Street  (at Dundas Street)   416-921-3802