Fort Gondo: Saturday, 4 May 2013
Mike Newton: CONTACT
May 4 - June 1, 2013
Opening reception Saturday, May 4, 7-10 PM with a performance by the artist.
CONTACT considers interpersonal communication as an analogy for greater struggles with unknowable systems, drawing upon psychological studies of autism, language and anxiety, especially as they relate to eye contact.Conceptualized as a model for an eye contact training video, one
piece calls attention to the strange and unknowable logic of established social conventions and the impossibility of teaching social skills. Much as repeating the same word leaches it of meaning, focusing on out-of-context eye contact renders a traditionally normal act bizarre. A second video
expands upon this idea with additional attention paid to language and emotional digression. By contrasting (ostensibly objective) scientific studies with emotive writing and handmade forms, the piece negotiates the difficult relationship between clinical discourse and lived realities. A third, short animation moves between simple abstractions and illustrations of autistic children from a 1960s study. The illustrations were derived from a film record of clinical research that is now lost, suggesting how individual experience becomes complicated -- if altogether expunged -- within larger systems of archiving, representation and interpretation.
Hours: Thursdays, 12 - 4 p.m. and by appointment fort gondo compound for the arts
3151 Cherokee Street
St. Louis, MO 63118
www.fortgondo.com
May 4 - June 1, 2013
Opening reception Saturday, May 4, 7-10 PM with a performance by the artist.
CONTACT considers interpersonal communication as an analogy for greater struggles with unknowable systems, drawing upon psychological studies of autism, language and anxiety, especially as they relate to eye contact.Conceptualized as a model for an eye contact training video, one
piece calls attention to the strange and unknowable logic of established social conventions and the impossibility of teaching social skills. Much as repeating the same word leaches it of meaning, focusing on out-of-context eye contact renders a traditionally normal act bizarre. A second video
expands upon this idea with additional attention paid to language and emotional digression. By contrasting (ostensibly objective) scientific studies with emotive writing and handmade forms, the piece negotiates the difficult relationship between clinical discourse and lived realities. A third, short animation moves between simple abstractions and illustrations of autistic children from a 1960s study. The illustrations were derived from a film record of clinical research that is now lost, suggesting how individual experience becomes complicated -- if altogether expunged -- within larger systems of archiving, representation and interpretation.
Hours: Thursdays, 12 - 4 p.m. and by appointment fort gondo compound for the arts
3151 Cherokee Street
St. Louis, MO 63118
www.fortgondo.com
posted by Bill Barrett at 2:44 PM
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