EVENT: BENJAMIN FREEDMAN (APRIL 21 - MAY 3 2023, ONLINE)
Benjamin Freedman
Jake
digital video, one channel, color, sound, 6’ 46”, 2023, Canada
Jake is an experimental film that explores simulated environments and the inherent artificiality and fallibility of memory. Composed of footage captured in Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, a videogame set in a post-apocalyptic small town, the film presents semi photorealistic views that alternate between natural and domestic environments. Despite an effort towards realism, the footage remains uncanny as a disembodied voiceover of a young man plays overtop. Expressed in first person, the young man reminisces on his childhood memories that involve his family, the town itself and in particular, his first love named Jake. Written using OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology and recounted by a human actor, the narration eventually acknowledges that in spite of the town being simulated, like the nature of his memories of Jake, there is truth to the liminal space that divides reality and fiction.
Benjamin Freedman’s artistic practice spans multiple mediums, encompassing sculpture, video, photography and computer generated imagery with a marked interest in complex histories and the restorative potential of photographic research. Through his lens-based work, Freedman artfully reinterprets and disrupts the past, navigating the relative truths and deceptions inherent in the medium. Of particular note is his embrace of science fiction and horror visual vocabularies to expand his documentary projects, compellingly challenging the boundaries of the genre. Notably, Freedman self-published his first photography book in 2015, and has since exhibited extensively throughout the Greater Toronto area, including at Pumice Raft Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Ryerson Image Centre, 8eleven Gallery, Art Gallery of Mississauga, and Division Gallery, as well as internationally at the prestigious Aperture Foundation in New York City. Beyond his individual artistic pursuits, Freedman has also made significant contributions to the Toronto arts community, serving on steering committees for the Toronto Art Book Fair and SNAP! Live Auction, and as an artist advisory committee member for The Patch Project. He is currently pursuing a Master of Design, Photography at the École cantonal d’art Lausanne (ECAL) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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EVENT: SIMONETTA FADDA (MARCH 31 - APRIL 13 2023, ONLINE)
GAME OVER
One channel video (SD, 676x540), color, sound, 4’ 27”, 2002 Italy
Created by Simonetta Fadda
Driving at night in the video game-like suburban French city of Enghien Les Bains can be an exciting or demoralizing experience, depending on the driver or, perhaps, on the filmmaker. Simonetta Fadda’s carscapes are both delirious and hyper-real, suggesting a toxic convergence of realities.
Born in Savona, Simonetta Fadda is an artist, educator, essayist, and translator. Her teaching activities include the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti, Turin and Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan. Since the Eighties, she has been working with video art. Her artworks are featured in public and private collections in Italy and in Europe. She participated in major international events such as Movimenta – Biennale de l’image en mouvement, projet Mondes Flottants: Grandes Images, Nice, France (2017) and Parallel Program of the 13th Istanbul Biennial, Institut Français d’Istanbul, Istanbul (2013). In Italy she was featured, among others, at Festival del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro, Pesaro – Italy (in We Want Cinema: cinema e video di ricerca 2018, and in Satellite 2016) and Bergamo Film Meeting, Bergamo – Italy (2010). A prolific writer and critic, Fadda is the author of the seminal Definition zero: origins of video art between politics and communication (Costa & Nolan, 1999), the first Italian study on video as a medium of art and political activism, which was reprinted in an expanded format in 2017 by Meltemi Edizioni. In 2020, Franco Angeli published her new book, Media and art. She also translated into Italian and edited Gene Youngblood’s seminal book Expanded Cinema.
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EVENT: SØREN THILO FUNDER (FEBRUARY 24 . MARCH 9 2023, ONLINE)
EVERYWHERE
Digital video/machinima (720 x 328), color, 11’ 33”, 2007, Denmark
Created by Søren Thilo Funder
In Everywhere, we witness a lone figure navigating through a bleak and surreal urban environment, evoking a sense of isolation and alienation. The desolate terrain appears to be both familiar and foreign, presenting a disorienting experience for the viewer. The man’ continuous movement and evasion of unseen obstacles within the virtual realm challenge conventional notions of escapism, offering a fresh perspective on the concept as an unending cycle of seeking liberation from an undefined void. The piece’s cyclical nature serves as a commentary on the paradoxical nature of escape, as the runner’s repetitive journey highlights the futility of attempting to break free from the inherent boundaries, constraints, and power dynamics of digital media. Through this haunting work, the artist invites us to reflect on the interplay between virtual and real-life experiences, and the inherent limits within the world of gaming.
An artist who specializes in video and installation, Søren Thilo Funder, creates thought-provoking works that blend various cultural tropes, socio-political issues, and popular fictions. These narrative constructions operate within a delicate membrane where fictions and realities intersect, generating fresh interpretations and new meanings. Funder's oeuvre is steeped in both written and unwritten histories, as well as a deep awareness of the paradoxes and complexities of societal engagement. His art explores temporal displacements, nonlinear storytelling, and the emergence of new, unconventional forms of memory. Through his work, Thilo Funder creates immersive spaces that enable unpredictable encounters with the political, temporal, and recollective. He invites the viewer to challenge their preconceptions and explore the unexpected, creating a dialogue that is both deeply personal and universally relevant. Funder received an MA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and The School of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is currently finishing a Doctorate program in Artistic Research at The Art Academy, Department of Contemporary Art, University of Bergen in Norway.
