Situationism and the American Idol
www.american-idolization.tv i•dol•i•za•tion, noun. Detournemental illness and the spectacle. verb (used with object) 1. to regard with blind adoration, devotion, etc. 2. to worship as a god.
November 8 - December 20, 2007
Cochenour Gallery @ Georgetown College
Georgetown, Kentucky, USA
Gallery Hours: Mon - Thu 7:45 a.m. - midnight; Fri 7:45 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.; Sat 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.; Sun 1:00 p.m. - midnight
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| EXHIBITION TOUR DATES Cochenour Gallery Georgetown College Kentucky, USA (Solo Exhibit) Nov 8 - Dec 20, 2007 Rhonda Schaller Gallery New York City New York, USA (Group: Live Free Or Die) May 4 - May 30, 2007 |
Want to Podcast ? /// VIEW WORKS Detournemental Illness Situationism and the American Idol is a satire on the messages of mass media today and their intended consequences across our fast-paced, instamatic culture. If New York Times Bestseller Dr. Peter C. Whybrow's title "American Mania" had a companion visual and experiential art exhibit this would be it.
The exhibit contains a series of six (6) mixed and digital media wood panel-based collages hanging in a traiditional gallery / museum fashion.
One wall of the space houses the one looping detournement-like film experiment. This piece is a highly accessible collage film utilizing motion picture, still, audio and text-based manipulations of mass media messages collected through commercial Hollywood DVDs, Television shows ("American Idol"), popular satellite radio shows, and the Internet ("MySpace", etc.) along with original video capture footage.
Dependent on venue space and available materials, another wall of the space features a panel that projects a display of audience members' conversations in the gallery through speach recognition software running on a hidden computer, generated by way of an ambient sound microphone. This panel absorbs immediate content and broadcasts it in order to exemplify the power and ease of citizen-use surveillance media.
Each of the collages on wood utilize found messages of text, audio, video and still image in conventional, corporate-owned American media venues. These intended headlines are then "cut-up" using the William Burroughs and Brion Gysin style for print, and the philosophy of Guy Debord and the Situationist Internationale for the video and audio. The newly remediated and juxtaposed messages are placed against their own or mis-matched advertisement and "news" imagery, and thrust back into the same environ from which they came, allowing the viewer-audience member to make their own conclusions about what is significant in this world, what is passed off as consumerist info-tainment and media propaganda, and what it means to contribute original visual and digital poetics.
The entire content of this show is available for viewer all-media Podcast subscription to further enhance the manipulation of the original, consumer messages and implement new ways of sharing and broadcasting grassroots media.
Six (6) india ink mixed media collage on wood paintings 36" x 44" (see fig. 1)
One (1) wood panel playing a projected display of viewers conversations in the gallery through speach recognition software running on a hidden computer (dependent on venue space and available materials)
One (1) looping video work played on a terminal or projected onto a matching wood panel which is predominantly covered only with white gesso to create a dynamic, all-media collage effect
One (1) All-media Podcast available for viewers-audience members to subscribe to the show's podcast and get all the work onto their personal media players for free
Contact Information:
Gregory OToole, M.A.
Adjunct Professor, Department of Information Systems
Baker College
Ph.D. Student, Media + Culture
European Graduate School
University of Denver
www.otoole.info
gregory.otoole@gmail.com
