The Night Has a Thousand Eyes was a collaborative project with British artist, Keith Piper Curated by Sylvie Fortin. Catalogue text by Cameron Bailey and Sylvie Fortin.
The work addresses the outdated and imperialist notion of the self-determined individual/subject by foregrounding the shifting of boundaries brought about by surveillance technologies and the digitalization of the world.
Viewers were drawn into a space of dramatic darkness by an enticing yet disturbing computer-generated sound montage. Within this space, they encounter two video projections beamed onto the gallery wall: grainy black and white images transmitted by a surveillance camera located at the entrance to the exhibition - triggering an awareness of their own vulnerability - and lush, enhanced video footage of layered computer-generated images illustrating the interconnectedness of the exotic and the familiar, of the experienced and the mediated, and giving prominence to memory's malleability and inherent openness.
This work examines the notion of ‘history’ both past and ‘recent’ past; not as a fixed decisive passage, but as a fluid, transitory and subjective space open to interpretation based on position, memory and vision. It further explores the fears and fantasies that are inherent to the nature of our perceptions -- the thousand eyes that are watchful from both inside and outside ourselves.
This work examines the notion of ‘history’ both past and ‘recent’ past; not as a fixed decisive passage, but as a fluid, transitory and subjective space open to interpretation based on position, memory and vision. It further explores the fears and fantasies that are inherent to the nature of our perceptions -- the thousand eyes that are watchful from both inside and outside ourselves.
Exhibitions:
1997 - The The Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON.
1998.02.03-04.26 - AWE GALLERY
1999 - Oakville Galleries, Oakville, ON.
Reviews:
Voyageurs devant l’inconnu, LeDroit, Dominique Laurent, 18 octobre 1997
Multimedia artists boldly march toward millenium,The Ottawa Citizen, Preview, D10, Virginia Howard, October 16, 1997
