artUS Issue 14

Joe Sola: Cliffhanger
by Otino Corsano

The July - September 2006 issue of artUS features my essay on the work of Los Angeles artist Joe Sola. The following is an excerpt of the artUS article:

Joe Sola documents the interior screening room of collective film memories. Akin to Steve McQueen's homage to Buster Keaton, "Deadpan" (1997), Sola's video-based performances deploy tactics of vulnerability and implied danger to draw viewers in, affording them a front-row view of themselves. Often featuring the artist in the title roles, these redux snippets of old movies transform the inner eye's Hollywood landscape into a noirish palimpsest of flashbacks and rude awakenings, those defining moments of what F. Scott Fitzgerald once called "romantic readiness."

Sola's insight into the
Dream Factory as a tangled weave of
internal projections or cuttings of the real world
also alludes to his unique brand of
"cinematic therapy," by which he means that we can all
dissect our film experiences and relationships rather than swallow them whole.

Joe Sola "Studio Visit" (performance view), 2004

Interview with Jeremy Isao Speier

Jeremy Isao Speier makes kinetic works using motors, neons, ready-mades, photos, wood, and various materials. He recently developed a new series of works involving hand-made electronic circuits for a residency at The Western Front (Vancouver). The title of the project comes from a previous work that used a Copal motor with text that read "Made in Japan." In my interview with him, Jeremy discusses his art approach to manufacture objects using obsolete and self-made technological forms and how he uses fragmented narratives and images to create a body of work tied together by concept and visual models.

The following is an excerpt from the interview found online at www.artpost.info

OC: The speed of the work, as subtle as minute hand movements, leaves a memorable impression. With the kinetic sculpture descriptor, I generally anticipate robotic actions or mobiles. Surprisingly, these works are closer in resemblance to Joseph Cornell's boxes with added sedate moving parts and subdued lights as a bonus. It appears the work is designed to require more than a passing glance for any type of meaningful read to develop. Regarding this formal use of gradual duration: Are these subtle motions a semiotic device or do these kinetic elements point the viewer towards the works retrospective narratives?

JIS: Yes, subtle motion is incorporated as the sign and symbol of electromechanical bodies of motion.

"It is time-based and interactive.The allegorical narrative
is of a fragmented emblem of a personal past made present again.
The motion is slow, calm and mesmerizing
to evoke a dream-like quality."

Image: Detail from Jeremy Isao Speier's "Made in Japan" (2006)

SpeedWave in Glowlab 09

SpeedWave (2006) by Otino Corsano
Featured in GLOWLAB 09 [Issue July - August 2006]

This photographic based performance piece was created specifically for Glowlab, a Brooklyn-based, online publishing lab focussed on technological and contemporary art approaches to psychogeography:
the exploration of the physical and psychological landscape of cities.

The project was inspired by the established location of a regularly monitored Toronto speed trap. A camera on a tripod replaces the laser gun to document waves of local traffic.
"SpeedWave" is not an anti-authoritarian work.

Special thanks to Jessica Thompson for the invitation to contribute.

SpeedWave in Glowlab 09