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the inversion, transcription, evening track and attractor

Stephanie Barber

2008 00:13:21 United StatesEnglishColorStereo4:3DV video

Description

"how looking at what has become the skeletons of photographs is a visual lecture on aesthetic pleasure or emotion. and how being, almost entirely denied of this pleasure, or having the pleasure merely suggested induces a viewer to ruminate on the act of viewing and that of wanting to view. and maybe it is evolution which causes this anxiety and art form."

A series of collages recreating the photographs of well known artists (Uta Barth, Kohei Yoshiyuki, Candida Hofer, Deborah Willis) and a very slight suggestion of the actual photographs. The soundtrack is composed of approximately 25 statements on photography.

-- Stephanie Barber

"The images in Barber's new video the inversion, transcription, evening track and attractor are a series of collages Barber has created, they are entirely white--white on white exquisite cut-outs of exact replications of well known photographs.  These are painstakingly constructed and delightful and she superimposes them ever ever so slightly over the original images.  The entirety is an unbelievably transcendent, ruminative and spellbinding experience referencing high modernism, the history of photography and questions of ownership in the construction of the theories on this artform.  I left feeling as though my eyes and ears had been scrubbed clean and replaced with new suggestive models.  As with all of Barber's soundtracks the text is formally considered and plays intelligently between a cold distant consideration of ideas and an often devastating emotionalism sneakily brought in and in many ways serving as counterpoint to the asceticism of the images.  An astounding and important video from an artist most well known for her film work, it is gratifying to see that she has maintained the high level of delicacy in this (new to her) video medium."

-- Henry Trial, 2008

About Stephanie Barber

Stephanie Barber is an American writer and artist. She has created a poetic, conceptual and philosophical body of work in a variety of media. Many of her videos are concerned with the content, musicality and experiential qualities of language. They ferry viewers through philosophical inquiry with the unexpected oars of play, emotionalism, story, and humor. Many balance several seemingly unrelated concepts––subtly suggesting or brazenly demanding a focused and imaginative reception. Many create gently complex, emotional studies. Others are funny; a sorrowful sort of funny. There are videos of obsessive observing and ambient sounds; small artificial fireworks, animals, and silence. They are tightly wound, dense, and light simultaneously.

Barber's films and videos have has been screened nationally and internationally in solo and group shows at MOMA, NY, The Tate Modern, London; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Paris Cinematheque; The Walker Art Center, MN; MOCA Los Angeles, The Wexner Center for Art, OH, among other galleries, museums and festivals. Her essays, stories and poems have been published in books, magazines and online journals.