“INTERNAL
COMBUSTION”
COMBUSTION”
A FILM AND
VIDEO SCREENING
ORGANIZED BY
RACHEL ROSHEGER
VIDEO SCREENING
ORGANIZED BY
RACHEL ROSHEGER
WORKS BY:
ARIEH FROSH
HARRY GOULD HARVEY IV
IRINA JASNOWSKI PASCUAL
AND TYLER BERRIER
GUNNAR KORTENBACH
CLARE KOURY
COLLIN LEITCH
JEANNE LIOTTA
VIJAY MASHARANI
ZACH NADER
IDA PRUITT
BRENT WATANABE
JESSICA WILSON
ARIEH FROSH
HARRY GOULD HARVEY IV
IRINA JASNOWSKI PASCUAL
AND TYLER BERRIER
GUNNAR KORTENBACH
CLARE KOURY
COLLIN LEITCH
JEANNE LIOTTA
VIJAY MASHARANI
ZACH NADER
IDA PRUITT
BRENT WATANABE
JESSICA WILSON
AUGUST 27
DOORS 7PM
SCREENING 8PM
DOORS 7PM
SCREENING 8PM
The silence continued. Here and there a driver shifted behind his steering wheel, trapped uncomfortably in the hot sunlight, and I had the sudden impression that the world had stopped. The wounds on my knees and chest were beacons tuned to a series of beckoning transmitters, carrying the signals, unknown to myself, which would unlock this immense stasis and free these drivers for the real destinations set for their vehicles, the paradises of the electric highway.
-J.G. Ballard
-J.G. Ballard
When I drive, the car feels at once a part of my body and in opposition to it. The act of operating a vehicle involves a harmony of the senses and the machine, but this arrangement comes with a price. The intimacy of the car to human relationship is simultaneously mediated by the threat of death and the hope of freedom. Sprawling networks of roads guide us along paths of greatness and high pressure combustion engines coughing out carbon monoxide carry us beyond the restraints of our flesh.
The promise of technology is less tension with the world. Mechanical ease through the forces of the earth, smoother access to our desires, to our needs and our goals. In the project of progress, which since the beginning has emphasized speed, the boundary of the body is the final frontier. The dream of not only industrialization but also the virtual has always been to detach the mechanical limitations of human gesture from the spirit. In this pursuit perhaps the crash, the violence to the flesh, and even the transition of life to death, is an act of resistance.
The videos selected for this program confront these dreams in a myriad of ways. They look directly at our relationship to machines and our bodies, the slippages between the electric universe and corporeal sensation, gestures towards autonomy and disruptions of the banality of routine stresses. Several works explore the uncanniness of bodily simulation in virtual space while others turn our focus around to our own materiality as the viewer. Many, of course, present vehicles themselves. They examine the car as a body itself, not only in its steel flesh and bones but also its gestures. The medium of video here is especially important. The organized moving pixels flashing at us from beams of light feel so palpably physical in these works, and as we collectively absorb them, we are cruising a landscape with untold bounds.
The promise of technology is less tension with the world. Mechanical ease through the forces of the earth, smoother access to our desires, to our needs and our goals. In the project of progress, which since the beginning has emphasized speed, the boundary of the body is the final frontier. The dream of not only industrialization but also the virtual has always been to detach the mechanical limitations of human gesture from the spirit. In this pursuit perhaps the crash, the violence to the flesh, and even the transition of life to death, is an act of resistance.
The videos selected for this program confront these dreams in a myriad of ways. They look directly at our relationship to machines and our bodies, the slippages between the electric universe and corporeal sensation, gestures towards autonomy and disruptions of the banality of routine stresses. Several works explore the uncanniness of bodily simulation in virtual space while others turn our focus around to our own materiality as the viewer. Many, of course, present vehicles themselves. They examine the car as a body itself, not only in its steel flesh and bones but also its gestures. The medium of video here is especially important. The organized moving pixels flashing at us from beams of light feel so palpably physical in these works, and as we collectively absorb them, we are cruising a landscape with untold bounds.