TONY OURSLER "STATION"
20–22 SEPTEMBER 2002
From the press release, 2002: (9 pm on Friday 20, Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 September) In "The Influence Machine", Tony Oursler mixes fragmentary voices from the history of technology, images of heads, a hand knocking, projected in darkness on clouds of smoke, trees and surrounding buildings. He uses the landscape as a stage for blown-up text projections of SMS messages and e-mails. Using words, images and sounds, Oursler creates a spectacular artwork in an outdoor environment, exhibited on three consecutive evenings at Magasin 3 Projekt Djurgårdsbrunn. "The Influence Machine" has previously been exhibited in New York and in London.
Tony Oursler lives and works in New York. Since the 1970s he has worked with different techniques, such as painting, sculpture, video and installation. In his work, his interest in technology in relation to psychology and supernatural dimensions is a recurring theme. He has become known for his mixture of hallucinatory and poetic texts and projections on dolls in violent and humorous scenes.
Tony Oursler. Born 1957, New York. Lives and works in New York City.
Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall presents "Station", a new exhibition by the artist Tony Oursler, and, on three evenings, the outdoor work "The Influence Machine" at Projekt Djurgårdsbrunn.
In "Station", Tony Oursler continues his careful research into the history of technology, and in particular into the history of the television medium, its juxtaposition of good and bad, and the presence of media in everyday life. In a sculptural installation with video projections, he explores themes such as transmission and reception, the mechanics of the television studio, and the social and physical influence of the television medium.
Tony Oursler lives and works in New York. Since the 1970s he has worked with different techniques, such as painting, sculpture, video and installation. In his work, his interest in technology in relation to psychology and supernatural dimensions is a recurring theme. He has become known for his mixture of hallucinatory and poetic texts and projections on dolls in violent and humorous scenes.
Tony Oursler has had solo exhibitions at, among others, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; capc Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux; Kunstverein Hannover; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); Metro Pictures, New York; Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel. In addition, he has had a retrospective at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and has also participated in several group exhibitions.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a catalogue will be produced, containing a CD with a new soundtrack for "The Influence Machine". "Station" is curated by Richard Julin, and "The Influence Machine" is coordinated by Birgitta Hallerström Wallin.
CONTENTS:
Introduction by Richard Julin, curator Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall.
POP DEAD PICTURES by Tony Oursler
Influence Machine CD soundtrack remix produced by Tony Oursler and Tony Conrad
Catalogue no 26. ISBN 91-974236-0-2
Published 2002 by Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall.
Price: 300 SEK (approx. 31 EUR)
POP DEAD PICTURES by Tony Oursler
Who killed pop culture? At first, I thought the neighbors' phone was ringing by a window. There was something strange about the ring, a low series of connected pulsing tones that seemed to arch. I recognized that ring but at the same time it was alien, distant. Tricked again. It was a bird ringing. A gray parrot. It lives in the back ally. It has caused the death of pop culture. I listen to him sing all day long in the back between buildings. He imitates other birds and all sorts of technical devices - pagers, computers - and most of all he mimics the phone. The bird is very good at what it does. Over time I realized that the ring was from an old 1980s phone, one of the first cheap models which came onto the market after the AT&T monopoly was broken. Why was he singing an old song? It dawned on me that gray parrots live 150 years and that the creature must have learned to sing the ring in 1980. The bird was like an organic loop across time, linking 20 years ago to today, erasing everything in its path. What was the bird trying to tell me, why was it calling me from so long ago? The ring was dangerous, powerful, and had clearly killed pop culture; what else did it want?
"The Influence Machine" was the culmination of an extensive research project. First I wanted to chart the history of mimetic and virtual images, starting from the camera obscure and continuing forward in time through the technological developments of today. This is a shadow history of art from the point of view of the moving image. The idea was to keep the history extremely accurate and focused on technology so that people could draw their own cultural associations. Art history from the point of view of a media artist. The result, "Timestream", is organized in terms of dark and light, good and evil, which seems to follow all developments in technology. The devil appeared throughout. People tend to polarize these discoveries; just look at the cloning debate today. "Timestream" turned into a website for MoMA and will eventually become a book. This historic timeline was also the inspiration for most of my work for a number of years.
The final project to come out of this research was "The Influence Machine". The work linked a trend in recent history of using technology to communicate with the dead, starting with spirit photographs, then the telegraph, radio, television, computer, and finally the Internet. This became the subject of the work. In the installation, various characters from history were channeled and projected into smoke: Gaspar Robertson, founder of the phantasmagoria; Baird, inventor of the mechanical TV; Farnsworth, inventor of the electronic TV; and the adolescent Katie Fox who was able to communicate with a dead man through a mysterious knocking code. Knocking became a key concept in the work; a violent force, causing energy to move from one medium to the next, resulting in vibration, sound, and communication with the other side. (Excerpt from the catalogue text "POP DEAD PICTURES" by Tony Oursler, 2002.)
Works in the outdoor performance
"The Influence Machine"
Outdoor performance at Magasin 3 Projekt Djurgårdsbrunn, Stockholm 20-22 September 2002.
Video projectors, DVD-players, smoke machines, lamp-post, computer, loud speakers, "The Influence Machine" soundtrack remix, 2002.
