e-motional discharge
curated by Jan Schuijren, Amsterdam
PROGRAM SPONSORED BY THE CONSULATE GENERAL OF THE NETHERLANDS
Thursday, March 6 at the Chicago Cultural Center 6:30pm
Sunday, March 9 at Discount Cinema 7:00pm

A program about love and loss and the everlasting search for understanding and satisfaction, through intimate confessions and eclectic video journeys, addressing the wide range and mix of genres used by contemporary video artists.

Tina Gonsalves (Australia); Loss Series: Trust (video, 2002, 4:24)
Trust uses fragments of rich sensual imagery and sound to weave a portrait of intimacy and emotion. We face each other, but we are not able to see each other clearly. The story of who/we/us has become more important than who we actually are. My own expectation shaped my image of you. I was so sure of what I wanted, that I didn't really see you at all. (TG)

Guillaume Graux (Belgium); P.D.O.A. (Public Display of Affection) (video, 2000, 24:00)
Inspired by the notion of non-places and soap operas, P.D.O.A. examines various forms of public displays of affection in the contemporary city. Switching between real-life and staged situations, various scenes take place at locations we come across everyday, until the lines of fact and fiction, trivial and universal, and specifically private/public become blurred. People float around from one space to another, on an endless journey where they wallow in a hyper-romantic reality until spaces become redefined and borders disappear. Everyday space becomes a non-space, disconnected from its historical identity.

Tina Gonsalves (Australia); Loss Series: Discharge (video, 2002, 4:16)
Discharge documents a time of grieving. The camera focuses on my eyes, reflecting my sadness. I looked at my eyes last night and they looked dead. (TG)

Julika Rudelius (Netherlands); The Highest Point (video, 2002, 14:00)
In Julika Rudelius' The Highest Point, various women—young, old, fat, thin, lesbian, hetero—tell us about their sex lives against a sober décor. They describe their experiences in great detail; apparently it is exciting to unveil your private life on camera. "I don't masturbate", an Asian girl with hair down to her hips begins, unable to say the sentence without stammering. She laughs nervously, fumbles with her boots and the hem of her skirt. Her face hardly comes into view. All the more present is her body; it seduces and bends itself into provocative curves, perhaps unconsciously, but perhaps very consciously indeed.
After her, other girls and women follow, some giggling timidly, some totally unashamedly revealing to the camera what position they prefer, and what makes them come. The camera still is not focusing on their faces, although, as the film progresses and the revelations become more intense, they do come into view more and more often. Thus, without batting an eyelid a plump woman demonstrates her favorite position. She is recognizable to the whole world. And beneath her black transparent tights she is evidently not wearing any knickers. This heralds in more (tasteful) nudity.
Rudelius' works often feature a characteristic combination of documentary elements and alienation. She places people in unfamiliar environments, which make them behave in a manner that is interesting to her. In The Highest Point, which is a reaction to the banal porn with which we are presented on television, in advertising and wherever we look, the women almost clinically tell their stories. Rudelius' camera work is an ingenious ally in this game; by never completely 'unveiling' the women, she enhances the value of the film as documentary or reality soap. Although Rudelius was not really interested in personal stories or feelings, The Highest Point still turned into an exceptionally personal document. (Merel Bem)

Tina Gonsalves (Australia); Loss Series: I don’t Feel OK (video, 2002, 2:30)
I don’t Feel OK is a reflection on displacement, self-loathing and self-destruction. (TG)
“I can’t sit still. I can’t eat. I can’t talk. I am paralyzed in this moment. I want you to feel the way that I do.”

Kurt d'Haeseleer (Belgium); File (video, 2000, 25:00)
A dated relationship goes off the rails and two people lose each other in a world of overdrive.
'File' explores the bandwidth between representation and immersion in showing a complex world, with references to video clip, essay, action film, sociological study, documentary, soap and commercials, all of this intertwined in a hermetic lump of sensations.

Jan Schuijren was born 1964, Amstenrade, Netherlands in 1964 and did his Post-graduate in New Media in 1991. He joined MonteVideo/Time Based Arts, Amsterdam in 1992, working on the production and distribution of video and media art works. In 1997, this organization emerged into the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts. From 1997-2001, he was curator for the collection of the Netherlands Media Art Institute and head of the selection committee. He was responsible for the out-of-house presentations and exhibitions, thereby initiating, developing and producing exhibitions, screenings and presentations at (inter)national venues and manifestations.
Since 1999 he has been working with the hARTware Organization in Dortmund, Germany, collaborating internationally on independent exhibition projects. Since 2002 he has been working as an independent curator, based in Amsterdam and Cologne. He is currently on the programming committee for the European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück.