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Parallel's Montreal Premiere at FIFA
February 28, 2009
Parallel is four years in the making. Beginning in 2005 as a series of still images that merge black-and-white photography with photo-realistic pencil drawings, Owen Eric Wood returned to many of the original locations to reshoot the project in video, adding movement and sound to his compositions. Editing the video in 2007, he struggled to write a dialogue that would compliment the visual narrative. He found it in 2008 when he showed his images to two physicists who interpreted his photos and drawings from the perspective of their own field of study.
Inspired by Gary Zukav's book "The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics," the script for Parallel applies philosophies of quantum physics (the physics of Einstein rather than Newton) to the experience of an artist. Quantum physicists believe the human consciousness has the ability to shape the universe at a subatomic level. In short, human beings create the physical world around them. Artists do this more literally, by materializing their visions of the world through various forms of creative expression. But what happens when these artistic visions are heavy with emotional and psychological weight from the past? Do such artistic expressions stall forward motion instead of being a catalyst for change?
In Parallel, Wood visualizes his struggle to find meaing in the act of creation. But through his repeated attempts to recreate his own image, he finds himself trapped in the very machine he created. He becomes stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle of artistic expression where every new image feeds back on itself, inspiring only the conception of more of the same. How does one break out of the loop?
Artist Biography
Owen Eric Wood's video work is a series of self-portraits that blur the distinction between subjective expression and objective documentation. He uses self portraits to construct personal narratives that confront social and philosophical issues, such as stereotypes, disconnection from family, and the reassertion of individual identity. His work unravels to deconstruct the very illusions he creates to offer alternative perspectives.
Born in Toronto, Canada (1977), Wood holds a BAA in Journalism from Ryerson University and a BFA in Studio Art from Concordia University. His videos and video installations have shown at festivals around the world, notably the Japan Media Arts Festival, the Kassel Documentary and Film and Video Festival in Germany and Videoformes in France. His work is distributed by Videographe, based in Montreal.
Screening Times
Parallel, which had its world premiere at the Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo in Feburary 2010, can be seen in the FIFA short films program "Diagonals 1" at the following times and locations:
Friday, March 19 at 18h30
Concordia University – Cinema J.A. De Seve
Saturday, March 20 at 18h30
Cinematheque Quebecoise - Salle Fernand-Seguin
For information about FIFA:
www.artfifa.com
For more information about Parallel:
www.owenericwood.com/parallel
Contact the artist/director by e-mail:
info@owenericwood.com
news
The Clothes Make the Man wins at TUFF
Sept. 22, 2009
Owen Eric Wood's video The Clothes Make the Man won the category award for Best in Urban Diversity
at the Toronto Urban Film Festival (TUFF), which ran on monitors on the Toronto subway system form Sept. 11-21, 2009.
Wood was in Toronto for the awards presentation and closing party. His award was presented by filmmaker Ali Kazimi, who juried
the films under the urban diversity category and ultimately chose the winner.
Each day during the course of the Toronto Urban Film Festival, a fresh selection of one-minute films under different themes.
It is an excellent forum for emerging filmmakers looking to get mass exposure to a public audience.
The festival is the only one of its kind in North America, and only one of three similar film festivals in the world.
TUFF is produced by Art for Commuters (A4C), a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting contemporary
artists by offering them an opportunity to show in the public spaces frequented by urban travelers.
Watch all of the TUFF films online:
www.visionaria.eu
For more about The Clothes Make the Man:
www.owenericwood.com/theclothesmaketheman
To contact Owen Eric Wood, e-mail:
info @ owenericwood.com
 In Lost, the artists reinvents himself in various photography styles to mimic the aesthetics of Internet chat sites and also to mock the narcissism that exists in online profiles. By using his own image, he acknowledges his participation in the very issue he criticizes.
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Open Call for Participants
August 6, 2009
Open to artists and non-artists alike.
As one of the artists contributing to the upcoming art conference Artivistic: TURN ON, I am taking a satirical look at Internet chat sites. For my project, titled "Lost," I am creating a mock chat site that will showcase a series of fake profiles in the spirit of Facebook, MySpace, dating sites, etc. My project questions the ability of online profiles to accurately depict a person.
The idea is to create a fun (and sexy) project that people can contribute to in the weeks
leading up to Artivistic. Contributors will connect through a shared false perception of one another in this online project.
There are two ways to take part:
1. THE EASY WAY
Give me permission to access your online profile (Facebook, MySpace, etc.) and recycle your pictures and text to create alter egos of you.
2. THE FUN WAY
Do the work yourself. Be creative. Be sexy. Make fun of yourself. Most importantly, distort the truth. Lie about yourself. Create alter egos. Send your material to me through email and I will add it to the site. (By sending me materials, i.e. photos, you acknowledge having the rights to use this material, and agree to provide me with the right to use this material online for this project.)
Check out the site:
www.owenericwood.com/lost
I will be working on this project up until to the Artivistic conference, so expect to see new profiles added on an ongoing basis.
- Owen Eric Wood
Send you material to Owen Eric Wood:
info @ owenericwood.com
news
July 21, 2009
Owen Eric Wood's video installation Quality Time with the Family
will be presented as part of the Visionaria Film Festival. The festival, in its 18th year, will take place in Piombino, Italy from October 24-31, 2009.
Quality Time with the Family is a visual art installation that combines recorded video and live performance
to explore identity through familial roots.
The artist recreates the experience of eating dinner with his family by setting up a mock dining table where each of his
family members are replaced by television monitors playing looped videos of them eating a meal.
Wood then performs his role by sitting at the table and eating a meal with the TV monitors, which are incapable of interacting.
Although Wood performs as though he is actually sitting in his parents' dining room with his family,
the artificiality of the experience is unavoidable.
Instead of connectedness, notions of disconnection are expressed.
Instead of family bonding, there are feelings of isolation and alienation.
The piece raises issues of the effects of geographical separation from family, and the mental distance
caused when communication breaks down.
"I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to exhibit this piece," says Wood.
"This work has particularly personal meaning since it expresses, in no uncertain terms, an emotional experience
that has weighed heavily on my mind."
Wood says he feels there has been a denigration of the importance of the family unit in
societies where media, technology and fast-paced lifestyles inhibit people from taking the time to connect to each other.
Television, computers and hand-held devices are supplanting physical contact, yet they are poor
replacements for the subtle interactions that occur in the simplest forms of face-to-face conversation.
Quality Time with the Family reasserts the family meal as an opportunity for familial bonding,
for people to get together and reconnect.
"The fact that an international art forum such as Visionaria sees the value in this work signifies to me that I have
produced an art work that touches an audience beyond my own community, family and personal psyche."
The Visionaria Film Festival chooses a very select array of works to fill its four components:
an international competition of single-channel videos, an Italian panorama showcasing video works produced in Italy,
the Second Life Special Prize category, and, lastly, an exhibition of video art works and video installations called Visual Arts in Movement,
within which Quality Time with the Family will be included this year.
Although the single-channel version of Quality Time with the Family has been screened at such festivals as the
Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival in Toronto and Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois in Montreal,
this will be the first time the installation has been exhibited to the public.
news
May 4, 2009
Made Up selected for the 2009 CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival
Owen Eric Wood's short video Made Up has been officially selected to be part of the 2009 Canadian Film Centre
Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto, June 16-21, 2009. Made Up will be featured as part of a program of short films thta will screen twice
at the Cumberland Cinema, on Wednesday, June 17 at 4:15 p.m. and on Friday, June 19 at 9:15 p.m.
This will be a Toronto premiere for Made Up, which has screened at Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois in Montreal and the
Torino International GLBT Film Festival in Torino, Italy.
Made Up is an experimental video that distorts image and sound to comment on the concept of masculinity.
What at first appears to be a straight-forward documentary-style interview is exposed as a carefully composed and manipulated visual narrative.
news
March 28, 2009
Back Off!
Dissident Representations in Art and Social Movements
Friday, April 3, 2009 (12:30 to 20:30)
The CEDA - 2515 Delisle Street (metro Lionel-Groulx)
Spaces limited, reserve your workshops online
www.backoffinfo.com
Back Off! is a day of conferences and workshops organized to draw attention to political art being produced in Montreal and to understand how social movements use art to transmit their messages. The 2009 edition wishes to bring together people coming from different artistic milieus, having a common interest for various forms of activistic creation, and to create a meeting place for various actors of social movements who identify as feminists or who use a feminist analysis in their approaches. The goal is to bridge the gap between the academic and grassroots communities of Montreal, anglophone and francophone. Programming this year includes new workshops, reworked artistic practices, media reappropriations, and facilitated discussions.
Montreal-based artist Owen Eric Wood has been invited to be among the artists who will contribute work for the exhibition component of Back Off! He will exhibit for the first time his sculpture titled "Self Portrait," in which he presents a three-dimensional, life-size mannequin of himself, which is accurately proportionate in every detail, except one. Using his body as a representation of the male gender, he offers a subtle commentary on masculinity as he questions what it is to be a man. Although his critique was originally aimed at observed social behaviour in the gay community, specifically the importance placed on certain physical characteristics, the issues raised extend to women's issues. In his exploration of queer studies, Wood has found many parallels between the experiences of the gay rights and feminist movements.
Owen Eric Wood is an interdisciplinary artist who uses video, sculpture, performance, photography and drawing to discuss such concepts as family, identity and sexuality. He studied fine arts at Concordia Univesity in Montreal and journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto, where he also worked as a researcher and writer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). His art works have exhibited internationally in Germany, Spain, Brazil, Italy and the United Kingdom, as well as locally at such events as the Festival International du Film sur l'Art (FIFA) and Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois.
news
March 3, 2009
The Clothes Make the Man premieres at Festival International du Film sur l'Art
Owen Eric Wood is thrilled to announce that his video The Clothes Make the Man will premiere at the Festival
International du Film sur l'Art (FIFA) held in Montreal from March 19-29, 2009.
The video will screen in a program with other short films in the category Media Arts — New Perceptions on
Tuesday, March 24th at the Goethe-Institute at 9 p.m.
Although the installation version of this project has been exhibited in Frankfurt, Germany and Montreal, as well as appearing in the art catalogue "Behind the Object," this will be the first time the single-channel video had been screened to a public audience.
The Clothes Make the Man comments on the power of fashion to influence the way a person is perceived.
Wood presents himself in a variety of costumes that reflect a broad range of socially-constructed identities.
Since no one person can be all of these identities, the viewer is left to wonder which one is real.
news
January 31, 2009
Made Up premieres at Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois
Owen Eric Wood's video Made Up, which explores notions of masculinity and sexuality, will premiere at the upcoming Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois. The video is scheduled to show as part of a program of short films and videos at the National Film Board of Canada cinema in Montreal at 3 p.m. on Sunday, February 22, 2009.
Wood has a second piece screening as part of the RVCQ festival. Lost, which has shown in other festivals in Germany, Brazil and the U.K., will show as a part of a shorts program in the Claude Jutra theatre space at Cinematheque Quebecois at 4 p.m. also on Sunday, February 22.
Owen Eric Wood is pleased to be a part of Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois for the second year in a row. His video Quality Time with the Family was part of the RVCQ festival in 2008.
For more information about the Rendez-Vous du Cinema Quebecois festival, go to:
www.rvcq.com
For more information about Made Up, go to:
www.owenericwood.com/madeup.html
To contact Owen Eric Wood, e-mail:
info @ owenericwood.com
news
November 22, 2008
Lancement du catalogue AU-DELÀ DE L'OBJET
BEHIND THE OBJECT catalogue launch
***English follows***
LES ÉVÉNEMENTS @ ARTICULE PRÉSENTE:
AU-DELÀ DE L'OBJET
Lancement du catalogue
Jeudi le 27 novembre 2008 à 19h
chez articule, 262 Fairmount O.
La galerie articule accueillera le lancement officiel du livre AU-DELÀ DE L'OBJET: Le rôle de l'action dans la pratique sculpturale actuelle. Comprenant un texte d'introduction par l'artiste Trevor Gould, AU-DELÀ DE L'OBJET présente un groupe d'artistes émergents qui résident et travaillent au Québec et dont le travail comprend notamment la vidéo, la performance et l'interaction avec le spectateur.
«Bien que nous travaillions individuellement, nos pratiques respectives tendent toutes vers une approche sculpturale qui dépasse le simple objet physique», rapporte Owen Eric Wood, l'un des artistes présentés dans le catalogue. «Certains d'entre-nous considèrent l'environnement où leur oeuvre s'inscrit comme étant déterminant dans leur travail, alors que d'autres cherchent à animer un élément autrement immobile en le fusionnant avec la vidéo ou en l'incorporant à une performance.»
Les artistes sont Andréanne Abbondanza-Bergeron, Guillaume Allyson, Marilyne Barbe, Kim Cummins, Jean-Sébastien Gauthier, Allysha Larsen, Christian Ravenelle, Myriam Van Neste et Owen Eric Wood. Leur travail a été présenté dans le cadre d'expositions collectives à Francfort, Allemagne, et à Montréal, Québec. De manière individuelle, ces artistes ont exposé en Belgique, Espagne, Brésil, Royaume-Uni et aux États-Unis.
Les artistes figurant dans le catalogue seront présents lors de la soirée.
Un vin sera offert à 19h30, suivi d'un discours. Une projection de vidéos tirées du DVD du catalogue débutera à 20h.
Pour plus d'information, contactez:
Andréanne Abbondanza-Bergeron
514 303.6236
andreanne@abbondanzabergeron.com
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EVENTS @ ARTICULE PRESENTS:
BEHIND THE OBJECT
catalogue launch
Thursday, November 27, 2008, 7 p.m.
at articule, 262 Fairmount O.
articule will be hosting the official book launch of BEHIND THE OBJECT: The role of action in contemporary sculptural practice. With an introduction essay by artist Trevor Gould, BEHIND THE OBJECT presents a group of emerging Quebec-based artists whose work includes interdisciplinary activities such as video, performance and viewer interaction.
"Although we work separately, we all tap into a shared desire to make sculptural work that is more than just a physical object," says Owen Eric Wood, one of the artists featured in the book. "Some of us see the environment in which our work is placed to be equally important as the work itself, while others seek to animate immobile material by merging it with video or incorporating it in performance."
The artists are Andréanne Abbondanza-Bergeron, Guillaume Allyson, Marilyne Barbe, Kim Cummins, Jean-Sébastien Gauthier, Allysha Larsen, Christian Ravenelle, Myriam Van Neste and Owen Eric Wood. The group has held collaborative exhibitions in both Frankfurt, Germany and Montreal, Quebec. Individually, these artists have exhibited internationally in such countries as Belgium, Spain, the United States, Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
The featured artists will be in attendance.
Wine will be served at 7:30 p.m., with speeches to follow. A screening of the video works featured on the catalogue's DVD will start at 8 p.m.
For more information, contact:
Andréanne Abbondanza-Bergeron
514 303.6236
andreanne@abbondanzabergeron.com
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articule
262, Fairmount ouest
Montréal (Québec) H2V 2G3
T 514 842 9686
info@articule.org
http://www.articule.org
Heures d'ouverture: mer - ven 12h -18h, sam/dim 12h -17h
Opening hours: wed - fri 12 - 6 pm, sat/sun 12 - 5 pm
news
October 7, 2008
Outsiders Liverpool LGBT Film Festival accepts Lost
Lost, Owen Eric Wood's video critique of gay chat sites, will appear at this year's Outsiders LGBT Film Festival in Liverpool, England. In its fifth year, the two-week festival offers a selection of queer features and shorts from October 18 to November 1.
news
September 29, 2008
Lost selected for Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival in Germany
It seems Germany loves Lost. For the second time this year, Owen Eric Wood's video will appear at a German film and video festival. The Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival has chosen Lost from about 2,100 submitted films and videos to participate in this year's program (November 11-16 in Kassel, Germany).
The Kassel festival is a unique opportunity because it will be the first time Lost has screened in a selection of documentaries. Wood's video defies traditional documentary formats by constructing a narrative from dialogue taken from actual conversations the artist had online. In a sense, Lost blurs the distinction between fiction and documentary.
The video looks at the behaviour of gay men communicating with each other through chat sites. This examination of gay culture is meant as both a critique and also a confession as the artist acknowledges his participation in conversations that escalate in sexual content.
"I try to keep my work personal," says Wood. "I'm no expert on gay culture or social behaviour. I am only an expert on myself and my work, so I share my personal experiences and hope to tap into something other people can relate to."
Lost has received acclaim from both gay and straight audiences at screenings in Canada and at the Backup Festival in Weimar, Germany earlier this year. The video will also appear at the Mix Brazil Film and Video Festival of Sexual Diversity in November.
news
September 8, 2008
Owen Eric Wood's Lost to screen at Festival Mix Brazil
Owen Eric Wood's video Lost has been selected to be part of this year's Mix Brazil Cinema and Video Festival of Sexual Diversity, which will be shown in four cities in Brazil from November 12 to December 19. This will be a South American premiere for "Lost," which has appeared at festivals in Canada and Germany.
Lost is a social critique of gay Internet chat sites. Using a series of self portraits, Wood mocks narcissistic behaviour and also question the way people create identities for themselves for their online profiles. Since every line of the script was taken from actual conversations he had on chat sites, Wood sets up an experience that teeters between documentary and fiction.
"When I first began to chat online, I became interested in the social interactions that occur between people who can remain anonymous," says Wood. "I started saving the dialogue, not knowing what I would use it for exactly, and eventually constructed a story out of it using photographs and video."
Although the video is critical of queer culture, Wood is careful not to appear as though he isn't a part of it. Instead of getting different people to read the various parts, he reads them all himself, making it difficult to distinguish which lines came from him. He also uses his own image and recreates a variety of photography styles seen in profiles, emphasizing the two-dimensional representations people create for themselves.
"One of my goals is to have a balance between personal content that comes from my life, and universal content that everyone can relate to," says Wood. "In this case, I wanted to criticize an aspect of gay culture without coming across as an innocent bystander. These are conversations that I took part in and it would be hypocritical of me to hide my participation in them."
The Mix Brazil Cinema and Video Festival of Sexual Diversity takes place at the following dates and locations:
São Paulo - November, 12 - 23, 2008
Rio de Janeiro - November, 27 - December, 4, 2008
Brasília - December, 4 -11, 2008
Belo Horizonte - December, 13 - 19, 2008
news
August 15, 2008
Momentum to premiere
at Canariasmediafest in Spain
Owen Eric Wood's Momentum: a video series in four movements has been selected for the competition section of the 13th Canariasmediafest, which will take place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain from October 28 to November 1, 2008. This will be the world premiere for Momentum, which will be presented in the video art category of the festival.
Momentum is a series of four videos that explore synesthesia — the concept that stimuli experienced by one human sense can invoke another, such as a sight invoking a smell. In the case of these videos, relationships between sights and sounds are created by carefully manipulating and matching visuals and audio from different sources.
These formal experiments compare the reality captured by recording technologies such as video with the reality experienced by the human senses. Unlike the human brain, which filters information, the video camera records indiscriminately. Where the brain grabs still images of a landscape speeding by and then processes these images to makes sense of it, the camera only captures a constant flow of blurred shapes, colours and textures.
These videos not only mimic the human brain's desire to make sense of external stimuli (seeing images in clouds so to speak), but also raise questions about our limited perception of the physical world. Despite the constant movement and unclear meaning, this video series creates a meditative experience that is serene not disconcerting, focused not random, organized not chaotic.
Owen Eric Wood is currently working on new projects.
Holobomo is a single-channel video that discusses issues of appropriation by re-appropriating images and sound from works by video artist Mike Hoolboom, who creates new narratives using archived and appropriated film footage.
Portrait of the Artist with his Family will be the latest in Wood's work that uses the technique of projecting video on sculpture. In this case, film or video footage of his family having their portrait taken will be projected on a life-sized sculpture of the artist, which supplements for the fact that he is not in the portrait.
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