[artinfo] Cartes presents: Christina McPhee at WeeGee

[Maria Tjader-Knight]

Welcome to the First exhibition of new media art at the newly
refurbished WeeGee, House for Culture and the Arts in Tapiola, Finland
on 9th May headlining Christina McPhee!

 From 9th May to 5th September 2006, CARTES Centre for Art and
Technology presents a video retrospective installation at WeeGee,
together with the debut of three new films, by multimedia artist
Christina McPhee (US). The exhibition is sponsored in part by the
American Scandinavian Foundation N.Y.


"As in a dream, the camera in media artist Christina McPhee's video..
roams across an enigmatic landscape gathering disparate images that
tangle together as loosely twisted threads of a story. They never fully
knit together, but that's the point. Her themes are memory, trauma and
the tumult of earthquakes, and the video functions as a dreamscape of
layered and moving frames that mimic the way slips of imagery flutter
through our psyche, one quickly replaced by another..." Holly Willis,
"Carrizo-Parkfield Diaries," LA Weekly, March 2005


The current geologic epoch is sometimes called 'anthropocene' to
emphasize the force of human-induced ecological and geologic changes. In
response to the global crisis of climate change and environmental risk,
contemporary media art moves across the liminal edges of landscapes,
linking human perceptions with natural forces, in a cybernetic embrace.
Along the San Andreas Fault in California, Christina McPhee explores
topologies of memory, trauma and geologic presence, like a field guide
in a psychogeographic landscape. She tracks seismic presence through
intimate studies of site. Combining performance and documentary, her
experimental films meditate on the hidden and invisible forces of
seismicity, and the shock of unpredictable trauma. Her topologic site
studies hauntingly combine the poetics of memory with flashes of
documentary and performance. Her work lives at the strange crossroads of
scientific visualization and imaginative narrative in new media.


Christina McPhee's recent videos have shown this year in installation at
Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden http://www.bildmuseet.umu.se/exhibit05.html and
screened at the Pacific Film Archive, University of California,
Berkeley, for the centennial of the San Francisco earthquake and great
fire of 1906 http://firstpulseprojects.net
Strange-Weather-mt/seismic-activity/. Her new work in video installation
and digital large format photography, "La Conchita mon amour' will open
at Sara Tecchia Roma New York in October 2006. She created video
installation for Pamela Z’s “Wunderkabinet”, a multimedia opera based on
stories from the Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles) in debut at
the LAB, San Francisco in 2005. She collaborates with the cyberfeminist
collective thealit.de for an installation of Naxsmash, on traumatic
memory and disappearance at the Hochschule for Median Kunst Koln in
2007. Her films, digital print installations and net art have shown in
festival venues and museums internationally since 2000, including FILE
Sao Paulo, prog:me Rio de Janeiro, Cybersonica at the ICA London,
Digital Arts and Culture Melbourne, and the Royal Academy Copenhagen.
Cornell University Electronic Media Archives, the Pandora Archive at the
National Library of Australia, the Whitney Museum of American Art
Artport, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art / Rhizome Artbase. Her
paintings and drawings are found in American museums including the
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. She is moderating a series of
discussions for the Documenta 12 Magazine Project, online at
http://subtle.net/empyre


Christina's videos are presented courtesy the artist and Sara Tecchia
Roma New York http://www.saratecchia.com

The artist's websites http://strikeslip.tv http://christinamcphee.net
and http://naxsmash.net


The exhibition is curated by Maria Tjader-Knight, Director, Cartes.


WeeGee Entrance Hall, Ahertajantie 5, Tapiola, Finland 9th May - 5th
September 2006.

Exhibition is open from 11 to 16 every day apart from Monday. Open late
Wednesdays until 20. Free entrance

Christina McPhee Artist talk 9th May at 17.

Opening of the exhibition on 9th May 18-20 with the Artist present.

The exhibition is opened by Director of City Culture Espoo, Georg Dolivo.

Opening speech by Councillor for Press and Cultural Affairs, William
Davnie, U.S. Embassy, Finland.


Welcome! Tervetuloa! Välkommen!

Maria Tjader-Knight
Director
CARTES
www.cartes-art.fi/mcphee

___

CARTES Centre of Art and Technology, Espoo, Finland, operates mainly
within the fields of electronic and media art, aural and visual.

The role of Cartes is critically productive, by presenting site specific
projects as well as 'traveling' productions it strives to challenge
interdisciplinary encounters between the many actors of culture and
technology.

In the new media art and design of today, the recent shift of focus from
‘interactive’ to ‘participatory’ media signals a new sensibility.
Through user-centered design and technology development enlaced with
media art the productions of Cartes are at the focal point of the
research projects, artist installations, festivals & workshops carried
out or governed by Cartes.

The challenge is to invite the audience to think, feel and act - the
search for the new always involves the questioning of the status quo of
existing models and practices.

CARTES Centre of Art and Technology, Espoo, was established in 1989 by
the City of Espoo, Helsinki University of Technology and Sibelius Academy.