Title: Douglas Davis at FUN
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ VIDEO SCREENINGS: "A Conversation"
This historical tape, documents a conversation among artists Joseph Beuys, Douglas Davis and Nam June Paik at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York in 1974. During the discussion, they introduce the theme of the potential for artists' use of satellite technology. With: Joseph Beuys, Douglas Davis, Nam June Paik. Videotaped by Bill Viola. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "Post-Video"
Post-Video is an anthology of Douglas Davis' works from 1976 - 1980, with commentary by John Hanhardt (ex-Curator of Film/Video, Whitney Museum, NY): Davis' work centers on "the appropriation of satellite communication technologies to create aesthetic texts," as well as the artistic exploration of "the true communication potential and resources of global communication." Excerpts include:
Commentary: John Hanhardt. Editor: Jody O'Brien. Produced by Electronic Arts Intermix. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "Ménage
à Trois"
Ménage à Trois was a live satellite and radio performance linking the Guggenheim Museum (New York), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and the Venice Biennale. With live satellite technology allowing narrative simultaneity + juxtaposition, this work examines the role of the viewer in television culture + that of the video camera as witness. Three phone-in "witnesses" debate guilt, innocence, and the concept of the "reader" -- in this case, viewer -- as murderer. Following the telecast, the international audience participated in a live broadcast on National Public Radio, which addressed technology's mediating effect on public and private morality. Director: John Chiappardi. With: Douglas Davis, Giuseppe Assero, Marco Cavalli, Moniek Toebosch. Produced by PBS, RAI-TV and VPRO-TV. In Italian and English. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Please join us for an evening with artist, theorist, critic, teacher + writer, DOUGLAS DAVIS, who has played an active role in contemporary art since the 1960's. A pioneer of video in the 1970's, his "live" satellite performance/video pieces are seminal exercises in the use of interactive technology as a medium for art + communications. In 1977 he joined with Nam June Paik + Joseph Beuys for the first live international satellite telecast by artists, transmitted from Documenta 6 in Kassel, West Germany. Davis' pioneering work with interactivity has evolved with new technologies. His ongoing interactive project for the World Wide Web, entitled The World's First Collaborative Sentence, was commissioned by the Lehman College/CUNY Art Gallery and is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His most recent web-based projects include Terrible Beauty and Moralpornography. As an artist/performer, Davis confronts the anonymity and passivity of television production and reception, establishing an intimate, interactive dialogue with the viewer as a forum for intellectual and moral debate. Articulating his approach to video, Davis writes: "Television is usually considered a public medium, but because of the way it is experienced -- in a personal space -- it is in fact quite private. When I began to work overtly with the medium, I acted out of the same sense of intimacy, this time on the other side of the screen." The author of several books, including Artculture: Essays on the Post-Modern (1977) and The Museum Impossible: Architecture and Culture in the Post-Pompidou Era (1990), Davis was architecture and photography critic for Newsweek magazine from 1969 to 1988. Davis was born in 1933. He received a B.A. from American University and an M.A. from Rutgers University. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (D.A.A.D.); he has been artist-in-residence at the TV Lab at WNET/Thirteen, New York. Davis' work has been seen in solo shows at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; and The Kitchen, New York, among other institutions. His work has also been exhibited at festivals and institutions including the Venice Biennale; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Kolnischer Kunstverein, Cologne; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Douglas Davis lives and works in New York, and is currently readying himself for several global network theater projects linking cities around the world. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ under the Manhattan Bridge, New York F train to East Broadway (Tel: 212-964-0303) |
