Part of Winter 2008
This collection of new work by Gary Kibbins is humorously un-funny, cyclically sharp and precisely vague. The tensions presented in the text/image relationships within these videos illuminate the pitfalls and peculiarities of both media while creating something else in their amalgamation. With a skillful and wry ease the videos trap us in a kind of logic that plays out absurdly, falling in on itself only to be turned back out again. It is in these spaces of collapse that our brains are set ablaze.
The Harvest Is In dissects humour, or rather vivisects it: under the knife are haircuts, fingernails and the interiors of well-worn shoes. Despite this operation the result is a comical pedagogy. jesuscallingthelittlechildrenuntohim ruminates on thought itself – or filmmaking, or fishing – but also asks us, if Jesus were alive today, how would he fish? Brain Worm #3 traces the trajectory of collage and the trematode parasite’s life cycle, a message is there for decoding. These videos, along with the others in the programme, show a great love for the grammar of language, both visual and textual, but also a willingness to negate the syntax when necessary to proceed in the melting of minds.
Join us for a post-screening Q&A conducted by Andrew James Paterson, editor of Grammar & Not-Grammar: Selected Scripts and Essays by Gary Kibbins (YYZ Books, 2005).
