Talks & Events

• Underground Man: Conversation

  RENSKE JANSSEN, SHARON KAHANOFF, ELIZA NEWMAN-SAUL, JUDY RADUL
  November 21, 2009

  Public conversation between Renske Janssen, Eliza Newman-Saul, Judy Radul and Sharon Kahanoff. The subjects will range from work descriptions and anecdotes to contemplation on the power of representation and the potential of suspense.

  Underground Man is a project that consists of performance, film screenings, conversation, and a publication that takes method acting as a starting point. This way of acting or dealing with form, language, and representation is one of the most discussed methods in theatre and film, but within contemporary art it is applied in a more disguised (or natural) manner. This project, a case study of sorts, questions if method acting is a way to curb the self within a highly constructed and staged society. How do we act and how do we look at what is depicted?

  The title refers to Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground in which the author portrays humans as irrational, uncontrollable, and uncooperative. The novel was considered a forerunner of existentialist thought and conjures up notions of going undercover in order to find information, to move in a space between the collective and the individual, off stage and on stage, between visibility and invisibility, and to be able to stage a context for oneself in order to act upon freely.

  In trying to find a new language to discuss the way we live and work, method acting is a metaphor not only for actors. With this in mind, it allows the self to respond differently and flexibly in new situations. But it requires a fine balance between memory and the present—bridging expressions between nature and artificiality, subject, and object—to create radical breaks with the past for the sake of continuity. What becomes visible and what stays invisible? How do we choose?

  As method acting requires the use of the self for the sake of external representation, the artists in this project respond to thoughts on form and method, surface and interior, and incorporate performance and film.

• Underground Man: Film Screening

  ISABELLE CORNARO, KEREN CYTTER, CHTO DELAT / WHAT IS TO BE DONE?, TARJE EIKANGER GULLAKSEN, SUSAN HILLER, UNA KNOX, ELIZA NEWMAN-SAUL
  November 19, 2009

  FILM SCREENING

  Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 8pm (OFFSITE at Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street)

  Una Knox, When What Becomes Who, 2009, 11:27

  Keren Cytter, Four Seasons, 2009, 12:00

  Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen, Unfinished Symphony, 2009, 19:00

  Eliza Newman-Saul, Nothing Will Come of Nothing, 2009, 9:24

  Chto Delat/What is to be done?, Partisan Songspiel, 2009, 29:00

  Isabelle Cornaro, Premier rêve d’Oskar Fischinger, 2008, 1:41 and 1:33

  Susan Hiller, The Last Silent Movie, 2007, 20:00

• Everything is Equally Familiar

  ELIZA NEWMAN-SAUL
  November 18, 2009

  Eliza Newman-Saul’s 20-minute performance creates a unique moment of disembodiment by isolating the performer’s body and voice (performed by Natalie Schneck and Sarah Madigan). The performance installation can be viewed in the gallery until January 16, 2010. The script is available as a small publication, Everything is Equally Familiar.