Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to present:
Live Lecture Streaming Podium: I am Not a Cat
A solo exhibition by Judy Radul
*Date change* February 24, 2024 – April 21, 2024
Opening reception | Saturday, February 24, 2024 | 6– 9 pm
Plug In ICA is thrilled to announce Live Lecture Streaming Podium: I am Not a Cat, an upcoming solo exhibition featuring Judy Radul from February 24 – April 21, 2024.
Serving simultaneously as a stage of presentation and a playback assemblage, Judy Radul’s Live Lecture Streaming Podium: I am Not a Cat frames and distorts live lectures to highlight the non-neutrality of technology.
Building on the theory surrounding cinema as a viewing machine, Radul’s practice insists that spatial organization and materiality are modes of framing. Following this thread, Live Lecture Streaming Podium was inspired by pre-pandemic online presentations, in which one might encounter lectures with highly sophisticated content that are restricted or otherwise altered by the format of their unacknowledged digital framework.
Whether it’s faulty network connections, external noises interfering with audio inputs, or other technical issues, Live Lecture Streaming Podium aims to pay homage to the distinctive qualities that come along with our use of technology for the dissemination of information. While the work is a fully functioning stage with a lectern, tracking cameras, a microphone, and screens for sharing graphic elements, this lecture podium also enters chance happenings into the live lecture/stream. These ‘impurities’ include but are not limited to voice and face filters, background images, and mechatronic activity in the form of a moving curtain; these effects aim to feed the spirit of improvisation that comes alongside the stage presented and encourage viewers to see these disruptions as a form of support for serious enquiry and presentation.
Through Live Lecture Streaming Podium: I am Not a Cat, Radul creates a system that does not pretend to be neutral ‘communication’, exploring these new modes of visual display as techniques that respond to and inform cultural hierarchies, focusing on technologies overlooked as ‘support.’ In its denaturalization (aesthetically and comedically) of knowledge, the work seeks to remind both the live and online viewer that not only is the content within these presentations subjective but that the framework that their technological formats reside in contains a subjectivity that inherently mutates and remolds the information they convey as well.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council.
Judy Radul’s video installations often feature technical systems, including an original computer-controlled motion choreography and playback system for live and pre-recorded video. Recent exhibitions include: Dazibao, Montreal, 2023; Gwangju Biennale, 2021; Albertinum Museum, Dresden, 2021; Kunstinstitute Melly, Rotterdam, 2017. Her large-scale media installation World Rehearsal Court (2009) has been shown in Vancouver, Vienna, Seoul, Oslo and Moscow. She has published two books with Sternberg Press Berlin: A Thousand Eyes: Media Technology, Law and Aesthetics, 2011 co-edited with Marit Paasche, and This Is Television, 2018. Radul received a B.A in Fine and Performing Arts, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, 1991 and Master of Visual and Media Arts, Bard College, New York, 2000. She is Professor of Visual Art at SFU School for Contemporary Arts. She lives in Berlin and Vancouver (unceded Tsleil-Waututh, Skwxwú7mesh and Musqueam lands) and is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver. Learn more about Judy Radul at her website here
Acknowledgments
We are on Treaty 1 Territory. Plug In ICA is located on the territories of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the National homeland of the Red River Métis. Our water is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.
Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. We acknowledge the sustaining support of our Director’s Circle. You all make a difference.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We could not operate without their continued financial investment and lobbying efforts.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Caitlin at caitlin@plugin.org
For more information on public programming and exhibitions contact Allison Yearwood at allison@plugin.org.
For general information, please contact: info@plugin.org or call 1.204.942.1043