Screening Videos by Hannah Black | Thursday, October 17, 2019 | 7pm*

Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art | 1, 460 Portage Ave | Winnipeg MB | Canada

* Please note date change

On Thursday, October 17, 2019 at 7pm, Plug In ICA presents a screening of videos by Hannah Black to launch Labour of Love: On Digital Economies in the Arts, a series of lectures, screenings, and workshops focused on digital economies of labour in the arts. Black’s videos highlight the nuance of critical thought, text and prose as they enter the landscape of dream-like excursions that tell of a future-past, or one of an apocalypse to come. As the inaugural event of Labour of Love,  Black’s video art grounds us in the use of the digital as a way to experience the possibilities of image-making as tools that guide us toward another imaginary, potent feminist expressions, and poetic timescapes. Black will be joining us in person at Plug In ICA for a keynote address on December 17th, marking the closing event of Labour of Love.

Labour of Love or LOL, takes the “public course” as a platform for engagement, this program highlights the various ways in which the digital is interrogated, explored, celebrated, pushed to its limit, reworked, re-invented by artists, scholars, curators, writers and others. The course encompasses a full array of events, delving into such topics as coding, circuit bending, VR, AI and AR, gaming, scanning, and 3D printing. Divided into two streams, a lecture and screening series, and workshops, Labour of Love at its most general examines the relationship between the economics of labour and the digital arts as it contends with the conditions of racial capitalism. As a research platform, we aim to build an understanding of the digital by presenting artists who invent new trajectories through various technologies.

Prominent artist, writer and critic, Hannah Black studied English Literature at Cambridge University before completing an MFA in Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. She then participated in Whitney’s Independent Study program. Black has published two books, Life (2017), in collaboration with Juliana Huxtable, and Dark Pool Party (2016). Along with Ciarán Finlayson, and Tobi Haslett, Black was the co-author of the seminal article in Artforum, “The Teargas Biennial.” She has screened and shown in exhibitions across Europe and the United States most recently at Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art; Sharjah Biennial 14; Performance Space New York; Real Fine Arts, New York; Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Chisenhale Gallery, London UK; mumok, Vienna; Arcadia Missa, Paris; and New Museum Theatre, New York.

This program is made possible through the Digital Strategy Fund: Digital Literacy and Intelligence by the Canada Council for the Arts.

All lectures and screenings are free and open to the public.