Passage

Marie-Claude Langevin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:56:49 +0000

Artwork identification

Artwork creator(s):

Jurakic, Ivan

Artwork creator(s):

Jurakic, Ivan

Text author(s):

Baudrillard, Jean

Text author(s):

Baudrillard, Jean

Installation year:

2004

Remarks on location:

Occupied a long, narrow corridor in an abandoned downtown bank

Artwork description

Source: Photo provided by Ivan Jurakic

Description:

Hand-cut directly in sheetrock and drawn into with graphite, the single line of text occupied a long, narrow corridor in an abandoned downtown bank.

Mention(s) légale(s) des illustrations:

Photo credits:

Text of the artwork:

no longer in the age of grandiose collapses and resurrections of games of death and eternity but of little fractal events smooth annihilations and gradual slides with no tomorrow from here on

Text theme:

Jean Baudrillard, “Ecstasy and Inertia”

Artwork theme:

Contact and location; the city as a place of passage; terminal nature of commerce; post-industrial space

Dimensions

Height:

1.16m

Depth:

0.1 m

Other information

Note(s):

Passage featured an excerpt from the essay Ecstasy and Inertia by philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Beginning with a negation (no), the text created a metaphoric circuit by ending with a preposition suggesting contact and location (on). Functioning as a memorial to the post-industrial space where the phrase was contained – a gutted commercial site transformed into a temporary art gallery – the inscription also alluded to the terminal nature of commerce. The installation proposed a kind of formalist vandalism, akin to carving ones name into a public bench. Set behind a glass façade, Passage was visible 24 hours a day, taking its place alongside the flood of other signage and graffiti that marks the city as a place of passage.

Source:

Ivan Jurakic 23 Murray Street West Hamilton, ON L8L 1B1 905.523.8865 ivanjurakic@sympatico.ca

Document(s):

Art Gallery of Hamilton Special "Future Cities"

Civil Fugue

Marie-Claude Langevin — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:02:43 +0000

Artwork identification

Artwork creator(s):

Moffat, Ellen

Artwork creator(s):

Moffat, Ellen

Text author(s):

Moffat, Ellen

Text author(s):

Moffat, Ellen

Installation year:

2004

Remarks on location:

Various downtown locations.

City Hall, 71 Main St. West (in the open square)
Corner of James St. North and King St. East (NW corner outside Jackson Square)
Corner of James St. North and King William St. (NE corner outside of the Lister Block) near Farmer's Market on York Blvd. (South side, just West of McNab Street)
55 Bay St. North, outside new Federal office building across from the Copps Coliseum
50 Main St. East (at Hughson), outside McMaster University Downtown Centre

Artwork description

Source: Ellen Moffat (2008). Portfolio. Civil Fugue. (http://www.ellenmoffat.ca/)

Description:

Twelve metal panels with photographs and text mounted on bicycle racks

Mention(s) légale(s) des illustrations:

Photo credits:

Text of the artwork:

“(How) can we sustain

global economies,

local ecologies,

new technologies,

sacred histories?”

---

“suburban sprawl…or

downtown rejuvenation.”

---

“Until they pave it,

it’s not over.”

---

"Another expressway…

another river valley."

---

“What is the cost?”

---

Whose voice is public?

Text theme:

Public space and urban development (interviews with officials, executives and community leaders)

Artwork theme:

Future of public space in Hamilton, local community, idealism of urban space

History

History:

Future Cities, downtown, Hamilton, 2004. Organized by the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Chief Commissioner: Shirley Madill.

Event date(s):

2004

Dimensions

Other information

Note(s):

• The text, collected through conversations with diverse participants in the city, posits a sampling of attitudes about the future public space in Hamilton. Local voices intervene in the public sphere.

• "The project for Future Cities is an extension of my ongoing work about art and the everyday. It will engage with the dialogue about the public space in the ideal urban area, and provide a platform for participation, interaction and education. The project endorses the localization of voice, the collective voice and reflects the community back to itself in a way that encourages the possibility of social change…" Moffat conducted interviews in February with various city officials, business executives and leaders in the community. With the objective of pulling select quotes that, once combined, would create a "positive sentence" for the future of Hamilton, she transposed the text onto the advertisement sections of select bike racks in the downtown core of Hamilton. The final product resembles a live feed of public figures' questions, grounded in the text of the city itself.

Artist's biography:

Ellen Moffat

Source:

Ellen Moffat moffat.e@sasktel.net

Document(s):

Portfolio. Civil Fugue

Future Cities. Locations

Présences du littéraire dans l’espace public canadien - Future Cities

Passage

Civil Fugue