The change of any changeable quaNTITY
ABOUT
An exhibition of video installations that explores themes of climate change and environmental crisis
October 15-17, 2021 at 300 Geary AVE.
curated by Layne Hinton & Rui Pimenta
THE EXHIBITION:
Installed in a large industrial warehouse space, The change of any changeable quantity is an immersive and experimental exhibition of video art by artists Christina Battle, nichola feldman-kiss, Lyla Rye and Heidi Strauss that examines elements of change and instability we increasingly experience as we move ever closer to climate catastrophe. Somewhat unintentionally, these videos each speak to one of the four natural elements, which Ancient Greeks believed were the basis of all matter and were unchanging in nature. In an era of extreme environmental change, the exhibition title draws from the definition of the mathematical symbol (∆) found in the title of Christina Battle’s work that represents the changeable quality of any equation.
In the case of the works in this exhibition the viewer is invited to consider the vast possibility of change itself, both in terms of the harm we have inflicted on our natural world and the imperative of recovery we ignore at our peril.
Christina Battle’s fiery video considers the gap between our current crisis and the policies that are needed to create necessary and meaningful change. Lyla Rye’s video of clearcut earthen landscapes is a cross-generational collaboration that uses cellphone footage shot by tree planters and transformed by the artist, through manual stabilization, in an attempt to achieve a technical and metaphoric sense of balance. nichola feldman-kiss takes viewers through a digitally constructed underwater landscape, including icebergs that overwhelm through their indecipherable scale. Heidi Strauss’s video explores invisible presence and absence through airy spaces where the line between outside and inside, solitude and togetherness are inverted.
ARTISTS: adelheid/Heidi Strauss, Christina Battle, Lyla Rye,
nichola feldman-kiss (co-presented with the koffler centre of the arts)
Partners & Funders: Koffler Centre of the Arts, Geary Factory Lofts, Toronto arts council, #Showloveto, ontario arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts.
additional EVENTS
ELEMENTAL DISSONANCE
ARTIST TALK
We were excited to transform this cavernous 12,000 square foot space into a deep listening setting in which the act of listening becomes a fully embodied experience. This program featured live performances by local sound artists at the cutting edge of sonic experimentation.
This program was inspired by the reverberations and unique acoustical properties of this industrial warehouse space, along with themes drawn from the video exhibition, including the mediation of nature through human interference, feelings of uneasiness and instability brought on by climate change.
ARTISTS: Driftnote, Prince Nifty, FELIPE SENA
Date:
Friday October 15th, 2021
We were joined by artists Lyla Rye, Heidi Strauss & nichola feldman-kiss with Mona Filip of the Koffler Centre of the Arts, alongside Art Spin curators Layne Hinton & Rui Pimenta to hear more about the process of creation of their works, all of which were produced in the last year through a time of crisis and isolation.
ARTISTS: Heidi Strauss, Lyla Rye, nichola feldman-kiss with mona filip
Date:
Sunday October 17th, 2021
The image above is a video still by nichola feldman-kiss from the artwork: 'planet species animal human water Agent. in motion on the move in flight of the Earth of the Land of the Ocean her ecology. here and there sea and ice wind and current seed and settlement. (Study for Siren lll)'
ARTISTS & PROJECTS
Adelheid / Heidi strauss
absent presence
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
In any empty space there is history. Sometimes that history is known - often not. To be alone in a large vacant room, the openness is charged with who has been there before, the impact they had, but also with the current potential of who is there now, and what can exist. absent presence holds the invisible and felt as real. Made in a time of isolation and separation – we lived (are living) a real-life science fiction future in which nothing can be taken for granted; the natural world is knocking.
co-directors: Heidi Strauss & Jeremy Mimnagh
choreography: Heidi Strauss in collaboration with dancers Syreeta Hector, Jane-Alison McKinney, and Amanda Pye
director of photography & editor: Jeremy Mimnagh
composer: Joshua Van Tassel
lighting: Rebecca Picherack
key grip: Charissa Wilcox
production assistant: Dedra McDermott
producer: Rachel Penny
associate producer: Art Spin
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Heidi Strauss creates dance-based experiences to examine human behavior from different perspectives, using relationships as a basis to consider our current social and environmental moment. She is interested in challenging how we see/experience performance by shifting the physical perspective of the audience, creating immersive, installation, ambulatory, site-sensitive and digital works for theatre and non-theatre environments. A multi-Dora Award winning choreographer and the Artistic Director of adelheid, Heidi supports programs for other artists including adelheid’s re:research, (for emerging dance artists) and Cohort (for performance makers integrating digital technologies into their practice). Heidi is a recipient of the KM Hunter Award for Dance.
nichola feldman-kiss
you are water. you are sea ice (Study for Siren III)
&
planet species animal human water Agent. in motion on the move in flight of the Earth of the Land of the Ocean her ecology. here and there sea and ice wind and current seed and settlement. (Study for Siren III)
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
Study for Siren III features 2 interrelated experiments with underwater data space. The artwork is conceived for quieting –a jewel of relief amidst the overwhelm of ungraspable immensity that is digital life separated from source.
Thanks to: Tovi Gruzman, GTR Industries and Adrienne Matheuszik, GTR Industries, Derya Akkaynak, and Ocean Quest Adventures
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
nichola feldman-kiss is a Toronto based artist exploring relational interpretations of body and embodiment, identity and autobiography, witness and traumatic memory. Their hybrid media installations –pristine as laboratory craft, ask us to reconsider hard questions about being conscious social bodies among the tattered boundaries of globalization. The National Research Council of Canada, the Ottawa Hospital Eye Institute, the Department of National Defense, and the United Nations, among others, have hosted the artists’ research. feldman-kiss holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts.
lyla Rye
Unclear cuts
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
Unclear Cuts uses cellphone imagery of clear-cut land shot by tree planters, including Rye’s daughter. This poor footage is compressed in transit, further degrading the images. The pixelation, artifacts and distortion become emphasized in the manual stabilization of the imagery. As images rotate and shift, video stacks upon video accumulating in a messy, entanglement of ruined forests that hints at the complexity of change.
Footage by Lena Rye and Josh Jensen.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Lyla Rye is a Toronto based artist who works in installation, sculpture, video and photography to explore our experience of architectural space. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally including in New York, San Francisco, Adelaide, Auckland, Paris, and Berlin. She has shown at The Power Plant, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Southern Alberta Art Gallery and in the Karachi Biennale, Pakistan. Her solo exhibition, Mirage, was recently presented at Prefix ICA in Toronto. Her work is in the collections of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Cadillac Fairview Corporation, The Tom Thomson Art Gallery and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery.
christina battle
∆ (when the cities burn)
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
"Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.” [Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451]
[note: in this case, ∆ (opt + j) is defined as it is in chemistry: ∆ = the addition of heat in a reaction and also references the general definition in math & science: ∆ = the change of any changeable quantity]
Made on a rooftop during an artist residency in Mexico City (Casa Maauad, 2015), while thinking about the difference between the change that we need and the policies we make.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Christina Battle’s (Edmonton, Canada) research and artistic work consider the parameters of disaster; looking to it as action, as more than mere event and instead as a framework operating within larger systems of power. Through this research she imagines how disaster could be utilized as a tactic for social change and as a tool for reimagining how dominant systems might radically shift. She has exhibited internationally in festivals and galleries, most recently at: Latitude 53 (Edmonton), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), Capture Photography Festival (Vancouver); Forum Expanded at the Berlinale (Berlin), Blackwood Gallery (Mississagua), Trinity Square Video (Toronto), and Nuit Blanche Toronto.
PERFORMERS
From elemental Dissonance sound program
Prince Nifty is a Toronto-based sound designer, composer and a Grammy nominated producer/musician. He co-produced Lido Pimienta’s Miss Colombia, remixed for Caribou's Suddenly and has collaborated on a great many records and shows. From dance music to choral madrigals, his work covers a broad sonic territory and is as surprising as it is engaging. Look out for his new record, Interplanetary Machines, out this fall on Second Spring records
Omar David Rivero, also known as Driftnote, is a musician and
multimedia artist born in Venezuela and currently based out of Tkaronto whose work is centred around improvisation, interactivity, audio and visual installations as well as 3D imaging. Rivero explores questions of materiality and embodiment when looking at systems, cultural erasure, and identity in the african/indigenous diaspora. His research is situated in reassessing methodologies of image making, archives, and self-portraiture.
Felipe Sena is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist based in Toronto. Bringing influences from the underground São Paulo music scene and Afro-Brazilian traditional rhythms, his body of work revolves around the transcendent nature of music. In his performances, Felipe builds on percussive elements, live instruments, and evolving soundscapes.
This piece Sena performed was an invitation to reflect on the climate crisis, with special attention to the ongoing predatory Amazon fires.
ExhibiTION PHOTOS
Photos by Layne Hinton
PERFORMANCE PHOTOS
Photos by Layne Hinton
PARTNERS
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