TRANSMEDIA :29:59
+media art in public urban space+

curated by Michael Alstad and Michelle Kasprzak

January 1 - 31th, 2006:
29th minute: Christopher Meerdo - 'Backyards (Chicago)'
59th minute: Donna Szoke + Isabelle Noël - 'like'

Year Zero One is pleased to present TRANSMEDIA :29:59, a year long exhibition on the pedestrian level video billboard at Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto. Launched August 1st 2005, TRANSMEDIA :29:59 features one minute video works 24/7 every half hour on the 29th and 59th minutes.

Featured for the month of January is Donna Szoke + Isabelle Noël’s 'like' and Christopher Meerdo's 'Backyards (Chicago)'.

Christopher Meerdo's Backyards (Chicago) is a tribute to the urban backyard. Constructed by photographing thousands of sidewalk weeds, the piece reflects the flattening of experience and comments on collective urban neuroses.

Donna Szoke + Isabelle Noël’s like is a slow, meditative work that explores the visceral nature of complex emotions such as love—or love lost. It is both hypnotic and relaxing, inviting the viewer to slow down and sink into reflection. Its’ distinctly west coast organic imagery counterpoints architectural elements of the exhibition site as a spatial and temporal interlude. Created during the Sound + Vision thematic residency at Banff Centre for the Arts, with the assistance of the Vancouver Aquarium. The full work features original music by Isabelle Noel.

BIOS

Christopher Meerdo is a Chicago-based artist working in photography and new media. Mr. Meerdo's work has been seen internationally including New York, Chicago, and Nottingham, England. Mr. Meerdo recently received an acquisitions award from the South Bend Regional Museum of Art and an individual artist's grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Mr. Meerdo's current projects include a series re-creating imagery from the memory of nearly drowning as an infant, and reconstructing photographs shot by his grandfather in the 1950's.

Donna Szoke is originally from Winnipeg, and resides in Vancouver. She holds a BA, a BFA, and is currently an MFA candidate in the Interdisciplinary program at SFU. Her work investigates narrative, and the relationship between language, or absent language and the haptic reception of art. Her art practice includes video, installation, sculpture, and kinetics.  On occasion, she will curate and write as a means of visual / conceptual research. In 2004 she received a Media Arts Commissioning Grant (Canada Council) with the Orchid Ensemble band to create a responsive, immersive media environment for live performance. Her video works screen internationally.

Isabelle Noël (aka Mirabel) is a Toronto-based composer, producer, DJ and video-artist.


Year Zero One gratefully acknowledges the Ontario Arts Council,Yonge-Dundas Square and Clearchannel for their support of Transmedia :29:59.




TRANSMEDIA :29:59

<<Rewind
December 2005: Gwen MacGregor, David Crawford
November 2005: Cheryl Sourkes, BlueScreen
October 2005: Honeybyte, Risa Horowitz
September 2005: Pascual Sisto, Luke Lamborn
August 2005: Manu Luksch, Jillian Mcdonald