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... fulsome praise for Vivisection (...) - I could have watched it 100 times. A stunning mixture of nightmarish photography, projections, perfect music and movement, and really clever lighting. It was worth all the crowds and all the walking.
Banuta Rubess, Toronto playwright and director.
VV-about
VIVISECTION:
Installation + Photography + Performance + Light
by Art Babayants, Marina Black, Paul J.Stoesser & Dmitry Zhukovsky
How does reality get reimagined and archived by our visual memory? How do archived images affect our perception of the past? This multidisciplinary installation/performance explores and amplifies the layered connections between limited vision and fragile memory in unique and complementary interpretations, challenging both memory and perception. The audience’s attention is focused on the fragility and imperfection of human memory and its delicate process of collecting, reinterpreting and indeed obfuscating and our experiences. VIVISECTION juxtaposes live performance and still archival imagery while allowing the audience to experience both the initial urge for archiving and the interpretive result of it. Stylistically, both the live performance and the still imagery follow the black-and-white aesthetics of classic archival photography
VV-creators
VV-creators
ART BABAYANTS
Art is a Toronto-based artist and educator. Art is the artistic director of the Toronto Laboratory Theatre. More about Art.
MARINA BLACK
Marina Black grew up in Moscow, Russia. Since moving to Canada, she has produced a body of work that includes photography, drawing and installation. Her work focuses on the subject of anguish, pain, mortality, abjectness and the fragility of the human species. Black has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council in 2010, 2011, 2014; IZOLYATSIA, a non-governmental Arts Foundation Fellowship [Ukraine] in 2011; W. Lawrence Heisey Graduate Award for outstanding achievement in scholarly and creative work in 2013. Her work is included in the public collections of Heritage Municipal Museum of Malaga, Spain; in Alliance Francaise in Toronto. She also was a co-founder and an editor of the ART POST e-magazine with a mandate to promote Toronto artists working in diverse media, and curated a number of photographic projections. www.marinablack.com
PAUL J.STOESSER
Paul J. Stoesser is a lighting designer. Toronto Laboratory Theatre founding member and originating designer for The ... Musician (Dancemakers, 2014). Current projects include the scenic design of Shakespeare’s King Henry VI, Pt.1 (spring 2015) and also the scenography for Circus Chekhov for Teatroavista in Rome (May 2015). For Nuit Blanche: last season’s “must see” durational project 2Youtopia as well as the (2011) Futurism theatre installation.
DMITRY ZHUKOVSKY
Dmitry Zhukovsky is a graphic designer, actor, educator and a recent arrival to the Toronto art scene. His creative career in theatre and design comprises more than 25 years of working in the USSR, Moldova and Russia. As a graphic designer and artistic director, Dmitry has worked for Moscow leading design studios and developed a number of well-know Russian commercial brands. Dmitry is the founder and the artistic director of Theatrus.
VV-location
VV-location.
VIVISECTION run on October 3-4, 2015 as part of the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche festival.
VIVISECTION was performed at 401 Richmond, one of Toronto's historic buildings, just south of Queen and Spanida. Use the east entrance to the building.
Admission was free and open from 7 pm to 7 am.
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