Janet Cardiff: A Survey of Works, with George Bures Miller - Hardcover

Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn; Brisebois, Marcel; Lowry, Glenn; Miller, George Bures; Beecroft, Vanessa; Cardiff, Janet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0970442823 ISBN 13: 9780970442826

Publisher: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, 2002

Synopsis

Shifting between fact and fiction, between the experience of the real and our projections, fantasies, and desires, Janet Cardiff's audio-video and multimedia installations explore the complexity and vertiginous nature of subjectivity in a highly technological world. They are interactive pieces where visitors are asked to touch, listen, smell, and often move through an environment shaped both by our perceptions and by the artist's alteration of them. With references to film noir, science fiction, cyber-punk and various other filmic genres, her works, often created in collaboration with husband George Bures Miller, address the constant need to negotiate between presence and loss of self, memory and experience, sensation and imagination.

About this title

About the Author

Canadian artist Janet Cardiff, born in 1957, represented Canada at the 2001 Venice Biennale and was awarded a prize for her and George Bures Miller's work "The Paradise Institute." She has created site-specific audio and video works for a number of group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Sao Paulo Biennial; and the Carnegie International, among others.

Reviews

The catalog for an exhibition last winter organized by P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City and the first major study of contemporary Canadian-born artist Janet Cardiff, this multilayered study is equally useful to general readers and scholars. Cardiff creates site-specific "walks," asking her audience to don headphones or carry portable video cameras and then leading them through environments both physical and emotional. The soundscapes she creates are dense collages, combining voice, music, and natural and humanmade sounds; a CD-ROM with the audio portion of three complete walks is included here. Extensively illustrated with many full-color plates, the book uses a grid layout that nicely evokes the environments of the walks parks, museum grounds, and libraries in cities as diverse as Copenhagen, Pittsburgh, and Sao Paolo. Included are the texts of Cardiff's walk scripts, photos of manuscript pages, a descriptive/critical essay by exhibition curator Christov-Bakargiev, a chronology of Cardiff's life, and a selected bibliography. An interview, together with many snapshots of the artist, offers a wonderful sense of her life and work process. For all libraries purchasing works on contemporary art. Michael Dashkin, PricewaterhouseCoopers, New York City
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0970442823
• ISBN 13: 9780970442826
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200
• Editor: Heiss Alanna