25 Nov 2010

Alan Butler - IntheBedroom OMIGOD SUBSCRIBE!!! KTHXBAI XXX


126 presents:
Alan Butler
IntheBedroom OMIGOD SUBSCRIBE!!! KTHXBAI XXX
November 25th until December 18th

The exhibition is a new selection of mixed media works, which use the proliferation of culture as their subject or starting points. Through drawing, video, print and installation, Butler has produced a series of works, which abstractly examine the life-cycle of musical artifacts and paraphernalia that have been reproduced as ‘tributes’ to well known works.


The research for the works in this exhibition is based on new modes of production which challenge the 20th Century’s producer/consumer model of transmission for film and music. In recent years, consumers have become both producers of and audience for the multitude of entertainment and cultural artifacts available online. Butler has collected and appropriated 20 versions of a pop song from 1974 (performed and uploaded YouTube.com users) and synchronised these to create an absurd, and at moments unpleasant, virtual choir from the song’s re-interpretations. The original videos in raw format are testament to the genuine passion and love people have for culture. The mash-up, which presents us with the aimlessness of this kind of activity, highlights the very human need to produce our own culture and share it with like-minded individuals, regardless of its collective uncouthness. It presents to us a network of people from many different age, ethnic, gender and geographical backgrounds who are connected by one song and asks the question ‘who owns culture outside of commerce and copyright (with its ever-dwindling relevance)?’ Are these performers, singing to an unknown audience, the unknowing authors of a new folk art?

A new series of 2D works use appropriated content from online fan sites to present hidden spectacles which sometimes go unnoticed due to the abundance of information online. These works are made from collections of album bootlegs re-arranged by colour and presented as colourful matrices. Also exhibited are drawings combining logos of teeny pop-stars and grindcore/death-metal acts which contrast the very definite methods of visually presenting or branding music.

The exhibition will also feature an ‘offsite’ online work which can be accessed after visiting the gallery. Much of the content from this show is created in a similar manner to its subjects, rather than needing a studio it could have been produced in a garage or a bedroom and uploaded to share with anyone interested.

Alan Butler was born in Dublin in 1981. He completed his BA of Fine Art (specialising in new media) in NCAD in 2004 and has complimented his prolific studio practice with various curatorial, art-community and art management projects. Some of these include work for the Dublin Fringe Festival, Dublin Art Fair ’08, Monster Truck Gallery & Studios, Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Blackletter.ie (Irish online art-community) and the Dublin Arts and Technology Association (DATA). Since his MAFA at LaSalle College of the Arts, Singapore (2008-09) Butler’s art work has featured in projects and exhibitions at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore, Hatje Cantz Con prefazione di Angela Vettese, Venice and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Most recently, he has had solo exhibitions at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios and Cake Contemporary Arts, Kildare, and a collaborative exhibition at the Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray. He currently occupies a project studio at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios where he listens to Gwar.

6 Nov 2010

Jennifer Brady - The View From Here



Tulca 2010 & 126 presents:
Jennifer Brady

The View From Here
November 6th until November 21st

For Tulca 2010, 126 presents The View From Here, an exhibition of Brady’s new video works exploring the everyday spaces we inhabit from radical and fantastical perspectives, varying from conspiracy theory, gaming culture to virtual landscapes. The works themselves address notions of place, using narrative devices, voiceover and soundtracking elements with which to re-imagine these spaces such as the city, the suburban park and computer gaming landscapes. The exhibition seeks to revise and destabilise the ways in which we perceive these familiar sites.

Jennifer Brady’s practice involves video and sound installation. Her video works fuse documentary and fictive modes of production, with particular emphasis given to the element of storytelling within them. The stories she tells through her video works are based on research into both real and fictive events. This material is often used to construct narratives which in turn explore such notions of reality and fiction.

She is currently completing a M.A in Visual Arts Practice (IADT). Selected recent exhibitions include Public Gesture: Pirate Capital, The Lab, Dublin 2010; Flicks: The Cinematic in Art curated by Cliodhna Shaffrey, Drogheda (2009), Sounds Like Art curated by Carissa Farrell, Draíocht (2009) and the Claremorris Open Exhibition (2007) where she was a prizewinner. She was commissioned to produce new video work for multi media event Snakes and Ladders (Dublin, Wexford and New York), curated by composer Daniel Figgis (2009). Her work has also been purchased for the Bank of Ireland Art Collection.