Ice Follies 2018
February 9th - 20th, 2018
Theme: Exposing to Strengthen
The creation of ice roads requires the clearing of snow to expose the ice to the cold. The snow is cleared well beyond the used roadway to ensure safe ice thickness from the center to the edges of the used portion of the ice road. What do we bring to light, allow or expose so a strengthening can occur?
Andrew Ackerman & Chris Kosloski, Embodied Terrains, 2018
Presented by Near North Mobile Media Lab
Embodied Terrains is a site-specific installation by local artists Chris Kosloski and Andrew Ackerman consisting of two fifteen-foot long tunnels fabricated from repurposed metal drums, within which are housed two synchronized video projections
The two-channel video is also looped to provide a cyclical rather than non-linear reading of the work, with the aim of eliminating any sense of a definitive ‘beginning’ or ‘end’. This strategy serves to dissolve boundaries and evokes a sense of timelessness. In his Critique of Judgment (1790), Emmanuel Kant suggests that “the Beautiful in nature is connected with the form of the object, which consists of having boundaries”, whereas “the Sublime is to be found in a formless object, so far as in it, or by occasion of it, boundlessness is represented.” In this respect, the video projection explores this notion of the Sublime. The sculptural apparatus housing the projections serve as a ‘threshold’, positioning viewers on the margins of disparate yet related representations of a particular place, in this case, the shores of Lake Nipissing. Viewers of the work are situated in the present while simultaneously consuming visual representations of the same subject in a past and/or future state. The work evokes a sense of ‘totality’, or more specifically, a conception of place as both specific and limitless.
Artist Bio:
Andrew Ackerman holds a BFA from York University and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. He has a background in a broad range of sculptural processes and has experience working in a professional sculpture foundry, where he was involved in the creation, conservation, and restoration of large-scale public sculpture. His own practice combines media such as bronze, wax, gypsum, resin, paint, and sound installation. His work has been exhibited in venues such as Leigh Wen Fine Art (New York), and The Phoenix Center for the Arts, and he has also executed public and private commissions.
Chris Kosloski is a video artist, college professor and filmmaker. A graduate of the Confederation College film program in Thunder Bay, Ontario (1996), he has worked in the film industry for over 12 years as a technician and editor and is now a professor of Digital Cinematography at Canadore College in North Bay. Chris has exhibited a number video art and projection pieces including; “Your Sadness Means Everything to Us” at the Definitely Superior Art Gallery Juried Show 2008, “All Diesels are Turbo” was featured on the video art blog Niche LA in 2013. “Lyceum Projection” was a large scale projection mapping project which Chris co-created for the City of Thunder Bay in 2014. Chris was named a finalist for the 2016 KM Hunter Artist Award. “Proxyscope”, a multi-channel projection/sculpture was featured at the 2017 Bay Street Film Festival. His latest media art installation, “Embodied Terrains,” was a collaboration with visual artist and sculptor Andrew Ackerman for the 2018 Ice Follies exhibit in North Bay — a biennial festival of contemporary and community art on lake Nipissing.
Image Gallery:
