As the cat climbed over the top of
the jamcloset first the right forefoot
carefully then the hind stepped down into the pit of the empty flowerpot
— William Carlos Williams, Poem (As the cat)
A cat reflects our emotions like a mirror; the subtlety of a cat’s movement can describe time and space in thousands of ways. A Point of View of a Cat introduces the cat as a narrative form, as well as a vehicle for exploration of material and space. This two-fold exhibit delivers the representational and the abstract as two independent vocabularies, which operate on their own terms, yet sometimes intersect each other in the actions of a cat. As hu- mans, we may never know the exact cat experience. Therefore, the exhibit focuses on cat behavior as it is visible to us, and specifically on how cats animate, fragment, and abstract everyday objects. Works included in the show can be divided into two categories: cat scenes and cat artifacts. The first is narrative, representational, animated and seductive. The second is abstract and material-driven; it vaguely refers to household environment and objects we would like to engage with if we were indoor cats (food, fabric, wood, concrete, plastic, etc). The show was inspired by the philoso- phy of Richard Rorty, which advocates that simultaneous use of multiple vocabularies results in a richer experience of the world.
Group Exhibition
Expedition
Film by The Museum of Jurassic Technology
This past year the Museum’s film crew traversed the countryside of Georgia. While utilizing specialized 3-D film contrivances and custom built technical equipment, the crew engaged with local inhabitants, performing artists and artisans. The film crew from the Museum of Jurassic Technology has accomplished the great task of editing the footage gathered during their travels into a beautiful stereo rendering of Georgian life. In its final form the film consists of seven chapters illuminating the tales once told by the seventeenth century Georgian lexicographer and fabulist, Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani. Born into a prestigious dynasty of Georgian nobility, Orbeliani lived out his days educating royalty. Well known for compiling the first extant dictionary in the Georgian language, Orbeliani also wrote a collection of instructive fables directed toward his pupil and nephew, King Vakhtang VI. The films are collectively entitled The Book of Wisdom and Lies, or The Wisdom of Lies, referencing this great work of mythology composed by Orbeliani. The debut of the film will be the inaugural screening in Fest i Nova 2010 as part of the American Pavilion program, paving a new path of film-making in this medium, moving into less traditional modes of presentation.