The Centre for Media and Culture in Education initiated Independent Images in the fall of 2000, as a monthly forum for screening and discussing film and video in a pedagogical context. These works do not fit the conventional categories of "educational" or "instructional" media, but nevertheless hold great potential for elucidating issues of race/racism, sexuality, gender, class, ability, faith and nation. Often produced from the standpoint of minoritized identities and communities, these works do not simply seek to supply an alternative account, but often focus on refiguring language or representation.
This series arose from the requests of OISE/UT professors and graduate students for an orientation to independent visual media what exists, how, where to find it, and how to use it. To encourage the use of independent media we will supply rental/loan information for the titles screened and, wherever possible, bibliographic information. This is an ongoing informal gathering and not an academic course. Our purpose is not to designate the films and tapes we show as exemplary teaching tools but rather to expose OISE/UT faculty and students to a body of work that is increasingly critiqued and taught in an academic context. As this work often raises questions rather than impart certainties, a crucial aspect of our conversation will be an exploration of the possibilities and challenges of using such material in the classroom.
CMCE > presents > Independent Images > A screening curated by Louise Bak with discussion to follow >
Friday November 28 > 3pm - 5pm > Library Screening Room > OISE/UT > 252 Bloor St W > Free
Lullaby - Metronome
Videos by Mirha-Soleil Ross and Daniel Cockburn >Filmmaker Daniel Cockburn obsessively pounds his chest and speaks in an intentional monotone, trying to unwind the rhythms of his own life in Metronome. Mirha-Soleil Ross' videos displays ardent poetic, textual and performative elements to engage with the power and peril of transsexual subjectivity. Daniel Cockburn is rigid about defining rules and then playing those rules out until they are done. Mirha-Soleil Ross isolates small and precise every-day gestures and then engages with them until personal and political dynamics are revealed. Considered together for the first time, we may ask how these different film/video projects address a unique combination of localized curiosity, enterprise and citizenship. What is at play in their work, is an expressing of one's self and various forms of storytelling to examine the everyday world. But rather than to inhabit the real in modes which prevail in consumer society, these works give pride of place to the conflicts, mobility, sexuality and humour of individual experience. Telling daily journeys that are equal parts hilarious, critical and heartening, Daniel Cockburn and Mirha-Soleil Ross' work recognizes new ways to exercise our critical faculties and pleasures in public. - Louise Bak, Curator
Mirha-Soleil Ross is a transsexual videomaker, performer, sex worker, and animal rights activist born in Montréal. Since moving to Toronto in 1992, she has produced over a dozen videos, which have been screened at festivals across Canada, the US and Europe, include: Tremblement de Chair (2001), Allo Performance! (2002), and G-SprOuT!, a trans-poly-sexual-vegan-docu-porno which won the "Pop Your Gender Bubble Award!" at Tranny Fest 2001. As an activist, Mirha-Soleil developed Meal-Trans, Toronto's first publically funded, multi-services program for low income and street active Transsexual and Transgendered people. In 1997, she created Counting Past 2, a multi-disciplinary art festival dedicated to the promotion of work produced by local and international Transsexual and Transgendered artists. Mirha-Soleil is currently editing a collection of interviews -to be published in 2004- with over 30 transsexual and transgender artists whose work was featured at CP2 from 1997-2000.
Daniel Cockburn is a Toronto-based moviemaker and writer. His work has been exhibited at various international venues, including: Cinematexas International Short Film Festival; Images Festival of Independent Film & Video; Cinematheque Ontario and the Venice International Short Film Festival. He has won the Images Homebrew Award for work by a local emerging artist (Metronome and The Other Shoe) Media City: Jury Award for best Canadian film/video/installation (Metronome) Tranz Tech Media Art Biennial: FAMEFAME Jury Prize (Weakend). He curates film and video both independently and as a member of the Pleasure Dome programming collective, and has written on media arts for such publications as Year Zero One Forum, Cinema Scope magazine, and A Blueprint for Moving Images in the 21st Century (Pleasure Dome publication).
Louise Bak is a Toronto-based poet, performance artist, radio host, sexual activist and scholar. She is the author of Tulpa (Coach House Books, 2002), Gingko Kitchen (Coach House Books, 1997) and emeighty (Letters, 1995). Louise has gained widespread attention as the co-host of Sex City, Toronto's only radio show focused on intersections between sexuality and culture. Her performance work has appeared in numerous galleries, festivals and video collaborations. She also hosts a salon series called The Box, which encourages communication creative borders. She is currently a doctoral student at the University of Toronto in SESE and Women's Studies.
Independent Images archives:2001-2002; 2001-2000 coming soon