Lorie Novak
Reverb
16 October - 21 November 2004
Visit Lorie Novak's website for more on Reverb
Participate
Reverb, a new computer-based projected installation by New York artist Lorie Novak, examines the cultural significance of personal and media photographs and their meanings as public and private memorials and records of historical events.
Interspacing photographs of significant moments from the last 50 years with highly personal images, Novak places the individual within a deeply political and historical context. Viewers are enveloped by images and sound - a dissolving sequence of approximately 250 images which includes personal and public imagery from World War II to the present. The chronological sequence contains both important and little known documentary images of historic events from the Holocaust to the current Iraq conflict. Personal imagery including family snapshots, self-portraits, and travel photographs from the same periods are interwoven with the media imagery. Selected audio fragments from the internet further encourage a notion of place and community while also challenging us to consider our own individual role or perspective in these events.
The installation uses special software designed by Jonathan Meyer to generate the image dissolves and to stream audio content from the many public audio archives on the internet. Direct broadcasts of past historical events, political speeches, and personal testimonies make different sound/image permutations each time the piece is played. Reverb is the third installation Novak has made using family photographs and media images to explore the relationship between personal and cultural memory. It is the first, however, to be made in the time of the internet where multiple and global views both past and present are easily accessible.
New photographs, made in response to Reverb and inspired by the New Forest are presented in the adjacent gallery. These photographs reflect Novak’s concern with memory, history, loss and the relationship between the intimate and the public. Reacting to the New Forest, Novak has produced a series of images that both act as effective works in their own right and as a still counterpoint to the time-based image installation of Reverb.
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Novak will also be making an online version of Reverb for SCAN (www.scansite.org.uk) which will go live during the course of the exhibition.
Access to the full functionality of Novak’s Collected Visions internet project (www.collectedvisions.net) will be available through broadband in the third gallery. Collected Visions explores how family photographs shape our memory. The collectedvisions.net gives people the opportunity to submit images to its growing archive of family photographs and create their own photo stories. Approximately 3,000 snapshots are in its growing archive and over 250 photo essays are posted throughout the site. The concept for Collected Visions grew out of the photographs and installations Novak has been creating since the early 1980s. Visitors will have the opportunity to add to the website with their own photographs and essays at the gallery.
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Lorie Novak lives and works in New York City and is Professor & Chair of the Photography & Imaging Department of New York University. Novak’s photographs, installations, and internet projects have been in numerous exhibitions including The International Center for Photography, New York; Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Art Institute of Chicago among others. Her photographs are in numerous permanent collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Participate
Half-term New Media Workshop Thursday 28 October, 2004, 4pm – 7pm
An opportunity for 12 – 17 year olds to produce their own video masterpiece inspired by the work of Lorie Novak. With artist Lucy Fredericks. FREE
Creative Writing Workshop Saturday 6 November 2004, 1pm – 4pm
In partnership with Lymington Library join writer Markus Lloyd in exploring themes inspired by Lori Novak’s work. COST: £10
Little Dragons: Lorie Novak - Reverb Saturday 13 November 2004 10.30 - 11.30
Encounters with art led by Annabel Richardsfor pre-school 3-5 yr olds and their carers. COST £4 per child
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