Kelly Mark: REM
REM - 2007
4 channel DVD installation
DVD 2:16:33
Colour w/ Sound. Edition of 2 w/ 1 AP (Complete Installation)A video Mash-Up consisting of 170 different sources taken from television during a 4 month period between April 1 & July 31 2007.
Installation Dimensions:
Four 8 foot walls placed together to form a cross. Approximate overall dimensions: 16' x 16' x 8' (tall).Installation contains: 4 walls, 4 televisions, 1 dvd player, co-axial & rca cables, splitters, tv stands, coffee tables, side tables, rugs, lamps, pillows, ashtrays and 4 stalled wall clocks all set to 4:05)
exhibition history>
2007 JM Barnicke Gallery (Hart House) University of Toronto (Toronto ON); 2008 Cambridge Galleries (Cambridge ON); 2008 Platform Gallery (Seattle WA); 2008 Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (Halifax NS); 2008 MSVU Art Gallery (Halifax NS); 2008 Lawrence Eng Gallery (Vancouver BC); 2008 VOX Gallery (Montreal QC); (upcoming-Sept); 2008 National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa ON) (upcoming-Oct);
"Writing about the effects of mechanical reproduction more than 70 years ago, Walter Benjamin theorized that mass entertainment created a new form of reception: viewers of cinema absorbed film in a way that did not require their direct attention. Itself a kind of prophecy of the fusion of art with everyday life brought about by the advent of digital technologies, the capacity for distracted perception hypothesized by Benjamin would seem to have been multiplied tenfold in our current culture. Mark's epic work REM (2007) recreates this experience using TV as its source. Two hours in length, REM, which is compiled from more than 170 films and TV shows, creates a composite feature film from disparate clips Mark recorded from television. The work's narrative is coherent; by definition, film and television provide the building blocks of storytelling. As one watches the work, however, it soon becomes apparent that a semblance of coherence is all that is required; in REM, following the narrative is akin to the experience of being adrift in your own thoughts. The work is a parable for our culture - lost inside the figments of its own imagination. Like Mark's practice as a whole, it brings a syncretic intelligence to bear on cultural detritus, ultimately offering us the insight that our culture belongs to us. The subtle shift in thinking that is required to grasp this idea is the future of our culture - one that we are already living in today."
- Rosemary Heather (from: "Kelly Mark - Always Working". Canadian Art, Winter 2007)
more:
- Dan Adler (from: "Kelly Mark at Justina M Barnicke Gallery". Art Forum, December 2007)
Installation Views:
Justina M Barnicke Gallery (Hart House) University of Toronto, 2007
Room #1
Room #2
Room #3
Room #4
View of: Rooms 3 & 4 seen together
Installation Views: (2 room version)
Platform Gallery. Seattle, Washingon, 2008
REM Movie Poster:
REM Poster: Front
16" x 24"
view largerREM Poster: Back
16" x 24"
view larger
Movie Synopsis by: Brian Joseph Davis
REM (CC)
11:00 pm HARTHOUSE 136 min 2007 PG-14A true story of assassination, apocalypse and apnea that begins in the barren arroyos of New Mexico, when a hitchhiker is picked up by various people who will influence his fate and draw him into a mystery of murder and intrigue. Thrown to the side of the road the hitcher wakes up in a world where identity and reality fade like smoke curls. But is he really a trained killer who can’t remember who he is? During the assassination attempt he looks through the cross hairs but loses his nerve and pulls away at the last second. Or does he? A detective, small town sheriffs, bloodhounds, and the LAPD’s gang unit investigate the shooting but conflicting accounts give the sniper a head start on his run and he escapes into a dream eerily si milar to his own life, which he watches on TV. Arrested, he pleads as a defense that he was, in fact, asleep.
As he’s being coerced into a confession, he dreams of two Mormons driving through the night to confront a woman about her beliefs. Is it the beginning of her true destiny or an elaborate dream? While sleeping she receives a campy vision of a flaming angel and a stone Christ writhing on the cross. Hijinks ensue at work when she begins to think of herself as the savior of humanity. Institutionalized, the woman joins in group therapy, resulting in an outpouring of emotion, and nervous smoking. At night, the woman’s doctor at the institution (special guest star Malcolm McDowell) awakes from a nightmare of dirt. Or does he? The doctor then dreams of a man who dreams of the doctor dreaming of a chase sequence that ends with the classic fight scene between Keanu Reeves and Bruce Lee.
Reeves runs from Lee until trapped in room 303. A policewoman investigates, only to find 303 in a shambles. Running from an unknown terror she’s then pursued through a forest. In bed, she drifts out of sleep only to discover it was all dream she had having fallen asleep watching TV. Her boyfriend walks in and turns off the TV and goes to sleep beside her. Later, the boyfriend sleepwalks down the hall to a neighbour’s apartment and attempts to strangle him. At a psychiatrist’s office the boyfriend learns there’s nothing wrong with him, even though he’s on a pharmacy’s worth of anti-depressants. Going to sleep after an overdose he dreams of waking up next to his long time companion (special guest star Boris Karloff in one of his final roles) and, before he dies, a hallucination of a couple high on cocaine fighting. After an extended coke jag the man watches TV, where a woman wakes up and then investigates her darkened home with a flashlight.
A flash of light and the sniper awakens again, but this time at his computer where he makes the decision to launch a virus that will cause chaos, destruction and violence. Bombs fall, cities burn, the dead walk, the president (played by Jack Nicholson) soothes the public while a biological agent is unleashed that kills every last human being. A monkey tolls for the dead. The last man alive then drives around an empty city, talking to himself and hearing phantom phone calls in the middle of the great silence. He awakes to the sound of a ringing phone in a strange motel. He leaves, now apparently free, but at the motel desk he’s asked to initial phone charges. This leads to an elaborate series of phone calls within phone calls that enmesh the man into a conspiracy of crime, love, suicide and accusation. The man demands more money, slams the phone down, makes another call and begins to have phone sex in public—a scene that shocked upon the film’s initial release. On the other end of the line a woman stares out in insomniac agony. This wakes a woman who turns on a lamp and then the room lights. This wakes up a man—who was dreaming of puppets of his childhood—who is then told to leave the lights off. The shadowy figure in the room tells the man that there are no answers and “you are a puppet.” This upsets the man so much he wakes up to discover many people waking up, which causes a stressed out film director to wake up screaming about a noise that isn’t there. A challenging film with a stellar cast.
–Brian Joseph Davis
“In a nightmare, you can’t change the channel.”
List of Sources for REM
(Movies, Shorts & Television Shows. Approx. 170 sources)2001 A Space Odyssey - 1968
Absolon - 2003
Alien 3 - 1992
Analyze This - 1999
Another Day (tv movie) - 2001
Assassins - 1995
Backdraft - 1991
Bad Lieutenant - 1992
Bad Santa - 2003
Basic Instinct - 1992
Beverly Hills Cop - 1984
Bless the Child - 2000
Blue Velvet - 1986
Brainscan - 1994
Bringing Out The Dead - 1999
Caddyshack - 1980
Childs Play - 1988
Christine - 1983
Colors - 1988
Comic Book Villians - 2002
Commando - 1985
Conspiracy Theory - 1997
Contact - 1997
Cool Hand Luke - 1967
Cop Land - 1997
CSI (tv) - 2000-2007
CSI Miami - 2002-2007
Dallas - 1978-1991
Davey & Goliath (tv) - 1960-1975
Death and the Maiden - 1994
Delores Claiborne - 1995
Deranged - 1974
Die Hard - 1988
Die Hard With A Vengence - 1995
Dirty Harry - 1971
Disturbed - 1990
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs - 1966
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story - 1993
Earth vs. The Spider (tv movie) - 2001
Electric Glide in Blue - 1973
Enter the Dragon - 1973
Eraser - 1996
Escape From L.A. - 1996
Fargo - 1996
Fatal Attraction - 1987
Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters - 1982
Fight Club - 1999
Formula 51 - 2001
Frailty - 2001
Freddy vs. Jason - 2003
F/X - 1986
Gangster No. 1 - 2000
Garden State - 2004
Good Fellas - 1990
Godzilla 2000 - 1999
Happy Hell Night - 1992
Harry and the Hendersons - 1987
Heat - 1995
Hellboy - 2004
Hell's Gate 11:11 - 2004
Hollow Point - 1996
Hostage - 2005
House of a Thousand Corpses - 2003
Hurlyburly - 1998
Igby Goes Down - 2002
I'm Not Rappaport - 1996
Inferno (aka Pilgram) - 1999
Island of Lost Souls - 1932
Jeepers Creepers - 2001
Jesus Henry Christ (short) - 2003
Johnny Banco - 1967
Kiss of Debt - 2002
Kung Fu Hustle - 2004
Living in Oblivion - 1995
L.A. Confidential - 1997
Law & Order (tv) - 1990-2007
Lifeforce - 1985
Live Free or Die Hard - 2007
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - 1998
Love Liza - 2002
Magnum Force - 1973
Man on the Moon - 1999
Mars Attacks - 1996
Chocolate: Masters of Horror: (tv) - 2005
Midnight Express - 1978
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil - 1997
Million Dollar Baby - 2004
Minority Report - 2002
Mission Impossible - 1996
Mission to Mars - 2000
Motel Hell - 1980
Mr. Wasinki's Song (short) - 2001
Nikita (tv) - 1997-2001
Notes from the Space Tme Continum - 2004
Ocean's Twelve - 2004
Omega Man - 1971
The Oxbow Incident - 1943
Phantasm 2 - 1988
Pink Flyod: The Wall - 1982
Poltergeist - 1982
Possible Worlds - 2000
Psychic - 1992
Psycho - 1960
Reaper - 2000
REM (short) - 1998
R.I.P. (short) - 2001
Saboteur - 1942
Sea of Love - 1989
Sexy Beast - 2000
Shaun of the Dead - 2004
Six Million Dollar Man (tv) - 1974-1978
Smokey and the Bandit - 1977
Sniper - 1993
Sniper 3 - 2004
Solaris - 2002
Spiderman - 2002
Stargate - 1994
Superman - 1978
Superman 2 - 1980
Targets - 1968
Taxi Driver - 1976
The Amityville Curse - 1990
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - 1974
The Boondock Saints - 1999
The Bourne Identity - 2002
The Boys from Brazil - 1978
The Brain - 1988
The Breakfast Club - 1985
The Chinese Connection - 1973
The Day the World Ended (tv movie) - 2001
The Defiant Ones - 1958
The Devil's Advocate - 1997
The Evil Within (aka: Baby Blood) - 1990
The Exorcist - 1973
The Final Cut - 1995
The Fugative - 1993
The Godfather - 1972
The Green Mile - 1999
The Hitchhiker - 83-91
The Independent - 2000
The Invisible Ray - 1936
The Italian Job - 2003
The Jackal - 1997
The Mangler 2 - 2001
The Matrix - 1999
The Matrix: Revolutions - 2003
The Night of the Hunter - 1955
The Punisher - 2004
The Rapture - 1991
The Remains of the Day - 1993
The Rockford Files (tv) - 1974-1980
The Silence of the Lambs - 1991
The Sniper - 1952
The Sopranos (tv) - 1999-2007
The Spiral Staircase - 1945
Thirteen Days - 2000
The Talented Mr. Ripley - 1999
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - 2003
The Town That Dreaded Sundown - 1976
The Wrong Guy - 1997
Theres Something About Mary - 1998
Tommy (The Who) - 1975
Troy - 2004
Twilight Zone the Movie - 1983
Tycus - 1998
Volcano - 1997
Wake of Death - 2004
Witness for the Prosecution - 1957
X-Men - 2000
