EAI is pleased to present the first in a series of artist
profiles at
Monkey Town. Our inaugural September program will feature
the video works of Forcefield.
This program repeats every Thursday from September 8 - 29
two seatings per night, 7:30pm & 10pm
Forcefield, an artist collective that began in 1996 in Providence,
Rhode Island, forged an aesthetic program that encompassed
music, performance, installation, textiles, printmaking,
and video. All activities were anonymous and group-oriented,
and the collective's members operated under aliases. Members
P Lobe and Meerk Puffy founded Forcefield as a two-man band,
and were later joined by Gorgon Radeo and Le Geef, at which
point the four broadened their scope and range of media.
Three of the four Forcefield members were also residents
of Fort Thunder, a 9,000 square-foot living space in Providence,
which was furnished with layer upon layer of found detritus.
Live events hosted at the space included music shows, craft
fairs, indoor fireworks displays, cookie bake-offs, radio
plays, costumed wrestling matches, garden competitions,
bicycle repair, and Halloween mazes. Forcefield's work is
situated within this disparate and self-contained cycle
of creation and exhibition, and employed a healthy disregard
for disciplinary boundaries.
Forcefield's art work has been exhibited at the Institute
for Contemporary Art, London; the Daniel Reich Gallery,
New York; Space 1026, Philadelphia; Art Basel Miami; Museo
de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Tate Britain; and the 2002
Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, among other venues.
Forcefield is currently vacationing in the Bermuda Triangle.
This program will present a selection of Forcefield’s
video works, produced between 1996 and 2003. The videos
operate on several levels simultaneously, with a sensibility
that oscillates between utter mysteriousness and goofball
humor. Using obsolete equipment and defunct electronics,
Forcefield constructed a conflicted, decaying symbology
that is both strangely anachronistic and completely contemporary
at the same time.
Warmup 2002, 7 min, color, sound
Berry Face 2002, 3:51 min, color, sound
Meta Radeo 2003, 3:02 min, color, sound
Diamond 2003, 12:43 min, color, sound
Third Annual Roggabogga Motion Picture 2002,
6:21 min, color and b&w, sound, 16 mm film
Brown Shmoo 2002, 36 sec, color, sound
Tunnel Vision 2001, 11:43 min, color, sound,
16 mm film and video
Assassins Ride 2002, 8:10 min, color, sound
Video I 1996, 2:20 min, color, sound
Video II 1996, 2:10 min, color, sound
The Sad Robot 1996, 2:08 min, color, sound
Video III 2000, 10:44 min, color, sound
Live 2000 2000, 2:53 min, color, sound
For more information about the artists in this program
please visit:www.eai.org
