September 19 - October 12, 2002

Opening Reception Thursday, September 19, 2002
InterAccess electronic media arts centre

Artists:
Wayne Dunkley - Degradation and Removal
Ana Rewakowicz - Uniblow Outfit
Jason Salavon - The Class of 1967; Every Playboy Centerfold


Skin is the vulnerable outer layer that shapes our humanity. In lieu of claws or other protection, we have dermal ridges, fingerprints. Their original function was to allow us to grip things and climb trees in order to escape quickly from predators. Now we use them to fashion tools and technology as an extension and reflection of our bodies. As we project ourselves into the world and translate our identities into data, the personal becomes impersonal. This age of computer technology symbolizes not so much a shift but an extension and polorization of global imperialism clearly defining who participates, and at what level. Computers and technology have become essential tools for inclusion in global communication and economics yet only a small percentage of the world is plugged in. Indeed more than half the earth's population has never even made a phone call.

The skinjob exhibition is a part of Social Software, a series of investigations into the social implications of code in contemporary society and its effects on identity, race, representation, communities, post colonialism, utopian ideals, social activism and cultural politics. Skinjob is the first event in the series which appropriately begins with skin which defines our embodied boundary. The three artists in skinjob use technology to decode the rich terrain of the body's covering.

Wayne Dunkley's web/installation project Degredation and Removal is both a public intervention and a private, intimate engagement mediated through technology. Degrading a photograph of his face using a photocopier, Wayne made over 260 photocopies and posted them in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, and Montreal, Quebec. He then returned to photograph them after they had been defaced, and written on. Wayne created a website using these recorded responses interwoven with stories of his day to day life. The site stimuates the viewer to consider their own response to the/a black male and invites them to contribute their own stories which he has incorporated into this ever expanding site.

Ana Rewakowicz's Uniblow Outfit is an interactive wearable technology which brings attention to the fragility of the human body and examines how fantasy projections and desire strategies used in fashion and advertising influence our ideas of comfort and discomfort. The Uniblow Outfit is a suit made from rubber latex which inflate as viewers wearing it walk around the gallery.

Jason Salavon's work is about identity in the digital realm which is translated into simple binary code. The eerie images he produces combines various identities resulting in an image which is at once everybody and nobody. Jason's Class of Series consists of two pairs of digital photographs: The Class of 1967 and The Class of 1988. The Class of 1967 was Jason's mother's graduation class, The Class of 1988 was Jason's graduation class. He scanned senior class photos from his mother's yearbook as well as his own then mathematically averaged them to produce the final prints, providing the viewer with a reorganized data set of the 'average' male and female in each graduation class. The intriguing result shows the demographic shift which took place in Dallas/Ft Worth from 1967 to 1988.

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BIOGRAPHIES

Camille Turner is an artist and new media curator based in Toronto. Recently, Camille has been awarded a curatorial residency at InterAccess Electronic Media Art Gallery through the support of Canada Council for the Arts. She is a founding member of Year Zero One, a web based art collective dedicated to the dissemination of net.art and digital culture. Camille graduated from Ontario College of Art and Design in 1993, and has explored a variety of media from film and video to textiles. She completed two years as artist in residence at the Textile Studio at Harbourfront Centre, a cultural centre in Toronto.

Ana Rewakowicz is an interdisciplinary artist born in Poland now working and living in Montreal. She received her MFA degree at Concordia University in Montreal and her BFA at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. Her art practice often combines photography, sculpture, video, sound and installation. Using textile materials, perceived as a metaphor for the body's skin, Ana Rewakowicz explores issues of identity and belonging, emphasizing the ambivalence of feelings such as desire, pleasure, vulnerability and discomfort. She has exhibited within Canada, USA, Scotland and Bulgaria. Her most recent exhibitions include 'Dreamscapes' - a site-specific installation for the Musee du Quebec in Quebec City, 'Oasis' - a group exhibition at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts in Montreal and 'Inside Out' - a solo exhibition at La Chambre Blanche in Quebec City. Her work has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the arts and le Conseil des arts et des letters du Quebec.

Chicago-based Jason Salavon, whose background includes computer programming and software design, has taken his obsession with scientific systems and technology into the realm of photographs, digital prints, video, and sculpture. Salavon earned his MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BA from the University of Texas at Austin. Selected solo exhibitions include shows in Virginia, Miami, Austin, and Chicago. His work has been reviewed in publications including The New York Times, Art in America, Chicago Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal and has been shown in exhibitions including: Art 33 Basel, Switzerland, the Whitney Museum and Peter Miller Gallery (Chicago).