Media Blitz at The Garage (SF)

The Garage is an occasional, artist-run exhibition space in San Francisco, hosted by Justin Hoover. On 1/27/07 (for one night), guest curator Charlene Tan put together a group show called “Media Blitz.” It was the best so far at this venue.

Appropriately, one project was a car, which I failed to photograph. It was an old-style Volkswagen Beetle, white in color. The insides of the windows were covered in white paper. It looked like a Pop version of a Minimalist object. If you opened a door, however, you heard a soundtrack of female sexual cries and moans from a porno film. You could climb inside and be enveloped by the sound. Ricardo Anibal Perez was the artist.

Jaren Bonillo showed one of her silhouette projections, which look uncannily like a real person moving around (images at top).

Kenneth Lo created a small tribute to the lovelorn. Underneath a clear plastic drinking cup, placed upside-down on a white pedestal, rested a dead fly that had been painted in 24-caret gold. Nearby was taped a page from a pocket notebook. Looking at the paper closely, you could see the residual impression of handwriting, like a clue in an old detective movie. The words read: unlucky in love. (Photos above.)

Stoyan Dabov turned The Garage’s beloved pit into a sort of cyber grid space (photo above).

A large video projection dominated one wall: “Eyeplugs 2.0 (remixed).” It featured a barrage of images, distorted and degraded, and moving too fast. It conjured up a feeling of memory loss in a speeded-up world of competitive images. This project was assembled by Experimental Channel & Decaycast/Ratskin Records.

Other video and sound works were included. Somehow the blitz effect was maintained without crushing any individual work—a neat trick.