MOMENT: A Video Exploration
By Christian Burns
For The Clock
"MOMENT: A Video Exploration” is a video-based exhibition at the Karl Drerup Art Gallery showing until Dec. 10.
“People are connecting on private moments, and moments that tickle their fancy and make them laugh, moments that are intimate,” said C.M. Judge, one of the artists in the show.
The exhibit was built to coincide with the new foundation course, Art Foundation: Digital and New Media, which aims to show the possibilities of how artists communicate their worlds through digital and time-based media.
The exhibits are widely varied, ranging from Zack Bent’s footage of opening a beer bottle in slowmotion, to Jacob Galle’s pilgrimage to a snowy mountaintop.
Ron Hollingshead diagrams his personal health problems through the power of repeating images. Kent Anderson Butler submerges himself in a sea of white, while Anne Beal shows images changing through the turn of a page.
CM Judge, a self-described intermedia artist, said, “what [she] considers to be vital.”
Judge discussed her piece “Acqua Vitale”. The piece itself consisted of a negative image of a priest superimposed on an image of water.
“The idea of the holiness of water and light, and how a human being manifests that, manifests their own choice towards goodness, excited me,” she said.
“James Terrell… created a site specific installation in the form of a home, a personal Japanese home, in Tokomashi, Japan. And every part of the house, he designed, and he’s a light artist. This is the bath in that space,” said Judge.
“That’s married with images of a priest, Father Bruce Williams, who’s a Jesuit who teaches in Rome. He came to give a lecture, and I was very taken with him, physically. This man who lives such a rich spiritual life of complete dedication and service to others.”
“His physical presence and how his innate goodness and dedication to others has physically manifested in his body.”
“You can see he’s shot in reverse, so he’s a negative rather than a positive, which makes his interior bright, which is how I feel about looking at him.”
Beneath the projected image is a series of wooden stumps arranged in a triangle. “I really like to invite people into imagery, with the inclusion of something physical, that’s actual. So, in this case, I created a floor piece of charred wood,” said Judge.
”It’s a modular piece that I felt brought the image into more of a physical reality, and allowed the viewer to see that as an extension of the video.”
On video as a medium, Judge considers it to be a way for “the world to paint itself,” which is one of the reasons that she uses the medium often in her works.
“I think it’s wonderful that people have an opportunity to make images, and I’m inspired by a lot of it. I think there’ll always be a place for people who extend their gaze,” said Judge.
“MOMENT: A Video Exploration” will be in the Karl Drerup Art Gallery until Dec. 10. Visit https://www.plymouth.edu/gallery for more information.