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Daneyal Mahmood Gallery presents Justine Cooper : Living In Sim Archive | Information & News |
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Justine Cooper, Royal Familiy, 26.7x40 in, C Print 2009
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Justine Cooper Living In Sim October 22nd - December 31st, 2009 Opening Reception: Thursday October 22nd, 6-8pm Justine Cooper�s timely new project Living in Sim is a mixed reality artwork that includes a website, online social media, photography, video and installation to explore the complexities present in the current health care environment and online social media. On the Living in Sim website she deploys medical mannequins typically used as patient simulators to train medical staff as surrogates to present intricate relationships between our sense of identity, culture and health care in a technologically advanced society. She draws a playful and interesting parallel between our culture's obsession with self-documentation and our presentation of individual identity through online media, with her fictional documentation of the mannequins' identity and world. At LivingInSim.com, Cooper introduces a social community of characters, played only by mannequins, who blog and debate health care issues and medical incidents from both a pop culture and ethical standpoint. It invites public participation and dialogue. Set in a fictional Midwestern clinic the mannequins play the patients, as well as the entire staff including doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, insurance agents and visiting drug reps. They inhabit a fiction that we as potential patients and online users fully recognize. In videos, photography, and storytelling Living in Sim mirrors the role-play utilized in medical simulation scenarios but in an experimental and often tongue-in-cheek manner. Cooper states �The mannequins operate in a dysfunctional health care system, not much more far-fetched than our actual one, but at least theirs can offer us some form of actual pain relief, without a co-pay.� Both the Living in Sim website and exhibition include two videos. The first, If It Weren't For You, is in the form of a music video where an unseen clinician serenades the mannequins with a brilliantly catchy pop ballad. Emoting on the depth of their relationship, she apologizes to the mannequins for what they go through in the name of patient safety and the improvement of her clinical skills, crooning the chorus �If it weren�t for you, I�d be sued.� The second video, Indemnity General, is a 4 part satirical mini-soap opera depicting the woes at the axis of an absurdist medical industrial complex. The gallery exhibition features imagery from the actual world of medical simulation and its population of mannequins and clinical devices, at once both familiar and foreign. A grouping of large photographs show images inflected with classical references. A formal family portrait of mannequins, bathed in ethereal light; a disconnected mannequin head lays like a modern day John the Baptist upon a stainless surgical tray; an anatomical still life resembles a botanical drawing. A chiaroscuro-like tableau appears to be unfolding with an MRI machine and limbs. Along another wall, a series of rhythmic small prints on canvas depicting the characters from the blog come to life in snippets of seemingly narrative moments. Lastly, an installation with an actual medical mannequin occupies the gallery space. Intoning that while medical simulation may be an educational fiction, and online identities and communities may be virtual, we also inhabit a place where health care and medicine revolve around a failing physical body. Accompanying the exhibition a compact education program of lively discussions staged around Cooper's multi-faceted practice including an exclusive meet the artist session will take place in the gallery and is guest curated by Sara Raza, a former curator of public program at Tate Modern and current independent curator and co-editor of ArtAsiaPacific magazine. Science, Fiction and the Visual Arts (December 10-12) Daneyal Mahmood Gallery is pleased to present "Science, Fiction and Visual Art," a compact three-day free public program of lively talks and presentations for members of the public, students, emerging artists, critics and curators to coincide with Justine Cooper's solo exhibition "Living in Sim," currently on view at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery until 31 December 2009. The program is curated by Sara Raza (London based independent curator, writer and co-editor ArtAsiaPacific Magazine) and will run from December 10-12. Program Schedule Session 1: Thursday, December 10, 2009 Justine Cooper Artist's Talk: 6:30-7:30 � Location: Daneyal Mahmood Gallery Open to the Public Justine Cooper is best known for her intelligent and witty approach to investigating the relationship between the visual arts, contemporary sciences, medicine and public space and time. Her practice has probed the order and classification of science and human interaction by exploring issues of medical consumerism, social dispensing and dependency and the power dynamics that reside between medical institutions and the public. On the occasion of her current exhibition �Living in Sim,� Cooper talks about her intriguing new exhibition with Sara Raza. Session 2: Friday, December 11, 2009 2:00-3:30 (Exhibition walk through and panel discussion) Science, Fiction and the Visual Arts Study Day Location: Daneyal Mahmood Gallery This study day designed for university/college level students and emerging artists explores the relationship between science, fiction and the visual arts, starting with a welcome and walk through of the exhibition �Living in Sim,� with artist Justine Cooper. The afternoon will continue with a panel discussion and Q&A; exploring art and science crossovers, collaborations and commissions in museums, public spaces initiated by artists, curators, magazines and alternative art platforms. Speakers include, Justine Cooper, Kathy Battista, Director, Contemporary Art, Sotheby's Institute of Art, New York, D. Graham Burnett, Professor of History at Princeton University and Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Artist, Researcher and Assistant Professor at NYU in a session chaired by Sara Raza. To express interest in attending please email [email protected] with "study day" in the subject box.. Curator's Bio Sara Raza is a London based independent curator, writer and co-editor for ArtAsiaPacific Magazine. A former curator of public programmes at Tate Modern. Previously, she was the recipient of a curatorial award at the South London Gallery and worked as an independent curator and associate editor at the Haus der Kultern der Welt, Berlin. She has published extensively and has lectured, curated exhibitions and organized public programs internationally. Sara is a post-graduate with a Masters in Art History and Theory (20th Century) from Goldsmiths College, University of London and holds a BA (Hons) in English Literature and History of Art also from Goldsmiths. |
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