Zoe Beloff Artist Lecture @ Grace Street Theater 11.02.10

I have to say that I was really shocked when I saw her at the lecture. I thought for sure she was young due to multiple interviews that I read about her: she seemed so young at heart! I really enjoyed her lecture and her approaches to her work. I am fascinated by her obsession, if you will, of the emotionally and psychologically disturbed and how it has manifested itself into these incredible video projections of "small figures that conform to even tinier places." I am impressed by her ambition to experiment with a plethora of media in order to find what many different avenues for her work to function. Most of all I really loved Zoe Beloff's adorable Scottish accent.


WORK

She showed us the short film "My Dream of Dental Irritation"
Year : 1964
Filmmaker: Robert Troutman "Bobby Beaujolais"
Transfer note: copied at 18 frames per second from an 8mm Kodachrome camera original with magnetic stripped sound.
Music: "The Man that Got Away" and "Somewhere over the Rainbow" sung by Judy Garland on the album, "Judy at Carnegie Hall"
Running time: 5 minutes 10 seconds

The Embrace composite of two video frames, N.F.S., 2005

History of a Fixed Idea [set], from "The Somnambulists" by Zoe Beloff

BIOGRAPHY
Zoe Beloff grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1980 she moved to New York to study at Columbia University where she received an MFA in Film. Her work has been featured in international exhibitions and screenings; venues include the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Freud Dream Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Pompidou Center in Paris. In 2009 she participated in the Athens Biennale, and has an upcoming project with MuHKA Museum in Antwerp. Her most recently completed work is the exhibition “The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and their Circle. She has been working with the Christine Burgin Gallery on a number of artist projects that include books and prints.

Zoe works with a wide range of media including film, stereoscopic projection performance, interactive media, installation and drawing.Her artistic interest lies in finding ways to graphically manifest the unconscious processes of the mind. She considers herself a medium, an interface between the living and the dead, the real and the imaginary. Sometimes she uses archaic apparatuses, sometimes, new analog/digital hybrids. Each project aims to connect the present with the past, to create new visual languages where modern media will once again be invested with the uncanny. She has collaborated with artists from other disciplines including composer John Cale, the Wooster Group Theater Company and composer, singer and performance artist Shelley Hirsch.

Zoe has been awarded fellowships from Guggenheim Foundation (2003), The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts (1997) and NYFA (1997, 2001). She has received individual artist grants from foundations that include NYSCA, The Jerome Foundation and Experimental Television Center Finishing Funds Award. She has had residences at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts, Hallwalls in Buffalo and Tesla in Berlin.

http://www.zoebeloff.com/pages/biography.html

-What was the most interesting quote of the lecture and why?
I really enjoyed hearing Beloff describe the Amateur Psychoanalytic Society's "Dream Films." I have always been fascinated and at times obsessed about the meaning of my dreams. I try to record them, but often they wake me from my slumber and leave me too groggy to reach for a pen and notepad to record the events that played out in the ether of my imagination. The Society sought to "shoot what it is that they dreamed, reenact these dreams of film and analyze them and then have an awards dinner" to commemorate the winning dream film. The dreamers captured on film "the perfect reproduction of our minds...and wandering souls."

- Using three words, define the core of the artist's practice and artwork.
Psychoanalytic. The unconscious. Manifestations of her "selves."

- What is the most interesting thing you learned about the artist that you did not know before?
I was really unaware that a lot of these characters were manifestations of her own imagination. It was interesting to hear her speak about these other sections of her "self" that are all a part of Zoe Beloff and all play integral roles in her work. She said that by creating these characters she "allowed her shy nature to be hidden."

- Do you know the answer to your two original questions? If so, what are the answers?

• Just curious about your fascination with mental illness (mythomania, hallucination, scientific case studies of psychoses, etc.) as seen in your work in The Somnambulists. What drew you to this subject matter?
  Her interest began when she looked into "the birth of mechanical reproduction in relation to the imagination and the relationship between form and content." She also became familiar with the work of Pierre Janet that all helped catapult her imagination.
• At first glance your subject matter seems silly as you see footage of case studies where people are seen in various stages of hysterics, then you come to realize that the subject matter is much darker. Do you feel your work is exploitative? Beloff didn't touch on this question.
  
• What inspired your decision to create 3D wooden theaters? Do you think the use of miniatures makes the work seem more objective? She wanted to create these tiny people that conformed to an even smaller place. She wanted to blur the lines between the real and the imaginary. You begin to question the true or false nature of the theatrical.
  

- What image or artwork do you find the most compelling and powerful after hearing the artist describe it?
I really enjoyed hearing Beloff speak about Magdelaine G and how she performed solely while she was under a hypnotic spell. Beloff said Magdelaine "demonstrated the entire range of human emotion" while under hypnosis and this dance that she performed was considered "the dance of the future."

- Do you have any new questions in regards to the artist?
What's next? Would you now consider really building a model of Albert Grass' Dreamland?