Jeudi, 30 juin
21 h - 23 hParc de l’Espoir

• VISCERA
  Duration: 11:05 Year: 2004-2005
  Evoking a small fraction of the emotional complexities of life, Pierce works with the question of absence and what of a person remains in the memory and imagination when that person is absent. Constructed in three parts, this flowing video explores absence and how absence transforms and influences perception, memory, and imagination.Freed from the constraints of traditional narrative, it is that process of creating an image in the mind of the viewer--the psychological filling-in of the imagined space, not the actual photograph of a space--that Pierce engages. Through the use of rich cascading imagery against the counterpoint of the soundtrack, Pierce disintegrates the film plane, allowing viewers to embody the perceptions of the video solidly within themselves. This video encourages a different kind of viewing and listening—one in which listening and looking inward matters as much as looking outward.

• NUMBER ONE
  Duration: 10:15 Year: 2007
  With water imagery as the foundation, Number One engages the experience of elasticity between contrasting states of mind. The contrasts in this multi-image piece – contrasts between frenetic chaos and calm order, between an intense central focus and a diffuse periphery, between hard and soft, fixed and fluid, concrete and abstract -- are all developed not in opposition to each other but rather, in an interwoven, multilayered relation to each other. There is never one set of oppositions but rather a dance of relationships between contrasting states. This is one way to think about how a mind works: at any moment, there is never just one thing (or feeling, or perception) in life; there is always a magnetized and elastic push/pull among many things at once. The flow of our attention among these things is our mind. Number One is one way to map such a mind.

• MY PERSON IN THE WATER

  Duration: 5:30 Year: 2006

A woman moving in the water and the gaze of a man, both seen from beneath the water, elaborated by the vectorizing force of sound, lead the viewer toward an effervescence of feeling – a desire for merge among the knowledge of separateness.

http://www.leightonpierce.com

BIO / LEIGHTON PIERCE

Leighton Pierce uses film, video, and sound to create experiences in transformative time. He creates multi-channel site-specific installations as well as single channel works. Pierce studied ceramics and music composition, especially jazz and electronic music, before making films. In fact, his first move into filmmaking came about from his frustration with the lack of a visual component to taped music. It is a continuation of this early interest in music and the construction of emotional experiences in time that continue to guide his work. Perhaps partly due to this background in ceramics and music, Pierce executes all aspects of his works himself including the conception, the cinematography, the editing, and of course the sound design and composition. While widely recognized for his stunning cinematography, he considers his editing and sound design to be the core of his art. His award-winning short films and videos have been exhibited in major art museums and film festivals throughout the world including The Sundance Film Festival, The Whitney Biennial, The San Francisco, New York, and Rotterdam Film Festivals. He has had numerous retrospectives at venues such as, The New Zealand Film Festival, Lincoln Center, The Cinémathèque française, Festival Nemo, and Pompidou Center in Paris, and at The Lisboa Bienal of Contemporary Art. Pierce’s multi-channel video installations have been shown at The Exploratorium in San Francisco, Musée d’art contemporaine in Montréal, Boudin College Art Museum, The Sheldon Art Museum and LaViolaBank gallery in NY. A landmark 13 channel, 5500 sq. ft. video installation, Warm Occlusion, was presented in 2006 at the University of Iowa Museum of Art. Pierce has received numerous fellowships including from the Rockefeller Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, and The Camargo Foundation. He is currently Head of the Film and Video Production Program at the University of Iowa.