The transition between a dream and reality is sometimes blurry and jagged--moments of panic, confusion, fear, joy, a trail of thoughts that carries emotions from one world to the next. This delicate, ever-shifting boundary between real and virtual environments is explored in Videodreams , the exhibition catalogue of recent video installations by Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham, Joan Jonas, Sharon Lockhart and other artists whose work is represented through multiple video or installation photographs. Selected texts by leading theoreticians of cinema and cultural studies examine the archaeology of backstages and location sets in a thorough investigation of artificiality and illusion.
Mieke Bal is a Dutch literary theorist, cultural and art historian.
Areas of interest range from biblical and classical antiquity to 17th century and contemporary art and modern literature, feminism and migratory culture. Her many publications include A Mieke Bal Reader (2006), Travelling Concepts in the Humanities (2002) and Narratology (4th edition 2017). Her view of interdisciplinary analysis in the Humanities and Social Sciences is expressed in the profile of what she has termed “cultural analysis”, the basis of ASCA. See the video clip on the right side of this page, where I explain the approach.
Mieke is also a video artist, her internationally exhibited documentaries on migration include Separations, State of Suspension, Becoming Vera and the installation Nothing is Missing and are part of the Cinema Suitcase collective. With Michelle Williams Gamaker she made the feature film A Long History of Madness, a theoretical fiction about madness, and related exhibitions (2012). Her following project Madame B: Explorations in Emotional Capitalism, also with Michelle, is exhibited worldwide. She just finished a feature film and 5-screen installation on René Descartes and his infelicitously ending friendship with Queen Kristina of Sweden.
Occasionally she acts as an independent curator. Her co-curated exhibition 2MOVE travelled to four countries. She is currently preparing an exhibition for the Munch museum in Oslo.