Esther M. Klein Art Gallery
Philadelphia, January 12-March 31, 2007

The six works in this exhibition are the result of collaborations between the artist, Roderick Coover, and the writers Nick Montfort and Deb Olin Unferth. Each work explores ways words and image function together – whether in collusion or conflict.

The series of four small works, Currency, was developed by Roderick Coover and Nick Montfort. The two used constrained forms and processes, determined before any subject matter or themes were agreed upon, to facilitate contemporaneous writing and video production. The techniques used were intended to shape the way the collaborators communicated about and contributed to each of the projects. To begin work on each of the four pieces, the two changed roles: The writer, Montfort, provided a photograph to serve as a starting point, while the video artist, Coover, provided the initial text -- the title. The two then added text and video sections alternately, communicating through their contributions rather than discussing the pieces in progress, fashioning and following their own additional and sometimes medium-specific constraints on composition as they worked.

The two longer works, The Theory of Time Here and Something That Happened Only Once are collaborations between Roderick Coover and Deb Olin Unferth. The Theory of Time Here is a formal work about the speaking clock and its proverbial voice. Its repetitive, calming tone distracts from the fact that it represents a marriage of the two most inescapable and oppressive authorities—-technology and time. Here familiar images and phrases become playfully disassembled and reassembled. Whatever choices the humans make are constrained by – and expressed within the conditions  of  -- the powerful forces of technology. These forces are expressed through convention. They may approach total disintegration, yet, somehow, perhaps through convention, they right themselves, and begin again.

Something That Happened Only Once is panoramic work recorded in Coyocan Plaza, Mexico City. The work blends the actions of actors and non-actors in the natural setting on a busy Saturday afternoon. The work is created through layers of photography, songs, and found sounds. Deb Olin Unferth's lyrics are adapted to music by the Dutch singer Jodi Gilbert who is joined in the performance by Dutch saxophonist, Michael Moore. Unlike many panoramas, this one is not static. The piece follows a female protagonist, a male counterpart, and other characters in a manner that suggests narrative but never becomes it. Instead it’s an expression of temperament or a consciousness – a searching, a longing, a loneliness.

THE ARTISTS
Roderick Coover's films and new media works have been featured internationally at festivals, exhibitions, and conferences including at M.I.T's Media In Transition conferences I, II, and IV. His distributed media works include the 2005 DVD, Language of Wine and the 2003 CD-ROM, Cultures In Webs. He is the recipient of LEF, Fulbright and Mellon fellowships.

Deb Olin Unferth's fiction has appeared in Harper's, Conjunctions, Fence, NOON, McSweeney's, the Pushcart Prize anthologies, and elsewhere. Her first book is forthcoming from McSweeney's in summer 2007.

Nick Montfort's collaborations include the sticker novel Implementation, 2002: A Palindrome Story, Mystery House Taken Over, The New Media Reader, volume one of the Electronic Literature Collection, and the blog Grand Text Auto.

Jodi Gilbert (Singer-composer: Something That Happened Only Once) is a Dutch singer-composer who has performed with  Meredith Monk,  Misha Mengelberg,  Michael Moore, Roscoe Mitchell among others, and has several cds out with her bands Rasp/Hasp, The Voice is the Matter, and Spoon 3.

Michael Moore (Musician; Something That Happened Only Once) is a jazz musician who leads the Dutch-based ensemble Available Jelly and who has released over 32 CDs and records.

Brett Keyser (Reader: Three Lions and Fillip A Guinea(The Elephant & Castle)) recent performances inclide Turkish Delightenment (2006) and his next appearance will be in the North American Cultural Laboratory's production, The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes.

Jessica Lowenthal (Reader: JS and Marianne) is a poet and director of the Kelly Writers House.

Department of Film and Media Arts, Temple University (011-00), 2020 N 13th St, Philadelphia, PA 19122.       Email:rcoover@temple.edu