9:15 PM

Innis Town Hall

A CHARLES STREET VIDEO RESIDENCY

From antiperspirant to SARS, from terrorism to skirt lengths, fear is one of our principal products, but its price is incalculable. Fear and its offspring (xenophobia, anxiety, jealousy, et al.) are mobilized as agents of control at scales ranging from the intimate to the global. While the search for the phantom of security spawns new niche markets, the simple fear of being unattractive or uncool propels the fashion, hygiene, fitness and entertainment industries. Fear of the Other predictably incites suspicions and anxieties which, unfolding, become the justification for social division and even war.

This is the second screening in a two-part collaboration between Charles Street Video and the Images Festival. (The first part appeared in last October’s Tranz-Tech Biennial) In these five brand-new videos, commissioned through a CSV residency, the artists consider what makes us afraid, and what fear makes of us.

We’re In Heaven
Jubal Brown | Canada | 15 min. | video | 2004

“We’re already dead, just waiting to disappear” (Jubal Brown). This romantic reflection on the de-evolution of humankind, an anthropological fantasy, traces our downfall through a speculative history of death technologies. The paralyzing anticipation of Cold War nuclear holocaust, and the sinking disappointment at its disappearance, leaves us with the search for god in death.

Continuity
Daniel Cockburn | Canada | 20 min. | video | 2004

A horror movie about a compulsive video diarist and a cursed camera.

I Have Given You The Best Years Of My Life
Brenda Goldstein | Canada | 10 min. | video | 2004

A trip through the mental landscape of impossible standards... In a world where you are your own overseer there are no limits to being judged.

Today Is a Good Day To Die
John Marriott | Canada | 8 min. | video | 2004

Proposed that “Today is a good day to die.” Respond. Marriott brings his camera into a high school setting to see how students – some of whom belong to debating clubs, and others who don’t – argue the merits of this proposition.

Dad, Don’t Be Mad
Dayna McLeod | Canada | 10 min. | video 2004

Dad, Don't Be Mad is an autobiographical tale that is scared of being told. It uses a family episode ripe with paranoia as a societal allegory of fear, but also as a demonstration of personal family (dys)function.

JOIN US after the screening for a party at sPaHa (66 Harbord St. at Spadina)