스킵네비게이션

Stan DOUGLAS’s film and video installations, photography and work in television reflects the technological and social aspects of mass media. Exploring modern utopian ideals, Douglas has presented new perspectives on the themes of identity formation in the context of colonialism and urban development. From a technological aspect, his work materializes past events through the re-staging and recreation of historical scenes or specific locations. Monodramas (1991) is a series of ten video works developed for television broadcasting. These short videos of about 30 to 60 seconds’ duration were produced to intervene in regular commercial TV broadcasting, and were aired in British Columbia during commercial breaks, without forewarning, over a period of three weeks in 1992. This interrupted regular nighttime programming and created a narrative flow that was a departure from the usual flow of commercials and entertainment shows. Non sequitur scenes – whether depicting the moment before the collision of a car and school bus at an intersection, or how a passerby greeting an African-Canadian man in the street is told “I’m not Gary” in response – unfold in bleak commercial locations around the city, addressing misanthropy and the sense of foreboding or tensions and misunderstandings that can arise in these urban environments.