Video Art Therapy: 14 Videos

Artist: Brian MacDonald

Date: Friday, May 18, 2007, 7 p.m.

Award winning Victoria videomaker Brian MacDonald premiered Video Art Therapy #1: journey to a distant planet at Open Space. 

Video Art Therapy #1: journey to a distant planet was the first in a series of videos that aspired to make video art a useful commodity by providing therapeutic benefits for the viewer. A reassuring voice helped those who wished to escape depression or anxiety by guiding them on a fantastic virtual journey to an unexplored planet. Images of pretty lights, magic tricks, and ingenious sculptures were set to soothing music to facilitate relaxation and enable a temporary escape from a stressful world. Featuring sculptures by Aston Coles, Scott Evans, Emi Honda and Jordan McKenzie. Video art by Tor Jørgen van Eijk with music by Bryce Janssens and voice by Kate Lackey.

Brian MacDonald has developed his own unique style since the early 2000s, a style that reflects his fondness for narrative and interest in the relationships between intimacy, sexuality and solitude. To date, he has made 16 videos, most of them short works in which he observes human behaviour and emotions. With great sensuality he films bodies and faces, ironically exposing the fragility of situations that can turn tragic. His two most recent videos, both medium-length, are formally more ambitious, reflecting a mastery of editing, a profound knowledge of cinema, and an avid interest in the atmosphere of science-fiction films. 1

This program featured 14 videos from his oeuvre including the BC premiere of: Video Art Therapy #1: journey to a distant planet.

The evening also included the 4 channel video installation, Please Talk To Me, and a rare live musical performance of the award-winning, Murder and UFOs, by Bryce Janssens, Thomas Shields, Matt Skillings and Neil Cooke-Dallin.

Video Art Therapy also presented the zoetrope, Satellite in Orbit by Aston Coles, and a selection of Intermissions, by the Norwegian video artist, Tor Jørgen van Eijk.