The Unit/Pitt Gallery announces the return of Negavision to the public domain. The former Montreal-based performance duo (Jean Brisson and Collette Gurmond), a pivotal factor in Vancouver’s underground resistance of 1978-80, resurface with an installation of painting and sculpture entitled Satellite Voodoo, opening Monday, January 30 at 8p.m. The exhibition will open with a performance by Jean Brisson, in which an acoustic environment will be constructed (literally) by direct manipulation of electrical circuitry. As the evening progresses, the artist will become entangled in an artificial structure of his own creation.
The installation coincides with the release of their long-awaited recording project, Faith and Venom, a C-60 Cassette. Negavision will perform at the close of the exhibition, in conjunction with the Wrong Wave music festival at the gallery February 10 and 11. Their philosophy of musical performance, which they have consistently pursued for the past five years, is that the audience be subdued not by assault and intimidation tactics long since a dreary cliche of “underground” music, but by a passive, hypnotic, and relentless looping of simple melodies and rhythms, which draws the audience to the performer, rather than forcing the perfomer on the audience.
The installation will attempt to present a vision of the cybernetic fusion between nature, in the form of the primeval jungle, and the complex technological systems of modern man.