Possumhaw Plant Electrics: Drawings and Videos by Julia Oldham
August 27-October 23, 2010
Opening Reception Friday August 27, 6-8 pm
The Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany, Indiana is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit, Possumhaw Plant Electrics: Drawings and Videos by Julia Oldham, on display August 27 through October 23, 2010. Julia Oldham was selected as Bernheim Arboretum’s 2010 Artist in Residence [www.bernheim.org], and during her residency she created a series of videos that combine science fiction and performance. Oldham developed a fictional identity as a technician for Possumhaw Plant Electrics, a company that specializes in measuring radio/electrical emanations from plant forms. Under this guise, she pursued a series of four strange experiments on the arboretum grounds. In her video Radio Prairie, she attempts to locate radio signals in a recently burned prairie landscape; Amplified Colony is a sonic and performative exploration of a carpenter ant nest in a rotting stump; in Radioactive Fairytale she is attached to wildflowers with copper wires and contorts her body to receive outer space signals; and in Reset Oldham attempts to reset the universe by turning cypress knees into electromagnets.
Drawing its name from the Japanese sound for “chit-chat”, Pecha Kucha nights encourage exciting but short lectures. 10 creative presenters will gather at Bernheim and give each a mere 400 seconds to present a visual idea under the theme “Mother Nature told me to tell you this...” Each participant then gets 20 slides at 20 seconds each to wow you with a story.
Curious about Pecha Kucha? Check out PechaKuchaNight Louisville.
Julia Oldham, New Albany Public Art Project artist Leticia Bajuyo, Scottish installation artist Yvonne Mullock (who's been at Bernheim and the Carnegie before), and Carnegie curator Karen Gillenwater will join several other presenters in rapid-fire succession along with live music at 7:oo pm on Saturday, August 28, at the Sunset Amphitheatre on Lake Nevin at Bernheim.
