Hearing Aids: May 28 – Dec 4, 2021 - McEvoy Foundation for the Arts

Exhibition Preview

1/9

Jenny Brady Wow and Flutter, 2013 HD video, color, sound 13:02 min. Courtesy of the artist and LUX, London — Jenny Brady, *Wow and Flutter*, 2013, HD video, color, sound, 13:02 min. Courtesy of the artist and LUX, London

Abigail Child, Mutiny, Is this what you were born for? Part 2, 1983, 16mm transferred to digital, color, sound, 10:07 min.. Courtesy of the artist — Abigail Child, *Mutiny, Is this what you were born for? Part 2*, 1983, 16mm transferred to digital, color, sound, 10:07 min.. Courtesy of the artist

Sky Hopinka Wawa, 2014 HD video, color, sound 6 min. Courtesy of the artist — Sky Hopinka, *Wawa*, 2014, HD video, color, sound, 6 min. Courtesy of the artist

Laida Lertxundi Vivir para Vivir / Live to Live, 2015 16mm transferred to digital, color, sound 11 min. Courtesy of the artist and LUX, London — Laida Lertxundi, *Vivir para Vivir / Live to Live*, 2015, 16mm transferred to digital, color, sound, 11 min. Courtesy of the artist and LUX, London

Daria Martin Sensorium Tests, 2012 16mm transferred to digital, color, sound 9:58 min. Courtesy of the artist — Daria Martin, *Sensorium Tests*, 2012, 16mm transferred to digital, color, sound, 9:58 min. Courtesy of the artist

Kathrin Resetarits Ägypten / Egypt, 1997 16mm transferred to digital, black-and-white, sound 10:07 min. Courtesy of the artist and Sixpack Films — Kathrin Resetarits, *Ägypten / Egypt*, 1997, 16mm transferred to digital, black-and-white, sound, 10:07 min. Courtesy of the artist and Sixpack Films

John Smith The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976 16mm transferred to digital, black-and-white, sound 11:38 min. Courtesy of the artist — John Smith, *The Girl Chewing Gum*, 1976, 16mm transferred to digital, black-and-white, sound, 11:38 min. Courtesy of the artist

Deborah Stratman Hacked Circuit, 2014 HD video, color, sound 15:09 min. Courtesy of the artist — Deborah Stratman, *Hacked Circuit*, 2014, HD video, color, sound, 15:09 min. Courtesy of the artist

Suné Woods We was just talking, 2017 Digital video, color, sound 5:05 min. Courtesy of the artist — Suné Woods, *We was just talking*, 2017, digital video, color, sound, 5:05 min. Courtesy of the artist

The short films and videos in Hearing Aids address sound, movement, touch, and language in relation to feelings of community and isolation. On view in the Screening Room, and in conjunction with the exhibition Next to You, the two-part program considers a new sensory sensitivity to a world emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.

Hearing Aids draws attention to a spacious view of sound not always rooted in the ear. Guest curator and visual artist Alison O’Daniel, who is hard of hearing and wears hearing aids, cites the loss of taste and smell that is symptomatic of COVID-19 infection as a point of departure for the curation of the program. Within her practice O’Daniel often collaborates with hearing, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf composers, musicians, performers, and athletes in order to highlight the loss or re-creation of information as it passes through various channels. For Hearing Aids, she exposes viewers to how sound can dictate the image, complicating our notions of how we comprehend the relationship between the aural and the visual. She asks whether the shared experience of these sensorial losses can usher society into a greater awareness of the body’s intricacies of communication.

The program is divided into two sessions of short video and film works in which soundtracks, voiceovers, Foley effects, pseudo-scientific tests, conversations, hidden or forgotten mics, Sign Language, forms of surveillance, voiced instructions, and structured audio cuts all function as guides for how the body of the subject or the viewer moves through the work. The films explore sensory experience in relation to topics as varied as urban surveillance, the natural landscape, and Indigenous history across narrative, documentary, and collage cinematic forms. Spanning the 1970s to the 2010s, films by Jill Magid, Suné Woods, Laida Lertxundi, John Smith, Daria Martin, Kathrin Resetarits, Sky Hopinka, Abigail Child, Deborah Stratman, and Jenny Brady are included in the program.

Session 1 screens daily from May 28 through August 31, 2021. Session 2 debuts September 1 and runs through December 4, 2021.

PROGRAM RUNNING ORDER

Session 1
May 28 – August 31, 2021

Jill Magid
Trust, 2004

Abigail Child
MUTINY, Is this what you were born for? Part 2, 1983

John Smith
The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976

Daria Martin
Theatre of the Tender, 2016

Laida Lertxundi
Vivir para Vivir / Live to Live, 2015

Suné Woods
We was just talking, 2017

Session 2
September 1 – December 4, 2021

Kathrin Resetarits
Ägypten / Egypt, 1997

Sky Hopinka
Wawa, 2014

Nancy Holt, Richard Serra
Boomerang, 1974

Deborah Stratman
Hacked Circuit, 2014

Daria Martin
Sensorium Tests, 2012

Jenny Brady
Wow and Flutter, 2013

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Alison O’Daniel is a visual artist and filmmaker working across sound, narrative, sculpture, installation and performance. Her work has screened and exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, including the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow; Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR; Centro Centro, Madrid, Spain; Renaissance Society, Chicago; and Centre d’art Contemporain Passerelle, Brest, France. Her film, The Tuba Thieves, has received support from Ford Foundation JustFilms; Creative Capital; Sundance; IFP; Points North; Field of Vision; and Chicken and Egg. She is a recipient of the SFFILM Rainin Grant for Filmmakers with Disabilities, a 2019 Louis Comfort Tiffany award and has received grants from Art Matters; the Rema Hort Mann Foundation; Center for Cultural Innovation; the California Community Foundation; and Franklin Furnace Fund. She was included in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film and writing on O’Daniel’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine; Artforum; The Los Angeles Times; BOMB; and ArtReview. She is represented by Commonwealth and Council in Los Angeles and is an Assistant Professor of Film at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

Hearing Aids is guest curated by Alison O’Daniel. The program was commissioned on the occasion of the exhibition Next to You at McEvoy Arts.