PARS PRO TOTO
Online Screenings by peer to space
PARS PRO TOTO (2020-2022) was peer to space’s online series showcasing video art works which focus on very personal stories narrated by the artist or by the protagonist. The works are embedded in a thematic context of cultural, social, political, or environmental issues. A new iteration focusing on a further topic will be released quarterly.
Pars Pro Toto creates a digital space for users to be silent observers and to simultaneously witness the social complexity of the world. By discovering artworks based on individual experiences yet presented in a broader context, the series demonstrates how the personal symbolizes a part of the whole, a pars pro toto. The personal story seen as an extract of an overall reality becomes visible and fits into the mosaic of the collective experience. Exploring larger issues through the individual lens activates awareness within the viewers. This leads to a deeper and more empathetic understanding of today’s global social conditions. The series promotes the importance of freedom of expression and the necessity of providing a voice for everyone as a basis for a caring and participatory society.
Previous iterations: The Personal is Political, Home Is Where Heart Is, Mirror, Mirror, Hou Lang Tui Qian Lang (后浪推前浪), Another Person In You, Giving Contours To Shadows, Dreams Of Solidarity, Desire Is Something Boundless, My Body, My Choice?
Are You Real?
(Online from July 1 until September 30, 2022)
(Followed by an exhibition on site at Goethe Institut Toronto in September 2022)
Works by Yarli Allison, Sarah Bernauer, Adonia Bouchehri
Curated by Jutta Brendemühl und Gloria Aino Grzywatz
Are You Real? is the 10th anniversary edition of the PARS PRO TOTO screening series and deals with the topic of the perception of one's own as well as other realities. The stories told by the artists Yarli Allison, Sarah Bernauer and Adonia Bouchehri address our perceptions of reality and how strongly they depend on our imaginations. All three video works examine the fluid, shifting, subjective, and subversive states of reality and perception in the increasingly digitized world, and illuminate the accompanying changes in pre-existing structures, patterns of behavior, and repetitive events. The title of the work Are You Real? is borrowed from Sarah Bernauer's work and runs like a thread through all three pieces. Is reality always what we want it to be? What influence does virtual reality have on our reality? Do we determine reality or does reality determine us?
In Cooperation with Goethe Institut Toronto
Yarli Allison (GBR/CN), Datafication 〈Act 1〉 : May Ian Valley 0101 《數據化 〈事件一〉 : 美人谷0101》, HD video Audio, 05:18 min Loop, Language: Cantonese, French, German, English, Subtitle in English, 2021
Yarli Allison
Datafication Act 1 : May Ian Valley 0101 《數據化 事件一 : 美人谷0101》 is part of Yarli Allison’s mixed-media series which explores themes of digital humanity. In the looping dreamscape of 'Act 1', the artist imagines how the emergence of AI has influenced our daily lives and lead to the gamification of our behaviour - taking the most intimate sexual encounters as points of departure. Viewers will join the data-mining authorities to monitor May Ian (美人)'s machine-readable body, known as 'Subject 06'. In the control room, all the subjects' sex acts are constantly being extracted and analysed. They will be rewarded unpredictably every time a new data pattern is detected, creating an addictive effect on the viewers. The labour-intensive process allows the artist to play with alternative artistic decisions, and question the relationship between art-making and digital AI tools. Combining fiction, performance, sexual acts, 3D modelling, and electronic music, the work is a digital ‘fried rice’, swinging in between the surveillance systems’ control and care.
Sarah Bernauer (DE), Feeling Felt / Ep. 1: Are you real?, video, 1080p, color, sound, 13:42 min., 2016
Sarah Bernauer
Sarah Bernauers video work Feeling Felt, Episode 1 – Are you real? deals with the concept of reality and its perception. The artist conducted various video interviews in which she questioned the protagonists about their personal relationships to reality. These statements were edited in such a way that the viewer not only gets the impression of an intimate conversation between the protagonists, but is also included as a counterpart. The video is conceived as a loop - the beginning and end merge seamlessly. The continuous increase of the tapestry of sound creates a space-time continuum of its own, which is of continual expectation (or enhanced perception). How do we perceive ourselves? How do these perceptions change in relation to our environments and the societies in which we live? Can we feel and experience the same reality at the same time?
Adonia Bouchehri (DE/IT), Jello, video, 12:00 min., 2020
Adonia Bouchehri
The work Jello by the artist Adonia Bouchehri is centered around a character who lives in isolation inside a room, where she works and sleeps. Her only companions are a kiwi bird and a turtle who each carry a special significance in the reality of the room she shares with them. Her interactions with a large jelly rat, and the strangeness of the object, and its particular material qualities come to disrupt this highly controlled space of solitude and obsession. This work explores themes of isolation and shows how boundaries between everyday lived experiences, imaginative states, and dreams can blend into each other if we are cut off from human interaction and left to create a world far removed from society. Can reality only exist in relation to others?
Previous PARS PRO TOTO iterations:
The Personal is Political (2020)
Home Is Where Heart Is (2020)
Mirror, Mirror (2020)
Hou Lang Tui Qian Lang (后浪推前浪) (2021)
Another Person In You (2021)
Giving Contours To Shadows (2021)
Dreams Of Solidarity (2021)
Desire is Something Boundless (2022)
My Body, My Choice? (2022)