Bay Area Premieres!
Artist in Person

As a signifying surface, video is a pliable resource. In the agile hands of artist and UC Davis professor Darrin Martin, it serves diverse purposes-as dramatic space for the play of encrypted scenarios, as raw material for imagistic manipulation, as a forum for the reinvention of social mythologies. In the earliest of the featured works, Aviator (1997, 8 mins), flying is a psychic state in which the spirit is shed as the body hurtles forward. Combining the performative gymnastics of two men who become “mock birds” with footage of soaring aircraft, Martin strives for the “essence of flight” and its exhilarating release. One of numerous collaborations with Torsten Zenas Burns, Currents (2001, 19 mins) places the artists' brand of futuro-performance among charged and ritualized objects. A pup tent, a prosthetic arm, a snowfield, a live wire, all rally together in an “action” about provisional life forms. After an “unnamed event” compromised his ability to hear, Martin created the exuberant Monograph in Stereo (2004–5, 17:20 mins), a visual search for the artifacts of acoustic trauma. In the disorientation of “hearing without locating,” phonetic forms and architectural space commingle in sympathy. Also included: 1/2 Right (2002, 8 mins); Recess (with Torsten Burns, 2002, 1 min); Volcanica (with Torsten Burns, 2004, 9:30 mins); Dial Tone (with Andrew Shipin, 1996/2006, c. 8 mins).