FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 15, 2004
Turbulence Commission: "event" by Michael Takeo Magruder
http://turbulence.org/works/magruder

Michael Takeo Magruders "event," in which headline news articles have
been parsed from http://news.bbc.co.uk/ between December 29 and February
1, is concerned with the individuals relationship with finite moments
in recent history. As with his earlier works, Magruder grapples with
media saturation and its subsequent devaluation of information;
copyrightwho actually owns the information, the event that triggered
it, the history it becomes?; is it the 'truth'?

"event" re-presents 31 news items, compelling the user to "reflect upon
the minute isolated occurrences of which history in an empirical sense
is composed." Magruder does this by extracting, slowing down, and
meticulously crafting samples of audio, image, text, and video
information. Rather than disguise or remove distortions, Magruder
deliberately incorporates the artifacts of data compression into the
piece. Events that usually stream towards us in a rapid,
undifferentiated flow become moments of quiet contemplation that can be
viewed and re-viewed in ones own time.

The user can apply an array of colored filters, like gels used on
theater setsone can, in fact, choose to view events "through
rose-tinted glasses." Depending on the color, the moving image either
partially obscures or reveals the 'truth', i.e. word. One can choose to
literally tone down the rhetoric, or inflame the masses. One filter
filters out the others. Multicolored, Magruders default, represents
ambiguity, multiple viewpoints, the many.

With the motion slowed, and much of the detail removed from the images,
one can begin to see what news actually 'looks' like. We see the
outlines and the spaces in-between. We study the news as we would study
a painting.

Magruders "event" is his most powerful and beautiful yet.

"event" is a 2003 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka
Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with
funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

BIOGRAPHY

Michael Takeo Magruder is an American artist residing in the UK. He
received a bachelors degree in biological science from the University of
Virginia in 1996. Although Takeo has no formal art training, he has
"taken the initiative to both experience vast quantities of original art
(from all periods and cultures) and learn the historical/artistic
context of the work." He has exhibited his videos, installations,
sculptures and net.art at numerous venues worldwide. Upcoming
exhibitions include Pathiharn Electron [Supernatural], CMU Art Museum,
Chiang Mai, Thailand; and Spectrum III, Worcester City Art Gallery &
Museum, Worcester, UK; and upcoming solo exhibitions at 20-21 Visual
Arts Centre, Scunthorpe, Royal Society of British Sculptors, London, UK.
Curatorial projects include: Net:Reality, Spectrum III, and The
Cyber-Kitchen.

For more information about Turbulence, please visit http://turbulence.org