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"Commercial Rhetoric Art Project" uses the visual material aimed at domestic markets to create a body of work that re-contextualizes it into a social, political, and economic statement. By dismantling and re-arranging the commercial messages meant to seduce us as consumers, the project causes viewers to question the rhetoric that attempts to colonize our homes. Strategies of collage, juxtaposition, satire, and parody serve to invert the dominant tide of advertising propaganda entering our private spaces. A series of collages created from junk mail, assemblages of food and product packaging, reconfigured branded apparel, digitally remixed television commercials, web sites, and email 'spam' ? "Commercial Rhetoric Art Project" uses any uninvited advertising as its fodder. Some of the artefacts are purely aesthetic, some critique consumer culture, and others hint at an alternative functionality. Over 100 television commercials were recorded, edited, and remixed into seven short digital videos. These compilations range from 30 to 90 seconds in length, and employ different visual montages and narrative structures. Recurring themes of sexual desire, family drama, product fetishization, food hedonism, and authority figure persuasion are extracted for ridicule.

Steven McCarthy has an MFA in Design from Stanford University, a hybrid program between the Departments of Art and Mechanical Engineering, and a BFA in Sculpture and Drawing from Bradley University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus. His current creative investigations are concerned with telling stories and providing interactive experiences in the digital and actual environments. However his primary concern is with the human condition. Steven?s self-written graphic design work has been published in Graphics Poster, the American Institute of Graphic Arts annual, and in "Provocative Graphics: The Power of the Unexpected" in Graphic Design. His artists? books appear in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Banff Centre in Canada, the Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry, and the Houghton Library at Harvard University. His interactive works have been performed/exhibited internationally, with recent showings at VideoFormes, France, FILE 2003, 2004 & 2006 (the International Festival of Electronic Language), Sao Paulo, and the 2005 Images Festival, Toronto. Recent design conference presentations have included Declarations, Montréal (2001), Mind the Map, Istanbul (2002), Hidden Typography, London (2003), Politics of Design, Belfast (2004), New Views, London (2005) and Wonderground, Lisbon (2006). Steven has also published peer-reviewed articles in academic journals.

‘Agony to Ecstasy’ looks at the scope of the socio-addictive condition within Scottish people. It focuses on the relationship between pain and pleasure, between stress and relief and between entrapment and escape. The film in many ways, is a dissection of two spaces – euphoric clubbing and silent Scottish nature, offering a perspective on our need for salvation within both. Neurologically, there is very little difference between the brain addicted to something, as to when falling in love. As a result, the film fluctuates between these neurological and personal perspectives on addiction and connection – where their conflating and often paradoxical relationship are juxtaposed. The film is made with reflection as its key focus. Made during the middle of the first lockdown, it uses the collective state of withdrawal and loneliness to observe realities within clubs. A slow-motion strobe follows the film throughout, as a visual deconstruction of the joy, yet ghostly inhibition of the people in the shots. Vulnerability was key in Dej’s recollections – his words occupy the emotional worlds of mental health, stigma and the ecstasy of clubbing, without having a particular stance or opinion. Ultimately 'Agony to Ecstasy' looks beyond fixed stereotypes of addicts, and into the dependencies, shame and love between Scottish people.

Cal Mac is a visual artist working and living in Glasgow. Working between sculpture print and video, he explores themes of belonging and addiction through sociological, scientific and visual dialogues. His work often looks at clubbing and natural environments, to unravel truths about our current condition and need for connection. His work has been screened at Atlas Arts (skye), The Royal Scottish Academy (Edinburgh), Limerick Institute of Technology, and online for Lift off Festival, and Film and Video Umbrella. Following his first commission from Film and Video Umbrella in 2020, Mac has done residencies at Cove Park and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop. In 2021 Mac was shortlisted for the Royal Scottish Academy Morton Award.

Media performance artist Dayna McLeod asked ChatGPT to write an increasingly snarky and heated dialogue between Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault about The Death of the Author, inspired by Barthes' famous essay. This script is performed by AI actors of the theorists, with Dayna’s AI doppelgänger, DaynAI, acting as host to their debate.

Dayna McLeod is a queer performance-based media artist. Her work often uses humour and capitalizes on exploiting the body’s social and material conditions. Her video and performance work have been presented at the Impakt Festival in Utrecht Netherlands, the Mardi Gras Festival in Darlinghurst Australia, MIX Brasil Festival Of Sexual Diversity in São Paulo Brazil, the Modern Art Museum in Warsaw Poland, Le Centre d’art contemporain in Paris, the PHI Centre, OFFTA, and Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal, the Summerworks Theatre Festival in Toronto, Sporobole in Sherbrooke, and Performatorium, Queer City Cinema’s performance festival in Regina. www.daynarama.com

In Spark From a Falling Star, an odd, unseen alien presence arrives, one that, beyond the usual fondness for abduction, transforms people into objects, public spaces to private real estate. At home in a world of windows and reflections, it floats unmoored through the real and virtual alike. While the world is devoured in its never-ending thirst for conquest, every zone becomes imprinted by the arrival. Where, finally, are you going to run?

Ross Meckfessel is an artist and filmmaker who works primarily in Super 8 and 16mm film. His films often emphasize materiality and poetic structures while depicting the condition of modern life through an exploration of apocalyptic obsession, contemporary ennui, and the technological landscape. His work has screened internationally and throughout the United States including in Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Open City Documentary Festival, San Francisco Cinematheque’s CROSSROADS Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Media City Film Festival, and Curtas Vila Do Conde among others.

When you question the very nature of your physical reality it becomes much easier to see the cracks in the system. Estuary charts the emotional landscape of a time in flux. Inspired by the proliferation of computer generated social media influencers and the growing desire to document and manipulate every square inch of our external and internal landscapes, the film considers the ramifications of a world where all aspects of life are curated and malleable. As time goes on all lines blur into vector dots.

Ross Meckfessel is an artist and filmmaker who works primarily in Super 8 and 16mm film. His films often emphasize materiality and poetic structures while depicting the condition of modern life through an exploration of apocalyptic obsession, contemporary ennui, and the technological landscape. His work has screened internationally and throughout the United States including in Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, San Francisco Cinematheque’s CROSSROADS Film Festival, Internationales Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Sheffield Doc/Fest, and Curtas Vila Do Conde among others.

Drones and GoPros survey the land while users roam digital forests, oceans, and lakes. Those clouds look compressed. That tree looks pixelated. A landscape film for the 21st century.

Ross Meckfessel is an artist and filmmaker who works primarily in Super 8 and 16mm film. His films often emphasize materiality and poetic structures while depicting the condition of modern life through apocalyptic obsession, contemporary ennui, and the technological landscape. His work has screened internationally and throughout the United States including Projections at the New York Film Festival, Wavelengths at Toronto International Film Festival, San Francisco Cinematheque's CROSSROADS Film Festival, Internationales Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Antimatter [Media Art], Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, and The Artifact Small Format Film Festival where he was awarded best 16mm film.

It?s a residual and diegetic gesture; a gesture towards the liquid wall consecrating the Mediterranean Sea. Who hasn?t thrown a stone to set off a vibration into the world? Or at least once again be able to relive the important link with what remains of reality. Later in a closed circle, the image and sound, construction and destruction, submerged and emerged that still can co-exist on both sides and some people throwing a stone in a missing place.

Mehdi Meddaci was born in 1980. He is a graduate of Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary arts (France) and the École Nationale Supérieure of Photography in Arles. His works have been shown in many exhibitions, at the Large Palais of Paris in December 2008 (group exhibition), the International Festival de Artes y Digitales Culturas, Gran Canaria in November 2008, the International Festival of the Mediterranean Cinema of Montpellier in October 2008, the Festival ?Time of images? the Farm of the Bush of Paris, in Panorama 9-10, Fresnoy National Studio Of the Contemporary arts Tourcoing, in June 2008 (group exhibition), the International Festival of the Mediterranean Cinema of Montpellier in October 2007, with the Festival ?Time of images? the Farm of the Bush, Paris, in Panorama 8 ?Supposed guilty! ? in June 2007 (group exhibition), in Frac PACA of Marseilles in January 2007.

You cannot pay your bill. – . Your heat and lights are cut off. -. You pay. The clocks initially flash 88:88, –:–. You set the clocks. You cannot pay. -. You pay. 88:88. –:–. Repeat. 88:88, –:–. Cut. -. You stop setting your clock to the time of the world. 88:88, –:– . Subtracted: – : you make do with suspension. 88:88, –:–, -.

Isiah Medina was born in 1991 and he lives in Toronto.

A philosopher is the child born under the divorce of being and thinking

Isiah Medina was born in 1991, went to university to receive debt and will always have been rabble.

Russian North. People who are living in that district pick in the bog the ?space garbage?, sell the scrap metal or use it in the housekeeping and farming. In Arkhangelsk area, 45-years since nuclear bomb experiments, life is going its ordinary way.

Pavel Medvedev was born in 1963 in Orenburg (Russia). In 1990 he a full course of studies in LGIK (Leningrad?s Krupskaja Institute of Culture), specialized in film production at the Gorin?s workshop. Since 1990 till 1992 studied at the Higher Program of Television Production (workshop of V. Sarukhanov). Since 1991 till 2000 he was working at the TV and Radio companies of Saint-Petersburg as a producer. Since January till May 2001 was producing the serial of documentaries ?Petersburg?s short stories?. In February 2002 he has made his first professional documentary film ?Vacations in November?.

Six characters light up the night in an African city. Each of them carries a word. Once assembled these words produce a sentence, indistinctly poetical and yet political at the same time. As with other projects by Vincent Meesen, "A Broken Rule" is drawn from a public intervention ?distorted? by the artist?s filmic mise en récit, shuffling traditional codes and conventions. As document of an experience, this video stands at the crossroads between performance, fiction, experimental music and documentary film, resulting in what can be read as a call and invitation to an ?irregular becoming?.

In his famous essay Mythologies(1957), Roland Barthes demystified the French colonial imperialism by means of a photograph that appeared on the cover of Paris-Match. This picture, that became an icon of modern criticism, shows a colonial cadet on guard.Vita Nova unveils the biographical ghost underneath the surface of this mythical picture. When recited, Barthes words reveal slowly their hidden meaning: the unmeasurable weight of an historically burdened heritage. Vita Nova is a spiral movie in which History (Histoire), now chaotic in its temporality, returns in a more certain form as story (histoire). The found Time of history is here the survival to the image. It is the now, the temporality of the living, the untimeliness of the reciter.

Vincent Meessen (U.S.A., 1971; lives in Brussels) produces work at the crossroads of the documentary and conceptual art, whose codes he manipulates in order to create hybrids he calls ?documents of experience?: films, texts, interventions, photographs, etc. He focuses on the cultural appropriation of usages, signs or documents, which he moulds and reshapes as narrative. His work is characterised by a recitative style in formats as diverse as the essay (Vita Nova), the fable (Dear Adviser) and the tale (Les Sociétaires). He has developed a poetics of re-reading and translation, wherein the document is transformed into experience and experience into a document. He often employs collaborative procedures which undermine the authority of the author and privilege the collective understanding of multiplicities. Vincent Meessen?s work has recently been the subject of a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA) and has been presented with the collective Potential Estate at the Brussels Biennial and at M HKA (off-site) in Anvers. His films have been widely screened at venues such as the Jeu de Paume and the Cinémathèque française in Paris, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Swiss Institute in New York and in international festivals such as the IDFA in Amsterdam, the IFFR in Rotterdam, the Cinéma du Réel in Paris and Transmediale in Berlin. His films are distributed by par Argos centre for art & media in Brussels.

Im Sinne einer zeitgenössischen Praxis als Kunstschaffender will sich eine Methode in unterschiedlichsten Medien darstellen lassen. Sie veranlasst Werkkategorien der eigenen Produktion zu ignorieren und darauf aufbauend die Grenzen dieser weiter zu verzerren. Im Medium Video oder Film besteht etwa in Form einer Story im Allgemeinen eine wesentlich stärkere Erwartungshaltung an Inhalt. Auf virtueller Ebene bringt solch eine gerichtete Konzentration zwischen Publikum und AutorIn diese Erwartungshaltung von Seiten der BetrachterInnen mit sich. Um diese Beziehung dann auch als Inhalt offenzulegen, ist es nötig den/die AutorIn sichtbar zu machen. So muss der Kunstschaffende im Medium Film sowohl in der Funktion des Autors/der Autorin, als auch in der des Schauspielers/der Schauspielerin - der ebenfalls sein Anliegen tragen kann - sichtbar werden. Das heißt die allgemeine Frage der AutorInnenschaft im Kontext eines Werkes weiterzutragen. AssistentIn, FotografIn, AuftragnehmerIn, AuftraggeberIn, KritikerIn oder GaleristIn rücken gemeinsam mit dem Autor/der AutorIn ins Bild und vor die Kamera. Um die Einflüsse all dieser Rollen weiterhin zuzulassen, ist es von wesentlicher Bedeutung sie in Echtzeit ? vor laufender Kamera ? selbstentscheidend mitwirken zu lassen. Jeder Darsteller/jede Darstellerin entscheidet für sich, in Abhängigkeit zum Autor/zur Autorin, den damit verbundenen Integrationsaufwand und das daraus entstehende gemeinsame Filmbild. Die Problematik gleichzeitig vor aber auch hinter der Kamera zu stehen löst ein großer Spiegel, dem Kamera und Akteure gegenüberstehen. Motiv des Bildes, optischer Inhalt, beziehungsweise Skript entstehen in Echtzeit um die Kamera.

Christoph Meier, geboren 1980 in Wien, hat schon während seines Architekturstudiums (1999-2005) an der Technischen Universität Wien ein Studium der textuellen Bildhauerei bei Heimo Zobernig an der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien (2003-2009) begonnen. 2008 kam ein Studienaufenthalt an der Glasgow School of Art hinzu. Heute lebt und arbeitet Meier als freischaffender bildender Künstler in Wien und beschäftigt sich genreübergreifend mit den Medien Architektur, Skulptur, Installation, Performance und Film. Bisher konnte Meier seine Arbeit im Rahmen einer intensiven Ausstellungstätigkeit im In- und Ausland zeigen, wobei zu den wichtigsten Ausstellungsorten der Kunstverein Braunschweig (2006), die Generali Foundation Wien (2006), das Groeningen Museum in Brügge (2007), das Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul (2009) und für der kommende Jahr 2010 das Museum auf Abruf Wien sowie das Kunsthaus Graz (während des Diagonale Film Festivals) zählen. Dieses Jahr erhielt Christoph Meier den Förderpreis der Karl-Anton Wolf Stiftung und den Preis der Galerie Klatovy/Klenová (CZ).

A human being (the artist himself) lies half-naked on a forest floor, facing the viewer while gently singing. On his body rests a throng of colorful moths whose fluttering wings generate a melody attuned to the song. With its prolonged visual intro and lyrical song, Hour of Moth (Etude no. II) takes the form of a music video where Mejdahl himself is both the singer and songwriter. The work is a love song to the angel of the night—the moth—but also a yearning and sensual hymn to all nature. Mejdahls claims the geometric patterns on moth wings to be hidden warning messages from nature itself, but humans struggle to comprehend them. Hour of Moth (Etude. no II) thus looks upon the current climate crisis in which the human race feel detatched from Nature, while still searching for hope in the dark. This video art piece was made for Mejdal’s solo exhibition Liljegrotten (Lillith Grotto) at Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (2021). The same year Hour of Moth (Etude no. II) was aqcuired by by The Museum of Contemporary Art (Museum for Samtidskunst), and The Danish Arts Foundation.

Copenhagen-based visual artist, filmmaker, and electronic music composer Kim Richard Adler Mejdahl was born in the Danish village Skælskør. With an educational background in fine arts Mejdahl has created a wide range of critically acclaimed artworks that interweave genres and media. In 2018 Mejdahl received The Jury’s Solo Award at Charlottenborg’s Spring Exhibition for his horror-musical documentary ODE - featuring the artist’s entire family that sing about their deceased abusive father. The movie was later aqcuired by The National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst). Mejdahl’s largest production consists of his debut arthouse feature DAYS OF AL from 2019 - an experimental horror film starring the artist’s cousin and puppy dachshund as leading actors. Both movies come with its own soundtrack released by the artist’s music alias Kim Kim. This summer Mejdahl will release Liljegrotten - a music album and Denmark’s largest collectively produced sound piece made entirely out of audience sound recordings generated at the artist’s latest solo exhibition at Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art.

"Sinrise" (2023) is an experimental video by Danish artist Kim Richard Adler Mejdahl. Mejdahl stayed alone in BonBon-Land from sunset to sunrise to explore what happens when darkness descends in the old Danish theme park known for its grotesque characters. In the black interval we go on a cosmic rollercoaster ride among the stars while the cartoony inhabitants of the park seem to welcome the sun. "Sinrise" was recorded in infrared timelapse creating a haunted mood. The video suggests a way of portraying the sorrows of childhood nostalgia, and the eternal cycle of life and death.

Kim Richard Adler Mejdahl (b. 1989) graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2019. Slaptstick humour and gothic horror meet up in Mejdahl's multifaceted work that often has its starting point in the artist's personal life story. Be it music album releases, film productions or large solo exhibition projects, Mejdahl's practice explore the topics of trauma-healing, climate crisis, spirituality, and gender identity. His video works have reached international audiences with screenings in France, Germany, Iceland, Norway, and South Korea. In 2018 Mejdahl received the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition Solo Award,, and in 2022 he was awarded a spot at The Danish Art Foundation's talent programme The Young Artistic Elite. In 2021 he recieved the Elna & C.T. Hollesen's Foundation Grant. Mejdahl's work is part of Denmark's National Gallery's collection.

Members of the gay linedance club ‘Outliners’ dance in a black room. ‘Glory 1’ is a video artwork conceived by Danish multidisciplinary artist Kim Richard Adler Mejdahl. The dreamy scenario presents a symbolic antidote to patriarchy and its destructive understandings of masculinity. In the mind of the artist, ‘Glory 1’ is a symbol of protest. Cowboys dancing together instead of shooting each other down is a subversive act against conventional understandings of man. It is a symbolic gesture of reversing the macho ideal within patriarchy, that weighs down and dictates the life of men.

Kim Richard Adler Mejdahl graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2019. Slaptstick humour and gothic horror meet up in Mejdahl's multifaceted work that often has its starting point in the artist's personal life story. Be it music album releases, film productions or large solo exhibition projects, Mejdahl's practice explore the topics of trauma healing, our relationship to nature, spirituality, and gender identity. His video works have reached international audiences with screenings across Europe and Asia. Under the alias Kim Kim, Mejdahl has made numerous live performances and released music albums. Within few years Mejdahl has collaborated with a wide range of different institutions, counting Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Roskilde Festival, Danish theme park BonBon-Land, Theater Sort/Hvid, and most recently KØN - Gender Museum Denmark. In 2025 Mejdahl was awarded the three-year working grant by The Danish Arts Foundation. His work is part of The National Gallery's collection in Denmark.

Being lead by a virtual voice an ordinary man find shelter in the woods. There, he will try to understand the mystery of his situation.

Miguel Mejías (Tenerife, Spain, 1991) studied in Madrid screenwriting after having the studies in sociology and communication. After miscellany of other jobs as driver, cultural promoter, stevedore, journey laborer, editor, historical restorer, he is currently a professor of cinema and literature in Sundsvall, Sweden. His work has been selected for international festivals as Trieste, Toulouse, Experimental Superstars, International Film Festival of Las Palmas, Málaga, Mostra de Cinema Mediterraneo, Ismailia, Bogotá or Buenos Aires.

Vast desert expanses extend out in our imaginations as life after death, the white blinding light transforming the mere mortal into the eternal. The curtains go down but the brilliance of the spirit lives on, truly free amongst the sweeping winds and blowing dust. Judy Garland, Jim Morrison, Big Jim and even you?the essence of life may be meaningless but there is unspeakable beauty in its demise.

Bjørn Melhus, born 1966, is a German-Norwegian media artist. In his work he has developed a singular position, expanding the possibilities for a critical reception of cinema and television. His practice of fragmentation, destruction, and reconstitution of well-known figures, topics, and strategies of the mass media opens up not only a network of new interpretations and critical commentaries, but also defines the relationship of mass media and viewer anew. Originally rooted in an experimental film context, Bjørn Melhus`s work has been shown and awarded at numerous international film festivals. He has held screenings at Tate Modern and the LUX in London, the Museum of Modern Art (MediaScope) in New York, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, amongst others. His work has been exhibited in shows like The American Effect at the Whitney Museum New York, the 8th International Istanbul Biennial, solo and group shows at FACT Liverpool, Serpentine Gallery London, Sprengel Museum Hanover, Museum Ludwig Cologne, ZKM Karlsruhe, Denver Art Museum among others.