TASMAN RICHARDSON
1996/1997
Fourth year OCAD, pioneered the Jawa method. A straight cut a/v editing style with strict use of scavenged video source with its sound intact. Violence and immediacy combined with spectacle were primary. Precise micro edits thanks to the invention of non-linear digital editing. The cutup dictated the rhythmic result. The technique is picked up and credited by many peers including Jubal Brown and Leslie Peters. Scratch and Pummel are acquired by the National Gallery of Canada.
1999/2000
After graduating, scavenging was essential. Computing power was too weak for full quality home editing. Glitch, ASCII text art, and circuit bending experiments were manageable alternatives which could be layered. The Atari 2600 remixes tested the primitive limits of straight cut glitch editing. Collaboration with Leslie Peters explores analog vs digital glitch.
2001
Improvements in home editing allow a return to sampling video footage. Satire of spectacle focused on totalitarianism and media hysteria. All edits are still limited to single layer straight cut. Extensive collaboration and co-exhibition with Jubal Brown leads to competitive improvements and experiments in editing.
2002
Applying a structured frame count using multiples of four allows for more complex editing with layered combinations. Jawa edits start to take on stronger musical quality. Sensational pop and media imagery are heavily scavenged. The Self-deprecating Basement Boy Hardcore series begins coinciding with the rise of the Breakcore music genre. FAMEFAME media arts collective is co-founded with long time collaborator Jubal Brown and is joined by Elenore Chesnutt and Josh Avery.
The Basement Boy Hardcore series ends resulting in a DVD video album. An experimental concept which was extremely rare which attempted to sell video collage alongside music in stores. Jawa is shared through festival competitions like Attack of the Clones. Artists are invited to edit using only The Sixth Day as source. The power of the edit as gesture becomes the prime focus.
2003/2004
2005/2006
To advance awareness of Jawa, international competition and outreach is launched by our collective FAMEFAME in the form of an annual a/v tournament called Videodrome. In Toronto, it's hosted at The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. Abroad, the works are exhibited in Paris, London, Syracuse, and Tokyo. Shadowplay, my jawa video essay summarizes a decade of my perspectives on video. Read curator, Clara Hargittay's commentary below.
Tasman Richardson’s Shadowplay: A Consideration, Clara Hargittay
2007
Extended sets of Jawa are produced for limited engagement, many underground breakcore events and the ongoing international competition Videodrome. Kitch and spectacle temporarily dominate content but eventually an interest in simulation and image distrust takes over.
2009-2012
Jawa edits are applied to a stop motion experiment to compose in space/time with depth and physical animation. Feedback experiments are made audible by splitting rca cables and mis-feeding them into audio channels. Earthcam surveillance is co-opted to give omnipresent perspectives in real-time. Collapsing CRT screens are captured with induction sound and the first live jawa performance is attempted with MIDI triggering the source video clips in real-time. I premier the abstract live video event titled The New Flesh featuring artists from Australia, France, Belgium, and Canada.
2012 Necropolis
The concepts first explored in the video essay Shadowplay (2006) are transformed into physical space, Necropolis. A two-thousand square foot installation with six zones, requiring the audience to step into and experience the theory, breaking the limits of the screen. Housed first in The Museum of Contemp. Canadian Art in Toronto, and then Karsh-Masson in Ottawa. Full catalogues below. For the closing event in Ottawa, ArtEngine Artistic Director Ryan Stec proposed video is dead. Listen to the debate and decide for yourself.
MOCCA Catalogue, Tasman Richardson, Director David Liss, Curator Rhonda Corvese
Karsh-Masson Catalogue, Tasman Richardson, Artistic Director Ryan Stec
2013
Custom made electronics convert MIDI notes into electrical current. The results are performed live as a collaboration with Paris based Nohista (Bruno Ribeiro). Collaboration with Edmund Law to make mirrors that alternate as video Rorschach displays. Religious symbols and brand logos are combined for a live Jawa performance. The a/v replaces the band/priest presence (initially in collaboration with Rko of Vatak Paris).
2014 Lethe Baptism
Human memory and it's flaws are the focus. Portraits of media theory pioneers, large laugh track audiences, and fanatical fans are made into wall mounted lenticular prints. Each is recorded and re-recorded on vhs. The decay and eventual erasure are documented and animated frames which change depending on where you stand, moving from left to right. A separate video plays behind a blue curtain (the colour of video memory loss). Video plays in silence, then the audio plays in darkness. Each viewing causes memory of the missing component to fill the gap, but each time, the flaw of our memory and the inaccurate filler it creates is revealed.
2015/2016
A return to print using single, rapid, hand gestures, multiplied and mirrored. Experiments with minimum line widths in inkjet, and hand pulled silk screen printing. Collection of video sources related to memory and recording formats are repurposed as instruments for two seperate live Jawa performances.
2017/2018
Souls without bodies and signals that perform were the emphasis for this second edition of The New Flesh. I curated a broad selection of people and kept all promotion anonymous. The abstract expressions were presented with minimal celebrity or popularity bias. Atari glitches were sourced for an optical sculpture installation. Read the text about Dataism, a commentary on the Janus installation by curator Shauna Jean Doherty, below. More Atari glitches are used for a live Jawa tryptic performance. Global radio and satellite images are sourced for a performance, repurposing the triple video output solution. More print experiments using dazzle style collage screen prints to commemorate 9/11.
Dataism, Shauna Jean Doherty text for Janus, InterAccess, Toronto
2019/2020 Kali Yuga
The bookend to Necropolis, Kali Yuga was equal and opposite to the 2012 large scale media installation. Symmetry and sequence were replaced by meandering self direction. Fixed playback was replaced by live camera feeds and generative video. The massive undertaking fell on the cusp of the global pandemic. Each work takes the viewer through investigations of imperfect, mediated reflection until the individual is completely erased and time/space are left to respond and reflect on themselves. Housed at Arsenal contemporary first in Montreal, and then in Toronto.
Arsenal catalogue, Tasman Richardson, Director David Liss, Curator Shauna Jean Doherty
2020-2021
During the long lockdown of the global pandemic, two projects sprung up. The first, Hum zine, a collaboration with Brigitte Bardon't (Kristel Jax). Self-guided walking tours of ambient noise from city infrastructure. A two colour risograph quarterly. The second, a collaboration with the AI GauGAN. My sketches were interpreted and I'd redraw the result. Collecting the image sequence made a rapidly evolving landscape. Exhibited in the window display of The Drey gallery, Berlin when indoor exhibits were impossible.
2022
Liminal spaces noise project with uncanny stabilization for a first person shooter sensation. Working with documentation of the Fire and Theft install, I try another experiment with 360 timelapse to demonstrate omnipresent views of the planet.
2023
The collected observations of over two decades of experimenting with media art are published by Impulse(b) as autobiographical anecdotes in the book Objects In Mirror. Launched in Toronto, Berlin, and Izmir (Commentarivm)
VR experiments with 1:1 scale sculpting result in my first exhibition prototype of a VR/real world hybrid installation "Reality Bites" commissioned by Particle and Wave festival in Calgary, Alberta.
2024
"The Harvest" is another VR experiment with 1:1 scale to reality. A table is set with a Vanitas style still life. The container for the room is wood frame covered on all sides, by white translucent cloth. The viewer sits at the table in the room viewing the twin 3D recording in the headset. The table can be touched. The scene rapidly plays in reverse, backing through fifteen days in less than 3 minutes. Everything reacts to time at its own tempo. All the items are given their own sound.
When the headset is removed, past and present are out of synch. Time has etched itself on everything in the room, including the audience.
