MATX: better art through video chat
Danielle Elliott
Contributing Writer
VCU’s Media, Art and Text department is hosting a series of multimedia art projects in the MATX Gallery. The first exhibition in the series is graduate student Adam Dean’s “[V]OIP.”
Dean’s project is a group storytelling project using the Internet as a platform to share personal stories.
“I have actors that are going to be telling stories. They are going to be telling them as though they are their own stories, but they are different people’s stories that have been submitted to me,” Dean said. “They will be telling them from the first person, and the goal is to see how the stories change.”
This isn’t the first time that Dean has experimented with storytelling as an art. The inspiration for this project was a film that he previously worked on.
“I did this in a previous experimental film, accidentally. I had actors playing characters in my life, and I knew that they wouldn’t be able to reproduce any of my memories,” he said. “I thought it was interesting how … unique the story became. It became brand new.”
For this project Dean asked people to submit their own personal stories to be retold by actors in order to see how those stories change as a result.
“It’s personal stories mostly from childhood, and I got a lot of stories of people traveling,” Dean said. “It’s really just those quirky little stories in your life that stick with you for some reason … that is the quality that seems to go through no matter who tells the story.”
Dean is using a video chat in order to connect the storytellers and their audience. For the actors, he is simulating a genuine conversation, and for the audience the technology will be much more obvious.
“It’s over Skype. That’s because I (like) to have the audience witness the social nature of storytelling so I put the actors in Cous Cous eating dinner, and the audience will be in the gallery watching them,” he said. “It’s unique by nature, and it’s also experimental.”
One struggle for Dean is the decision to present the original stories to the audience so they can witness the evolution of each story.
“I have all the stories on paper, and I thought it might be fun to give them to the audience. I haven’t fully committed to that because I like the idea of it being an original story once it’s retold,” Dean said. “Sort of the traditional oral culture that idea that you don’t write it down you let be live every time. I’m toying with that.”
“[V]OIP” is the first in a series for the MATX gallery. Dean submitted a proposal for his project and worked closely with the series coordinator, Sandra Burke, to achieve the final product.
“We’re inviting candidates from the program, but we also have people interested from other programs, and it’s simply because we have a good gallery space. It’s not a traditional gallery space, and it’s much better for projects like this one, which are sort of experimental and outside the lines of a traditional gallery setting,” Dean said. “We’re thinking that people coming to the MATX gallery are expecting something that does show the hybrid program that we’re in and also have a digital aspect.”
The MATX Gallery is located at 109 N. Harrison St. “[V]OIP” will open March 4, from 6 – 7:30 p.m.