Video | Mike Hansen Artist

Video

single and multi-channel video works

Flotsam
2012, (Single Channel Video), 3min 39sec animated video

Plenum (Single Channel Video)
2015 7min 10sec

Plenum examines the group dynamic in conversation through a single channel video, displayed similar to a framed object.
Plenum disseminates the drum solo into its individual voices and then pieced it together into a unique conversation through each components sound. The image of the work displays each drum in its circular body as well as the act of the conversation in a circular form. The conversation demonstrated in Plenum delivers the idea of the conversation from a group perspective through its flows and flaws. I see the drum solo like that of a quorum of sorts where there is acceptable number of components in attendance to allow the conversation to have validity. Using the tradition of the jazz sized drum kit, for me not to much or not to little to create a comprehensible message allows for a conversation that is succinct with enough conflict to build recognizable meaning. Plenum demonstrates the conversation of the group creating a whole without vocal utterance. Presented as a wall hung framed artwork giving the sound/noise a visual aspect.

45rpm (Single Channel Video)
2014 4min 41sec

45rpm is a collage of 45 various film and television exerpts to create a compostion based on my own experimental turntabling practice.

Killing Me Softly with Birdsong
2013, (Single Channel Video) 6mins 20sec
(The Noise Project #9 The Free for All)

By my home is a large tree where deep in its foliage large habitats of birds reside. Every morning just before the sun rises these songbirds begin to sing. It starts slow and singular. The sounds start to increase as the conversations progress. Is it just conversation and how much of the community is involved? As the sun starts to crest the horizon, the song moves to cacophony. I drift in and out of consciousness as light starts to pierce my blinds the open window challenges my sleep. The songs change from a choir to chaos. A good chaos, nature’s calamity. Then the alarm goes off the birds seem to stop and my day begins.

Phantom Toil (Single Channel Video)
2012 1min 48 sec
(Mutopia 7 Baniff)

Produced from a series of workshops as part of Mutopia 7. The images of a ghost train from a town outside of Banff Alberta combined from a vocal exercise in the stairwell of the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Rock'N' Bolly 3D 2013, (3 Channel Video) 2 mins 51 sec
The project installed researches the rhizome effect of cultural appropriation and its global resultant. The installation, “Rock ‘N’ Bolly 3D,” examines early rock n’ roll’s deterritorializational effect on cultural allocation through its power of social change. Specifically I target 1962 and how it has been immortalized in the film “American Graffiti.” Also 1962 saw the release of the Bollywood film “The Professor,” a coming of age tome that emulates aspects of American youth culture, in a sense the “Beach Party” movies with its own Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. “The Professor” and “American Graffiti” both represent the rebellious nature of young adults through the influence of rock ’n’ roll culture. I will use aspects of both films in a movie trailer that examines the cross-cultural appropriation but from the other side. Here South Asian culture wraps itself in an abstract notion of American’s rock ‘n’ roll authenticity. Proving a globalized transcendence though the potency of rock ‘n’ roll culture.
This installation will be projected on three scrims, which hang in front of each other with a projector for each. This work will present the trailer in a fake 3D. The main projection is on the back scrim. This is accompanied by projections of various aspects of the trailer’s characters, objects, and/or actions enlarging as the image moves towards the front scrim. That same image may appear enlarged on the front screen as it reduces in size as it moves to dissolve into the rear scrim. This process will produce a fake 3D effect. This form of 3D requires no special spectator equipment, unlike a movie cinema or 3D television where special glass are required, allowing all viewers to participate.

I, me, singluar-----plural (Single Channel Video)
2010 6min 26 sec

An examination of an artist's bouts of depression. The artist sits and stares as the environment moves on behind him.

Rosebud 2006 (Single Channel Video) looped
2006 8min 50sec looped

Rosebud examines climate change through the disappearance of the vinyl record (in 2006).
Vinyl has all but become a remnant of the past, a specialty item. Snow also has become a special event when it happens. The next generation will never know the feel and texture of a record, especially the physicality of delicately placing the needle on a record and initial pop as the power of vinyl and diamond meet. Missed will be the feel of fresh snow, the exhilaration of plummeting down a hill on a wooden toboggan with the spray of snow covering your face and body. The wonderful sound of cold crunch under your boot covered foot.

“Rosebud” invites us to remember, bringing back memories of our past. The escape garnered through the playing of your favourite record with all its perceived flaws. The wonder of a fresh snowfall with its awesome beauty as it fully reshapes our vision of the landscape. “Rosebud” asks, long gone our are days of wine and roses.

Rosebud Installation Video

“When I was your age I walked through fifteen foot snowdrifts to get to school…”

A refrain used to scold us by our parents – here in Canada, anyway.

Always seen by myself and my peers as an exaggeration, today I may be able to say these same things to my children. As school aged child, I remember the fury of winter. We enjoyed it, The landscape of cold blue sky, the salted roads and fields of white glistening with snow. The creek behind my family home froze in the winter to resemble images of the arctic. My friends and I would traverse the shards of ice that jutted out of the surface pretending to be Perry on an arctic expedition. The snow forts we would build on our front lawns to protect ourselves from the marauding, snowball throwing kids from across the street. The shoveling of snow off my parents’ driveway in the evening as a serene quiet engulfed the neighbourhood. Snow would drift from the dark heavens. The crisp cold is not as much alarming as invigorating.

Just like the stupidity we attributed to our parents’ belittling of us, they might not have been exaggerated statements. Those feelings and memories of my youth in the winter will never exist for my children. I too will repeat that line and they too will laugh inside at the overblown inevitability of that.

Today in Toronto, Canada it is the end of January, the height of winter. It is six degrees Celsius. That’s plus six degrees Celsius. The norm is -23 degrees Celsius. This winter we have had an accumulation of around 2 cm of snow so far. Now my kids live with a winter that has sometimes cold, mostly mild temperatures, and snow falls that are few and far between. Even the national newspapers make light of this phenomenon. Editorial cartoons satirize this change. An image of an older man, a grandfather, talking about snow, and his grandchildren yelling to their mother that grandpa is off his medication again.

Canada is a country with a reputation for winter. Americans ignorantly ask if we live in igloos. Europeans expect to see dogsleds. Along with snow comes its close cousin ice. Which is disappearing in an alarming rate, causing great havoc to the far north. Highways built on ice are no longer freezing, creating food shortages for isolated communities. The ice is moving farther off shore causing polar bears to forage in human habitats as seals and walruses are no longer available. The drastic reduction is ice is allowing the fabled Northwest Passage to appear - a boon for government, a catastrophe to the fragile eco system of the Canadian arctic.

I Punched Out Bruce Mau (Single Channel Video)
2006 1min 1sec

Yes, it really did happen. We had studios next to one and another. Yes, he did throw his body through the wall which separated our homes. I Punched Out Bruce Mau, is a comedic take on a tragic moment. When we pass each other on the street we are cordial, a quick hi and a smile, and keep walking. The interesting thing about this life event is that he tells the same story.

Mike Hansen Art 2021