Critical Writing Index

Aesthetic Libertines

by Philippe Hamelin

Ottawa: Galerie SAW Gallery, 2007

Curator and SAW video programmer Philippe Hamelin analyzes best-friend artists Tricia Middleton and Joel Taylor's collaborative "stylistic mutant" video artwork. Hamelin states that the duo is authentic and unbound by aesthetic conventions; their hybridization of genres through video collage and pop-cultural music editing lends itself to expression and invokes synesthesic sensations. While blurring lines of fact and fiction through remixing and engendering spectacle, the mirroring and approrpiation of video conventions and self-images does not fall into the common trap of narcissism.

ITEM 2007.134 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

DEATH COMES SLOWLY – Tricia Middleton

DEATH COMES SLOWLY – Joel Taylor

Lost In Space – Tricia Middleton

Lost In Space – Joel Taylor

Apartment Living + West-Nile Redux – Tricia Middleton

Apartment Living + West-Nile Redux – Joel Taylor

BAD SCREEN TESTS WITH WATER – Tricia Middleton

BAD SCREEN TESTS WITH WATER – Joel Taylor

Theme Song II – Tricia Middleton

Theme Song II – Joel Taylor