THE WHITE ROOM
Brian Kent Gotro

Medium: Multi-channel video installation
Materials: 5-monitor TV sculpture, DVD players, projection(s), electric guitar, microphone, video and audio cables, with varying ephemera as collected from Gotro's studio.

Dimensions: variable
Year: 2008-2010

THE WHITE ROOM is an ongoing work of installation: a response to the constant flux of an ever-changing studio environment; here, Polaroids, foreign currency, typewritten pages, post-it notes, invites, books, news-clippings, journals, parking tickets, grocery receipts… are the ephemera collected from Gotro's studio immediately preceding each exhibition. This ephemera is mixed with the installations permanent components: an electric guitar, a microphone, a 5-channel video sculpture and projection(s).

Standing back one gets a picture of artist-at-work/or-not-at-work... here is the performed action, the creative plan, the contemplative act, the rock and roll audience, the show... an intersection of impressions and a place where something may or may not happen.

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Exhibition Variations:
ON MAIN (Window Installation), April 2008
Originally commissioned for the 3-street facing windows of ON MAIN The White Room was curated by Paul Wong. It included a 5-channel video sculpture, electric guitar with amplifier, microphone with microphone stand, tripod, three parking tickets, stand-up ashtray with a lit cigarette.

Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art (Gallery Installation), -February 2009
As a gallery installation The White Room first exhibited at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art in Kelowna, B.C. Curated by Jennifer Pickering, this version included the original components: 5-channel video sculpture, electric guitar with microphone and cable, 2-channel video projection, Gotro’s sketch-book, Chuck Klosterman’s novel Killing Yourself to Live, two news-clippings, and an invite to the exhibition How Soon Is Now opening the same night at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Stride Gallery +15 Window Space (Window Installation Two), April 2010
The 3rd variation of The White Room was at Stride’s +15 Window Space located in Calgary’s Epcor Centre for the Arts. Curated by Lisa Benschop & Kyle Whitehead, this version included the 5-channel video sculpture, electric guitar, microphone with cable, single-channel video, Gotro’s sketchbook, a typewritten page, grocery receipt, and an American $5 bill.

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The original exhibition included a video program (no longer available) appropriately titled: THE WHITE ROOM PROGRAM

(25 minutes, stereo)

BEACH, 2008, 3:20
Eleven, 2002, 6:37
Mouth Trick, 2004, 2:25
Untitled [2 telephone messages], 2004, 4:06
RESONANCE MARK, 2008, 3:41
VIDEOtapeRBG + OWEN, 2008, 5:15


a digital pixel manipulation ~ www.briankentgotro.com