Experience the Experience of Being Buried Alive!!

Yes, that was definitely worthy of two exclamation points because we're very, very serious!

The Austrian collective monochrom invites you to be buried alive in a private graveyard at the Blackwood Gallery on Wednesday February 7, 2007 from 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm, and again from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm.

Will you chose to be buried alive or stand idly by?

Premature Burial as a Field Trial for Near Death Activities will offer participants an opportunity to be buried alive in a coffin for up to fifteen minutes. Volunteers will be able to experience a semi-traumatic situation and possibly get in close contact with various gods and/or afterlives. People buried alive not only populate the horror stories of past centuries, but also countless reports in specialized medical literature. The theme of unintentional resurrection by grave robbers also runs through forensic protocols. Even in the 19th century it was said that every tenth person was buried alive.

The "International Year of Polytheism" (powered by monochrom) is an attempt at conquering the self-destructive monotheistic world-view (and its derivatives such as "The West" and "The Arab World") through the reconstruction of a polytheistic multiplicity in which countless gods and goddesses are free to neutralize each other. Polytheism is democracy, Monotheism a dictatorship, even in its pseudo-secular form.

Click on the image for a larger version:



Free shuttle buses

#1) Hart House University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto
departing at 3:00 pm (returning at 6:00 pm)

#2) Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto
departing at 6:00 pm (returning at 9:00 pm)

We hope to see you there!

Secret Service - A Performance by Marlene Haring

During the opening of Unterspiel (January 17, 2007 from 6 – 9 p.m.), Marlene Haring will perform “Secret Service”. What this entails exactly is, well, a secret! If you’d like to know more, or if you’d like to participate, the best thing to do is come to the opening!

Remember: A free shuttle bus to the Blackwood Gallery departs from the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St. W.) at 6:00 pm. It couldn’t be easier to get here and join us!


Here’s a little more info about Marlene’s work, as provided by the website of the Vargas Organisation, London:

Marlene Haring
b. 1978, lives and works currently in New York.
From 1999 to 2003 she was mainly working with Catrin Bolt in the collaboration Halt+Boring.

The citation for the 2005 Birgit Jürgenssen Prize states: 'The deciding factor [in awarding the prize to Marlene Haring] was that the young artist does not rely on any formalist approaches in her work or limit herself to one medium, but rather employs performance, happening, photography, video, etc., reflecting trends, contents and strategies of today’s art world and in translating these into her own works after endowing them with a new and subversive dimension. [...She] has developed an independent position evincing a great degree of attention for the rules of art and the everyday world and an aesthetic competence focusing on the crucial questions concerning the criteria for social closeness and distance, body and mind, sex and gender.'


Check this blog regularly: More info about other artists coming soon!

ZOMBIA

The Blackwood Gallery Summer Project Presents:

monochrom and the Nation of Zombia

A zombie is a member of the Zombie Nation -- which wants to turn the United States of America and the Federal Constitutional Monarchy and Parliamentary Democracy of Canada into Zombia, the home of the Zombies -- and the official representative of the Zombie Nation.
A zombie has to hold a certification.

A zombie looks like and acts like every average North American because he or she is an average North American apart from the fact that he or she is a zombie -- which means an ex-human.
Each zombie can infect any other US and Canadian citizens. Sometime in the future a zombie might address you. Think of it as a chance. But please be aware: Being turned into a zombie is a legal act of naturalization.

To become a zombe please email: ceckert@utm.utoronto.ca

Do you already have your Zombie document and you want to register?
Please register here. Please have your Zombie Registration Code ready. Please have your Zombie Registration Code ready.

You want to see how Zombia grows?
You can find the epidemic map here. Thank you for your interest.

http://www.monochrom.at/zombia/