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Tom
Sherman
Biography:
Tom Sherman was born in Manistee, Michigan. He received a B.F.A. degree from Eastern Michigan University in 1970. In 1972 he immigrated to Canada, where he settled in Toronto and began working at A Space, one of the first artist-run centres in Canada. By 1974 he had begun writing to extend his concept-based work into publications, texts-as-visual objects, and video and performance. Sherman co-founded organizations such as A Space Video (1973, Toronto) and Fuse Magazine (1979, Toronto). In 1981 he moved to Ottawa, taking a position (Video Officer) within the Visual Arts Section at The Canada Council. In 1983 he founded the Media Arts Section of The Canada Council, becoming its first Head of Section (and establishing Council's first grant programs for computer-integrated media). In 1988-1989 Sherman worked with Simon Fraser University to develop a research institute, the Centre for Image and Sound Research (Vancouver). In 1991 he was appointed Director of the School of Art & Design at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. Sherman was chosen to represent Canada at Venice Biennale in 1980. In 1983 The National Gallery of Canada mounted Cultural Engineering, a ten-year retrospective of his video, installations and writing. In 1986 he was an international commissioner for the Art, Technology and Informatics exhibition in the central Italian pavilion of the Venice Biennale. Sherman received the Canada Council for the Art’s Bell Canada Award for excellence in video art in 2003. Over the years his work has been featured in hundreds of international exhibitions, festivals and broadcast venues, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Musee d’art contemporain (Montreal), Documenta X (Kassel), Ars Electronica (Linz), Musee d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), LUX Cinema (London), Montevideo (Amsterdam), and In Video (Milan). In 2005 the Festival International des Film sur l’Art (Montreal) featured a retrospective of his video art (1978-2004), and Sherman performed with Bernhard Loibner in a premiere of Nerve Theory’s “Remote Possibilities,” at the Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna. Since 1993 he has been a frequent contributor to "Kunstradio," the weekly radio art program on Austria's national radio network (ORF). In 1997 he released Personal Human, an audio CD of his voice/music work with composers Jean Piche and Bernhard Loibner. Sherman and Loibner have since formed a performance/recording duo called Nerve Theory, which remains active today. In 2003 Nerve Theory released Planetary Disorder, a DVD of their music/video work. Besides his performance and media art, Sherman actively publishes in periodicals, web-zines and internet listserves. The Banff Centre Press (Alberta, Canada) published his fourth book, "Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information Environment," a comprehensive anthology of his writing over the past twenty years, in 2002. Sherman is a Professor at Syracuse University, teaching video production and media history and theory in its Department of Transmedia. He splits his time between Syracuse, New York, and his Canadian home on the South Shore of Nova Scotia.
The selection of Tom Sherman’s video works
for EMU Circa ‘69 I went to my daughter's high school prom in Syracuse, New York. I took my camcorder to document the proceedings. The African American kids were doing this elaborate red carpet affair, and their families and relatives were going crazy. These kids were dressed to kill. Hundreds of pictures were taken, and hours of video were recorded. The 21st century prom is a media spectacle extraordinaire, with stretch limos, top hats and canes. But for the girls, it's still all about the dress. Tom Sherman, THE OFF-KILTER SERIES (Merger, 23/7, Addressable Memory, The Appearance of Voice, Talking to Nature), running time: 24 minutes. These video recordings remind us of how far the world has tumbled out of balance. Our relationship with nature is screwed up, big time. Our excessive use of languages and technologies continues to drive a wedge between us and the wild animals and plants. The animals are doing crazy things (1). We've made them act this way. As the world has been teased and pulled apart, it's now our responsibility to make things whole again. We face test after test, where the big picture is scrambled beyond recognition, and then we're asked to connect the dots, to fill in the blanks (2). If we turn to the media for answers, we find the people in highest places are lying through their teeth (3). Young men are dying for all the wrong reasons. Nature doesn't shed a tear, nor does it offer any solutions. The seasons bring their share of grief. The weather refuses to cooperate. A massive low pressure area is always cause for concern, especially when our loved ones are dropping like flies. The appearance of nature's voice offers little comfort (4). A young raven is perpetually hungry, and says it's so. We too are anxious to make contact. We look to nature for companionship. We try to talk to nature in nature's own language, to form new relationships with the animals and the plants and the earth between our toes. We take a wildflower for a walk across the road. We've tried all kinds of crazy things, but so far, nature hasn't talked back (5). 1 -- MERGER (a pheasant who likes to run with automobiles), 2'23", 2003. 2 -- 23/7 (23 shots in seven minutes--the audience is responsible for continuity), 7', 2003. 3 – ADDRESSABLE MEMORY (Bush, in Cincinnati, lies to set up the invasion of Iraq—his speech is projected onto the landscape in Queens County, Nova Scotia), 6'20", 2004. 4 – THE APPEARANCE OF VOICE (a raven gives voice to a depressed man), 4'57", 2004. 5 – TALKING TO NATURE (playing with a wildflower in hope of making contact with nature), 2'48", 2002. HALF/LIVES, Tom Sherman (with Bernhard Loibner) 2001, 6 minutes 45 seconds. Sherman and Loibner team up on a vidsonic blues track, a stark, moving picture of long-distance relationships in the millennial era. The scene is a global video chat-line, where the personal politics of the gaze are played out ad infinitum. Anonymity and falsehoods are underwritten by explicit self-image. This is the place where to see and be seen is everything. Today's webcam culture makes Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" read like a documentary. The strange thing is there's real emotional tone in the distanced, distorted, muted contact. Loibner's mix of music and Sherman's voice drives home the very real loneliness of the halting video streams. There's an empty feeling in HALF/LIVES; it’s the incompleteness at the core of so many totally wired digital realities. A link to some other works by Tom Sherman (some from the circa '69 era that has prompted this exhibition).
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Larry Newhouse |
Tom Venner |
Jay Yager |
