Joel Holmberg

Joel Holmberg

You’ll Never Know If You Don’t Ask Yourself


November 17, 2015 – February 7, 2016

You’ll Never Know If You Don’t Ask Yourself includes six single-channel videos by Joel Holmberg. Each video contains either tactfully culled CNN Footage or “observational films” made by the artist. Both modes of video similarly adapt an immediacy with filming techniques. The camera is primarily concerned with documenting information than with creating an aesthetic object. In both instances, formal decisions are made on the fly with no time to second guess themselves.

In these “observational films,” Holmberg focuses the camera long enough to reach a level of satisfaction or for the camera to gather enough information for the viewer to bear witness. While some documentary-style filmmakers can be labeled “film-essayists,” Holmberg’s brief quips are more aligned with the storytelling of local news.

Bio

Joel Holmberg

Joel Holmberg earned his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. He combines and manipulates existing material (the Michael Keaton film My Life and the text of A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari, for example) to make witty and evocative works in a variety of media. He also creates sculpture, video, books, and Web-based projects, including an archive of responses to questions on Yahoo! Answers (yahoo.answers.com). Holmberg is a founding member of the Internet surfing club Nasty Nets.

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