Calgary Art City Comp
Calgary, Canada

FlMbSt (Floating Moebius Strip)
In exploring the theme of Truth and Lies, we continually arrived at an indeterminate position. The existence of the Absolute was never in question, only the expression or defining became inescapably hindered by culture, personal perspective and individual experience. The relationship between Truth and Lies is not a dichotomy, but rather a duality of conditions in which the definitions of each are relative to context, circumstance, and interpretation.

From Plato to Heidegger, form to object, a defining intention of Art has been the uncovering of Truth. This pursuit in human history has equally turned on itself and become a history of Lies. Inextricably linked, Truth and Lies are a part of the same continuum, folding upon each other, differentiated only by relative positioning, sequence and memory.

In our proposal, distinct portals address our need to differentiate Truth and Lies, our belief that one is able to select a path that will lead to One or the Other. Art itself often makes these same promises. In our scheme, both entrances lead to the same gallery space for video art, projections occurring on several interior surfaces. These images may or may not have been the projections placed on the exterior. By nature, a Pavilion within a Festival seeks to facilitate dialogue. In this vein, we seek a forum where one must challenge the idea of decision and outcome, expectation and illusion.

The distinct surfaces of metal and white plastic laminate, consistently forming a layered composite for the walls and ceiling, fold over one another to produce a polarized form. At night, these material and textural differences disappear, as color and projections transform the Pavilion in another dimension, determined largely by the Video artist(s) showing their work at the time.

The response to temporality, transience, budget and site lead to an extremely reduced assembly: structural honeycomb panels, a fiberglass reinforced plastic floor grid, miscellaneous hardware, and light fixtures. The panelized system has been designed for easy assembly and disassembly.

In our proposal for the Pavilion, as in our understanding of the engagement of Art, the final determination of Truth and Lies can reside only in the mind of the Viewer, in his or her own personal dialogue.