Dave Allen - Naomi Ben-Shahar - Bernadette Corporation

The exhibition Dave Allen, Naomi Ben-Shahar, Bernadette Corporationpresents recent work by the artists with Edith Russ Site for Media Artstipends. Between July and December 2003 they developed a program of artist talks, performances (18 January), the production of new videos, workshops and this exhibition. During the opening reception Dave Allen and two high school students will perform and improvise music from their workshop

During the month of November, Dave Allen (D/GB) worked on the principle of transfer with two students from Oldenburg: In an exchange of knowledge the youths taught him what they know about computer programs for music, and in exchange he informed them about his work with pop/rock music and experimental/classical music of the last century. In the exhibition, drawings from the workshop will be presented along with Allen's latest music-related work.

Naomi Ben-Shahar (ISR/USA) shot two new works at the Edith Russ Site for Media Art in November and in cooperation with Jeremy Bernstein. These videos as well as earlier productions are part of the exhibition. Naomi Ben-Shahar mainly produces videos, which trace social events in the dark. She observes human interaction at different locations and situations, concentrating on the dynamics of groups and the movement between individual consciousness and its mental space vs. the "real" space of social becoming.

Bernadette Corporation (USA/F) presents new objects and the first in a series of videos, which loosely appropriate the popular self-improvement format i.e. diet programs, how to meditate, better sex for couples, etc.). Their videos, however, deal specifically with the emotional and psychic conditions of urban life today, playfully searching for an "alternative" notion of health that is at the very same time a political critique of contemporary subjectivisation and control society.

The Edith Russ Site for Media Art stipend program is made possible by the Foundation of Lower Saxony.