IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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LOS ANGELES —  June 20, 2006

Joel Holmberg
FREE WIRELESS!

open / Saturday July 8 – six to eight pm
close / August 3

Harvey Levine Gallery is pleased to FREE WIRELESSs, an exhibition of multi-media by Joel Holmberg. A reception for the artist will be held on July 8, from 6 to 9 pm.

Holmberg's exhibition at Harvey Levine Gallery, his first in Los Angeles, comprises work that explores a physiological approach to media. Holmberg utilizes video installation, digital imaging, and embroidery to emphasize the body's presence within electronic culture.

To further engage this concept of physicality within digital media, Holmberg is offering free wireless internet access to gallery visitors. Visitors will be able to access the wireless Internet by using the network password that is written in large characters above the desk.

Highlighted in the exhibition is, A9 Sunset, a 3-channel video installation that simulates a ride down the Sunset Strip and a
2-channel video that re-contextualizes the 8-minute long traffic scene from Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking film, Weekend. Both A9 Sunset and Holmberg's Weekend are created by isolating and digitally stitching together individual images to create a single image that is several yards in length. The images are then scrolled across the frame to match footage taken from driving down Sunset Boulevard and the camerawork from Godard's Weekend, respectively. In both installations, Holmberg explores the relationship between still and moving images as a means to conflate the tracking shot of the cinema with the scrolling technique of computer animation.

Rooted in the repetitive proces sof splicing together individual video frames, Holmberg's series of cell-phone cross-stitchings further explore the relationship between still and moving images. By placing a cell-phone, set to vibrate, on a flat surface and tracing the phone after each missed call, Holmberg creates a map of various phones' relationships to surface plane. The finished embroideries are color-coded outlines detailing the behavior patterns of ubiquitous consumer devices. The small-works include titles like, Nokia 3585, 10 Missed Calls, Surface: Formica.

Holmberg is interested in the internalization of the electronic environment. For the month of the show, in the gallery, he will be training a live bird to mimic the audible pedestrian signals heard throughout Los Angeles. These aural beacons use to cuckoo to indicate a north/south crosswalk and a chirp to indicate an east/west crosswalk. The second-generation copy aims to exaggerate the layering of the natural and electronic environment within the urban landscape.

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JOEL MARTIN HOLMBERG [Born 1982, Bethesda, MD] Lives and works in Los Angeles.

Harvey Levine Gallery is located inside a knob-making factory.
5797 Washington Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90232
[nestled between Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects and the newly relocated Sixspace.]