Daniel Cockburn at SAW Video July 19-20

Daniel Cockburn's You Are Here has its Ottawa premiere at SAW July 19.

Ottawa cinephiles will want to head over to SAW Video later this month for a special presentation of the unique work of Toronto-based video artist Daniel Cockburn. Cockburn will be at SAW July 19-20 to present the Ottawa premiere of his first feature film You Are Here, a strange, thought-provoking, and boundary-pushing puzzler that Variety called “a charming, Charlie Kaufman-like metafictional puzzler.” You Are Here is also the last film to be released starring the late Canadian actress Tracy Wright, whose final performance in Bruce McDonald’s Trigger made my list of the ten best in 2010. You Are Here thus presents Canadian film fans in the Capital a chance to bid adieu to one talent as they discover another.

Cockburn performs All the Mistakes I've Made

The free outdoor screening of You Are Here will be preceded by a live audio-visual performance of Cockburn’s audio-visual presentation, All the Mistakes I’ve Made. “Every film I’ve ever made seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cockburn noted as he presented Mistakes during an earlier performance in Berlin. Mistakes is a funny, quirky, and insightfully self-deprecating lecture/performance piece hybrid in which Cockburn revisits some of his earlier works and walks the audience through the pros and cons of being a visual artist. A return to a karaoke-style revamp of “Rocketman”, for example, demonstrates an early illustration of Cockburn’s meta-philosophical sampling of pop culture, while another excerpt reveals to the audience the perils of shooting in one’s own bedroom, especially if the performance space is marked by blotchy candle wax. All the Mistakes I’ve Made provides a perceptive and candid opportunity for SAW-goers to learn the importance of creating unique and innovative video art in an age where such work is readily available on forums such as YouTube and Vimeo.

Cockburn will also lead a Master Class on July 20^th, which can give aspiring artists in-depth insight into how they can take their work from amateur online media to professional galleries. In addition to the two-day anti-artist talk, the event will enjoy the launch of a publication on the work of Daniel Cockburn from the Canadian Film Institute, which co-presents the event with SAW. The event should be a fine opportunity to learn from a Canadian artist who is pushing the boundaries of the ever-shifting form of video art.

SAW and The Canadian Film Institute present:

-Friday, July 19th:

You Are Here

preceded by All the Mistakes I’ve Made

-Doors open at 7:30 pm. Performance begins at 8:00pm, film at 9:00 pm.

-SAW Courtyard, 67 Nicholas St.

-Admission: FREE

(Check back soon for a review of You Are Here!)

-Saturday, July 20^th:

Masterclass with Daniel Cockburn

-2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

-Club SAW, 67 Nicholas St.

-Admission: $25

Please visit www.sawvideo.com for more information.