Artists:

Matt Marello, 1968 / 2001 in Gallery 1

“Apophenia” is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. This term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness.”

Conrad originally described this phenomenon in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis, but it has more recently been used to describe this tendency in healthy individuals without necessarily implying the presence of neurological or mental illness. Apophenia is often used as an explanation for paranormal and religious claims. It has also been suggested that apophenia is a link between psychosis and creativity.

Matt Marello’s 1968 | 2001 is an extensive multimedia presentation based on the phenomenon of apophenia. A few years ago, while digesting the events of 9/11, Marello began to notice an odd synchronicity between the destruction of the World Trade Center and Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” His further explorations led him into a strange and murky world, linking together such diverse elements as the moon, apes, 9/11, “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the historically pivotal years 1968 and 2001.

Matt Freedman, Twin Twin II in Gallery 2

For Matt Freedman, this project began with the pedestrian observation that we are reminded every day in some specific way of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The newspapers carry stories on the war, on the economy, on real estate, or one of numerous other subjects that mentions the date. In the most literal sense, we are haunted by the towers that fell that day.

I kept coming around to the notion that the images of the towers were sort of recurring waking dreams, and that collecting them should be a continuing process of perception and manipulation. What I keep looking for in all the material I am using is something uncanny-either in the found objects themselves, or in the nature of the interventions I make-that leaves a lingering sense of unresolved discomfort in the mind of the viewer. The overriding and consciously dumb idea behind the work is that whatever else the towers are, they are definitely not gone from our lives, and they never will be. (Freedman, 2006)

This exhibition will include objects that Freedman has been collecting for this ongoing project since 2004 (the first edition of which was exhibited at vertexlist, Brooklyn)-from a toaster with two slices of toast, to twin newspaper piles, to a two-person table setting-set up as a walk-through tableau.

Plus two films by: MICHAEL BALLOU MICHAL KOSAKOWSKI: Just Like the Movies

“Just Like the Movies” by Michal Kosakowski almost perfectly creates a “true/fictional” narrative of the 9-11 attacks using footage from dozens of movies like “Independence Day” and “Die Hard III.”