Video

In the Dark

Mike Hoolboom

2003, 08:00 minutes, colour, english

TAPECODE 566.05

”Mike Hoolboom's In the Dark provided a contemplative break in the program. Most of the piece is a black screen, with the artist narrating a wry and thoughtful voice-over on cinema, Hollywood and silence. What does this desire to sit in the dark and watch flickering images mean, anyway? In the end we are rewarded with an onscreen kiss between a man and a woman - the kiss is long, the kiss is luscious. In the Dark simply cuts to the chase - after all, isn't the kiss the moment we all wait for in a film?" (LIFT Newsletter, Larissa Fan)

“There are fortunately superb photographs of the Chauvet paintings. The cave has been closed up and no public visits will be allowed. This is a correct decision, for like this, the paintings can be preserved. The animals on the rocks are back in the darkness from which they came and in which they resided for so long. We have no word for this darkness. It is not night and it is not ignorance. From time to time we all cross this darkness, seeing everything: so much everything that we can distinguish nothing. You know it, Marisa, better than I. It’s the interior from which everything came.” (The Shape of a Pocket by John Berger)

“To speak is not to see. Speech frees thought from this optical requirement which has dominated our approach to things for thousands of years in the western tradition, and invited us to think under the guarantee of light or under the threat of the absence of light. I’ll let you catalogue the words in which there are suggestions that saying the truth has to be thinking according to he standard of the eyes.” (L’Entretien infini by Maurice Blanchot)

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Critical Writing

Ho Tam: Season of the Boys
by Mike Hoolboom. Practical Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists, 2008. Coach House Books, 2008.
Untitled
by Unknown. Wack!: art and the feminist revolution, 2007. Los Angeles: The Moca L.A., 2007.
Pleasure Dome Brochure: Winter 2006
by Unknown. Pleasure Dome, Winter 2006.
Lisa's Long Haul: Artist Lisa Steele talks to Sarah Milroy about...
by Sarah Milroy. The Globe and Mail, Feb. 19, 2005.
Lisa Steele + Kim Tomczak
by Peggy Gale. The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts 2005, 2005. Toronto: Canada Council for the Arts, 2005.
STEELE - TOMCZAK: Trouble Tracked to the Depths of the Body
by Paul Ardenne. Lisa Steele - Kim Tomczak, 2003. Toronto: Pleasure Dome, 2003.
Interview: Lisa Steele & Kim Tomczak
by Corinna Ghaznavi. Canadian Art, Winter 2000, v. 17, no. 4.
Kim Tomczak: Video Artist
by Roger Matuz. Contemporary Canadian Artists, 1997. Toronto: Gale Canada, 1997.
Lisa Steele: Video Artist
by Roger Matuz. Contemporary Canadian Artists, 1997. Toronto: Gale Canada, 1997.
Clock ticking on AGO video show
by Randi Spires. The Toronto Star, Jan. 12, 1990.
Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak: The groundbreaking dynamic duo of...
by Cameron Bailey. Now, Nov. 9, 1989, v. 9, no. 10.
Towards a Representation of Human: Only Human: Sex, Gender, and...
by Erika Sunderberg. Video Guide, 1988, v. 9, no. 4.
Statement of Intention
by Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak. Toronto: A Play of History, 1987. Toronto: The Power Plant, 1987.
On Signs & Sex: Visual Evidence "A series of video screenings,...
by Kathy McLeod and Nancy Shaw. Fuse, Fall 1987, v. 11, no. 3.
Visual Democracy: An interview with Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak
by Sara Diamond. Video Guide, Dec. 1986, v. 8, no. 4.
"The heat is on!":conference notes on women's sexuality in art
by Varda Burstyn. Canadian Art, Spring 1986, v. 3, no. 3.
Half the Sky and then Some: Talking Sex
by Jackie Larkin. Canadian Dimension, Apr. 1986, v. 20, no. 2.
Censored
by Ken Anderlini. The Ubyssey, Feb. 13, 1986.
IN THE DARK:TALKING SEX
by Jackie Larkin. Video Guide, Dec. 1986, v. 8, no. 4.
Danceworks 31: what's going on?
by Alina Gildiner. The Globe and Mail, June 24, 1983.
The Lisa Steele Tapes: Investigation and Vision
by Catherine Russell. North of Everything: English Canadian Cinema Since 1980, 1980. University of Alberta Press, 1980.