Browning, Drew; and Annette Barbier
Permanent URI for this collection
We have collaborated, on and off, since the mid 1970's. Although we don't always work together, we have many common skills and concerns, and living together magnifies and intensifies our shared ideas. We both grew out of an art context which was closing the door on structuralism and minimalism. Working in video at the time made us automatically iconoclasts: crusaders for a populist, political, anti-establishment stance in art, using a medium which most artists and art professionals saw only as 'cheap film'. We were dedicated to the proposition that cutting edge art was not content poured into the container of a medium, but rather an investigation of the new possibilities a medium offered. We have continued to probe the potential of new technologies, believing that original content arises from a dialogue between an artist and a medium. In addition, this dialogue can be extended to the viewer, making her a participant, through instruments like microphones and video cameras, and more recently computers, biofeedback devices, dna scans, etc. This is not to suggest a kind of technological determinism, a mere response to technological developments, but rather to celebrate the curiosity which leads artists to look for new means of expression in even the most unlikely places.