New Video Installation by Pawel Wojtisik, Toby Lee, and Ernst Karel, on View Through 11/3 in Museum of the Moving Image's Lobby
Museum of the Moving Image is currently presenting SINGLE STREAM (2013), a new large-scale video work by Pawe? Wojtasik, Toby Lee, and Ernst Karel. A visual and sonic exploration inside a recycling facility, the video blurs the line between observation and abstraction, plunging the viewer into the steady flow of the plant and capturing the complex processes devised to treat the enormous amount of waste Americans produce every day. SINGLE STREAM, which opened on July 3, is on view in the Museum's lobby, as a 50x8-foot-long projection, through November 3, 2013. Since its renovation in 2011, the lobby wall has been a showcase for adventurous video installations and curated exhibits of web art.The title of the piece refers to the highly effective "single stream" method of recycling in which all types of recyclables are initially gathered together, and sorted later at a specialized materials recovery facility, or MRF. Over the past two decades, single-stream recycling has greatly increased the rate and decreased the costs of recycling.
This installation was organized by Rachael Rakes and Jason Eppink, Associate Curator of Digital Media. "SINGLE STREAM is an arresting meditation at an enormous scale. It offers a fascinating window into a world rarely seen," said Eppink."The scene inside a single-stream plant depicts a complex ballet of man, machine, and movement, producing sounds and images that are overwhelming, but also unexpectedly beautiful, and even revelatory," said Pawe? Wojtasik. "In a space like this, we come face to face with our waste, its magnitude and its consequences."
Brooklyn-based filmmaker and video artist Pawe? Wojtasik (b. 1952 ?ód?, Poland) creates poetic reflections on cultures and ecosystems in the form of short video works and large-scale installations. His investigations into the overlooked corners of the environment have led him to pig farms, sewage treatment plants, and wrecking yards. His current project documents workers in Varanasi, India.Brooklyn-based artist and anthropologist Toby Lee (b. 1980, Los Angeles) works across video, performance, installation, and drawing. She holds a PhD in Anthropology and Film and Visual Studies from Harvard University and currently serves as the Director of the Collaborative Studio program at UnionDocs: Center for Documentary Art in Brooklyn, NY.
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