Judy Radul – World Rehearsal Court, OCTOBER 9–DECEMBER 6, 2009
Judy Radul World Rehearsal Court October 9–December 6, 2009
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
World Rehearsal Court, a solo exhibition of new work by Vancouver artist Judy Radul is a large-scale media installation. This work draws on Radul’s research into the role of theatricality and new technologies in the court of law and it questions the distinctions between experience, testimony, truth, and fiction that the law attempts to make distinct. World Rehearsal Court addresses the complexities of real-life experience that the court compresses into written record.
In one aspect of the installation, a seven-channel video work presents a series of courtroom vignettes based on trial transcripts from International Criminal Tribunals. Using a six-camera apparatus to videotape the proceedings, the work takes up the rigidity of the traditional court environment, a theatre where the physical arrangement of the players (judge, defense, prosecution) reflects their roles. In contrast to these pre-recorded court scenes, the other part of the installation is comprised of a series of computer-controlled live cameras that feed to an array of monitors. This use of real-time makes the gallery a theatrical and cinematic space.
For the research of this work, Radul traveled to The Hague to observe trials at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The installation draws upon the artist’s previous work such as Downe’s Point (2005), that explores the spatial ‘architecture’ that sight through a camera lens creates. World Rehearsal Court also shares an interest in blind spots and the inarticulable aspects of representation that were explored through the use of blind actors in Describe Video (2007).
Judy Radul was born in Lillooet, British Columbia and lives and works in Vancouver. Her interdisciplinary practice embraces photography, sculpture, performance, video and mixed media installations. In 2000 she received a Master of Visual and Media Arts from Bard College, New York. She has exhibited her work internationally including in Mechelen (Belgium), at Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (Antwerp), Catriona Jeffries Gallery (Vancouver), Oboro (Montreal), Presentation House Gallery (North Vancouver), and The Power Plant (Toronto). Radul teaches at Simon Fraser University and her creative writing and essays on theatre, performance art and visual art have appeared in a variety of publications since 1991.
