13 October 2001: Vera Frenkel
Artist's statement
At the charged meeting-point of testimony and metaphor that informs
the oral tradition, the past is not recorded or invented, but
revivified through personal telling, and for this, video and the web
serve as natural extensions. I find them strangely apt instruments
for observing and commenting on the play of lies and truths that
constitutes history. But, as with any other addiction, the need for
so-called truth drags me through a tangle of lies.
Caught in the cross-hairs of media and memory with a suspect passport
of narrative, I look sideways at a world shifting incessantly between
documentary and fictional realities. Along the way, I bump into many
forms of the eyewitness account: personal attestation, confession,
slander, encomium, obituary, and learn that however distorted or
self-deceived it may be, first-person testimony offers a universe of
meanings more trustworthy than does any other source.
In my work, a community-based practice shared with colleagues and
friends, people tell me things, or sing songs, or grieve, and I make
a place for them to do this, and take my turn beside them, since I,
too, must testify, adding what I see, know and believe to the
composite record.
'The Institute' credits
Written, designed and composed by Vera Frenkel, ongoing site programming: Steev Morgan, Kartz Ucci, artificial intelligence programming: Yehoshua Bendah, preliminary web page construction: Banff Centre for the Arts, song arrangements / accompaniment: Rohan Staton, Massive Music, singers: Mad Love (Audrey, Linda and Wanda van der Stoop)
2 0 0 1 
