Here’s one for Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. I’ve never been much of a shopper, but this is enough to make me quit cold turkey.

Today in the loo I noticed that in the bottom seam of the yellow Forever 21 shopping bag I used to tote home bathroom caulking supplies yesterday is printed “John 3:16″ - according to Wikipedia the most oft-quoted bible verse. God is everywhere, or at least his evangelists are, including on the bottom end of a sack that once held low thread count fashion and will eventually hold my forever decomposing household trash.

I was reading this article today about a recent presentation at The Kitchen by artists inspired by Youtube, which I unfortunately missed, and noticed a banner ad at the top of the page. The left side said this:

The right side advertised the Bank of America, Bank of Opportunity.
We can easily bring to mind historical instances of what America has found and whom they have saved. Personally I find this statement really unsettling considering, for one, the treatment of the First Nations people on this continent. And the politicization of the Christian Right. And the persistent war in Iraq. And…

This is the least haunting image I can find from the film I started watching last night: the male lead trapped in an attic while bloodthirsty savages (vampires like you haven’t seen them before, see below) claw and pry the windows. I started watching it but quickly realized this was not a film for Jillian to watch alone, at night. So I’ll save it for next week’s trip to Québec City, where no doubt I’ll watch it even more alone, at night.

The snowbound “Alaskan” landscape is stunning, though the darkened town was filmed on a sound stage in New Zealand. Note to self: more footage for Snow Stories. Another snow covered landscape signaling despair, doom, and entrapment. There is no explanation so far for why the townspeople can’t simply drive away.

These vampires are more closely related in demeanor and appearance to the fast and furious zombies of recent films like 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Land of the Dead etc, than to debonair and handsome Hollywood vampires played by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas. That’s a relief.

They resemble the original Nosferatu, or even the blind post-human cave dwellers in The Descent - batlike, with razor teeth.

Gone is the slow courtship, the stealth, the dark beauty… these vampires are messy, blood covered, and undeniably inhuman deadly monsters.

pictured above: 30 Days of Night, and Nosferatu.

Justine Cooper’s new exhibition Terminal at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery is not for the faint of heart. Juxtaposing her decade-old video and installation titled Rapt with colour photographs of distressed medical mannequins from 2008, the show considers the body pictured through science.

Rapt features animated imagery of the artist’s real body, expressed via black and white MRI imaging slices, and takes the viewer on a surreal tour of her interior in cross-section. Stripped of humanity and outward signs, this body seems more meat than person, more imaging data than flesh, more avatar than Justine.

Conversely, the obviously artificial bodies of medical mannequins Wilbur, Sally, and friends, subjects of the recent photographs, are positioned in naturalistic throes of physical trauma. On a gurney with a mass of tubes set to extrude or intrude; in a post-childbirth semi-shock; or in agony with bullets lodged in gaping head and chest wounds - they seem somewhat human despite the overwhelming lack of blood. Though such mannequins exist for medical practitioners to sharpen their skills, their rubbery masks, bad wigs and unblinking eyes suggest Michael Myers from Halloween, Chucky from Child’s Play, Cindy Sherman’s portraits with doll parts and prosthetics, post-traumatic reconstructive surgery, strange hybrids, and mutation in the case of poor Sally whose baby face came off to expose her mouth hole, lidless eyes, and strange insect-like thorax.

Cooper’s previous works, including Havidol and Saved By Science also investigate science - specifically pharmacology and scientific classification. Her complex aestheticized subjects include questionable practices such as marketing techniques favoured by the pharmaceutical industry, and the collection of animal parts that not only educate scientists but leech the natural world.

pictured above, Sally.

A few nights ago, I watched Jesus Camp, a documentary by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady about a Christian training camp for children in North Dakota. The preacher and her crew use metaphors of war and fear to ignite passion and political fervor in this veritable army of tiny preachers, evangelists, and religious warriors. It is far more disturbing than any of the horror films I’ve seen lately, including the camping themed Friday the 13th, The Blair Witch Project, and Sleepaway Camp.

The most astonishing scenes are the children’s veneration at the feet of a life size cardboard likeness of smiling George Bush, as though he were Jesus himself and the children the original mourners; and the rapture of young children who babble in tongues and convulse on the floor - faces streaming with tears. The children in the film are bright, but terribly sheltered and warned against the wrongs of science, and there is not much choice offered in this ideological path.

I can’t remember the last time I watched a film that had to be paused so often for discussion. Fortunately the rental allowed this punctuated viewing. The indoctrination and mis-education of children under the age of 13 by their parents and others in positions of trust and power, in the name of “taking back America for Jesus” (as if that were conceptually possible), is heartbreaking. The film is inherently objective and non-judgmental, a generosity on the part of its filmmakers.

My solo show in Vancouver opened at Third Avenue Gallery on May 1, and will run through May 31. Minutes by foot from Granville Island, Third Avenue was awash in pink from blossoming trees all last week.

Including work from the past five years which can best be described as culture-jamming, the exhibition also features 2 new videos, Superfan and Staring Contest with Brad Pitt. I finished editing the latter a couple of hours before the show opened, the video equivalent of hanging a wet painting. The sweat was dripping from my brow.

From the press release:
“Superfan stars Jillian Mcdonald riding in vehicles with costars Billy Bob Thornton, Vincent Gallo, and Donald Sutherland. Despite their attempts at conversation, the trio of male leads cannot shake her concentration on the Superbowl game. Staring Contest with Brad Pitt finds Mcdonald and Hollywood’s leading heartthrob locked in an endless gaze of a familiar childhood game. In To Vincent with Love“Mcdonald inserts herself digitally into scenes from Vincent Gallo’s film Buffalo 66” playing the ingénue opposite his socially awkward male lead. In Me and Billy Bob, she digitally manipulates romantic scenes from Hollywood films starring actor Billy Bob Thornton, creating a soft critique of celebrity obsession.”

Thank you to Michael Bjornson and Camille Graham for all their support and hard work on the installation!

I left the west coast 2 days ago, and I already have separation anxiety. Although it’s great to be home, Vancouver is a hard place to leave. Who wouldn’t fall in love with the dreamy mist and the moist rain forest? I watched these motionless ships for hours, with my father. They seemed to multiply while I slept nearby in English Bay.

Stanley Park’s old growth - some of the trees are 800 years old. Strangely, herons roost above the park atop more spindly trees, a mere 30 feet overhead. Parts of the city are bursting with blooming, twisting vegetation. Although we do have a weird overgrown weed-tree in our backyard, Brooklyn’s vegetation is depressingly sparse and neglected.

There is a spider in my cup at the studio, it’s been there at least an hour. How am I supposed to drink? Is this a sign of luck? So many questions.

According to Mint, the web stats application I use, the most popular search term that brings people to my site, following various right and wrong spellings of my name, is “Vulva”. Considering there is only 1 mention of Vulvas on my site - the above intervention titled “Auto Sex Change Operations” for which I placed “Vulva” stickers on hundreds of parked Volvos in New York City years ago, I can only conclude that people are searching far and wide to expose the vulvas.

The Tribeca Film Festival’s screening 2 nights ago of Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg was delightful - particularly enhanced by his own live narration in Winnipeg twang, and paired with Isabella Rosellini’s hilariously funny Green Porno micro-shorts describing the bizarre sexual practices of common bugs. She plays the costumed male of each species as well as various hermaphrodites, and is subjected to all manner of physical trauma. The low tech effects are enchanting. Beckley and I agreed that these should be shown to kids, and also would work well in a gallery installation. Rick Gilbert, Green Porno’s producer who I recognized from somewhere (Winnipeg, it turns out), told me they have been trying various configurations as they tour the work. Stay tuned for her second series featuring sea creatures!

Maddin’s signature blurry style of a bygone era in endless snow grace this documentary/travelogue of our shared prairie home town. Its highlights include a hockey match between historical hockey greats amidst the wrecking ball demolition of their beloved arena; a reenactment of Maddin’s childhood living room complete with dead father exhumed like a mound of dirt beneath the carpet; a steamy coming-of age in arena locker rooms and the subterranean levels of a public pool; and Golden Boy pageantry in the otherwise dull and fading Paddlewheel family restaurant.

My favourite line references the newly erected MTS building looking “like a zombie in a cheap new suit” where Canada’s iconic Eaton’s department store once proudly stood. I’ve been away from home for a long long time - thanks for the memories, however self-deprecating.