DATA MINING
Wallspace
July 6 - August 5, 2006

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Conrad Bakker
Jay Chung
Dora Garcia
Chris Moukarbel
Karen Reimer
Gerhard Richter
[The voice of] Robert Smithson
Donelle Woolford

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CHRIS MOUKARBEL is interested in how culture is created, expanded and shared, and who if anyone can claim ownership. Whether installing stuffed-animal memorials on city streets or inventing his own niche market Internet pornography (select cuts of meat having sex with each other), Moukarbel is a willing participant in his chosen cultural idioms rather than a detached observer.

A new work, World Trade Center 2006 is a bootleg of Oliver Stone's up-coming film on the same subject. The video was composed from a copy of the script and was shot entirely in the artist¡s studio with handmade sets, borrowed equipment and student actors. The video was first released on www.pointsofdeparture.net, deliberately pre-empting the official release of Stone's film, slated for August 2006. The broad distribution and democratic access of the video¡s Internet premier is an explicit challenge to Stone's and Hollywood's assumed authority (and creative ownership) of the events of September 11th, 2001, events that all of us saw and felt.

The video has since been removed from circulation due to a restraining order issued by The Federal Court of the District of Columbia at the request of Paramount Pictures. Moukarbel's contribution to Data Mining will be a deliberate (and wholly legal) response to this legal action.

Links
www.pointsofdeparture.net
jameswagner.com
www.filmmakermagazine.com