VFTGF at the Phillips Gallery, Brewhouse (2004)

VFTGF at Pixxelpoint (2003)

exhibition history

2005, Images Festival + Film and New Media Festival + Canada + Internet

2004, LDAF 6th National Film Festival + Film Festival, National Film Theatre + London, UK

2004, Siggraph04 + Group Exhibition + USA

2004, New Forms Festival + Group Exhibition + Online and Vancouver

2004, FILE 2004 + Group Exhibition + Internet + São Paulo, Brazil

2004, Split Film Festival 04 + Group Exhibition + Croatia

2004, Solo exhibition, + Phillips Gallery : Brewhouse Art Centre + Taunton, UK

2004, Media Forum 2004

2004, Moscow International Film Festival, + Moscow & Internet

2004, VI Salon Internanional de arte digital, + Group Exhibition + Internet + Cuba

2004, no-org.net, + Group Video/Net/Art exhibition, + Internet

2004, Trampoline: Hidden Narratives, + Group Screening, + Berlin

2004, MAF04, + Group Exhibition, Thailand New Media Art Festival + Thailand

2004, Netart from Great Britain and Ireland + Group Exhibition + Internet

2003, views from the ground floor... + Artist studio, Turbulence.org + Internet

2003, pixxelpoint 2003, + Computer Art Festival (Pixel City installation), + Nova Gorcia, Slovenia

2003, Mad03, Group Exhibition + Internet

Reviews

See 'ninthletter' - Featured Artist: Jess Loseby (VFTGF)

Extract from ‘Visioni domestiche’ (RANDOM) 2003

The atmosphere created is (as often in her work) those of domestic servants, on leave from the kitchen, watching statically from another point of view, trying to receive the spiritual presences. Entering the net.film from a distance it immediately hammers you with a repeated obsession of cyber persona and the infinite, with witnesses who transform themselves in varying images. Loseby’s view is of shoulder height and we almost watch it secretly, while she traces an enigmatic eye icon with her fingers on the flour, This is followed, page after page, a film that immortalizes other moments of her familiar life: the school, the children, the car. The music that accompanies the work is by Clive Loseby, composer and husband of the artist and with its obsessive melody and melancholy it increases the sense mystical of the work. (francesca de nicolò – translated digitally from Italian)

Extract from ‘Views from the Ground Floor – Marc Garret’ (FurtherField Review) 2004

The work has a latent extra dimension, in that it was created to be exhibited, not only on the Internet, but also in a physical space as a variable dimension installation. The piece may be seen in the form of two interactive projections, with a sculptural element in the presentation. This is a conscious effort by Loseby to open up the work to audiences new to net art.

The title, Views from the ground floor, suggests a reference to the attention paid by the artist to domestic, personal and emotional context as opposed to historical overview. The visitor journeys gently from one scene to the next interacting with each segment accordingly, getting further entwined into the fabric of Loseby's emotionally tuned lair. Each scene of this mini-epic is complete, exploring separate themes, sensations, sub-plots and stories. This montage plays to create subtle shifts and connections within the overall plot, continually emphasizing how multi-layered the work actually is.

Even though Jess Loseby’s work has expanded in terms of its formal creation and presentation, much of the content and subjective nuances persist, with the continuation of ironic reflections of her family life and situation from a mother’s standing point, also from the perspective of a creative individual. Her identity is a significant part of her work, declaring a kind of visceral realness that does not rely on the medium itself to justify who she is. In other words, Jess does not hide behind the medium.

”Mainstream art history has filed the personal and emotional under kitsch and feminist art - addressing everyday experiences. The only "something else" linked to net-art is the technology. I think it is probably not emotional laziness, but an attempt to separate net-art as a different kind of thing. It's a shame, I would regret that ....” Talking Together - Jess Loseby & Tara Noid - Constructing Identity 2002.

Her personal presence and emotional reasoning is an intrinsic part of the work, this includes the drama of the everyday, daily life is a valuable resource. This is another aspect of the work that communicates on various levels, making it possible to reach people who do not necessarily understand the aesthetics of new media and all its variants. Anyone can get something out this artwork for it touches on human frailty and personal politics that we all have to contend with. (marc garret)

Extract from ‘Views from the Ground Floor - Jacques Perron’ (FDL) 2004

Right form the start, views from the ground floor announces a tone that is different from her previous work. The work is presented as a series of scenes. One walks through the site moving from one scene to another, like so many chapters in a book. Again applying the montage and encrypting strategies she has refined over the years, the artist now infuses her work with a calm and melancholy atmosphere: the music is sometimes piercing, one hears the sound of bells rocked by the wind, children’s' whisperings, the sound of a dripping faucet, specks of light flickering on the screen, piano notes slowly falling off...

More ambitious than her previous works, views from the ground floor is a refined combination of the different elements brought into play in the elaboration of the work — visual, audio, and textual. Each scene is presented as complete, as having its own existence, but Loseby weaves webs of meaning between one scene and the other, provoking sensations, without, however, imposing a prescribed reading. One has the impression that the artist is giving more place to her family life. Her children always present in the past but in a more mysterious way, here become more and more present, be it only in the texts. A reflection on time, it’s passing, its fleetingness is also tangible here. It maybe precipitous to use the word maturity when speaking of a young artist, but in the wake of her first works with their sarcasm and anger, this does seem to be the appropriate qualification for views from the ground floor, both on the level of form and content. (J.P. © 2003 FDL)