Hacking Time

Adam Magyar
Stuart Reid
David Rokeby
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March 2016

Whether modifying hardware and software to make videos in hyper-slow motion, or drafting large scale figure drawings with ink and charcoal, internationally renowned artists Adam Magyar (Berlin), David Rokeby (Toronto) and Stuart Reid (Toronto), bend conventional representations of time and space to push the boundaries of what we can see. Looking at everyday people gathered in public places in major cities, our eyes are duped into an unusual experience of slow, seductive time.
David Rokeby’s mesmerizing video Whirl gradually morphs the circling skaters at the Nathan Phillips Square rink into brush-like paint strokes. In his hypnotically compelling Stainless series, Adam Magyar elongates 12-second shots of bystanders in subway stations into a 12-minute long continuous flow of people seemingly frozen in time. But then: an eye blinks, a lip twitches, a finger moves, a little girl gracefully moves along the platform. Stuart Reid’s in transit series of seven-foot high drawings of people riding the subway read like meditations on a singular moment in a commuter’s life. Reid developed this series as a precursor to his 500-foot long glass mural, zones of immersion, commissioned for Toronto’s Union Station.
Engaging with these artists’ works prompts thinking about the preciousness of now, and around the timeless themes of Self and Other, seeing and being seen, human connection and isolation, private and public.

Special thanks to the Grey Zone Collective.

Adam Magyar (born 1972) is a Berlin-based Hungarian photographer and video artist. His works have been exhibited in various solo and group shows internationally including Helsinki Photography Biennial in Finland, MFAH Mixed Media event and the Graduate School of Design Harvard University in the USA, Berlin Selected Artists exhibitions in Germany, the Ethnographic Museum Budapest and Faur Zsofi Gallery in Hungary, Rhubarb Rhubarb in the UK and Karin Weber Gallery in Hong Kong. His works are present in the collections of Deutsche Bank, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum and the Bidwell Projects. His photographs have been published in the book In the Life of Cities by the Graduate School of Design Harvard University, Light and Lens by Robert Hirsch, and in photography magazines including PDN and PQ Magazine in the USA, Flash Art in Hungary, Digital Camera Magazine in UK and Katalog in Denmark.
www.magyaradam.com

Born in London, Ontario, Stuart Reid is an internationally renowned glass artist as well as an architectural and urban designer, a painter and poet. Reid studied with Paterson Ewen, Greg Curnoe, Richard DeMarco, Patrick Reyntiens and Joseph Beuys. He holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Guelph and a Masters of Architecture from UCLA. Reid currently teaches Environmental Design at OCAD University. His many major public artworks include windows in St. James Cathedral (unveiled and dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II), the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga, the Intercontinental Toronto Centre and Bloorview Kids Rehab. His works abroad include a major two-storey artwork for the Salzburg Congress. Stuart Reid’s show ‘beliefs’ opens April 2 at Gallery Gevik in Toronto and runs until April 30.
www.stuartreid.ca

Born in Tillsonburg, Ontario in 1960, David Rokeby has been creating interactive sound and video installations with computers since 1982. His early work Very Nervous System (1982-1991) is acknowledged as a pioneering work of interactive art, translating physical gestures into real-time interactive sound environments. Very Nervous System was presented at the Venice Biennale in 1986, and was awarded the first Petro-Canada Award for Media Arts in 1988 and Austria's Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Interactive Art in 1991. In 2002, Rokeby was awarded a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Interactive Art (for n-cha(n)t), and represented Canada at the Venice Biennale of Architecture with Seen (2002). In 2004 he represented Canada at the São Paulo Bienal in Brazil. In 2007 he completed major art commissions for the Ontario Science Centre and the Daniel Langlois Foundation in Montréal. His 400 foot long, 72 foot high sculpture entitled long wave was one of the hits at the Luminato Festival in Toronto (2009).
www.davidrokeby.com