Still running at Optica is the exhibition Webcams and Chatrooms by Cheryl Sourkes.

Sourkes presents a series of stills taken from random webcams, enlarged and printed onto glossy paper. The dithered colour palette and the strong, fuzzy pixellation lend these stark images a painterly feel. In the small gallery you’ll find a screening of live-stream internet chats and movies, allowing you to “lurk” in the dark as private messages scroll down the monitor. Sourkes’ work investigates the ambiguity which is created when the “real” world is transferred into the “virtual” world. Are the people in these images willing participants or random subjects of surveillance? Is what we’re seeing acting or behaving? Is the viewer gathering information or simply a voyeur? This exhibits poses pertinent questions at a time when “Big Brother” is invited into our lives.

Optica
space 508
Cheryl Sourkes
Webcams and Chatrooms
exhibition period: May 10 – June 14, 2008
www.optica.ca