2021-2022
arc (USA) operates as a collective entity that seeks to work outside of a framework that privileges the solitary authorship of objects as a point of artistic creation and finitude, looking instead to a process of intersubjective communal encounter as a locus from which the work generates. As a conceptual and political praxis, the process of this work carries an implicit critique of individuation which necessitates a de-emphasis on any biographical identities involved. As conductive vessels, a configuration of material elements are used to initiate this process, including (but not limited to): photochemical film, performance, sound & light installation, written language, & time-based sculpture. arc is usually initiated by tooth, an artist living in Oakland who has operated the microcinema/archive black hole cinematheque since 2009. arc’s work has been presented at numerous galleries, museums, and exhibition spaces around the world, including The Lab, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Cinematheque, San Francisco Film Festival, City Limits Gallery, Shapeshifters Gallery, CounterPulse, Artist’s Television Access, The Stud, In Process Projects, SOMArts, Mutek SF, Sutro Baths Cave, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Massart Film Society (Boston), The Nightingale (Chicago), Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), Dirt Palace (Providence, RI), Spectacle Theater (Brooklyn), Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center (Buffalo), NDSM Treehouse (Amsterdam), All Hallows Church (London), Atelier Äuglein (Berlin), L’Abominable (La Courneuve), Les Innatendus Film Festival (Lyon), La Cueva (Mexico City), among others.
Guided by intuition and Max Ernst’s theory of collage—which he defines roughly as the coincidental encounter of unrelated realities and the spark of poetry between them—Tooth aims to create a poetic experience he calls “time-based sculpture.” His goal is to counter the stultifying effects of mainstream movies and to blur the line between art and life. — Zoe Brezny, East Bay Express