Gasworks
Mirza & Butler
1 September 2007 - 15th October 2007
About Vasl
Based in Lahore, Vasl is a platform for contemporary Pakistani art and artists, committed to creating spaces for exchange through residencies and workshops.
About the residency
Mirza & Butler's film and video installations question the filmic, sculptural and architectonic qualities of the moving image. They install their films in architectural configurations, frequently presenting them across two or three screens to question the relationship between film framing, structure and projection and the psychological and perceptual projection of experience onto the work by the viewer. In this way the work blurs the distinction between film and sculpture, art and cinema.
In Pakistan they have proposed to explore the boundary between documentary, 'performance' and conceptual art with the camera acting as both a protagonist in the staging of a scene as well as a recording mechanism for the un/scripted mise-en-scène.
At Vasl, Mirza and Butler ran video workshops as well as producing two experimental film projects around ideas of authorship, performance and image control. Their enriching encounter with Karachi has resulted in a commission by Art Angel of a new body of work 'The Museum of Non-Participation' and they have since returned to the city.
