Granary Arts invites you to join us for "Captioned" a solo exhibition by artist Liza Sylvestre curated by Jason Judd.
Opening Reception
Friday, October 12, 6-8 pm
Captioned
Friday, October 12 - Friday, December 14, 2018
86 N Main Street
Ephraim, Utah 84627
Captioned by artist Liza Sylvestre is a feature length, single-channel video interpretation of the 1934 screwball comedy film "Twentieth Century" starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard. As an individual with a profound hearing impairment, Sylvestre depends on closed captioning or other interpretive texts to have complete understanding of films. In Captioned, the artist replaces the missing closed captioning in the movie with what she describes as "self-commentary". Sylvestre explains her process while creating the piece, "Sometimes I record what I think is happening, often I record my visual observations, and sometimes my mind wanders, and I record that as well." This fast-paced, dialogue-heavy comedy-complete with improbable and complicated narratives-affords Sylvestre many opportunities to reveal her experience enduring incomprehensible cinematic situations.
Sylvestre's significant hearing loss progressed throughout her formative years until 2003, when she underwent cochlear implant surgery. Her experience leads her to explore, through a multidisciplinary practice in art, how senses alter experiences of the world-more specifically, how she can investigate this concept as, she states, "an individual who is medically, although not culturally, deaf." While viewing Captioned, an enabled audience encounters oscillating narratives: the narrative of the original film, the narrative of Sylvestre's experience, and the unique narrative produced by experiencing both simultaneously.
