ADORATION video

A new interactive video installation by Teresa Ascencao

Wait a minute. Is that fashion designer Irene Stickney in a video art installation sporting three different outfits? Yes that Irene, she sure gets her fingers in a lot of pies.

Irene was selected alongside two other Toronto women, from an online request posted on craigslist.com by artist Teresa Ascencao. Each of the women was asked to pick three outfits that represented them in various states of relaxation, fun or work. Once the women were video taped by Ascencao, their images were plunked down inside an interactive world of ‘kitsch’ that viewers could manipulate and decorate in as kitschy a fashion as they desire.

I recommend if you are downtown to pop into the gallery space and into Ascencao’s world. You control from the comfort of an easy chair the kitsch furnishings surrounding the three women, as they walk endlessly from room to room, towards a mirror that shows no reflection. They primp and preen themselves in their various outfits as the viewer – that could be you – uses a specially designed remote control device to add or remove decorative features from Ascencao’s imaginary rooms.

Suite 376, 401 Richmond St West – installation runs until Feb, 20 - artist talk on Feb, 10 at 2:30 p.m.

Sonja Andic