Club SAW's first monthly event returns in 2005 for another Sunday evening visual jam. Configure is a relaxed event open to all for the enjoyment of cutting edge visuals before another week of mind numbing work.

The event is also meant to be a space for exchange between VJs and those interested in this experimental practice, for novices and experienced artists alike. You are welcome to bring mixing gear, patches or quicktime clips that can be loaded into software such as Module8, Arkaos or GRID2. We should have a variety of mixing equipment for use at the event including 3 different models of videomixers, G4 laptops, DVD players as well as an Edirol PCR-30 MIDI keyboard.

In anticipation of the SAW Gallery's opening for their exhibition THE WINTERLIFE, which will include the NHL themed Remix 2004, the theme for this jam is winter. From rough and ready hockey to luscious white noise the floor is open for interpretation.

Mixing starts at 8PM on Sunday January 30th. Admission is Free.

Upcoming in February for Configure is a potential workshop collaboration with artengine on a different approach to live video processing.

In March another VJ workshop will also be available dealing with MIDI triggering and software such as Module8 and Arkaos, as well as covering many of the basics of VJ tools and techniques.

If you are interested in the upcoming workshop please call Doug Smalley at SAW Video (613) 238-7648 or in the Configure Sunday Jam please contact Ryan Stec at videodrone@sympatico.ca 

The 2005 CFTPA Guide has arrived! This yearly publication by the Canadian Film and Television Producers' Association is a valuable source of information on service providers, producers, and distributors from across Canada. Our single, sole copy resides in our members' resource centre. Please don't remove it from the office - others will need it.

Other resources available to members include files with info on festivals, distributors and grant applications.

Sun February 20th, 2005 
12:00pm - 5:00pm

AVID Xpress DV is the ideal solution for anyone looking to edit DV on the desktop while maintaining many of the same features and the same interface as the more powerful dedicated AVID editing systems. The course will cover all steps of the process from setting up and capturing from a DV device, using the timeline based interface, and outputting back to DV or exporting for the web.

Limited to 4 participants

Instructor: Jacob Hanna

Members $60.00 Non Members $70.00

Duration: 5 hours

Sat February 26th, 2005 
11:00am - 5:00pm

This one-day workshop teaches the basics of camera, audio and lighting through hands on training.

Participants will receive basic instruction on all three of SAW Video\'s prime 3-chip MiniDV cameras -- the Canon XL1, Panasonic AG-DVX100 and the Sony PD-150. The workshop is an excellent opportunity to compare the features and capabilities of these cameras before going out on your first shoot!

Participants will be introduced to three point lighting and dealing with power on location. A variety of mics will be used and their applications will be discussed.

Limited to 6 participants Instructor: Ray Hagel

Ray has been a member of SAW Video since 1983.  He is a freelance videographer and is best known mostly for his work on The Tom Green Show.

Members $50.00 Non Members $60.00

Duration: 6 hours

The Canada Council for the Arts PROGRAM OFFICER, VISUAL ARTS SALARY RANGE: $53, 703 TO $ 63,310 INDETERMINATE POSITION The Canada Council for the Arts is an independent national agency which provides grants and services to professional Canadian artists and arts organizations. It is funded by and reports to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Under the direct supervision of the Head, Visual Arts Section, the officer manages programs of assistance for individual artists, arts groups, and/or arts organizations. As a member of the Visual Arts Section the officer contributes to the development of policies and programs for the Council; provides information services and support to the artistic community; works to ensure access for professional Canadian artists and arts organizations to Council programs and services and anticipates and responds to the developmental needs of the arts practice.

The ideal candidate has :

• at least 5 years of experience and in-depth knowledge of the history and current status of the visual arts, particularly in the field of artist run centres;
• a good understanding of the Council’s policies and its role as a funding agency; • a university degree or equivalent professional practice in the field; 
• strong communication and interpersonal skills; demonstrated abilities to build strong effective working relationships; and 
• the ability to anticipate problems and to show leadership in identifying and responding to issues.

A working knowledge of both official languages is essential. The position is located in Ottawa, Ontario. The incumbent is required to travel between 20 and 35 days per year.

Knowledge of the diversity of cultural practices in Canada, including non-Western forms and Aboriginal Peoples arts practices, is also a priority. A sensitivity to their distinct value and the contribution that they make to artistic and cultural life in Canada is essential.

Please submit your application form along with your CV to Human Resources, quoting competition number 3611, no later than February 4th, 2005. The Canada Council for the Arts, 350 Albert Street, P.O. Box 1047, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5V8. Fax (613) 566-4323 or email to competition@canadacouncil.ca. Application forms are located on the web site at www.canadacouncil.ca/council/jobs. 

We thank all applicants for their interest; however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted. The Canada Council for the Arts is committed to employment equity

The Ottawa International Animation Festival is seeking a dynamic OFFICE MANAGER.

The job is through a government work program (HRSDC) which requires that you are receiving E.I. or you that were on E.I. and the benefits ran out.

We need someone who excels at organization and doing a bit of everything. You should enjoy film and animation and like working in a casual and sometimes chaotic environment.

These are some of the duties you would handle:

- Handle or forward inquiries from the public via phone, email and fax. - Manage office administration including database - Manage all inter-office communication - Volunteer Coordination - Work with other staff and take on other appropriate projects - Light bookkeeping

Skills Required:

- Excellent communication and people skills - Some bookkeeping - Some retail or has worked with cash - Must have spoken French and other languages an asset. - Good organizational skills / able to work in a busy environment - Strong computer skills - word processing, database and internet programs

The position starts February 14 and will run to September 9th with a possible extension happening.

Please email (neall@magma.ca), fax (232-6315) or send (OIAF, 2 Daly Ave, Ottawa, ON K1N 6E2) your resume to us by Friday, January 28th. Please include a cover letter stating why you would be a fantastic choice for this position.

For more information about us - have a look at our website at http://www.animationfestival.ca

ARTISTS OF ALL DISCIPLINES CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The Gibraltar Point International Artist Residency Program on Toronto Island, Toronto, Canada is now accepting submissions for the June 2005 Term

Submission Deadline: 4PM FEBRUARY 4TH, 2005

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS, A STANDARD APPLICATION FORM AND ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS CAN BE FOUND AT www.torontoartscape.on.ca/gpiarp 

GOALS OF THE RESIDENCY PROGRAM

To stimulate discourse and unite professional artists from varied regional, cultural and aesthetic backgrounds To offer artists an opportunity to think, experiment and create in an environment that is highly conducive to creativity To provide artists with concentrated time to focus on a project To assist artists with making contacts in the Toronto arts community

ELIGIBILITY

The competition is geared to individuals only and is open to Canadian and international professional artists Applicants must be 20 years of age or older and can be at any stage of their career but may not be enrolled in any arts degree program Applications are accepted from artist/creators working in a variety of disciplines including community and environmental art, visual, new media, literary, film + video, theatre and sound

EVALUATION CRITERIA

Quality of work as well as the proposed project to be carried out during the residency Applicant’s expressed interest in contributing to and being part of a diverse community of artists Suitability of project to available studio space and a retreat-like setting Applicant’s desire to participate in an exchange with fellow artists in residence

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS, A STANDARD APPLICATION FORM AND ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS CAN BE FOUND AT www.torontoartscape.on.ca/gpiarp 

For questions regarding the Gibraltar Point International Artist Residency Program please contact Susan Serran, Director of Arts Programs and Services by e-mail only at susan@torontoartscape.on.ca 

The Gibraltar Point International Artist Residency Program is hosted and managed by Artscape with the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.

Remix Returns!

Date: Thursday, February 3, 2005. Doors open at 8PM. Screening at 10PM. Free admission and cash bar. Music by DJs Linus and Chameleonic.

Location: Galerie SAW Gallery, 67 Nicholas Street, Ottawa

Artists: Tony Asimakopoulos (Ottawa), Kerry Campbell (Ottawa), Lee Demarbre (Ottawa), Adad Hannah (Montréal), Donna James (Ottawa), laura jeanne lefave (Gatineau / Montréal), Jenny Lin (Montréal), Liss Platt (Hamilton), Frank Shebageget (Ottawa), Dan Sokolowski (Ottawa) + Susan Terrill (Ottawa / Los Angeles).

Audio performance: Pho (Ian Swain)

Curators: Anne Clarke and Ryan Stec

It is a strange time to be a hockey fan. The recent victory of Canada's junior team means our country is home to almost every major world hockey championship. Yet the Stanley Cup, donated by Governor General Lord Preston Stanley in 1892, now sits in limbo somewhere between Cape Canaveral and the Florida Keys.

In anticipation of the impending cancellation of the 2004-2005 NHL season, marking only the 2nd time in the Cup's 113-year history that it might not be presented, we have commissioned 10 video artists and 1 DJ to reflect on one of our countries most potent icons. Each of the artists was provided with the same inspiration ­ the last period of that increasingly significant and poetic game 7 of the 2004 Stanley Cup.

Glory. Loss. Violence. Grace. Nationalism. Money. Like a highlights reel gone terribly wrong, the videos tackle all the drama of the last bit of NHL hockey we have all been privy to experience.

Armed with its healthy disregard for copyright law, this third installment of Ottawa¹s most popular video program brings the world premiere of 10 new remixes by some of Montréal and Ottawa¹s hottest video artists, from cult film director Lee Demarbre to self-professed art jock Liss Platt. Their videos are a rare and beautiful collision of art and sport.

And to complete the evening, Ottawa¹s own DJ Pho will premiere a new scratch performance combining vinyl and digital samples for a new-style hockey song, mixing heavy beats and traditional arena soundtracks.

- Ryan Stec

" (Remix) believes monolithic media outlets looking for legal retribution from a scraggly group of underground artists lurking in the fringes of the nation's capitol would find themselves between a rock and a hard place." - Wes Smiderle on Remix 2003, The Ottawa Citizen.

Remix 2004 is being presented as part of the exhibition THE WINTER LIFE at Galerie SAW Gallery. Remix was made possible by the generous support of the Available Light Screening Collective, SAW Video and OBORO. To know more about THE WINTER LIFE, please consult www.galeriesawgallery.com.

GALERIE SAW GALLERY PRESENTS
THE WINTER LIFE

ARTISTS: 

• Joelle Ciona (Vancouver), 
• Eryn Foster (Halifax), 
• Barney Pattunguyak (Baker Lake), 
• Liss Platt (Hamilton) 
• Laura Splan (San Francisco) 

CURATORIAL THINK TANK: 

• Darsha Hewitt, 
• Stefan St-Laurent, 
• Ryan Stec,
•  Ming Tiampo
•  Tam-Ca Vo-Van

DATES: February 3 - March 19, 2005

OPENING: Thursday, February 3 from 8PM to 1AM. World premiere of Remix 2004 at 10PM followed by an audio performance by Pho. Free admission and cash bar.

PERFORMANCE: Puck Paintings by Liss Platt, Saturday, February 5 from 12PM to 2PM, on the Rideau Canal at Patterson Creek. Presented in collaboration with Winterlude. Free admission. Audience participation is encouraged.

A common metaphor in many of the world's most celebrated novels, winter has not been ignored by visual artists, who often relate their own dark experiences through a cold, foggy lense. Indeed, it could be said that there is no better circumstance than to put a subject in the alienating landscape of winter, where everything that we know is lightly covered by an enormous blanket of snow or ice. More interestingly, we try to fool ourselves into believing that this season is not that bad - cold weather, expensive heating, limited access - by using coping devices that create physical and psychological barriers. We half-believe that we can have a superhuman control over the Earth's elements.

A look at fashion, sports, architecture, leisure and survival in the harshest of seasons, the exhibition The Winter Life brings together some of North America's most challenging contemporary artists, who explore, by various means, the good, bad and ugly sides of winter. Presented on various sites, including the Rideau Canal and the SAW outdoor courtyard, the artists' works all evade the trappings of conventional winter portraiture.

In Laura Splan's photographic diptych Blood Scarf, a garment is constructed from plastic tubing and inserted into the wearer's arm. Blood travels through the scarf via an intravenous needle on one arm while blood is slowly released from the other end. Draining one's self of blood to create warmth during cold times is a particularly compromising (and romantic) predicament that inevitably ends in shivers and death. As a conceptual work, Blood Scarf pushes the limits of body art by placing a human subject in a situation that is almost the ultimate parody of a performance piece gone too far. This possibility of dominating nature for a short while is a common thread connecting Splan, Barney Pattunguyak, Eryn Foster and Joelle Ciona's work.

In Condensation, Joelle Ciona tests the limits of the body by pushing herself across Lake Louise in an ice box, her nude body creating an alarming amount of condensation and heat. Looking like she is caught between the netherworlds of birth and death, peering disconcertingly through the steamed surfaces of the box, we are faced with the certainty of a human's will to survive. Produced during a residency at The Banff Centre for the Arts, Ciona's taped performance is a perfect example of a contextual work that brings the whole Rocky Mountain or Canadian experience - ice fishing, skating, igloo living, dressing warmly, etc. - to a simple play of mind over matter.

As a counterpoint to this somewhat gloomy work is Eryn Foster's sculpture Ice Utopia, made entirely from frozen pieces created from Tupperware containers and constructed to resemble fantasy, and even Russian Utopian, architecture. A striking contrast to this ice utopia, which dissipates over winter, are the plastic containers used to construct it, which will arguably remain on Earth forever. Permanence over impermanence, like the changing and always recurrent seasons, is a strong theme in this work. Also, Foster's unliveable Utopia will remind many of childhood's idealized sand castles and snow forts, all washed away many moons ago.

Barney Pattunguyak imagines the world's first Inuk superhero, Super Shamou, who protects the Canadian wilderness and teaches children the harsh realities of life in the Artic. Certainly a spoof of Superman - that perfectly Caucasian male who seduces more than he saves - Super Shamou looks and acts just like a regular Inuk Joe who happens to fly. Although the flying scenes are a little unconvincing, due to limited resources and to video's capabilities at the time, we are more enraptured by the context than we are by Shamou's special powers. In fact, he is a sort of antihero created by the autonomous Inuit Broadcasting Corporation. Founded in 1981, the IBC was formed in direct response to the proliferation of southern televisual images being disseminated to the North, threatening a culture that was already impacted by trade and religion. What a better way to counter America's rapidly expanding Capitalist regime than to produce Superman's cultural nemesis? Pattunguyak's tape will premiere in its new, restored version during the exhibition.

For the exhibition's opening party, 8 Canadian artists will have remixed a short video work from last year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, shuffling one of television's biggest cash cows to speak about violence, endurance and power.

The Canadian Film Institute presents the CANADIAN PREMIERE of:

HORSIE’S RETREAT

A new film by Tony Asimakopoulos

Thursday, January 27th, 7:00pm at the National Archives of Canada, 395 Wellington Street

SAW VIDEO MEMBERS GET IN FOR $6! Regular Admission $9

HORSIE’S RETREAT was made through the Canadian Film Centre’s Feature Film Project. It runs 76 mins, followed by a reception! Then, at 9pm, if you like you can check out 3 SHORTS by Tony Asimakopoulos: JIMMY FINGERS, MAMA’S BOY & DAMN NEAR KILLED HIM.

HORSIE'S RETREAT was also just invited to the 3 Americas Film Festival/ Festival de cinéma des 3 Amériques in Quebec City, March 30 to April 3, 2005

For more info check out the CFI site: http://www.cfi-icf.ca/index.html 

And the film’s website: www.horsiesretreat.com 

Hope to see you there!

SAW Video member Chantal Dahan is having an exhibition at axeneo7

For more information go to http://www.axeneo7.qc.ca/axedroite1.htm. 

CSTC is organizing an OMDC information session on Ontario Film Tax Credits on Wednesday February 2, 3pm 
for new producers or producers who have not accessed the credits yet.

Click here for details on the information session

Canadian Screen Training Centre   
 www.cstc.ca
 (613) 789-4720