Scopaesthesia, or "the psychic staring effect," is the sensation of being stared at, the awareness of being seen from behind.
In this collection of experimental short films, the artists are present, but their backs are turned to us. Via a dream-stream of remixed, layered, and repurposed analogue media, each film exists as a strange and sensory lo-fi world, examining body, desire, sex, gender, loss, performance, distance, and connection.
Each of these films represent a sort of "break through" for the artists, marking moments when their practices shifted, clarified, and/or broke open in new ways. Collectively, the filmmakers are acutely self-aware while also attuned with the presence of the viewer as they traverse through the slippery, meandering, and transitory lines of thought which make up each work
To celebrate their current issue, themed “Film, Animation & Video,” Artillery Magazinepresents a selection of films, including Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari’s Port of Memory (2010) and shorter works by Tony Cokes, Margaret Lazzari, Olivia Mole, Alisa Yang, and Razan al-Salah. The evening’s lineup has been selected by the magazine’s editorial staff and co-curated with filmmaker Alisa Yang.
Please note: seating is limited. Box Office opens thirty minutes prior to the listed showtime. Online ticket sales will be honored up until 15 minutes after the scheduled showtime. In-store ticket purchases are subject to availability, first-come, first-served. We do not operate a standby list.
sometimes doing nothing leads to something
June 23 - July 22, 2023
LYDIAN STATER
Opening reception: Friday, June 23rd, 2023, 6-9PM
21st St, Floor 4, Long Island City, NY
Getting Here: Located off the 7 (Hunters Point Avenue), G (21st Street), and LIRR (Long Island City) stations. Street parking available.
“No one seems to know how useful it is to be useless”
- Zhuangzi
Translation by Thomas Merton from The Way of Chuang Tzu
Lydian Stater is thrilled to present an exhibition of new works from antidisciplinary artist and independent filmmaker Alisa Yang, her first solo exhibition with the gallery.
There is evidence that humans have not always had a name for the color blue and some pre-modern cultures did not even distinguish between the colors green and blue. It was not until the color blue was named that humans began to actually discern it. To Yang, this theory is an analogy for the way society treats invisible disabilities like chronic illnesses, mental health conditions, and neurodivergence. Using this conceptual framework, she explores a range of concerns related to her ongoing investigation of her own invisible disabilities.
In sometimes doing nothing leads to something, Alisa Yang invites you to be useless. To take a break from the social, political, and financial demands that often seem to organize our existence and decompress in an intentioned sensory space. But she also wants to remind you that being useless is powerful. It is a protest against a flawed economic system that privileges able-bodied and neurotypical individuals.
In Good Company
w/ Matthew Cronin, Carlos Franco, Wieteke Heldens, Alexandro Silver, Anika Todd, Catalina Tuca, Joseph Wilcox, Huidi Xiang, & Alisa Yang
November 11 - December 18, 2022
The Lydian Stater Collector Pass is an annual pass issued in the form of an NFT that guarantees ownership of exclusive physical and digital artworks from every artist exhibited in our 2023 season. The Collector Pass is sold on a sliding scale from $500-$2000 annually.
We’re launching the Collector Pass program with a group exhibition and big ol’ party on Friday, November 11. Please join us.
Chronic Stillness:
Wieteke Heldens & Alisa Yang
February 18 - March 31, 2022
Rest is our foundation for a liberated world. Care is how we will shift culture. Rest today, make space for others to rest today. And we will rest.”
—Tricia Hersey (aka “Nap Bishop”), 1-833-LUV-NAPS, automated voice message, November 11, 2020
Lydian Stater is excited to present Chronic Stillness: Wieteke Heldens & Alisa Yang, a two-person exhibition featuring new NFT works from both artists. Utilizing video and digital technologies, the works explore ideas related to self-care, rest, observation, and illness.
Heldens and Yang are no strangers to involuntary idleness. Due to chronic illness, they often find themselves in a weakened state and sometimes even bed bound. Because of the immense amount of time expected by an economic system that prioritizes productivity over health, keeping a conventional studio practice for chronically ill artists can be near impossible. Both artists in this exhibition have found ways to subvert these expectations: Heldens, through a self-generating conceptual approach, and Yang, through routinely embedded lens-based methods.
Heldens’ practice contains self-imposed algorithmic limitations derived from her immediate surroundings, with no definitive solutions. Embedded in the work are codes and keys needed to decrypt their meaning. Like a jigsaw puzzle used to pass the time, paintings like Heldens’ It’s Like, You Know encourage a close and slow reading that emphasizes observation over expediency and an attention to form or formlessness.