Two video installations by Jenn E Norton, located at Kitchener City Hall and at the Communitech Hive, imaginatively translate phenomena that exist outside of our visual perception, expressed using analogous computer generated images. The geometric shape of a tesseract, which is a cube in the fourth dimension and is elusive to our eyes in the third dimension, is imagined by the artist as architectural structures in an urban landscape. Norton positions the viewer within a 3D model of an abstracted tesseract in the video installation located at Communitech’s Hive, an interactive immersive environment controlled by the viewer’s gaze. An animated projection on the Berlin Tower atop of City Hall transforms the existing architecture of the building into a whirring mass of shapes that defy their concrete materiality.  Together, these works draw parallels between how we discern visual art and envisage that which we cannot see.

 

Tesseract will premiere at the completion of Norton’s artist residency with Christie Digital, a collaborator and sponsor of CAFKA. Norton is the first artist to work with Christie Digital in conjunction with CAFKA, a position that will continue in future CAFKA biennial exhibitions.

 

Jenn E Norton is an artist working with video, installation, sound and kinetic sculpture. She holds an MFA  from the University of Guelph and a BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design. She has shown her work at The Macdonald Stewart  Art Centre (Guelph), Saw Video (Ottawa), Nuit Blanche (Toronto) and the Nova Scotia Art Gallery (Halifax) among other national and international festivals. Playing with the elastic qualities inherent of digital technologies, Norton engages themes of myth, agency and the opulence of artifice within the construct of spectacle. Norton draws from her eclectic background as a video editor, special effects animator, painter and circus performer to create her highly visual, performative aesthetic.