Stand by your guns
Jillian Mcdonald
(spanish)
From movies to computer games, political posturing to gangster rap, the images and meanings of military and popular weapons have become embedded in our everyday dialogue in America. “Stand By Your Guns” is a web project that simultaneously glorifies and vilifies the gun, masquerading as a children’s fun centre. Imagery from pop-culture combines with language from the National Rifle Association Literature to create a “soft politic”.
Charlton Heston - legendary American actor, political conservative, and Christian evangelist has been a major proponent of gun possession and as a public famous figure has had a great deal of influence. Indeed, his status as larger-than-life American hero has landed him the role of president of the National Rifle Association. His proclamation that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, and his war cry “…from my cold dead hand” are infamous. That he has been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and will likely have his weapons removed from his home is an irony – Heston has been outspoken about his perceived link between liberty and gun possession.
Visitors can watch film clips featuring guns, play gun-related games, learn to identify personal weapons, complete puzzles and color pictures of guns, print out slogans onto iron-on fabric for t-shirts, and periodically view Charlton Heston via webcam in his rest home. Recorded soundtracks such as laugh tracks, gunshots, and applause pepper the experience, and increase the macabre absurdity.
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I teach art at Pace University in New York City, where I also curate and co-direct the Pace Digital Gallery. My critical writing focuses on performative art in temporary or unexpected places, and curated projects include Ebay: Buy or Sell or Buy, an online exhibition whose works intervene in the online auction house and invite visitors into momentary relationships with the artists.
“My conscious exhibition strategies engage an audience comprised of a very general public that is not necessarily expecting art or gathered in established arts venues. I interrupt the flow of quotidian public exchange, inviting strangers into momentary relationships. I create websites that infiltrate and participate in online fan culture, offer advice to strangers from storefronts, and find reasons to enter into the homes of strangers. Sylvie Fortin (Art Papers Magazine, Sept / Oct 2005) writes of my practice, “relationships are her medium, fleeting encounters her material”.”
My work has been shown recently at The Whitney Museum’s Artport; Year Zero One in Toronto; Manifestation d’Art Internationale de Québec; 404 International Festival of Electronic Art in Argentina; BananaRAM in Italy; The Sundance Online Film Festival in Park City, Utah; The Cleveland International Performance Art Festival; La Biennale de Montréal; ISEA 2004 in Talinn, Estonia; and the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie in France. Recent solo and two-person shows included Jack the Pelican Presents Gallery in New York, Vertex List Gallery in Brooklyn, TPW (presented at The Drake Hotel) and YYZ in Toronto, Video Pool in Winnipeg, and Edge Media in Newfoundland.
I have received grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, Soil New Media, Turbulence, The Gunk Foundation, NYSCA, The Experimental Television Center, Thirdplace.org, and Pace University. I have lectured in North America and Europe about my work and have attended numerous residencies including DAIMON, Sagamie, and La Chambre Blanche in Québec; Em-Media in Calgary; and Harvestworks in New York.
