<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(184, 71, 71); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 22px; font-weight: bold; ">Break It Down</span><br></div>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Helvetica; color: #b84747"><b>February 24 to March 21, 2009</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Helvetica; color: #b84747"><b>Opening: Thursday, February 26, 6 to 8 pm</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Helvetica; color: #b84747"><b>RENDER, East Campus Hall, University of Waterloo</b></p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial"><b><i>Break It Down</i></b> is a presentation of five videos by artists Manuel Saiz, Rachel Scott, and Lyntje Vorsteveld. Collectively, their works use popular music and dance to playfully critique notions of celebrity. The videos use aspects of vulnerability, humility and introspection as vehicles for celebrating the pathetic and strange - characteristics that are often rejected by contemporary culture. </p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial">The works in <i>Break It Down</i> offer an alternative to the booty, bling and bravado that is prevalent not only on TV and in cinema, but also in my local club or karaoke bar. Lyrics and choreography embrace sexual prowess, wealth and super hero invincibility. While these are not new occurrences in music and dance, they nonetheless continue to shimmy their way into my consciousness and affect the way I think about music's capacity to inspire, entertain and inform. </p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial">There is much to be admired in the power of celebrity, the eye-candy offerings of amped up music videos, and the ability for tunes to transform you or me into a dynamo in 3 minutes, 24 seconds. But how can these modes of communication be manipulated to tell a different story? How can a new visual language or aesthetic be explored through the acceptance of weakness rather than the hailing of power? </p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial">The videos in this exhibition clear a little room for the far-from-cool parts of life: the instances of embarrassment, irrepressible honesty, and downright pathos we all come to experience. The videos, although different in their tone - some funny, others more sombre - use popular music or dance as a springboard for expressing the not-so-celebrity aspects of life, in all of their significance and awkward allure.</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial">- Barbara Hobot, RENDER Curator-in-residence</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial; color: #b84747">An exhibition brochure will be available in PDF format at <a href="http://www.render.uwaterloo.ca">www.render.uwaterloo.ca</a></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial">Image: video still from Manuel Saiz, <i>Parallel Paradises: Japan,</i> 2007 (courtesy of Vtape)</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Arial; color: #008080"><b>Also on Thursday, February 26th:</b></p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial"><b>RENDER in collaboration with Critical Media Lab (Department of English Language and Literature, University of Waterloo) is pleased to present the </b><span style="color: #008080"><b>Reverend Luke Murphy's illustrated lecture <i>The Cup of Loneliness</i></b> </span>at 4:30 pm in the Arts Lecture Hall, Room 113, University of Waterloo</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial">Rev. Luke Murphy is an information-based artist whose work is united by common themes drawn from the impossible task of quantifying the elements of the psyche and spirit. He has a particular interest in the Gnostic gospels, Masonic ritual, religious paintings and digital languages - in effect, codes. Amorphous concepts are dissected and reassembled using the architecture of professional jargon and presentation techniques. Murphy's incessant need to organize ostensibly promises the viewer the hope of discovering a pattern or the key to the code and ultimately a shorter route to meaning, understanding and mastery of complex situations and emotions. This attempt to draw the connections within amorphous subjects, which in theory should soothe the viewer by simplifying the complex, instead reveals more layers of anxiety. The work's failure to deliver what they ostensibly promise is at once menacing and reassuring. Murphy has been producing and developing his work digitally since 1994 although a substantial portion of his work involves drawing and painting.</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial">Rev. Murphy graduated with an MFA from SUNY Purchase after completing his BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a BS from the University of Toronto. He is the co-director of <a href="http://cabinetmagazine.org">cabinetmagazine.org</a> and a VP of Technology at MTV Networks Online.</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial"><a href="http://www.lukelab.com">www.lukelab.com</a></p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial">RENDER</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial">263 Phillip Street</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial">Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial"><a href="http://www.render.uwaterloo.ca">www.render.uwaterloo.ca</a></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial">519-888-4567 x33575</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial"><b>Hours: </b></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial">Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 12 - 7 pm</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial">Friday, Saturday 12 - 4 pm</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial">Admission is always free</p>
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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial"><b>Contact:</b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial">Andrew Hunter, Director/Curator<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> Barbara Hobot, Curator-in-residence</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial"><a href="mailto:renderprojects@gmail.com">renderprojects@gmail.com</a><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <a href="mailto:renderevents@gmail.com">renderevents@gmail.com</a></p>
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