Equality
Jennifer Chan

Jennifer Chan’s video Equality draws on online footage that the artist has overlaid with the voice of artist Liam Gillick. The stream of diverse images – mundane, shocking, banal and touching – echoes the viewing experience of hanging out on YouTube with a stream of clips seamlessly integrating images of all kinds. The experience of easy watching is emphasized via the soundtrack: non-descript tunes akin to those played while waiting in airport lounges or being put on hold alternate with the type of vaguely evocative jingles that announce a sport event or accompany nature documentaries. In tandem Gillick is heard talking about the idea of the collective, labour, leisure and subjectivity as well as charts with contradicting messages such as: ‘I had a dream / Everyone was the same / They were different.’ The video raises the question as to how one can imagine a sense of belonging in an online setting, how affective relationships are enacted and identity models performed.

Jennifer Chan is an artist and web developer who makes stuff as social commentary on sex, success, love, equality, suffering and happiness. Her work has been featured in Rhizome, LEAP, Modern Painters, Dazed, Sleek and Artforum. She has had solo exhibitions at LTD (Los Angeles), Transmediale (Berlin), ohmydays (Singapore), Future Gallery (Berlin) and Gallery CC (Malmö). Solo screenings of her work have appeared at Vox Populi (Philadelphia), LTD (Los Angeles), The Nightingale (Chicago) and Images Festival (Toronto). Her work has been shown at NADA (New York), Museum of Moving Image (NYC), Moving Image (London), Furtherfield (London), Abandon Normal Devices (Manchester), Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw) among others. She has made commissioned artwork for Kunsthaus Langenthal and Mexico Projects, Leeds. Chan used to have many arguments about politics with strangers online and on paper. Her incendiary writing on race, gender, art and internet culture has been published by West Space Journal, Mousse, Junk Jet, Arcadia_Missa, dpi, Temporary Art Review, Rhizome, Art F City and You Are Here: Art After The Internet edited by Omar Kholeif. Chan grew up in Hong Kong and lives in Toronto.