this video is harmless. – TRT 2:51 mins
This Video Is HARMLESS is a linear edit from a larger gallery installation of 10 looping videos. In this linear format, three interwoven scenes explore the moments that surround an event. We see a family dog exploring recently abandoned cars, a child dressing up in a golden cape, and an adult figure spinning in and out of himself in a wood-paneled room. The causes and consequences shown point to a specific but still unknowable occurrence. In this way, the work is like cutting a specific narrative hole; creating an image or moment with negative shapes. I hope the work provides an experience that is perhaps more felt than understood. In all projects, my general goal is that the work be experienced like an encounter with a wild animal – beautiful but somehow threatening.
John C. Kelley is a media artist living and working in Fayetteville, AR. His work is primarily in video, including linear shorts and multi-channel gallery installations, and is heavily influenced by classic science fiction and other cinematic structures that explore the balance of known and unknown elements. Kelley’s videos aim to make new negotiations across the media lines of film, music and time-based art to create moments and environments untied to strict narratives that are nevertheless explored using cinematic logic. Utilizing experience in traditional 2D media and music production, Kelley creates moody, lyrical shorts that have screened and exhibited domestically and internationally. He currently collaborates with the creative collective Gray Picture in St. Louis, MO and teaches in the Department of Art at the University of Arkansas.
Recent group exhibitions include Filmideo 2015 (Index Art Center, Newark, NJ), Digital Native (The Front, New Orleans, LA), The Print Screen Festival: Everyday Emotional Computing (Holon Cinemathecque, Israel), and festivals/screenings in Sao Paulo, London, Moscow, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Amsterdam, and more. Past exhibitions, screenings and venues include the Arizona International Film Festival, The Mid-America Arts Alliance (Kansas City, MO), The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Purdue University, Living Arts of Tulsa (Tulsa, OK) and others.
17 Days Video Series 