I THINK WE’RE READY TO GO TO THE NEXT SEQUENCE:
LEGACY OF HALFLIFERS was an exhibition presented in Chicago's Gallery 400 in the Summer of 2013. The show moved beyond the retrospective
format to re-examine, interpret, and pay homage to the extensive body of performative videos that HALFLIFERS—the collaborative team of Torsten Zenas Burns and Anthony Discenza—has produced since the early 1990s. Burns (Holyoke, MA, b. 1968) and Discenza (San Francisco, b. 1967) took the name HALFLIFERS from the Philip K. Dick novel Ubik, in which Dick uses the term “half-life” to refer to an alternate reality that dead characters experience while in a state of cryogenic suspension. This condition of a phantom reality has been integral to HALFLIFERS’ ongoing explorations, in which speculative fiction operates as a sublimated present, imbued heavily with the psychological weight therein.
Five years later this living catalogue documents all of the invited participants art projects, interview texts, media screenings and performance events taking place during the exhibition run. HALFLIFERS is also really excited to finally share three new writing projects by Jordan Biren, Steve Seid and Jim Supanick.
Artists and special projects:
23E Laboratories, Jason Robert Bell, James Fotopoulos, Kari Gatzke, HALFLIFERS, Lauren Marsden, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Bjørn Melhus, Shana Moulton, Jennet Thomas, Abina Manning, George Pfau, Eric May + Rimas Simaitis, Caspar Stracke and MASTERS OF TIME AND SPACE.
Special thanks to: Lorelei Stewart, Karen Greenwalt and the Gallery 400 staff.