Last Year
Paul Wong, 2010
6:23 min., colour, silent, single-channel w/ credits
6 min. installation loop (no credits)

Approx. 6000 images, 1000 still photographs a minute flash on and off the screen. A year of pictures mash into an intense viewing experience. Using the iphoto software, Last Year is the result of compiling all 2009 photographs from several different computer sources onto one central data base. The images were put into ‘a chronology’ according to iphoto logic. Part journal, part diaristic we see Wong’s incessant recording of everyday life from Chinese New Year celebrations in Vancouver, Beijing Olympics, artists, art exhibitions, architecture, friends, family, New York streets, parties, music concerts, film festivals, Calgary Stampede, Pride Parade, Toronto moments. Not all the photographs were shot by Wong, included are other moments/events that comes from camera/file sharing and downloading each others memory cards and storing them onto iphoto.

Last Year premiered as part of CUE: Artists Videos at the Vancouver Art Gallery during the 2010 Winter Olympics as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

For two months, the Vancouver Art Gallery was lit up by some of the world’s best artists. Innovative and compelling videos will be presented on a large LED screen, converting the Robson Street facade into an outdoor drop-in theatre and gathering place. Curated by the Vancouver Art Gallery’s chief curator, Daina Augaitis, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on video art, New York-based Christopher Eamon, CUE: Artists’ Videos brought the best of the world to Canada and the best of Canada for the world to see. Selections are based on videos that lend themselves to exterior display in a public space and range from short, dynamic works that will surprise and delight, to those that deeply probe the complexities of today’s world.

Credits:
Post-Production: Brian Gotro
Assistant: Evan French

Distributors: V tape, Video Out

Last Year
Paul Wong, 2010
photography
edition of 3

A limited edition photograph comprised of 365 thumbnail images sourced from the video.

Available at Paul Wong Projects