Smarter Today

Core Concepts

Human beings are susceptible to weaknesses. Being able to recognize difference incites imagination. Being able to recognize pattern incites reason. Empathizing with the recognition of pattern incites reason.

The general consistency in the work is psychological, social, and physical sustainability. The way to go about exploring this is by learning from others — through the filter of his own state and action, looking at and referencing what people make, how they sustain it, and the reasons why they do it.

Keywords

Syncretism: the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought.

Post-structuralism: generally views the signifier and signified as inseparable but not united (in direct contrast to the structuralist claim of an independent signifier superior to the signified).

Theoretical References

"Why should there be content?" — Sartre argues that "The environment can act on the subject only to the exact extent that he comprehends it; that is, transforms it into a situation." We can suggest that the environment is turned into a situation, not by knowing, not by comprehending the environment, but by acting within it. A plausible goal would be for the creation of situations and actions which reflect upon memory and past experience.

General Ideas

The Landscape: The scene's organic, natural quality is a lure, and the detective's task is to denature it by first discovering the inconspicuous details that stick out, that do not fit in the frame of the surface image.

The femme fatale: She who ruins the lives of men and is at the same time victim of her own lust for enjoyment, obsessed by a desire for power, who endlessly manipulates her partners and is at the same time slave to some third ambiguous person. What bestows on her an aura of mystery is precisely the way she cannot be clearly located in the opposition between master and slave.

The arena: One of the key scenes in Hitchcock's Saboteur, the charity dance in the palace of the wealthy Nazi spy posing as a society lady, demonstrates perfectly the way the very superficiality of the big Other (the field of etiquette, social rules, and manners) remains a place where truth is determined and thus the place from which the game is run.

Favouring iconology to iconography: Even though he may have his own ideas in mind when composing something, the signifier is ambiguous and open to interpretation.

Collected Quotations

- "I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own tastes."
- "In network theory, a node's relationship to other networks is more important than its own uniqueness. Similarly, today we situate ourselves less as individuals and more as the product of multiple networks."
- "Information is an activity. Information is a life form. Information is a relationship. Information is a verb not a noun. Information is an action which occupies time rather than a state of being which occupies physical space."
- "Somewhere between abstraction and figuration."
- "The source of the new is the random."
- "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
- "The human mind delights in finding pattern — so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning. No other habit of thought lies so deeply within the soul of a small creature trying to make sense of a complex world not constructed for it."
- "The object becomes virtual, the image actual."
- "The starships of the future exploring the high frontier of the unknown will be syntactical — the engineers of the future will be poets. This is what virtual reality holds out to us — the possibility of walking into the constructs of the imagination."

---

For Immediate Release: September 29, 2010

O'BORN CONTEMPORARY PRESENTS: ALEX FISCHER, SMARTER TODAY
October 29 – December 4, 2010
http://www.oborncontemporary.com

Dates:
- October 28, 2010, 6–9pm — Exhibition Opening and Reception
- October 30, 2010, 2–4pm — Artist Book Launch and In-Gallery Conversation with Alex Fischer and Noel Rodo-Vankeulen
- October 29 – December 4, 2010 — Tuesdays – Saturdays, 11am–5pm

Location: 131 Ossington Avenue
Telephone: 416.413.9555

O'Born Contemporary is proud to present a solo exhibition by Toronto-based artist Alex Fischer.

Smarter Today offers a human view of futurist landscapes, a view that explores the ideologies and projections of society through the lens of contemporary art.

Alex Fischer composes his figures and landscapes by assembling a variety of visual and conceptual sources. Keeping in mind that ideas of the future are inevitably the fastest to change, Fischer maintains that human nature is a fallible and susceptible state.

Technological advancement and machine generations have vastly outpaced the tradition of the average human life. As a society, we have adapted to accept the pace at which vast differences and contrasts will influence our modes of being. All projections of which are unpredictable beyond our present context. Today more than ever before, we situate ourselves less as individuals and more as the product of multiple networks. While this network theory suggests a node's relationship to other networks is more important than its own uniqueness, we find a backlash of reflection on individual circumstance and identity.

The subjects and characters of Smarter Today are reflections on the syncretism that created them. Their exterior identities have been extricated to include all of their precursors. They are heterogeneous and intermingled with their environments, yet maintain their subjectivity in the face of a post-structuralist world.

Alex Fischer obtained his BFA from York University and is currently a prospective MVS at The University of Toronto. Smarter Today is Fischer's debut solo exhibition with O'Born Contemporary.

Media Contact: Natalie MacNamara, T: 416.413.9555, E: Natalie@oborncontemporary.com

---

Alex Fischer's work is developed around the relationship between contemporary art and the context of production within a university visual arts program. An immersion into the affect of digital information, his work continues the experimental tendencies of post-abstract expressionism and expanded painting. By specifically referencing practicing artists in various stages of career his work exploits art historical context and the tautological influence of art institutions.

Setting up specific dialogues between the trends of his contemporaries, Fischer treats the production of artwork as a type of syncretism. The melding of various schools of thought by artists working off one another, there is a strong sense of camaraderie in developing the artistic potential of emerging technologies. Specifically drawing on the work of colleagues and professional influences communicates the inherent relationships and modes of fine arts education. Fischer aestheticizes this collective immersion to provide insight on the current directions of art in social media. The result is a delicate medley of information and simulation.

For HOT! Fischer demonstrates several digitally produced still images. The iconographical traces suggest a predetermination for complexity, yet permits a point of reference for the bizarre and recognizable symbols. The dialogue is extensive and provides reflection for both the social and art historical qualities of the work.

Alex Fischer lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, and is currently in the process of receiving his BFA Honours from York University. His technical background and interest in new media has allowed the influence of technology to proliferate in his work. He is the 2008/2009 recipient of the Willowdale Group of Artists Painting Award and was featured in Art Mûr's fourth edition of Peinture fraîche / Fresh Paint.

---

Education
- 2010 — B.F.A. Honours, York University, Toronto, Ontario
- 2005 — O.S.S.D., Sacred Heart High School, Walkerton, Ontario

Solo Exhibitions
- 2009 — Not Yet Titled, The Spoke Club, Toronto
- 2009 — Backwater Resolution, The Gales Gallery, Toronto

Two Person Exhibitions
- 2009 — This is not a bout, Special Projects Gallery, Toronto

Group Exhibitions
- 2009 — Hot!, O'Born Contemporary, Toronto
- 2009 — Resolution, Median Contemporary, Toronto
- 2009 — Emerging Artists Exhibition, The Arts & Letters Club, Toronto
- 2009 — Play/Pause, Whipper Snapper Gallery, Toronto
- 2008 — 24 Hrs @ York, Special Projects Gallery, Toronto
- 2008 — Peinture fraîche / Fresh Paint, Art Mûr, Montréal
- 2008 — Final Cut (Time-Based Art), Special Projects Gallery, Toronto
- 2005 — Greg Schnurr Gallery, Walkerton
- 2003–2004 — Walkerton Juried Art Show, Walkerton

Artist Projects
- 2009 — Sync Resist, Chief Editor and Juror for magazine publication, Fall 2009
- 1999–Present — Art of Alex Fischer, www.artofalexfischer.com
- 2007–Present — Oxford Hotel, Artist-Run House Venue, Toronto

Awards and Grants
- 2009 — CASA Initiative Grant, Winter
- 2008 — CASA Initiative Grant, Fall
- 2008 — Willowdale Award for Painting, Toronto
- 2006–2008 — Ontario Student Opportunity Grant
- 2004 — Drawing Award, Popular Vote Award, Juried Art Show, Walkerton
- 2003 — 2nd Prize Drawing Award, Juried Art Show, Walkerton

Articles and Reviews
- 2009 — BlackFlash, Artists Project, 27.1, Fall 2009
- 2009 — The Walkerton Herald-Times, "WDSS grad wins university painting competition," Volume 149, No 8
- 2009 — YFile, "Visual arts student honored by Willowdale Group," February 2009
- 2008 — Vain Magazine, Featured Work, Issue 4, Fall 2008
- 2007 — Excalibur, "Alex Fischer: Making Relations," May 2007