Ivanov's Invention, 2023
Ivanov’s Invention (go simply amazing)/ 2023 / round screen and round curtain, live video feed, mirrors, webcams, bird feeder slide show on iPad, anaglyph 3D video on tv monitor (7:20), with 3D glasses / dimensions variable // "The subject of Husain’s research for the past few years, this parallax screen technology was developed in the USSR in the early 1940s, reportedly the first of its kind to allow for immersive 3D film viewing without the required support of glasses or other devices. Through the scant reports emerging from beyond—what would shortly become—the Iron Curtain, film journalists in the West marveled at the technical and cinematic achievement of the Soviets. Choice quotes from this research animate the subsequent video work in Husain’s exhibition, bouncing across the screen like enthusiastic taglines in 1950s-era movie trailers, accompanied by a twinkling, percussive soundtrack by musician Victoria Cheong. However, as Husain’s narrative follows—supported through research from academic Sanja Obradovic—the utopian possibilities of the Soviet’s stereoscopic raster screen soon became entwined with Cold War-era anxieties: in the eyes of American journalists, the screen transmuted from liberatory technology to anti-diplomatic deception, from Holy Grail to treacherous Chimera. Had the invention ever existed in the first place? As war planes and UFOs glide through the skies in the background of Ivanov’s Invention (2022), it becomes clear that cinema has always acted as an environment where audiences can process our relationships to war, imperialism, and the lingering threat of otherness." Daniella Sanader
music New Chance / Victoria Cheong / photos Toni Hafkenscheid
exhibitions
2023 / lenticoolers, with Malik McKoy / Susan Hobbs, Toronto
2022 / Literal Umbrella / Clages, Cologne (umbrella version)