Short Big Drama

Short Big Drama is a solo exhibition by the Canadian Angela Bulloch, which is shown at the Witte de With center for contemporary art. The name comes from the fact that she always had a thing for dramas. Whether it is a big, epic drama or a short one. In this exhibition, Angela takes a piece of art and gives it a story, but also the other way around. There are 3 parts within this exhibition, and there are 2 themes. Control and Perspective. First we saw the so called Pixel Boxes. There stood a colored box in the middle of the room, and we were asked what we saw. Everybody said that it was just a box, but it wasnt that. Bulloch picked out a single pixel out of a movie and placed it there. I didnt think much of this, as it just seemed like she couldnt think of anything, and just wanted to make a few bucks. Next we saw those boxes again, but stacked up, or standing in a 8x5 rectangle, which where multiple pixels from one movie. Not that impressed, we moved on. This was in my opinion the most fun part. We saw a wall, which was being painted by a machine with a marker. We were asked to look at it, and a few other of those machines, and keep the word rules in our head. Two machines were controlled by sound, and the other one was controlled by a couch. If you sat on it, it changed directions. The idea behind this was that even though you can control it yourself, the marker doesnt go beyond a certain point. You have to obey the rules. The last part of the exhibition was also about rules, but more about the fact that there are rules everywhere. every day we have to obey rules without us even knowing it. The design was simple. Certain sets of rules had been painted on the walls. I didnt like this exhibition. I got the ideas behind the work, and it was pretty well thought of, but the work in the physical form did not attract me. For me, art has to be a combination between a good idea and an attractive appearance, and this wasnt the case, unfortunately.