Tubular talk

For those who like to watch and think, Wayne State University’s department of art and art history presents Video Relations: The Social Impact of Video Art, a symposium on one of the most seductive genres of our time, this Saturday, Oct. 7. First cousin to that massaging medium lurking in our living rooms, bedrooms and just about everywhere else, video art transforms what seems like totally familiar territory into challenging, disturbing, thought-provoking information about the world we inhabit and which inhabits us. Speakers include symposium organizer and moderator Dora Apel from WSU, Wexner Center for the Arts curator Bill Horrigan on "The Afterlife of Video," video artist Vera Frenkel on "Outside and In Between: Video and Memory," Ontario College of Art and Design’s Dot Tuer on "Real Time Video: Hybrid Images for a Global Culture" and video artist Krzysztof Wodiczko on "Human Trauma, City Monuments, and Video Spectacle." This full plate of bright ideas gets served at WSU’s Helen L. DeRoy Auditorium, 5203 Cass Ave. (just across from the Detroit Public Library), 12:30-5 p.m. — open and free to the public. Afterward, a reception for Frenkel and Wodiczko takes place at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, 480 W. Hancock (on the WSU campus), in connection with their exhibition, Video Interventions: Works by Vera Frenkel and Krzysztof Wodiczko. Turn up, turn on, tune in. Call 313-577-2423. George Tysh is the Metro Times arts editor. E-mail him at [email protected]