Judy Radul, World Rehearsal Court (2009), production still [Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, Oct 9-Dec 6]

Judy Radul, World Rehearsal Court (2009), production still, Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa as the Registrar and Peter Anderson as the Prosecution [Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, Oct 9-Dec 6]

World Rehearsal Court is a large-scale media installation by Vancouver artist Judy Radul. In one area, a pre-recorded seven-channel video work presents a series of courtroom vignettes based on trial transcripts from the International Criminal Tribunals. The solemn videos contrast with live scenes captured by a series of computer-controlled cameras and displayed on an array of monitors. The two parts of the exhibit create a tension that challenges the kinds of distinctions made by courtrooms and lawyers between experience, testimony, truth, and fiction.

Through World Rehearsal Court, Radul investigates the complexities of real-life experience, the roles of new technologies in courts of law, and the compression of such complex, multi-sensory and multi-dimensional experiences into written record. The work reflects aspects of Radul's Downe's Point (2005), which explored the spatial architecture of views through a camera lens, and Describe Video (2007), which examined different kinds of "blind spots".

LECTURE by Anselm Franke Artistic Director. Extra City Centre for Contemporary Art, Antwerp Mon, Nov. 23, 6:30–8 pm Room 104, Frederic Lasserre Bldg. 6333 Memorial Road, UBC

Judy Radul's interdisciplinary practice includes photography, sculpture, performance, video and mixed media installations. She earned a Master of Visual and Media Arts, Bard College, New York (2000) and has exhibited her work internationally at such prestigious venues as the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (Antwerp), and The Power Plant (Toronto). Radul teaches at Simon Fraser University. Mia Johnson

Mia Johnson