Over the Rainbow, Under the Radar is an audiovisual presentation of Charles Stankievech’s experience of the Arctic as a hybrid zone of brute reality and fantasy projection. Combining archival material, scientific theories, geopolitical maps and the artist’s own fieldworks, the lecture engages ideas of military colonialism and communication technology embedded in the sublime landscape. Stemming from the time Stankievech lived in Northern Canada and research at remote military outposts, Over the Rainbow draws from primary research ranging from his visit to the archives at MIT as well as a residency with the Canadian Department of National Defence at the northernmost settlement in the world: the Signals Intelligence Station Alert. The lecture was originally commissioned for the Phyllis Lambert Seminar at the Université de Montréal and is forthcoming in the summer 2014 as an artist book published by the SAAG + Bishop's University with texts by Douglas Kahn, Rahma Khazam, David Neufeld and Charles Stankievech.

Charles Stankievech is a Canadian artist who has lectured, performed and exhibited at such places as dOCUMENTA13 (Kassel), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Copenhagen), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA2010, Germany), Xth Biennale of Architecture (Venice), ISSUE Project Room (New York), MASSMoCA, Musee d’art contemporain Montreal, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. He has curated such unorthodox exhibitions as CounterIntelligence at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Toronto), Magnetic Norths at the Ellen Gallery (Montreal), A Wake For St. Kippenberger’s MetroNet (Dawson City), and the series OVER THE WIRE with Lawrence Weiner, Gary Hill, Lize Mogel, Center for Land Use Interpretation, and others. His writings range from MIT Press peer-review journal to experimental texts for art publications. His images have been published in a range of fields from the specialised NASA to the popular WIRED. He has participated in residencies with the Department of National Defence, Banff Centre for the Arts and Fieldwork in Marfa, Texas. He was a founding faculty member of the Yukon School of Visual Arts in Dawson City, Canada. Since 2011, he is co-director of the art and theory press K. located in Berlin where he lives and works. In 2014 he will be participating in both the Berlin and Santa Fe Biennales.

Image credit:   Das Eismeer aus Licht. NASA Astronomy Photo of the Day, Feb 8, 2011
© Charles Stankievech + Anna Sophie Springer