Uploaded February 2018 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Wyn Geleynse is a 2018 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Ross Turnbull
Co-production of the Canada Council for the Arts and Zonial Pictures Inc. Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
****
Transcript:
(I’m going now...)
I went to H.B. Beal Secondary School in the arts program and graduated from grade 12 in
1966.
I never drew from life but I drew out of magazines like Photoplay...I would do schematic
drawings of dams and trucks and things. I just drew all the time. It seemed to be the only
talent I had and it was sort of an obsessive occupation of mine.
I guess it was a compulsion, if not a curse.
(excerpt from Guilt: “Clear as daylight, he will go to Hell.”)
I developed as an artist in London, Ontario, and the sense of regionalism was pretty much
ingrained in me, I mean I think the basis of my work is what, say, Greg Curnoe felt very
strongly; you can make art with what's around you.
(excerpt from Service Truck No. 9 (European Version): “So just relax. Everything’s going to
be...just fine.”)
People don't live exotic lives. We all live the same thing over and over again, hence the
looping. I think there’s an importance to that, and I think it's just an acknowledgement of the
everyday, of people.
(excerpt from Lisboa, February 11, 2003: “So I can’t hear you, please can you say that
louder.”)
If I do pick other people in the work it's because they represent some really interesting
characteristic, that I think is universal or sort of global in a way?
If not I would act it out myself.
(excerpt from London, Ontario, October 7/9, 2014: “...it kind of exposed me to the ways of the North, I guess you could say.”)
It's kind of this hapless male. I think I can be hapless better than most other people! Which
really opens the door to humour and so on and so forth that perhaps I wouldn't ask other
people to do.
(excerpt from The Slack Wire (Funambulist): “Oh, I’m glad that’s over. Ohhhkay.”)
I think it was the appropriation of language by the early feminists, where they really took it
back on themselves to articulate where they were in history, who they are in
contemporaneous society? It’s what allowed me to start articulating that haplessness. As
much as it perhaps liberated them and empowered them, I think in many ways it did for me as
well.
(excerpt from Portraiture: “His heart is in the right place, though his brain isn’t.”)
I once did a piece called 'All the Objects Have Meanings and Hierarchies'.
(excerpt from Portraiture: “He struggles to stay in the moment, while trying to keep up with it.”
They become iconic.
(excerpt from Portraiture: “He has a short attention span.”)
They're not just signs, you know, things are reverenced, and valued.
I was only interested in sort of the repetitive, crazy motions you see people do, their sort of
physical habits? I really thought they were very revealing. And so I needed to loop it.
(Live shot: “It’s a nice kind of crazy.”)
I wanted people to be complicit in the act of viewing. It was important for me that people saw
the technology that made the magic happen, because the beauty of technology is, I've said
before; it's a fantastic means to an end.
I don't start with any prescriptions, I often don't know what I'm going to do.
All these things are...they're built. They don't come whole. I think experimentation is critical, I
think without it we don't really go forward, we tend to just keep doing the same thing over and
over again.
Life bewilders me, and this is where it becomes very subjective I think with my work, but I
hope when it's externalized there's a certain universality, like a shared experience of not quite
understanding things.
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Wyn Geleynse is a 2018 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Ross Turnbull
Co-production of the Canada Council for the Arts and Zonial Pictures Inc. Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
****
Transcript:
(I’m going now...)
I went to H.B. Beal Secondary School in the arts program and graduated from grade 12 in
1966.
I never drew from life but I drew out of magazines like Photoplay...I would do schematic
drawings of dams and trucks and things. I just drew all the time. It seemed to be the only
talent I had and it was sort of an obsessive occupation of mine.
I guess it was a compulsion, if not a curse.
(excerpt from Guilt: “Clear as daylight, he will go to Hell.”)
I developed as an artist in London, Ontario, and the sense of regionalism was pretty much
ingrained in me, I mean I think the basis of my work is what, say, Greg Curnoe felt very
strongly; you can make art with what's around you.
(excerpt from Service Truck No. 9 (European Version): “So just relax. Everything’s going to
be...just fine.”)
People don't live exotic lives. We all live the same thing over and over again, hence the
looping. I think there’s an importance to that, and I think it's just an acknowledgement of the
everyday, of people.
(excerpt from Lisboa, February 11, 2003: “So I can’t hear you, please can you say that
louder.”)
If I do pick other people in the work it's because they represent some really interesting
characteristic, that I think is universal or sort of global in a way?
If not I would act it out myself.
(excerpt from London, Ontario, October 7/9, 2014: “...it kind of exposed me to the ways of the North, I guess you could say.”)
It's kind of this hapless male. I think I can be hapless better than most other people! Which
really opens the door to humour and so on and so forth that perhaps I wouldn't ask other
people to do.
(excerpt from The Slack Wire (Funambulist): “Oh, I’m glad that’s over. Ohhhkay.”)
I think it was the appropriation of language by the early feminists, where they really took it
back on themselves to articulate where they were in history, who they are in
contemporaneous society? It’s what allowed me to start articulating that haplessness. As
much as it perhaps liberated them and empowered them, I think in many ways it did for me as
well.
(excerpt from Portraiture: “His heart is in the right place, though his brain isn’t.”)
I once did a piece called 'All the Objects Have Meanings and Hierarchies'.
(excerpt from Portraiture: “He struggles to stay in the moment, while trying to keep up with it.”
They become iconic.
(excerpt from Portraiture: “He has a short attention span.”)
They're not just signs, you know, things are reverenced, and valued.
I was only interested in sort of the repetitive, crazy motions you see people do, their sort of
physical habits? I really thought they were very revealing. And so I needed to loop it.
(Live shot: “It’s a nice kind of crazy.”)
I wanted people to be complicit in the act of viewing. It was important for me that people saw
the technology that made the magic happen, because the beauty of technology is, I've said
before; it's a fantastic means to an end.
I don't start with any prescriptions, I often don't know what I'm going to do.
All these things are...they're built. They don't come whole. I think experimentation is critical, I
think without it we don't really go forward, we tend to just keep doing the same thing over and
over again.
Life bewilders me, and this is where it becomes very subjective I think with my work, but I
hope when it's externalized there's a certain universality, like a shared experience of not quite
understanding things.
