EILEEN MAXSON: TIME IS MONEY

Social media experiment: Sept. 7 – Oct. 5 (Facebook and Instagram)

Conversation: Eileen Maxson with Mary Magsamen - Friday, October 2 (5pm) CST 

Aurora Picture Show presents a social media advertising intervention by Houston artist Eileen Maxson. Her new short video Time Is Money is a wry, on-screen guessing game in which she performs as an insistent player who is trying to name the title phrase printed on a card that is attached to her forehead. Beginning on Labor Day and running through October 5, Maxson will circulate Time is Money as advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. Each week during the project, she’ll be experimenting with the platform, altering and shaping the ad’s parameters based on analytics and in response to our unfolding, scrolling moment. (For instance, during its first week, Texas-based “job hunting” or “art-going” users aged 16-65 who are interested in “working time” and “farce” may become part of this project’s fleeting audience.) On Friday, October 2, there will be a conversation between Maxson and curator Mary Magsamen via Zoom and Facebook Live exploring the results of the project and and considering what it means now to spend time on platforms that profit from our presence and attention. 

Eileen Maxson is an interdisciplinary artist working at the confluence of video, performance, installation, and photography. Darkly humorous and conceptually determined, Maxson’s works contemplate an identity mediated by a commercialized world. Screenings and exhibitions of her work include Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY; and Museum of Moving Image, Queens, NY, among others – including early screenings, circa 2002, at Aurora Picture Show, Houston, TX.