The Cronenberg Project Coming this Fall to the TIFF Bell Lightbox

For nearly three years now, the TIFF Bell Lightbox has become Toronto’s “museum of film” so to speak.  As the headquarters for the Toronto International Film Festival, the building hosts seasonal film series, as well as film-based art exhibitions.  TIFF has officially announced their headlining exhibition for 2013, which will be focused entirely on one of Canada’s most well-known filmmakers – David Cronenberg. The Cronenberg Project is poised to big the biggest and most ambitious exhibition held at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.  It will also be their first exhibition fully curated in-house by TIFF CEO and Director Pierce Handling, and Bell Lightbox Artistic Director Noah Cowan.  The exhibition will consist of multiple different components ranging from the gallery itself to an augmented reality experience. The Cronenberg Project will be centred around the main gallery exhibition, which will be titled David Cronenberg: Evolution, which will take place from November 1-January 19.  The exhibition will track Cronenberg’s progression as a filmmaker and will feature over 60 costumes, props, set pieces, and visual elements from his films, including the helmet from Videodrome, the game console from eXistenZ, the surgical tools from Dead Ringers, and the typewriters from Naked Lunch.  As is the case with all of TIFF’s exhibitions, there will be an accompanying film programme, which will show restored versions of Cronenberg’s films (in both digital an 35mm), as well as a sidebar of 10 films touched by Cronenberg’s influence. In addition to the main exhibition, there will be an augmented reality experience entitled Body/Mind/Change.  This experience brings you into a Cronenbergian storyworld, inspired by Videodrome, which utilizes online, mobile, and real world platforms.  You can register now for the experience at bodymindchange.ca, before the storyworld launches in October and culminates at the David Cronenberg: Evolution exhibition. Another component will be a second exhibition, entitled David Cronenberg: Transformation, which will take place from September 5-December 29 at MOCCA.  This exhibition will consist of six artworks from Canadian and International artists, who share David Cronenberg’s inspiration from literature and philosophy – writers such as McLuhan, Burroughs and Ballard – and his fascination with biological horror, the human psyche and the merging of humans and media.  The final component will be David Cronenberg: Virtual Exhibition, which is an extension of TIFF’s Higher Learning programme and takes a scholarly look at Cronenberg’s works. As a big fan of Cronenberg’s films, I am quite excited to see this film exhibition in the fall and hopefully The Cronenberg Project will make for one interesting experience.