{"id":7992,"title":"Bec Stupak","kind":"bio","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/bec-stupak","version":"e8aa52eb6e44774cb88a0a617ed6e70118648dca2b866611c4d5ea6467f6c5ca","modified":"2011-06-18T00:00:58+00:00","credits":[],"authorKeys":[],"subjects":["bio"],"metadata":[{"label":"First name","value":"Bec","url":null},{"label":"Last name","value":"Stupak","url":null}],"citations":{"page":"\u0022Bec Stupak.\u0022 Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/bec-stupak.","publication":null,"risUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/citation/7992.ris"},"links":[{"label":"https://www.honeygunlabs.com","url":"https://www.honeygunlabs.com","relationship":"record body link","contentType":null}],"sections":[{"name":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"characters":4683},{"name":"summary","source":"existing VHP generated summary","generated":true,"characters":607}],"content":{"section":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"text":"Bec Stupak is an artist living and working in New York City. She works mostly with video, but her imagery is rarely limited to a rectangular screen. You don\u0027t just sit and watch her videos? they affect your glands and elevate your serotonin levels like drugs. They are mood enhancing. Maybe it\u0027s because Stupak got her start as a \u0022VJ\u0022 at raves and dance parties scratching and superimposing video imagery like a DJ. For 4 years, she accompanied superstar mixmasters like Paul Van Dyk and Sandra Collins, traveling to thumping clubs and warehouses in Detroit, Washington DC, Vancouver -- even as far as Slovenia and Macedonia. Mixing her wildly varied imagery in a room full of people with dilated, color-hungry pupils honed her editing skills and sharpened her eye for arresting images. In 1999, she founded Honeygun Labs, an experimental video project that has created branding, animation and graphics for major companies like Bacardi, MTV2, and Red Bull, as well as music videos and live visuals for artists like Derrick May, Ultra Nate, and Delia \u0026 Gavin. In 2002 Honeygun Labs moved into the art world. The studio joined with the NYC-based art collective Assume Vivid Astro Focus, and together they created an installation for the Whitney Biennial called \u0022Garden 8\u0022. At the LA MoCA Ecstacy Show in 2006, they presented two pieces: \u0022AVAF vs. HGL #2\u0022 and \u0022AVAF vs. HGL #3,\u0022 which were projected through mirrors onto the psychedelic wallpaper to create an environmental sensory overload. Also that year, the collective exhibited at the Tate Liverpool and Stupak screened \u0022Pills and Cigarettes\u0022 a looped recording of a live VJ performance. In 2003, Honeygun Lab\u0027s video, \u0022Shiny Disco Balls\u0022 won the award for Best Underground Music Video at the Winter Music Conference in Miami, and Stupak created 4 DVD \u0022\u0027zines\u0022 that were shown at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. 2004 she appeared in Art Star, a documentary/reality show broadcast on the art network Gallery HD. The show, a very contemporary hybrid of television pop culture and artworld commentary, was the final lesson in media spectacle for Stupak. Since then, her gallery shows have evolved into performances that mix all her previous work as an artist and commercial designer. In 2006, for example, Stupak created \u0022Radical Earth Magic Flower,\u0022 her companion piece to Jack Smith\u0027s 1961 classic drag film, \u0022Flaming Creatures.\u0022 The installation, shown at Deitch Projects in New York, displayed Stupak\u0027s technical fortitude and production savvy. Using 3 video screens, LED lights and lenticular signage, Smith\u0027s original film and her remake were projected on opposite walls of the gallery while her storyboards outlining the action were projected on a surface in the middle of the room. Meanwhile, friends and collaborators who appeared in her video would often come to the space, decked out in eye-popping costumes and glittery makeup. Surrounded by Stupak\u0027s gorgeously dressed colleagues, the audience would become part of the environment, invited to lounge on a huge bed. The happening was \u0022amazing,\u0022 according to Roberta Smith in the New York Times, who found Stupak\u0027s film \u0022much more fluid, androgynous and \u0027flaming\u0027 than the original--in this regard, she may have surpassed her inspiration.\u0022 Stupak traveled to Iceland in July 2006 as a part of a cultural exchange organized by SIM, the country\u0027s premiere institution for artistic cultural exchange. While there she was captivated by the countryside and produced \u0022No Limit,\u0022 a video short that depicts alien creatures in the enchanting Icelandic landscape. She continues to return to the country to make projects, which have included a video for the band Cocktail Vomit, and an ongoing project with the artist Machine Flower. Recently Stupak directed and created \u0022The Love Boat,\u0022 a joyously sexy music video for the multi-ethnic, polysexual downtown New York dance troupe, The Dazzle Dancers. The song is a reinterpretation of the classic theme from the TV show, The Love Boat, and Stupak\u0027s accompanying video depicts the wildly costumed dancers spreading their message of luminescent love with swiveling dance moves and at least 10 pounds of glitter. Stupak is also in a performance duo named Superalot, which offers visual effects and live performance for parties and functions. An outlet for her hulahooping, airbrushing and VJing skills, it\u0027s yet another project to add to her ever-increasing bag of tricks. Stupak\u0027s mission seems pretty clear- to employ her huge imagination, technical know-how and artistic skills to create work that pleasures the senses? lifting video and performance out of the static and into the ecstatic. https://www.honeygunlabs.com","offset":0,"nextOffset":null,"totalCharacters":4683,"complete":true},"rightsUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/terms-service"}