Founder Joseph Cortina Opens New Art Exhibit: Vertical Interval

Cortina Productions’ founding principal, Joseph Cortina, has opened a new art exhibition at the McLean Project for the Arts in McLean, VA. Entitled Vertical Interval: New Works by Joseph Cortina, the exhibit is available virtually from December 9, 2020 through February 20, 2021.

Cortina’s works draw on his background as a painter and his long career creating films and interactive experiences for museums. The exhibit includes paintings and digital works that connect to an overall exploration of the intersection and tension between physical and digital landscapes.

“In the analog television signal, images are built up with scan-lines. The space between those lines is called the vertical interval. Information can be embedded between the scan-lines that make up an image, either invisible or decoded and visible,” says Joseph Cortina. “To me, these works exist in this conceptual space, as images, motion, and meaning embedded within the lines, textures, and colors. So much of my creative work is done at 24, 30, 60 frames a second. These paintings try to hold that fraction of a second and make it physical—to take something that is fleeting and make it real. The video sculptures do the same thing by revealing atmosphere, physicality, and motion, once hidden in the vertical interval.”

Go to the McLean Project for the Arts’ website to view Vertical Interval: New Works by Joseph Cortina.