S C A N N E R S   January 17 - February 21, 2004   Track 16 Gallery is pleased to announce "Scanners," a group exhibition that explores the epidemic of information overload. Curated by Holly Myers and Laurie Steelink, the show features a geographically diverse assortment of video and mixed-media artists whose work incorporates media imagery and grapples with questions regarding its consumption. "Scanners" will run from January 17 to February 21, 2004, with an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on January 17.   Born out of a fascination with the high spectacle-to-substance ratio in so much recent news coverage, as well as a frustration with the sheer difficulty of distinguishing the true from the untrue, the relevant from the irrelevant--if such distinctions even matter anymore--"Scanners" poses the question of what to do with the enormous quantities of visual data we absorb every day. The exhibition's title refers to the 1981 David Cronenberg film of the same name about an underground movement of telepathic terrorists who infiltrate and destroy the minds of their prey, while it simultaneously references the mode of interaction one tends to adopt while consuming media.. Shifting continuously from newspapers to television to the Internet to the supermarket and the freeway, we are all habitual scanners, skimming pool after pool of information for that which is pertinent to ourselves and our well-being.   The artists in the show are scanners par excellence, ably weaving their findings into new and original statements. M. Ho, who lives in Philadelphia, makes colorful collages from spreads of the New York Times' "A Nation at War" section, transforming what was factual, objective, and verbal into something suggestive, personal, and visual. Los Angeles artist Bill Beccio digitally manipulates found images, producing nearly abstract and eerily beautiful compositions of neon intensity. Haitian-born, New York-based mixed-media artist Constant plays with the icon of the television screen in video work that playfully interrogates our modes of watching. Also from New York, Les Leveque weaves fragments of found film and video--in this case, clips from pharmaceutical commercials--into a pulsating hallucination of worry and relief. And Oakland-based video artist Jasmine Moorhead transforms a simple cinematic image into visual poetry of singular eloquence.