Are you the kind of human being that is defined by what you own? Does your stuff say more about you than your quality of thought? Welcome to the land of the North American consumer.

Sean Kaushakis Banana Republic, Spring 99 Garment bags, x-rays and light, 8' x 11' x 4", 1999

It's a wonderfully wacky land where we can never ram enough material goods down our collective gullet. Sean Kaushakis's new installation at The Dynamo, appropriately entitled Consumed, is all about "a culture where people intuitively grasp for a construct of being human."

Kaushakis investigates the power of consumerism in contemporary culture. He questions the possibility of breaking free from our senseless accumulation of stuff, while simultaneously examining the socio/psychological dichotomy of living in our stuff-infested society.

The artist has noticed that "making a systematic decision to break away from consumerism is difficult because it is such a part of our lives. There are things we need in order to survive, and there is that which we desire. Consumerism is cyclical, it not only has a pulse, but a perpetuating momentum that will leave behind all those not willing to partake. There seems to be this instinctual need to have or out do everything the Brady family has next door.

"So it becomes about existing, finding a place within the world where function and acceptance meet. I've become oblivious to the inundation of advertising, it's various forms are filtered and channeled into my privacy, we forget that there is an impulse to do something right. By deciding to consume one thing less, only seems to be replaced by another. It is repetitive, nihilistic, and self-destructive. I feel trapped, yet I accept the reality that our world works as nothing more than a transaction."

Kind of depressing isn't it? But I believe it to be true. For a brief time in the 1990s, it looked like people had abandoned the fiscal hedonism of the '80s. Well at least in the '80s people were honest enough to admit they were money-grubbing yuppies. Now we're just a voracious as ever before, but we pretend to be a bunch of new age twinkies twirling around in $800 Prada shoes. Do I think Sean Kaushakis's show sounds promising? You betcha! It's got to be better than yet another trip to The Gap.

Pops at the Hangar Calling all Toronto music lovers! Keith Lockhart and The Boston Pops are bringing Holiday Pops to the Air Canada Centre tonight. This is the only Canadian stop on the Pops' 10-city tour, and they'll be serving up Boston's best-loved, Christmastime musical traditions.

Arranger/vocalist Rob Mathes performs many of his favourites. Plus the Honourable Lincoln Alexander will be on hand narrating 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, complete with a "newly designed state-of-the-art stage set-up and lighting show that promises a festive event for the whole family."