Thursday, February 26th | Rebecca Baron in person!
Los Angeles–based filmmaker Rebecca Baron is known for provocative essay films exploring such far-ranging subjects as Britain’s Mass Observation movement, 19th-century Arctic exploration, and the role of recording technologies in shaping our understanding of the world around us. Her latest film,Detour de Force, introduces viewers to the incredible world of “thoughtographer” Ted Serios—a Chicago bellhop who, in the mid-1960s, produced hundreds of Polaroid images through sheer force of mind. Baron screens the film with a selection of works from Lossless (2008, with Douglas Goodwin), a series of digital interventions—data compression, code removal—into video copies of classic American films with fascinating results. Presented in collaboration with the Video Data Bank.
2008–14, US, DCP and digital video, ca 70 min + discussion
Rebecca Baron (1968, Baltimore, MD) takes up the construction of history and the relationship between still photography and the moving image. Her work has screened widely at international film festivals and media venues, including Documenta 12, Anthology Film Archives, Pacific Film Archive, Whitney Museum of American Art and the New York, London, and Toronto Film Festivals, among others. Baron is the recipient of a 2002 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2007 Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is currently on faculty at the California Institute of the Arts.