September 2018 – Conversations at the Edge Program Archive

On Margaret Tait

At the shady foot of trees Certain things grow, But at the foot of stone grow the sun-loving wind–resisting short plants With very small bright flowers And compact, precise leaves. The wind whips the tight stems into a vibration, But they don’t break. — Margaret Tait, excerpt from The […]

Sep 27 – Margaret Tait: Poems and Portraits

Scottish film-poet Margaret Tait produced an exquisite body of work combining poetry, portraiture, music, ethnography, and animation. She studied filmmaking in Rome during the height of Italian neorealism before returning to her native Scotland in the early 1950s where she found inspiration in the contrasting daily rhythms of Edinburgh and the Orkney Islands. In an […]

An Interview with Camilo Restrepo

Coinciding with Camilo Restrepo’s visit to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, SAIC alum and Gene Siskel Film Center Panorama Latinx Outreach Coordinator Mev Luna exchanged a few questions with the artist about sound, performance, and process. While visiting Chicago, Camilo Restrepo mentioned that “luck is something you push, until it arrives.” Restrepo […]

Sep 20 – Camilo Restrepo: Ghosts and Songs

Camilo Restrepo in person In recent years, award-winning Colombian filmmaker Camilo Restrepo has gained a reputation for striking explorations of personal and political trauma, survival, and resistance. Featuring Réunion Island singer Christine Salem, Cilaos (2016) uses the incendiary rhythms of maloya, ritual music derived from slave songs, to tell the story of a woman driven to meet […]

On Stan VanDerBeek

Conversations at the Edge opens its Fall 2018 season this week with a program surveying the career of pioneering American media artist Stan VanDerBeek. Focusing on VanDerBeek’s computer graphics films, this program also coincides with an exhibition of the artist’s work at DOCUMENT. For this post, we welcome SAIC student Sophie Jenkins (Dual MA, 2020), […]

Sep 13 – Stan VanDerBeek: Euclidean Illusions

Johannes VanDerBeek of the VanDerBeek Archive in person The visionary work of media artist Stan VanDerBeek spanned film, interactive television, expanded cinema, and computer animation. Introduced by Johannes VanDerBeek of the VanDerBeek Archive, this program focuses on his computer films, screening in newly preserved 16mm prints. VanDerBeek began experimenting with computers in the mid-1960s, as […]