On Robin Deacon

I am delighted that Conversations at the Edge will be opening with my fellow Englishman Robin Deacon‘s multimedia performance White Balance: A History of Video this Thursday, February 19th at the Gene Siskel Film Center. White Balance is a performance that draws on Deacon’s journalistic and documentary approaches to art making. Throughout the performance he engages with different […]

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Spring 2015 Season

Happy 2015, it’s George, CATE’s program assistant here. Thanks for checking in with Conversations at the Edge blog. You’ll be glad you had as we have a fabulous lineup of international artists and scholars in our Spring 2015 season! Highlights include German born new media artist and theorist Marisa Olson whose projects have taken on […]

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Special Preview: Marvin J. Taylor interviewed for Video Data Bank

Marvin J. Taylor, Director of Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University sat down with Conversations at the Edge’s program assistant George William Price to talk about his thoughts on the emotional archive, the ethics of custodianship, and the cultural scene of 1980’s Downtown New York City. This interview will be released as part of Video […]

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On Mati Diop

For the final installment of our SAIC student writing series, Natalia De Orellana examines the boundaries between documentary and fiction in Mati Diop’s A Thousand Suns. She suggests that Diop creates a world where imagination and reality intermingle. Even as tougher immigration laws are proposed by European leaders–jeopardizing the long-gone fantasy of free movement–immigration has remained one of the principal worldwide […]

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Nov 13 – Mati Diop: A Thousand Suns

Thursday, November 13th | Mati Diop in person! Known for dreamlike shorts that experiment with the boundaries between documentary and fiction, award-winning French filmmaker Mati Diop mined her own history for A Thousand Suns. The film explores the public and private legacies of the seminal Senegalese film Touki Bouki (1972), directed by her uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty. She focuses […]

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An Interview with Andrew Lampert

Andrew Lampert sits down with SAIC graduate student Elizabeth Metcalfe to talk about his interest in archiving, current inspirations, and his unique approach to improvisation. Lampert joined CATE on October 9th 2014 and turned his attention to the Gene Siskel Film Center in a site-specific performance created especially for the evening. The performance was accompanied […]

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On “The X-Ray of Civilization…”

I first encountered the work of David Wojnarowicz a few years ago whilst interning for the New York City based arts organization Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI). I had been asked to research his expansive practice for an upcoming panel discussion David Wojnarowicz: Motion Rhythms and was instructed that I would need to visit Fales Library […]

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On Anda Korsts…

SAIC printmedia graduate student Amanda Sukenic takes the time to describe Anda Korsts as a feminist visionary who, along with many others, shaped the alternative media landscape of the USA on both a local and national level. Please join us this Thursday October 30th for a special survey of Korsts’s prolific career presented in collaboration […]

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On Cao Fei…

SAIC Art History student Ke Wang speaks to Cao Fei’s unique depiction of China—a country undergoing significant cultural change. Cao Fei’s new film Haze and Fog screens at Conversations at the Edge tomorrow, October 23rd, at 6pm. Cao Fei’s works are based on the social environment of three major cities in Guangdong, China, known as Zhu Sanjiao, […]

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On John Smith…

It seems apt this week that Chicago is experiencing such a torrent of rather British-like weather, as we prepare to welcome the legendary John Smith to Conversations at the Edge (CATE). This week is a very special event due to the fact Smith was the first artist to present at CATE in 2001. We are […]

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