. Conversations at the Edge (CATE)

On Suzan Pitt

This week we are thrilled to present the animated films of Suzan Pitt! I am excited to welcome SAIC art history graduate student Lara Schoorl to the blog.  Schoorl reflects on the psychosexual nature of Pitt’s films while describing their visually stunning style. Suzan Pitt’s films from the 1970s through the 2010s show us dream worlds, female […]

On Louis Henderson

Tomorrow English filmmaker Louis Henderson will join us for his first Chicago appearance!   Video Data Bank‘s Lindsay Bosch blogs about Henderson’s references to the Internet and computing in his complex meditations on neo-colonalism and contemporary Ghana.   Most of video art I watch, I watch on my laptop.  I dream of creating a perfect screening space—uninterrupted hours, big […]

On Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak: Camera and Line

Tomorrow Wayne Boyer, Michael Golec, Associate Professor of Design History at SAIC, and Anne Wells, Collections Manager for the Chicago Film Archives (CFA) will join us at the Gene Siskel Film Center post screening for a round table discussion. This week Anne Wells of the CFA writes for us, reflecting on her personal relationship with the […]

On Le Révélateur

I am delighted to welcome Natalia de Orellana back to the Conversations at the Edge blog (see her previous contributions here and here).  This week, she writes about Le Révélateur and the ways their audiovisual performances work on the senses. In the audiovisual performances of Le Révélateur, sound and image are not in competition but […]

On “Projections, Portraits, and Picaresques”

Projections, Portraits, and Picaresques: Works by Mary Helena Clark, Mariah Garnett, and Latham Zearfoss screens the at Gene Siskel Film Center tomorrow, Thursday, April 23rd at 6pm. Mary Helena Clark, Mariah Garnett, and Latham Zearfoss in person!  Ouroboros—an ancient symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail. Rather than requiring or demanding a space, this reworking […]

On Daniel Sousa

I’m delighted to welcome SAIC art history graduate student Elizabeth Metcalfe to our blog for the second time. Elizabeth writes about Sousa’s unique ability to address the intrinsic human condition through his delicate animation. Keep your eyes peeled for Elizabeth’s upcoming interview with the artist himself! Painting springs to life in Daniel Sousa’s award-winning animated short films. […]

When Art Reveals Unspeakable Social Reality: Recalling Anna

This week for our SAIC student writing series Natalia De Orellana grapples with Massimo Sarchielli and Alberto Grifi’s Anna. She finds herself invested in the directors’ ethics, yet rebuffed by their use of their camera. “We preferred,” explained Grifi, “a movie about reality rather than undertaking the struggle to create a slightly less revolting reality.” Anna | Thursday, April 2nd | Introduced […]

On Soon-Mi Yoo

An acrobat flies through the darkened hall, followed by two circles of light and a haunting soprano voice. The acrobat seemingly divides into two bodies that intertwine with each other as the music builds to a crescendo. Suddenly, one of the acrobats falls, we hear a startled gasp from the camerawoman, and the footage switches. […]

On John Gerrard

This week in our SAIC Student Writing series Matthew Coleman (MA Art History 2015) blogs on John Gerrard’s large-scale digital works. He looks at the way Gerrard reveals the artificial natures of linear time and knowledge progression by bringing into question the provisional structures of power and networks of energy that facilitate our everyday existence. John […]

On Rebecca Baron

I am delighted to welcome back Lindsay Bosch, Marketing & Development Manager of Video Data Bank, who this week writes on the lyrical work of Rebecca Baron. Founded at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1976 at the inception of the media arts movement, the Video Data Bank is a leading resource in […]

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