A pioneering figure in West Coast video and conceptual art, Paul Kos makes poetic and often playful works from humble materials mined for their physical properties and metaphorical possibilities. In the elegant Ice Makes Fire (1974–2004), Kos fashions a block of ice into a lens that can start a fire; in the enigmatic Warlock(ing) (1971), he […]
Read More… from Thursday, November 3 – Paul Kos: Sympathetic Vibrations
We are excited to welcome graduate student Mev Luna to write for us this week. In their essay, Luna reflects on the work of Mexican filmmaker Nicolás Pereda whose films intertwine documentary and narrative to portray everyday life in Mexico. Nicolas Pereda is a Mexican filmmaker whose films are known for their enigmatic sensibility, minimal […]
Thursday, October 27 | Join us next week for a screening and discussion with Mexican filmmaker Nicolás Pereda! Nicolás Pereda’s extraordinary films intertwine documentary and narrative to portray everyday life in Mexico. In his first Chicago appearance, Pereda presents two recent works, each a suggestive fable of labor and leisure. The Palace (2013) follows an enigmatic household of women […]
Read More… from Nicolás Pereda: Minotaur and The Palace – Thursday, October 27
We are delighted to welcome George William Price of Video Data Bank to write for us. In his essay, Price reflects on the work of this week’s Conversations at the Edge artist, Sara Magenheimer. I am delighted to welcome interdisciplinary artist Sara Magenheimer to Conversations at the Edge this week as part of Video Data […]
In her arresting videos, Sara Magenheimer mixes humor and playfulness with a sophisticated inquiry into language and meaning-making. Using visual puns, graphics, and text-to-voice computer programs, her work explores the slippery dimensions of communication. In Seven Signs That Mean Silence (2013), two disembodied computer voices describe in-between places where meaning hides. In Slow Zoom Long […]
Read More… from Sara Magenheimer: Slow Zoom Long Pause – Thursday, October 20
This week’s Conversations at the Edge program features Temporary Highs, a research project and series of linked exhibitions by net art curator Lindsay Howard. To accompany the program, we are linking to an interview with Howard published by Observer. In this interview, Howard speaks with writer and curator, Ryan Steadman, about the importance of net art and her projects […]
Temporary Highs is an ongoing research project and series of linked exhibitions by curator Lindsay Howard that explores how the structure of the internet enables reward-seeking behavior in a compulsive cycle of sharing and consumption. It focuses on artworks that operate in a space where immediate gratification is paramount and multitasking has become a requisite social behavior. […]
This week, we are excited to welcome graduate student, Julia Sharpe, to write for us! In her essay, Sharpe reflects on Jenny Perlin’s The Perlin Papers, an unsettling exploration of the United States’ culture of paranoia during the Cold War. Jenny Perlin’s The Perlin Papers is an archive at Columbia University of declassified FBI documents on […]
The 1953 execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg—US citizens accused of spying for the Soviet Union—haunts The Perlin Papers, Jenny Perlin’s (MFA 1998) unsettling exploration of the United States’ culture of paranoia during the Cold War. Produced as a cycle of eight films, the project draws from an archive of FBI files kept on hundreds […]
Read More… from Jenny Perlin: The Perlin Papers – Thursday, October 6
This week, we are excited to welcome animator Sally Cruikshank to kick off our fall 2016 season! In preparation, we are excerpting part of an interview with Cruikshank published by Art of the Title. In this interview, Cruikshank looks back over her career with Art of the Title Managing Editor, Lola Landekic. Lola Landekic: So, maybe before we get into […]