On Suzan Pitt
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | October 14, 2015
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, image from Asparagus (1979).
Suzan Pitt’s films from the 1970s through the 2010s show us dream worlds, female desire, depression, sexual fantasies, the beauty of nature, and its destruction. They share with us a human lust for life that is both beautiful and annihilating. Influenced by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and the liminal spaces between dream and reality, consciousness and unconsciousness, inside and outside, Pitt’s films have a stimulating and layering effect, yet one that never reaches climax. Moments don’t end; instead, they hover and continue to begin. This evokes a feeling of being between waking and dreaming–never completely one or the other. This interstitiality is reinforced by Pitt’s quivering, hand drawn lines–characteristic of the techniques of cel and stop-motion animation she uses.
Tags: 2015 > Animation > Hand-Drawn Animation > Lara Schoorl > Stop-Motion Animation > Suzan Pitt
October 15-The Animated Films of Suzan Pitt
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | October 9, 2015
Thursday, October 15 | Suzan Pitt will discuss her films via Skype. She will not be able to appear in person, as previously announced (we hope you still join us!).
Suzan Pitt, still from Joy Street (1995). Courtesy of the artist.
Since the 1970s, Suzan Pitt has created some of the most acclaimed and influential independent animations of her generation. Best known for Asparagus (1979)—which screened with David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) on the 1970’s midnight movie circuit—Pitt creates lavishly hand-painted and stop-motion films of shape-shifting characters and meanings. A woman navigates a field of psychosexual vegetation, another finds salvation in an unlikely animated muse, and shadowy figures stalk a noir nightscape. Pitt introduces and discusses selection of films spanning her four-decade career via Skype, including Asparagus (1979), Joy Street (1995), Whitney Commercial (1973), Visitation (2011), and Pinball (2013). Prints courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
1973–2013, USA, 35mm, 16mm, and HD video, ca 60 min + discussion
Suzan Pitt (1943) is a painter and animator. Her award-winning films have been exhibited around the world, including the Sundance Film Festival, New York Film Festival, London Film Festival, Ottawa International Animated Film Festival, Morelia International Film Festival, and the Image Forum Film Festival in Tokyo. The International Association of Film Animation (ASIFA) recently named her 1979 film Asparagus as one of the best animated films of the past half century. In addition to her short animations, Pitt has produced live film performances, directed music videos and spots for public television, and designed sets, costumes, and films for the State Opera Theater in Hamburg, Germany and the State Opera Theater in Wiesbaden, Germany. Pitt is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and a Rockefeller Fellowship. She currently splits her time between Los Angeles and the upper peninsula of Michigan and teaches at the California Institute of the Arts.
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Tags: 2015 > Academy Film Archive > Animation > Archival > Hand-Drawn Animation > Retrospective > Stop-Motion Animation > Suzan Pitt > USA
On Louis Henderson
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | October 7, 2015
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.
Louis Henderson, still from All that is Solid (2014). Courtesy of the artist and the Video Data Bank.
Most of video art I watch, I watch on my laptop. I dream of creating a perfect screening space—uninterrupted hours, big screen, dark room—but can never fully realize it in the rush of the day. Of course, when I watch on my computer screen, the Internet is in the background, pulling me in and intruding on the images. Messages pop-up, emails ding and news alerts assert themselves, pushing against my screening experience. The thump and whir of the world is always there, behind the screen, dragging me away. I feel guilty about this, knowing that my full attention is required, believing that I should be cut off from the world to view correctly.
When I first began watching Lettres du Voyant (2013) by Louis Henderson I was (as always) on my computer… Read more
Tags: 2015 > Africa > Essay > Europe > Experimental > Lindsay Bosch > Louis Henderson > Non-Fiction > Political > Video Data Bank
October 8- Louis Henderson: Melts Into Air
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | October 2, 2015
Thursday, October 8 | Paris-based filmmaker Louis Henderson in person!
Louis Henderson, still from Letters du Voyant (2013). Courtesy of the artist.
In his first Chicago appearance, award-winning director Louis Henderson presents a pair of films on the networked links between colonialism, computing, and capitalism in contemporary Ghana. In Lettres du Voyant (2013), a series of mysterious letters describe the practice of “Sakawa”—e-scams fortified by Western African religious rituals—and the possibilities it proposes for political resistance. Choreographed on Henderson’s desktop screen, All That Is Solid (2014) maps connections between the Cloud and its waste, layering ephemeral image searches, email, data, and notes over footage of the grinding physical labor of the massive Agbogbloshie electronic waste ground in Accra. Presented in collaboration with the Video Data Bank.
2013–14, France, HD Video, ca 60 min + discussion
Louis Henderson (1983, Norwich) is an English filmmaker whose research focuses on new materialities of the Internet and the neocolonialisation of cyberspace through planetary scale computing. He is a graduate of London College of Communication and Le Fresnoy–studio national des arts contemporains and is currently finishing a post-diplôme at the European School of Visual Arts. His work has been exhibited across Europe and the Americas, including at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Transmediale, Muestra Internacional Documental de Bogota, The Centre Pompidou, FRAC Midi-Pyrénées, Louisiana museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Whitechapel Gallery.
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Tags: 2015 > Africa > Essay > Europe > Louis Henderson > Non-Fiction > Political > Video Data Bank
On Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak: Camera and Line
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | September 30, 2015
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 filmmakers as she also re-introduces and premiers their highly innovative and visually stunning work.
Larry Janiak, still from Disintegration Line #2 (DL2), 1970. Courtesy of the artist and the Chicago Film Archives.
I first came to know Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak through Chicago Film Archives’ Mort & Mille Goldsholl Collection, which contains over a hundred industrial films made by the Chicago-based design firm, Goldsholl Design & Film Associates. Both Boyer and Janiak worked for the firm in the 1960’s and played a significant role in shaping the look of their playful sponsored films. I didn’t get a full understanding of Boyer and Janiak’s fierce experimental vision for film until CFA acquired Janiak’s films in 2011 and Boyer’s in 2015.
Wayne and Larry share strikingly similar biographies. Both were born in Chicago (Wayne in 1937 and Larry in 1938), attended the same high school and college (Lane Tech High School and the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology), worked at the same Chicago-based design firm (Goldsholl Design & Film Associates), helped found an artist-run film co-op (Center Cinema Film Co-op) and went onto teach and develop art programs at Chicago universities (Wayne at University of Illinois at Chicago and Larry at IIT).
Tags: 2015 > Animation > Anne Wells > Chicago > Chicago Film Archives > Design > Documentary > Experimental Film > Goldsholl Design & Film Associates > Larry Janiak > Retrospective > Sponsored Film > Wayne Boyer
October 1-Wayne Boyar and Larry Janiak: Camera and Line
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | September 25, 2015
Thursday, October 1 | Followed by a roundtable with Boyer, Michael Golec, Associate Professor of Design History at SAIC, and Anne Wells, Collections Manager for the Chicago Film Archives (CFA). Presented in collaboration with the CFA.
Wayne Boyer, image from Drop City (1968).
Chicago at midcentury was home to a remarkable group of artists who bridged European modernism, pop, and psychedelia in brilliant personal and work-for-hire films. Among the most accomplished were Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak, who trained at László Moholy-Nagy’s Institute of Design, worked for Morton Goldsholl’s design studio, and helped found the Center Cinema Coop, an important distribution collective. Both produced expressive and technically masterful films; Boyer’s explore visual abstraction through appropriation and in-camera effects while Janiak’s examine the inner life through direct animation and personal fragments of the everyday. This long overdue survey presents key works from the 1950s–70s and brings new insights to their achievements.
Featuring Faces and Fortunes (Goldsholl Associates, 1959), Drop City (Wayne Boyer, 1968), Disintegration Line #1 (Larry Janiak, 1960), The Building: Chicago Stock Exchange (Wayne Boyer, 1975), Adam’s Film (Larry Janiak, 1963), Agamemnon in New York (Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak, 1964), George and Martha Revisited (Wayne Boyer, 1967, 8 min.), Disintegration Line #2 (Larry Janiak, 1970).
Followed by a roundtable with Boyer, Michael Golec, Associate Professor of Design History at SAIC, and Anne Wells, Collections Manager for the Chicago Film Archives (CFA).Presented in collaboration with the CFA.
1955–75, USA, 16mm and DCP, ca 70 min + discussion
Wayne Boyer (1937, Chicago) began making animated films as a teenager when he discovered that his father’s 8mm movie camera had a single frame release. He went on to study at the Institute of Design and, along with Larry Janiak, headed the newly formed filmmaking division at Morton Goldsholl Design Associates, an award-winning graphics and industrial design studio. In 1965 he was invited by the University of Illinois at Chicago to establish a photography, film and animation program in the School of Art & Design. During his tenure there, he established his own studio, producing public service, educational, and personal experimental films. He was part of Chicago’s early underground filmmaking community and a member of the Center Cinema Coop, an artist-run distributor for independent films. He is currently Professor Emeritus at UIC.
Larry Janiak (1938, Chicago) began making films as a student at Chicago’s Lane Tech High School. He studied at the Institute of Design and, along with Wayne Boyer, headed the newly formed film division at Morton Goldsholl Design Associates. Janiak left Goldsholl in 1968 for the Institute of Design, where he taught design animation and experimental filmmaking courses for 12 years. He played an active role in Chicago’s underground film community, helping to found Center Cinema Coop, an artist-run distributor of independent films, and a film workshop and screening space in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. He devoted himself to spiritual practice in 1983 and lived at the Vivekananda Vedanta Temple and monastery until the early 1990s.
Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak Program Notes
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Tags: 2015 > Animation > Anne Wells > Chicago > Chicago Film Archives > Documentary > Experimental Film > Goldsholl Design Associates > Larry Janiak > Michael Golec > Sponsored Film > Wayne Boyer
On Le Révélateur
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | September 23, 2015
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.
Le Révélateur, image from live performance at Mutek, 2013.
In the audiovisual performances of Le Révélateur, sound and image are not in competition but in symbiosis, responding to and fulfilling each other. Video artist Sabrina Ratté and electronic musician Roger Tellier-Craig, who have worked together since 2010, find synchronicity in gesture, in pitch and in rhythm.
Le Révélateur, image from Mirages (2010).
Spectator, you’ll be immersed into the depths of a virtual journey marked by loss and wonder.
Tags: 2015 > audiovisual performance > electronic music > Lampo > Le Révélateur > Natalia De Orellana > Roger Tellier-Craig > Sabrina Ratté > video
September 24-Le Révélateur
Posted by | Amy Beste | Posted on | September 21, 2015
Thursday, September 24 | Montreal-based video artist Sabrina Ratté and musician Roger Tellier-Craig in person!
Le Révélateur, still from AfterImage Selves (2014). Courtesy of the artists.
Le Révélateur is Montreal-based video artist Sabrina Ratté and musician Roger Tellier-Craig (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Fly Pan Am). Using digital and analog tools, the two produce mesmerizing audiovisual performances of pulsing light corridors, abstract color washes, spaced out synths, and jump-cut rhythms—paying homage to the pioneers of electronic and computer art, while exploring entirely new dimensions. In this special program, the duo performs a new, long-form composition and screens a selection of Ratté’s short videos. Presented in collaboration with the experimental music series Lampo. 2011–15, Canada / USA, HD Video and live performance, ca 70 minutes
Le Révélateur (2008) has performed across North America and Europe, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), On Land (San Francisco), Mutek (Montreal), Mutek.Mx (Mexico City), Electric Fields (Ottawa), Micro Mutek (Barcelona), Suoni per Il Popolo (Montreal), Send+Receive (Winnipeg), Tone Deaf (Kingston), Sight + Sound (Montreal), and POP Montreal. Recordings are available on Gneiss Things, NNA Tapes, and Root Strata.
Sabrina Ratté (1982, Montreal) is a visual artist, mainly working in the field of video. Her work has been shown internationally, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Museum of the Moving Image, and Phillips’s inaugural Paddles ON! sale. She is part of the online collective Computers Club.
Roger Tellier-Craig (1975, Sorel, Quebec) is an electronic musician, whose musical past is profoundly rooted in Montreal’s underground scene, including iconic rock outfit Godspeed You! Black Emperor (which he left in 2003), Fly Pan Am, and Et Sans (with Alexandre St-Onge).
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FALL 2015 SEASON
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | September 21, 2015
Le Révélateur, still from live performance at MUTEK.MX, 2012.
This is Ziva, the program assistant for Conversations at the Edge and we are excited to announce our Fall 2015 lineup!
The Fall season will start out with Le Révélateur which includes Montreal-based video artist Sabrina Ratté and musician Roger Tellier-Craig presented in collaboration with Lampo (9/24), Chicago filmmakers Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak (10/1), English filmmaker Louis Henderson (10/8), animator Suzan Pitt (10/15), new media artist Lorna Mills (10/22), German based director and filmmaker Heinz Emigholz (10/29), Berlin artist Ming Wong (11/5), and L.A. based ‘conceptual entrepreneur’ Martine Syms, as well as SAIC’s own faculty member Claudia Hart (11/19).
An Interview with Daniel Sousa
Posted by | George William Price | Posted on | May 5, 2015
Daniel Sousa
During his visit to SAIC in April Daniel Sousa sat down with graduate student Elizabeth Metcalfe for a revealing interview about his background in painting and illustration, his relationship to animation and upcoming projects he is currently working on.
Elizabeth Metcalfe: I know you have a background as a painter and illustrator. Your films have a very painterly quality. How did you first come to animation? What relationship do you see between your films and your painting practice?
Daniel Sousa: I went to Rhode Island School of Design. At the beginning, I was going into illustration. I liked illustration as a major because it allowed you the most number of electives. As a child, I was never really into animation. Of course I was familiar with Disney and Bugs Bunny, but that’s about it. So I didn’t have a burning desire to become an animator until I was in school. But, while I was there, through different screenings around campus, I was exposed to non-traditional animation: European work, especially Eastern European work, as well as independent American animation. I realized it wasn’t just a medium for children’s entertainment. Animation wasn’t just cartoons, but could be used as a fine art, used to express dream or internal states in a much more specific and universal way than live action films could. So I found that fascinating. I took an Introduction to Animation Class as an elective. It was a lot of fun to experiment with different materials. This was before computers, so it was a lot of hands-on work: playing with celluloids, scratching directly into film, playing with paints and charcoal, and different cut-out techniques. So I realized that this was a medium that encompassed a lot of other mediums and you could try sculpture and use stop-motion animation or do painting and use hand-drawn animation. It incorporated literature, storytelling, theatre, and I thought it was a good size of filmmaking for me because I didn’t have a lot of money to afford a film major lackey. With animations, I could do stuff on my own and I didn’t need a team. I didn’t realize how much work it was going to be, but that’s when you realize that animation is either for you or it isn’t. You have to enjoy the time that it takes and the trance that you almost get into by doing really repetitive work. It takes a very specific type of personality. At the same time, I was also taking electives in painting, especially figurative painting. What I was trying to do with the films was to make paintings come to life. So I wasn’t necessarily interested in storytelling but more in just capturing moments like a painting would. I wanted my films to be living paintings.
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Conversations at the Edge is a weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.
CATE is organized by SAIC's Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC's Video Data Bank.
Programs take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State / Chicago, IL / 312.846.2600), unless otherwise noted.
