Kent Lambert & Jesse McLean Sept. 23!
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | September 20, 2010
- Still from Security Anthem (Kent Lambert, 2003). Image courtesy the artist.
Haunting and hilarious by turns, the videos of Chicago artists Kent Lambert and Jesse McLean remix the banal debris of television culture into striking meditations on our highly mediated public sphere. In works like Security Anthem (2003), Hymn of Reckoning (2006), and Sunset Coda (2006), Lambert culls footage from “Lost,” his own home movies, and the vocal stylings of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to explore the vagaries of national security in this current age of international terror. In her Bearing Witness Trilogy—The Eternal Quarter Inch (2008), The Burning Blue (2009), and Somewhere Only We Know (2009)–McLean sifts through televangelist sermons and Space Shuttle lift-offs to consider the possibility for genuine human connection within a blur of televised emotion. This evening’s program features the North American premiere of McLean’s Magic for Beginners (2010) and a brand-new collaboration between the two.
Have to Believe We Are Magic: Videos by Kent Lambert and Jesse McLean
2003-10, USA, multiple formats, ca. 80 min (plus discussion)
Security Anthem (Kent Lambert, 2003)
Eternal Quarter Inch (Jesse McLean, 2008)
Hymn of Reckoning (Kent Lambert, 2006)
Somewhere Only We Know (Jesse McLean, 2009)
Sunset Coda (Kent Lambert, 2006)
Fantasy Suite (Kent Lambert, 2009)
The Burning Blue (Jesse McLean, 2009)
WHS/VHS (Kent Lambert, 2009)
Majic (Kent Lambert, 2004)
Magic for Beginners (Jesse McLean, 2010) North America Premiere!
Altered Beast (Kent Lambert & Jesse McLean, 2010) World premiere!
KENT LAMBERT (1976, Colorado Springs, CO) lives and works in Chicago. His videos have been screened at festivals around the world and at such venues as Other Cinema in San Francisco and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. His pop band Roommate will release its third album, titled Guilty Rainbow, in early 2011.
JESSE MCLEAN (1975, Philadelphia, PA) grew up in Pennsylvania, studied art at Oberlin College, and received her MFA in Moving Image from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was the winner of the Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award for Emerging Experimental Video Artist at the 2010 Ann Arbor Film Festival. Besides Ann Arbor, she has shown her work at the Venice Film Festival, Dallas VideoFest, San Francisco International Film Festival, Onion City Film and Video Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Migrating Forms at Anthology Film Archives, Art Chicago, PDX Festival, FLEX, and the Director’s Lounge in Berlin. She lives and works in Chicago, where she teaches part-time at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Eleanore & the Timekeeper kicks off our fall season on Sept. 16!
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | August 31, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 6 p.m. | Danièle Wilmouth in person!
- Still from “Eleanore & the Timekeeper” (Danièle Wilmouth, 2010). Image courtesy the artist.
Best known for her striking performance films, award-winning Chicago filmmaker and SAIC faculty member Danièle Wilmouth’s first feature is an intimate portrait of the complex bond between her aging grandmother and developmentally disabled uncle in rural Pennsylvania. Companions for the last 64 years—in times both idyllic and difficult—Eleanore and Ronnie are forced to embark on new, separate lives in the face of Eleanore’s advancing age and waning health. Ronnie finds new freedom in a group home while Eleanore copes with loneliness and heartbreak in the modest farmhouse where Ronnie grew up. Throughout this seven-year chronicle, Wilmouth meditates on the modest gestures and daily rituals that have bound the two together, tying them to the rhythms of small-town America and larger cycles of death and rebirth. The result is a clear-eyed and moving meditation on everyday life, transience, and familial love. Danièle Wilmouth, 2010, USA, 16mm on DigiBeta video, 76 min (plus discussion).
DANIÈLE WILMOUTH (1968, Pittsburgh) creates hybrids of performance art, dance, installation and cinema, which exploit the shifting hierarchies between live and screen space. Her films have screened in festivals, museums, galleries, and on television worldwide, including at the Kunst Museum, Bonn, Germany; the National Gallery of Armenia; Television Canal+(a), Argentina; Kino Arsenal, Berlin, Germany; Tampere Short Film Festival, Finland; IMPAKT Festival, Utrecht, Holland; Anthology Film Archives, New York; and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Michigan. A retrospective of her work toured Russia in 2004. From 1990-96, Wilmouth lived in Japan, where she co-founded Hairless Film, an independent filmmaking collective. She also studied the Japanese contemporary dance form Butoh under Katsura Kan, and performed with his troupe The Saltimbanques. Wilmouth is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, most recently the 2010-2011 EMPAC Dance Movies Commission from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is currently on faculty at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College.
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CATE Returns Sept 16
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | August 28, 2010
Conversations at the Edge returns Thursday, September 16 with the world premiere of Danièle Wilmouth’s Eleanore & the Timekeeper. Additional highlights include appearances by Kent Lambert and Jesse McLean, Rosa Menkman, Bruce Bickford, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Luis Gispert, Alina Rudnitskaya, Kevin Jerome Everson, Daniel Eisenberg and programs highlighting recent video from China and reenactment in media art. Full details under “Current Season.”
- Still from “Eleanore & the Timekeeper” (Danièle Wilmouth, 2010). Image courtesy the artist.
Back in Fall 2010
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 26, 2010
- Still from “Basking in what feels like ‘an ocean of grace,’ I soon realise that I’m not looking at it, but rather that I AM it, recognising myself” (Emily Wardill, 2006). Courtesy LUX and the artist.
Thanks to all for another fantastic season! CATE is now gearing up for Fall 2010. Stay tuned to this site in August, when we announce the next lineup.
Thomas Comerford’s “The Indian Boundary Line” return engagement Thursday, April 22
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 18, 2010
- Still from “The Indian Boundary Line” (Thomas Comerford, 2010). Courtesy the artist.
In case you missed the sold-out screening of our season opener, Thomas Comerford’s The Indian Boundary Line, the first time around, the film returns to the Gene Siskel Film Center for an encore engagement this coming Thursday, April 22 at 6pm. Find more information about the screening and RSVP on Facebook here.
Recent press:
The Films of Thomas Comerford (New City, April 13, 2010)
Return Engagement for Some Forgotten History (Chicago Tribune, April 16, 2010)
RYAN TRECARTIN: NEW WORK
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 12, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 6pm | Ryan Trecartin in person!
- Still from “Sibling Topics (Section A)” (Ryan Trecartin, 2009). Courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Dee Gallery.
“Both in form and in function, Ryan Trecartin’s video practice advances understandings of post-millennial technology, narrative, and identity, while also propelling these matters as expressive mediums. His work depicts worlds where consumer culture and interactive systems are amplified to absurd or nihilistic proportions and characters circuitously strive to find agency and meaning in their lives. The combination of assaultive, nearly impenetrable avant-garde logics and equally outlandish virtuoso uses of color, form, drama, and montage produces a sublime, stream-of-consciousness effect that feels bewilderingly true to life” (Kevin McGarry). This evening, as part of a special two-part presentation organized by the Visiting Artists Program and Conversations at the Edge, Trecartin will introduce two pieces from his latest project, Trill-ogy Comp (2009-10): Sibling Topics (Section A) (2009) and P.opular S.ky (section ish) (2009). Trecartin will give an overview of his practice on April 14 at 6pm in the SAIC Columbus Auditorium. Ryan Trecartin, 2009, USA, HDCAM video, ca. 90 min.
RYAN TRECARTIN (b. 1981, Webster, TX) holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2004). Trecartin, whose videos have screened all over the world–from Belgrade and Basel to Brazil–is the recipient of the first Jack Wolgin Prize in the Fine Arts (2009), presented by Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, as well as a Pew Fellowship in the Arts (2008). He has had solo exhibitions at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; and The Power Plant, Toronto, among others. Group exhibitions include: The Generational: Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York; the 2006 Whitney Biennial, New York; Installations II: Video from the Guggenheim Collections, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbão; the 2008 Busan Biennale, South Korea; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and many more. Trecartin lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
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Ryan Trecartin at Elizabeth Dee Gallery
Ryan Trecartin in the New York Times
Everything I Tell You Now Is True: The Short Films of Emily Wardill
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 5, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 6pm |Emily Wardill in person!
- Still from “Ben” (Emily Wardill, 2007). Courtesy the artist and LUX.
The films of British artist Emily Wardill are brilliant cinematic labyrinths. Visually striking and playfully rigorous, they draw upon an array of sources– underground theater, psychoanalytic case studies, the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jacques Rancière, and even the game logic of Nintendo Wii–to pose fundamental questions about vision, representation, and media and their role in how we come to know ourselves. Wardill has been the recipient of much recent critical acclaim: Tate Modern film curator Stuart Comer rated her film The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter) (2008) as one of his top ten picks of 2008 and The Guardian newspaper deemed her its “artist of the week.” In this special program, Wardill presents five of her short films, all of which are Chicago premieres: Born Winged Animals and Honey Gatherers of the Soul (2005), Basking in What Feels Like ‘An Ocean Of Grace’ I Soon Realise That I’m Not Looking at It, But Rather I Am It, Recognising Myself (2006), Ben (2007), Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck (2007), and The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter). Co-presented by CATE and Refracted Lens, a Chicago-based film series dedicated to showcasing emerging and underrepresented artists. Emily Wardill, 2005-08, United Kingdom, 16mm, ca. 60 min (plus discussion).
Wardill will present her debut feature film, Game Keepers Without Game, on Friday, April 9 at 6pm, at SAIC’s graduate student-run series, Eye & Ear Clinic (112 S. Michigan Ave, MacLean Theater Room 1307, free and open to the public).
EMILY WARDILL (b. 1977, Rugby, England) lives and works in London. She received a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in 2000, where she is currently a senior lecturer. Her new feature film, Game Keepers without Game (2009), was exhibited at The Showroom, London, in February 2010. She will have solo shows at De Appel, Amsterdam, and Spacex, in Exeter, UK, later in the year. Other solo exhibitions include Picture This, Bristol; Fortescue Avenue/Jonathan Viner, London; Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany; STANDARD, Oslo; and Fulham Palace, London. Wardill has contributed to a number of group exhibitions at the ICA, London (2007); Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK (2005); Espace Electra, Paris (2005); PS.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2004); and the Freud Museum, London (2004). Her work has been screened at the Art Now Lightbox, Tate Britain; the International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Witte de With, Rotterdam; and the London Film Festival. Wardill is the recipient of the first ever Follow Fluxus After Fluxus grant (2008), as well as the Film London Artist Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) Bristol Mean Time residency (2007), and she was shortlisted for the 2008 Jarman Award. She is part of the creative group, Boxing Club, and assists in the coordination of the performance, live music, and screening event, Itchy Park.
ON THE THIRD PLANET FROM THE SUN: THE FILMS OF PAVEL MEDVEDEV
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 29, 2010
- Thursday, April 1, 2010, 6:00 pm
- Still from “On the Third Planet from the Sun” (Pavel Medvedev, 2006). Courtesy the artist.
The documentaries of Pavel Medvedev are haunting portraits of some of post-Soviet Russia’s most isolated people and places. This rare screening presents four different facets of Medvedev’s remarkable oeuvre. Vacation in November (2002) follows Russian miners in the tundra. On a forced furlough from their regular jobs, they embark on an annual massive reindeer slaughter to supplement their income. On the Third Planet from the Sun (2006) studies life in the country’s resource-rich Arkhangelsk region, where inhabitants forage for scrap metal left behind from H-bomb testing. Wedding of Silence (2003) depicts a deaf community in St. Petersburg, juxtaposing an expressive wedding celebration with the din of a foundry where many work. Following a different kind of party, Medvedev’s The Unseen (2007) captures the behind-the-scenes dinners and rituals of the 2006 G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, along with their corresponding impact on Russian citizens. Russian with English subtitles. Pavel Medvedev, 2003-08, Russia, 35mm and Beta SP video, ca. 100 min.
PAVEL MEDVEDEV (b. 1963, Orenburg, Russia) graduated from the Leningrad State Culture Institute in 1990. In 1992, he graduated from the Higher School for TV directors (workshop of Sarukhanov). From 1993-2000, he worked as a television director in St. Petersburg, and since 2000, he has been working as a film director at the St. Petersburg Documentary Film Studio. His films have received many awards at festivals, including Best Documentary at Karlovy International Film Festival (2004, Wedding of Silence) and the Prize of the Jury of FIPRESCI (Jury of International Film Critics) at the International Film Festival Oberhausen (2008, The Unseen).
NAOMI UMAN: THE UKRAINIAN TIME MACHINE
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 15, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 6pm | Naomi Uman in person!
- Still from “Unnamed Film” (Naomi Uman, 2008), part of the Ukrainian Time Machine, 2008. Courtesy the artist.
In 2006, experimental filmmaker Naomi Uman retraced her great grandparents’ emigration from Eastern Europe in reverse, settling in the tiny village of Legedzine, Ukraine, where she still lives today. The result of her adventures is the quietly picaresque quintet of 16mm films, The Ukrainian Time Machine. In capturing the joys and hardships of her neighbors’ centuries-old way of life– traditions that are eroding with the encroaching pressures of modernity–Uman creates a new kind of living history, fresh with curiosity and verve. In this evening’s program, Uman will present Unnamed Film, her keen documentary about life in Legedzine, cataloging its inhabitants’ various strategies of labor and resourcefulness necessary for survival; Kalendar, a poetic collection of shots, one for each month of an entire year; and Coda, a black-and-white epilogue encapsulating the themes of the series as a whole. Naomi Uman, 2008, Ukraine, 16mm, ca. 70 min (plus discussion).
NAOMI UMAN (b. 1962, New York, NY) received an MFA in Filmmaking from California Institute of the Arts in 1998. Her experimental documentary films have been exhibited widely at the Sundance and Rotterdam International Film Festivals, The New York Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Film Festival, among others. She has also screened her work at The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian, and Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital, Tribeca Media Arts, and she was a 2007-8 Fulbright Scholar.
THE BLINDNESS SERIES
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 8, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 6pm | Tran, T. Kim-Trang in person!
- Still from “ekleipsis” (Tran, T. Kim-Trang, 1998), part of the Blindness Series, 1992-2006. Courtesy the artist and the Video Data Bank.
The Blindness Series is Los Angeles-based artist Tran, T. Kim-Trang’s expansive, fourteen-years-in-the-making tour de force on vision and its metaphors. Comprised of eight videos, the series draws upon notions of blindness to explore broader political and cultural themes of identity, sexuality, society, and technology. This evening, to celebrate the Video Data Bank’s release of The Blindness Series in a new DVD box-set, Tran will present five works from the cycle, including a provocative documentary on hysterical blindness and the Cambodian civil war (ekleipsis, 1998); an essay on cosmetic eyelid surgery (operculum, 1993); and a meditation on the phenomenon of word blindness (alexia, 2000). “We are invited to approach these works with all our senses,” writes scholar Laura Marks. “The Blindness Series, crankily, and finally tenderly, gives us our eyes back.” Tran, T. Kim-Trang, 1992-2006, USA, Beta SP video, ca. 82 min (plus discussion).
TRAN, T. KIM-TRANG (b. 1966, Saigon, Vietnam) emigrated to the U.S. in 1975. She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and has been producing experimental videos since the early 1990s. Her work has been exhibited internationally and nationally in solo and group screenings, including at the Museum of Modern Art, the 2000 Whitney Biennial, and the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. Tran is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, having been awarded a Creative Capital grant, a Getty Mid-Career Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship. Tran also collaborates with Karl Mihail on a project known as Gene Genies Worldwide© (www.genegenies.com). Their conceptual and public artworks on genetic engineering have exhibited at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria; Exit Art, New York; the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York and elsewhere in the United States. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Scripps College.
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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.
