Michael Snow: Wavelength & (Back and Forth)
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 8, 2007
Thursday, February 8, 2007, 6pm
Michael Snow in person!
Michael Snow is one of the true giants of the avant-garde. His films, photography, music, painting, and sculpture, take up life and its representation, revolutionizing and revitalizing each medium along the way. Tonight, Snow presents two of his best-known works, including the perpetual motion film « (Back And Forth) (1968-69) and his breakthrough Wavelength (1966-67), a landmark of Structural film and one of the most influential films in the history of independent filmmaking. 1966-69, Michael Snow, Canada, ca. 120 min, 16mm.
The Wave: New Experimental Films from China
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 1, 2007
Thursday, February 1, 2007, 6pm
Little more than a decade-and-a-half old, Chinese media art is vigorously energizing the country’s rich aesthetic traditions, ushering in new forms of art-making to express China’s rapid social, economic, and political changes. Curated by Li Zhenhua, this program surveys the field with works from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, including 1201 (2002, Wang Ning); Backyard-Hey! Sun is Rising (2001, Yang Fudong); Beautiful Cloud (2001, Zhou Xiaohu); Burners (2003, Cao Fei); Jerk Don’t Say Fuck (2000, Zhao Liang); News Dance (2002, 8GG); Summer of 1969 (2002, Cao Kai); Sing with Me (2004, Zheng Yunhan); San Yuan Li (2003, Ou Ning and Cao Fei). In Mandarin with English subtitles. 1997-2004, various directors, China, ca. 90 min, various formats.
Tags: Animation > Asia > Group Programs > Non-Fiction > Performance > Political
The Secret Story: Films by Janie Geiser
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | December 7, 2006
Thursday, December 7, 2006, 6pm
Janie Geiser in person!
Janie Geiser is at the forefront of today’s experimental animators. Drawing on her renowned work in puppet-theater, her films use the miniaturized scale of paper cutouts, dollhouses, and antique toys to create mysterious, multilayered worlds of cryptic messages, enigmatic women, and half-forgotten dreams. Tonight, she presents an overview of her cinematic work to date, including Vapor Drama (2004), Terrace 49 (2004), Ultima Thule (2002), The Fourth Watch (2000), Spiral Vessel (2000), Lost Motion (1999), Immer Zu (1997), and The Secret Story (1996). 1996-2004, Janie Geiser, USA, ca. 70 min, 16mm.
Daylight Moon & the Sunset Strip: Recent Films by Lewis Klahr
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 30, 2006
Thursday, November 30, 2006, 6pm
Lewis Klahr in person!
Lewis Klahr is “one of the most evocative, accessible, and culturally aware experimental filmmakers alive and working.” (Michael Atkinson, Village Voice) For almost thirty years, Klahr has reconfigured the detritus of postwar America into skip-beat riffs and dreamy meditations on the deferred promises of consumer culture. Tonight, Klahr presents two of his most recent multi-film series: the enigmatic and abstract Daylight Moon (A Quartet) (Valise [2004], Hard Green [2004], Soft Ticket [2004], Daylight Moon [2002]), and a thrice-told, fast-paced crime drama drawn from the pages of the comic “77 Sunset Strip,” Three Minutes to Zero Trilogy (Two Days to Zero [2004], Two Hours to Zero [2004], Two Minutes to Zero [2003]). 2002-04, Lewis Klahr, USA, ca. 90 min, 16mm.
Light Years: The Films & Videos of Gunvor Nelson
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 16, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006, 6pm | Gunvor Nelson in person!
- Gunvor Nelson, Natural Features (1990). Image courtesy of the artist.
One of the few women to emerge from San Francisco’s heady independent film scene of the 1960s, Swedish filmmaker Gunvor Nelson has produced one of the great bodies of work in experimental film. Her works are at once intimate studies of life’s emotional landscapes and sensual explorations of image and sound, built up through lush compositions and lyrical montages. Tonight, in a rare North American appearance, Nelson will present the first in a three-part overview of her work, including the Midwest premiere of her latest video, New Evidence (2006); along with her first film, the visceral and brash Schmeerguntz (w/Dorothy Wiley, 1966); the lyrical Moon’s Pool (1973) and the stunning collage film, Natural Features (1990). Light Years is co-presented by CATE, the Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago, and Chicago Filmmakers. Part two screens Friday, November 17 at the Film Studies Center. Part three screens Saturday, November 18 at Chicago Filmmakers. 1966-2006, Gunvor Nelson, Sweden/USA, ca. 85 min, various formats.
The Outer Ear Festival Of Sound: Frédéric Moffet & Jean Genet
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 9, 2006
Thursday, November 9, 2006, 6pm
Frédéric Moffet in person!
CATE and the Outer Ear Festival of Sound team up to present this special screening of Frédéric Moffet’s award-winning video, Jean Genet in Chicago (2006) and Genet’s only film, the queer masterpiece Un Chant d’Amour (1950). Completed at the Experimental Sound Studio (the organization that puts on Outer Ear), Jean Genet in Chicago reimagines the events surrounding the 1968 National Democratic Convention in Chicago through Genet’s eyes—marching with the radicals while gazing at the cops’ uniformed thighs. Genet mines these tensions himself in the erotically-charged Un Chant d’Amour, which pits sexual desire against political power in the relationship between two male prisoners and their male guard. The Outer Ear Festival of Sound (November 3-22, 2006) is the only comprehensive interdisciplinary sonic arts festival in the Midwest. For more information, visit www.expsoundstudio.org. 1950-2006, various directors, France/USA, ca. 75 min, various formats.
The World of George Kuchar
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 2, 2006
Thursday, November 2, 2006, 8pm | George Kuchar in person!
George Kuchar has been working with the moving image for nearly half a century. First, with his twin brother Mike, producing their ultra-low-budget underground versions of Hollywood genre films. And then, on his own, since the 1980s, creating brilliantly edited, hilarious, often diaristic tapes with dime-store props and not-so-special effects, using friends as actors, and the “pageant that is life” for his studio. Tonight he will present a selection of his high-ambition, low-neckline genre tapes and autobiographic chronicles, coinciding with the launch of a special Video Data Bank DVD compilation, The World of George Kuchar. The program includes the weather–imbued Heavenly Features (2005), the people, pets and places of Faulty Fathoms (2006), and the world premiere of his latest opus Temple of Torment (2006), among others. Co-presented by the Video Data Bank and CATE. 2005-06, George Kuchar, USA, ca. 90 min, video.
The Video Data Bank celebrates thirty years!
Tonight’s program is part of a series of screenings, talks, and lectures celebrating the Video Data Bank’s three decades of collecting, distributing and exhibiting over 1,600 essential video art titles by 400+ artists. Events include an artists’ talk by George Kuchar and Anne McGuire, a multi-media lecture by renowned critic and author Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema), and the publication of FEEDBACK: The Video Data Bank Catalog of Video Art and Artist Interviews, a full catalog of the VDB collections and an anthology of essential essays on the development of alternative media in the U.S.
Anne McGuire: Videos
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 2, 2006
Thursday, November 2, 2006, 6pm
Anne McGuire in person!
Anne McGuire is a San Francisco-based video artist whose “private cabarets” expose the formal elements of another era’s media mannerisms and lay bare their cultural mores. Her works contain elements of impersonation and performance, personal exorcism and autobiography, wit and media critique. A survey of her short works to date, tonight’s program includes All Smiles and Sadness (1999) starring George Kuchar, I Am Crazy and You’re Not Wrong (1997), Joe DiMaggio 1, 2, 3 (1991), and Turn Table (2005), among others. Co-presented by the Video Data Bank and CATE. 1991-2006, Anne McGuire, USA/Taiwan, ca. 90 min, video.
The Video Data Bank celebrates thirty years!
Tonight’s program is part of a series of screenings, talks, and lectures celebrating the Video Data Bank’s three decades of collecting, distributing and exhibiting over 1,600 essential video art titles by 400+ artists. Events include an artists’ talk by George Kuchar and Anne McGuire, a multi-media lecture by renowned critic and author Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema), and the publication of FEEDBACK: The Video Data Bank Catalog of Video Art and Artist Interviews, a full catalog of the VDB collections and an anthology of essential essays on the development of alternative media in the U.S.
Tags: Experimental > Monographic Shows > Performance > USA > Video Data Bank
The Animated Films of Adam K. Beckett
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | October 26, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006, 6pm
Curator Jim Trainor in person!
The young animator Adam K. Beckett created a handful of vivid, astonishing films in the early 1970s, but died tragically at the age of 29 at the peak of his creative frenzy. Based on an innovation he called the evolving cycle—whereby an animated image grows bizarrely complex under the camera—the films combine trippy meditative rhythms with the edgy sensibility of underground comics. SAIC film professor Jim Trainor presents newly restored prints of five Beckett films—Evolution of the Red Star (1973); Heavy-Light (1973); Flesh Flows (1974); Sausage City (1974); Kitch in Sync (1975)—along with selected animations admired by the artist: Motion Painting, No. 1 (1947, Oskar Fischinger); 7362 (1965-67, Pat O’Neil), Mirror People (1974, Kathy Rose); and Luma Nocturna (1974, Dennis Pies), among others (including the anonymous 1925 film Everready). Beckett’s films are courtesy Canyon Cinema and the iotaCenter, which is sponsoring an extensive preservation project and monograph of Beckett’s work. For more information, visit iota’s website: http://www.iotacenter.org/projects/beckett. 1925-75, Adam K. Beckett & various, USA, ca. 90 min, 16mm.
Akram Zaatari: This Day
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | October 19, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006, 6pm
Akram Zaatari in person!
In 1982, 16-year-old Akram Zaatari watched the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon from his balcony in Saida, documenting the bombings in a diary of snapshots. The resulting images—at once beautiful and terrifying—make up his stunning 2004 video Saida, June 6, 1982 and have haunted his work ever since. One of the founders of the Arab Image Foundation, the internationally renowned artist and curator has devoted himself to capturing, collecting, and archiving the everyday history of the region. Tonight, Zaatari will screen Saida and his 2003 feature, This Day, an elegant meditation on the photography of the Middle East—from exotic portraits of nomadic Bedouins in the Syrian Desert to television clips of Beirut today. Special thanks to Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Art History, the Fulbright Visiting Specialist Program, and SAIC’s Department of Art & Technology Studies for helping to make Zaatari’s appearance possible. 2003-04, Akram Zaatari, Lebanon, ca. 90 min, various formats.
Tags: Curators and Programmers > Essay > Middle East > Monographic Shows
About
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.
