Image x Sound: The Short Films of Tatsu Aoki
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 13, 2006
Thursday, April 13, 2006, 6pm
Tatsu Aoki in person!
In celebration of acclaimed Chicago musician and filmmaker (and School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty member) Tatsu Aoki’s 25th year making films, CATE and the 11th Annual Chicago Asian American Showcase present a two-part retrospective of his extraordinary short diary films. Aoki began keeping a daily film diary of his life in the mid 1970s. “I carried Super 8 cameras everywhere I went and my house was surrounded by 13 different cameras. Some cameras were on tripods, some with time-exposure, time-lapse, broken cameras, hand cranked cameras… My life was on the roll and on the reel.” Today, this body of work archives hundreds of hours, stretches thousands upon thousands of feet (on Super 8, 16mm, and DV), and constitutes over a dozen films. Tonight’s screening is the second half of the retrospective (part one screens earlier this week as part of the Showcase) and features the premiere of Aoki’s latest work Traveling Spirits (2006) along with: Decades Passed (2003); Shape (1996); and Discovery (1991). 1991-2006, Tatsu Aoki, USA, ca. 76 min, various formats.
Media City: Films and Videos from Media City 2006
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 6, 2006
Thursday, April 6, 2006, 6pm
Curator David Dinnell in person!
In the last twelve years, Media City has become one of the premiere festivals for experimental film and video art in North America. Staged each February in Windsor, the fest is renowned for its smart and cosmopolitan programming (videos from the Brazilian underground follow those featured in the Venice Biennale, meditations from Japan’s avant-garde bracket the latest in Austrian techno-minimalism), savvy installations, and adventurous live film and video performances. Tonight’s program, curated by Media City Program Director David Dinnell, is a sampling of work showcased at Media City ‘06 and enticement to attend next year’s event: Man. Road. River. (2005, Marcellvs L); Bridge over the Drina (2005, Xavier Lukomsky); Market Street (2005, Tomonari Nishikawa); Chronomops (2004, Tina Frank); Object Studies (2005, Nicky Hamlyn); Made in Chinatown (2005, Jim Jennings); Mantis Tales (2005, Chu-Li Shewring); Evergreen (2005, Rob Todd). 2004-2005, various directors, Austria/Belgium/Brazil/England/Japan/Malaysia/USA, ca. 89 min, various formats.
Tags: Asia > Canada > Curators and Programmers > Diary > Non-Fiction > South America
Shuddhabrata Sengupta and the Raqs Media Collective
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 30, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006, 6pm
Shuddhabrata Sengupta in person!
Shuddhabrata Sengupta is a media-maker, writer, and one of the co-founders of the Raqs Media Collective, a group of artists working in new and old media, installations, video, sound, photography and text based in Delhi, India. Founded in 1991, their hybridized practice is both rooted in the geography of Delhi and the nomadism of the web. They are also the co-founders of the Sarai New Media Lab which serves as their studio, hosts workshops, and maintains www.sarai.net, an extensive web site containing essays, discussion groups, and interactive projects investigating the role of media in our increasingly cosmopolitan world. Raqs has exhibited around the globe, including the 50th Venice Biennale and Documenta 11. Sengupta will give a multi-media presentation on his work with Raqs and Sarai, including Media City, Publics and Practices in the History of the Present, and Garage, among others. 1991-2005, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, India, ca. 60 min, various formats.
[FRAY]
Tonight’s show is an instance of [FRAY], a distributed series of screenings, discussions, student initiated projects and a conference. [FRAY] traces intersecting hyperthreads of time, screen and code-based experimental New Media art hosted by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Film, Video, and New Media.
Phil Collins: Videos 1999 – 2005
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 16, 2006
Thursday, March 16, 2006, 6pm | Phil Collins in person!
- el mundo no escuchará (2004). Image courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.
UK photographer and video artist Phil Collins’ works are a savvy blend of politics and pop culture. Working in embattled regions around the globe-Belfast, Belgrade, Baghdad, Bogotá-he takes on mass media representations of these geopolitical flashpoints by casting residents in pop-song-scored performances both charming and discomforting. In they shoot horses (2004), nine young Palestinians compete in an eight-hour disco marathon staged in a lurid pink gymnasium; in el mundo no escuchará (2004) Colombian Smiths fans sing along to backing tracks (a rerecording of the album “The World Won’t Listen” by Bogotá musicians) against photographs of Mediterranean holiday villas and tropical sunsets; and in baghdad screentests (2002), Iraqis channel Warhol while preparing for the United States’ “last resort.” Collins will screen an exclusive CATE mix of these videos along with: how to make a refugee (1999); dünya dinlemiyor (2005); the louder you scream, the faster we go (2005); and the return of the real (2005). 1999-2005, Phil Collins, Colombia/Iraq/Spain/Turkey/UK, ca. 100 min, various formats.
Tags: Europe > Instillation > Monographic Shows > Photography > Political
Dan Sandin: 35 Years of Electronic Art
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 9, 2006
Thursday, March 9, 2006, 6pm
Dan Sandin in person!
Chicago artist Dan Sandin is one of the leading figures in the history of image-based electronic art. With the development of the Sandin Image Processor (I.P.), the University of Illinois’ Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL), and CAVE virtual reality theater, Sandin is a key figure in the history of video art, immersive electronic environments, video game technologies, virtual reality, and the open source movement. Much of his work has laid the groundwork for digital art today — from realtime video manipulation to Hollywood special effects. Tonight Sandin will lead us on a whirlwind tour of his career in a multimedia program featuring rare tapes from his personal archive and examples of works-in-progress. 1971-2006, Dan Sandin, USA, ca. 60 min, various formats.
[FRAY]
Tonight’s show is an instance of [FRAY], a distributed series of screenings, discussions, student initiated projects and a conference. [FRAY] traces intersecting hyperthreads of time, screen and code-based experimental New Media art hosted by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Film, Video, and New Media.
Tags: Early Video Art > Monographic Shows > New Media > Retrospective > USA
The Sharpest Point
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 2, 2006
Thursday, March 2, 2006, 6pm | Curators Chris Gehman and Steve Reinke in person!
- Jude Norris, Red Buffalo Skydive (2001). Image courtesy of Vtape.
In celebration of the publication of SAIC faculty member Steve Reinke and Chris Gehman’s recent animation anthology, The Sharpest Point, tonight’s program spans the entirety of animation history, tracing subterranean cinematic currents peculiar to the form. Curated by Reinke and Gehman, the works range from Emile Cohl’s pioneering Fantasmagorie (1908) and the mind-boggling jazz age surrealism of the Fleischers’ Snow-White (1933) to classic and contemporary works of cameraless abstraction and recent videos created for gallery exhibition. Also screening: Free Radicals (1959, Len Lye); Element of Light (2004, Richard Reeves); Zuse Strip (2003, Caspar Stracke); A Feather Stare At the Dark (2002, Tsuji Naoyuki); The Quick and the Dead (2004, Stephen Andrews); Japanese Kitchen: Three Stories (2000, Tabaimo); Great Emarican Music (2005, Aaron Ray); Red Buffalo Skydive (2001, Jude Norris). There will be a book signing in the Film Center’s café/gallery before and after the screening. 1908-2005, various directors, Canada/France/Japan/UK/USA, ca. 70 min, various formats.
Tags: Animation > Asia > Canada > Group Shows > SAIC Faculty > Visual Music
Confessions of a Sociopath: Recent Work by Joe Gibbons
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 23, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006, 6pm | Joe Gibbons in person!
- Joe Gibbons, Confessions of a Sociopath Part 1 (2001-06). Image courtesy of the artist.
Joe Gibbons’ dry humor comes across in obsessive rants that scrape the bottom of a monomaniacal mind, spilling forth with fantasies of power, destruction, and death. In this selection of recent videos, Gibbons reveals the depth of his psychosis — confiding his sins (endless drug and alcohol abuse, shoplifting, cheating on his parole officer) and teaching us how to make a movie. Confessions of a Sociopath Part 1 (2001 – 2006); Confessions of a Sociopath Part 2 (These Are My Sins) (preview, 2006); The Producer (2005, Tony Conrad with Joe Gibbons and Louise Bourque); and Doppelganger (2006). Co-presented with the Video Data Bank. 2001-2006, various directors, USA, ca. 85 min, video.
A Heart and Other Small Shapes: Jennifer Reeder Videos 1995 – 2006
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 16, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006, 6pm
Jennifer Reeder in person!
Eleven years ago, School of the Art Institute of Chicago alum Jennifer Reeder took the art world by storm with her riot grrl super hero White Trash Girl. Since then, she has continued to mine the charged landscape of the profane with sublime portraits of adolescence, sexual desire, and the Midwest. Tonight’s program features the Chicago premiere of her latest video, A Heart and Other Small Shapes (2006) and a mini-retrospective of her work to date, including: Lullaby (1999); The Devil Inside (1995); Nevermind (1999); and Twin Decks (2001, with Jon Leone). www.jenniferreeder.com. 1995-2006, Jennifer Reeder, USA, ca. 75 min, video.
Tags: Essay > Experimental > Feminist > Non-Fiction > Performance > SAIC Alumni
Of a Feather
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 9, 2006
Thursday, February 9, 2006, 6pm
Curator Cecelia Condit in person!
A bright spot in the long months before spring’s winged migration, curators Cecelia Condit and Carl Bogner have collected bird films and videos from around the globe in a program at once swooping and earthbound, caged and wild. Works include: The Canaries (1968, Jerome Hill); Vogels (2003, Gerben Kruk); Disperse (2004, Paul Dickinson); Why Not a Sparrow (2002-2005, Cecelia Condit); The Walking Pigeon (2001, Guido van der Werve); Chick Running (2004, Sam Easterson); Parrot Suite #1 (2002, Anne Walsh); 9 Is a Secret (2002,Vanessa Renwick); Of a Feather (2005, Rob Yeo). 1968-2005, various directors, Netherlands/USA, ca. 57 min, various formats.
Soft Science
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 2, 2006
Thursday, February 2, 2006, 6pm
Curator Rachel Mayeri in person!
Some of the most astonishing art projects exist behind laboratory doors. This collection of video-curiosities, curated by filmmaker Rachel Mayeri, brings together work by artists and scientists in experiments with ebullient nanogears, tethered flies, and the ever-elusive idea of Reason. It Did It (2000, Peter Brinson); Soft Science “Cinema of Attractions” (2004, Joe Milutis and Rachel Mayeri); Bug Girl (2003, Su Rynard); Re-Animation 3, 4 & 2 (2003, Kaipo Newhouse); Ameising 1 (2003, Sean Dockray); Stories From The Genome: An Animated History of Reproduction (2003, Rachel Mayeri); I Am Today’s Lesson Plan (2004, Darrin Martin and Torsten Z. Burns); and The Bats (1998, Jim Trainor). www.soft-science.org. Co-presented with the Video Data Bank. 1998-2004, various directors, Canada/USA, ca. 65 min, video.
Tags: Animation > Bank > Canada > Curators and Programmers > Essay > Non-Fiction > Video Data
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.
