The Way of the Weed: Works by Anne Quirynen
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 29, 2004
Thursday, April 29, 2004, 8pm | Anne Quirynen in person!
Presenting a selection of her work is Anne Quirynen, artist-in-residence in the Department of Film/Video/New Media, show interest in the human body as a site of biological, philosophical, social, and political inquiry was informed by her work as a filmmaker in medical research at the University of Leuven (Belgium). The award-winning The Way of the Weed (with An-Marie Lambrechts & Peter Missotten, 1997), in which a scientist parachutes in to an unnamed desert to conduct experiments on weeds in a “mysterious, eerily beautiful sci-fi dance narrative utilizing advanced digital technology with acclaimed choreographer William Forsythe and the Frankfurt Ballet” (Illuminations). Proceeded by In a Landscape (2001), an example of Quirynen’s recent focus on the interaction between human bodies and urban space. 1997—2001, various directors, Belgium/Netherlands, ca. 60 min, video.
Tags: Europe > Experimental > Monographic Shows > Performance > SAIC Faculty
Gender at the Edge: Three Films by Mickey Mahoney
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 22, 2004
Thursday, April 22, 2004, 8pm
Mickey Mahoney in person!
Sexuality, in its omnivorous complex glory, has rarely been celebrated as wittily as in the works of Mickey Mahoney. Twisty plots, reversals of fortune and identity, and a sharp but generous sense of satire combine seamlessly in these highly entertaining works. A four-minute pick-up is the subject of Midwestern Hospitality (1995), starring the El train and a pair of glance-exchanging, silent commuters. Things aren’t what they seem, but it all pays off in the end, in the noirish Acrobats and Sword-Swallowers (1997). Finally, a 1967 classic film is invoked hilariously in The Undergrad (2003), whose female/drag king cast recreates the erotic mishaps of Ben and Mrs. Robinson. A hit on the lesbian and gay film festival circuit, The Undergrad takes its characters on a giddy cruise of sexual liberation and discovery (Jim Trainor). 1995—2003, Mickey Mahoney, USA, ca. 55 min, various formats.
Recent Work by Nancy Andrews: Monkeys and Lumps & The Dreamless Sleep
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 15, 2004
Thursday, April 15, 2004, 8pm
Nancy Andrews in person!
A tender fascination with the world informs the puppet animations of Nancy Andrews, who appears tonight with the first two films of a projected trilogy. Wryly old-fashioned in style, her black-and-white films mix invented characters with historical personages as they poke around in dim corners of science and natural history. In Monkeys and Lumps (2003), Andrews introduces Ima Plume, Public Illustrator, whose animated chalk talk veers from Jane Goodall to the paranormal. Chimps in space, the facial expressions of monkeys and people, and mysterious “globsters” on the beach captivate Ima’s audience, and ourselves. In The Dreamless Sleep (2004), Plume returns to revive some forgotten heroines: medieval mystic Christine the Astonishing and artist Else Bosselman, who drew deep-sea creatures as glimpsed from a bathysphere (Jim Trainor). 2003—2004, Nancy Andrews, USA, ca. 68 min, 16mm.
Les Modeles de Pickpocket
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 8, 2004
Thursday, April 8, 2004, 8pm
Babette Mangolte in person!
Austere, wrenching and inimitable, the films of Robert Bresson are a touchstone for world cinephiles, and many regard Pickpocket (1959) as his greatest work. Babette Mangolte’s fascinating documentary offers startling insight into the guarded director’s creative process by tracking down the 1959 film’s principals, including Martin Lassalle, the film’s Raskolnikov-like protagonist, whom she discovered in Mexico City. In a series of interviews, the actors – all nonprofessionals at the time – describe perfectionist Bresson’s grueling methods, by which the performances were stripped of all artifice and became “models” for the director’s ideas. Filmmaker Mangolte – acclaimed for her work as cinematographer for Chantal Akerman, Yvonne Rainer, Sally Potter and others – has given us startling insight into a guarded artist’s creative process (Jim Trainor). 2003, Babette Mangolte, France/USA, 89 min, video.
The Subjective Landscape: Works by Alfred Guzzetti
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | April 1, 2004
Thursday, April 1, 2004, 8pm
Alfred Guzzetti in person!
From Shanghai to Calcutta to his own backyard, the cinema of Alfred Guzzetti finds the exotic in the commonplace and a meditative beauty in the ever-changing modern landscape. Well known as a co-director of feature length documentaries, including Pictures From a Revolution and Family Portrait Sittings, Guzzetti has also created powerful short-format works, as featured in this program. The calming single-take Sky Piece (1978) is glaringly offset by the assaulting rhythms of The Tower of Industrial Life (2000), where the unconscious fear of distant violence intrudes upon the landscape of daily experience. Images of China, rain and lightning combine in the Under the Rain (1997) while A Tropical Story (1999), “gives a lesson on thinking of something while being far away from it and seeing other things entirely.”
A landscape of trees changes subtly over time in Chronological Order (1985), while a threatening storm, a bicyclist, and the moon in the trees create a quiet drama in Down From the Mountains (2002). The news of the day permeates a ten-minute slide of an Indian street corner in Calcutta Intersection (2003). Also showing, a work in progress, History of the Sea (Charissa King). 1978—2004, Alfred Guzzetti, USA, ca. 82 min, various formats.
National Philistine: Videos by Paul Chan
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 18, 2004
Thursday, March 18, 2004, 8pm | Paul Chan in person!
A wry political sensibility informs the work of Paul Chan, a New York-based video and installation artist who returns to Chicago to present three recent works. These include an astonishing new piece shot in Iraq, made while Chan was a member of the Chicago-based, Nobel Peace Prize-nominated group Voices in the Wilderness. A troubled outsider artist joins forces with a socialist philosopher to create an unlikely utopia in Happiness (Finally) After 35,000 Years of Civilization – After Harvey Darger and Charles Fourier (2000-2003). In its parade of mustachioed men, Now Let Us Praise American Leftists (2000) uses wanted-poster computer technology to foreground the exclusionary nature of American leftist politics. The fruits of a month-long study trip to Iraq immediately before the 2003 US invasion, BAGHDAD IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER –PART I (2004) is an ambient video essay of life in that city on the eve of war (Video Data Bank). 2000—2004, Paul Chan, USA, ca. 74 min, video.
Tags: Essay > New Media > Political > SAIC Alumni > USA > Video Data Bank
Depression: What Is It Good For?
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 11, 2004
Thursday, March 11, 2004, 8:15pm
This screening of shorts from the Video Data Bank investigates the thick blanket of experiences and social dynamics that share the rubric of depression – from invisible and privatized feelings to the collapse of the social safety net. In an era where drugs promise to manage all psychological ills and where myriad forces camouflage the social contradictions which exacerbate a kind of collective schizophrenia, perhaps it’s useful to look at how a diverse bunch of artists have mobilized bad feelings such as hopelessness, apathy, anxiety, fear, numbness, despair, and ambivalence to hold up a cracked mirror to our current state of insecurity and dread. These videos don’t promise any cures – but awareness is a kind of antidote. And there’s humor, too (or at least some mania). The program includes: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (2001, Paul Bush); Agoraphobia (2001, Sterling Ruby); El Diablo en la Piel (Devil in the Flesh) (1998, Ximena Cuevas); Getting Stronger Every Day (2001, Miranda July); Pulse Pharma Phantasm (2002, Les Leveque); Hey Bud (1987, Julie Zando); Rescue Parables (1994, HalfLifers); The Dutch Act (2001, Fred Pelon); Frozen War (2002, John Smith); Pony Changes Everything (2001, Ben Coonley). Curated by Mary Patten and Dara Greenwald. Co-presented by Feeltank Chicago and Video Data Bank (Mary Patten). 1987—2002, various directors, Netherlands/Mexico/UK/USA, ca. 94 min, video.
Tags: Curators and Programmers > Experimental > SAIC Faculty > USA > Video Data Bank
O Lover of Life: Experimental Narrative from India
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 4, 2004
Thursday, March 4, 2004, 8pm
Ancient and contemporary arts of India are at the center of three startling video works by Indian makers, which blur reality and fiction with their experimental approach toward narrative. Presented by Monica Bhasin, graduate student in Film and Video at the School of the Art Institute. Oracles of Kerala state are the subjects of Kshurasya Dhara (The Razor’s Edge) (2002), a quasi-documentary by Vipin Vijay. Frenzied dances of the possessed, rock-art images, ribald songs, and ecstatic trances are cannily arranged to “make the viewer aware of the constructedness of documentary reality.” Pooja Kaul’s Winter Trail (2002) follows two women in pursuit of an historical figure: Amrita Sher-Gil, one of India’s first modern painters, a half-Indian, half-Hungarian woman who died mysteriously at the age of twenty-eight. Kaul’s Rasikan Re (O Lover of Life) (2002) merges narrative with musical structure: presenting the cautious attraction of two neighbors in an apartment block, Kaul sees the young woman, Madhu, as a morning raga, full of hope and expectancy; her older suitor, Kedar, is a night raga, austere but with the knowledge of sensuality (Monica Bhasin). 2002—2003, various directors, India, ca. 71 min, video.
North on Evers
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 26, 2004
Thursday, February 26, 2004, 8pm
The road movie, home movie, and personal diary are combined spectacularly in this captivating, subtle work by leading independent filmmaker James Benning (11 X 14; Landscape Suicide; The California Trilogy). Benning took a meandering, cross-country motorcycle trip and kept a diary; he then revisited, a year later, the sites and people of his previous trip, capturing old friends and forgotten towns, eternal rock formations and anonymous barflies with his 16mm camera. As the images unfold, the handwritten text of Benning’s diary scrolls across the bottom of the screen, and the viewer makes tiny discoveries and profound connections as image and text slide in and out of sync. North on Evers brings us an American landscape sprinkled with little human tragedies and triumphs, and a self-portrait hovering between detachment and tenderness (Jim Trainor). 1991, James Benning, USA, 87 min, 16mm.
Sensory Overload: Six Frenetic Films
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 18, 2004
Thursday, February 18, 2004, 8pm
- Paul Sharits, T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1968).
From the School of the Art Institute’s collection of landmark structuralist and materialist films, student Zachary Hall has selected six gems to tickle the eye and the imagination: In Passage a l’acte (1993), Martin Arnold transforms a clip from To Kill a Mockingbird into a museum of emotional nuance; relationships merge with architecture in Sharon Couzin’s explosive optical-printing collage A Trojan Horse (1981); foot traffic makes fields of motion in Tatsu Aoki’s meditative Harmony (1992); the aggressive, flickering colors of Paul Sharits’s T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1968) remind us: Don’t play with scissors! A New York tenement foyer is the meeting place of memory and fantasy in Ken Kobland’s Vestibule (1978); and Takashi Ito deconstructs a pixilated gymnasium through photography and motion in his neuron-frying Spacy (1981) (Zachary Hall). 1968—1993, various directors, Austria/Japan/USA, ca. 92 min, 16mm.
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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.
