November 14 – Filipa César: Spell Reel
Posted by | mnguyen6 | Posted on | November 17, 2019
Filipa César in person
Filipa César, Spell Reel, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist and SAIC’s Video Data Bank.
The genre-bending work of Portuguese artist Filipa César takes up the legacies of European colonialism, focusing on moments and movements of resistance. In 2012, she began investigating a trove of footage documenting Guinea-Bissau’s war of independence from Portugal in the 1960s and 1970s. Long thought to be lost, these films mark the birth of a national cinema and the aesthetic strategy of decolonization under revolutionary leader Amílcar Cabral. In collaboration with two of the surviving filmmakers, Sana na N’Hada and Flora Gomes, César digitized and toured the material across Europe and Africa. Spell Reel layers the original revolutionary films with talkbacks from these events to offer a collaborative reflection on Guinea-Bissau’s history and a prismatic vision for its future.
2017, Germany/Guinea-Bissau, 96 minutes followed by discussion
Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Video Data Bank
Filipa César is an artist and filmmaker interested in the politics and poetics inherent to imaging technologies. Since 2011, she has been researching the origins of the cinema of the African liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau as a laboratory of resistance. The resulting body of work comprises 16mm films, digital archives, videos, seminars, screenings, publications, ongoing collaborations with artists, theorists, and activists, and is the basis for her PhD thesis at Faculty of Social and Human Sciences-New University of Lisbon. César’s genre-bending film and video work bridges contemporary and historical discourses, also apparent in her writings, such as her essay “Meteorizations,” published in the Third Text special issue, and “The Wretched Earth: Botanical Conflicts and Artistic Interventions,” edited by Shela Sheik and Ros Gray. Selected exhibitions and screenings have taken place at the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010); Manifesta 8, Cartagena, Colombia (2010); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2011–15); Jeu de Paume, Paris (2012); Khiasma, Paris (2011–15); Kunstwerke, Berlin (2013); SAAVY Contemporary, Berlin (2014–15); Tensta konsthall, Stockholm (2015); Mumok, Vienna (2016); Contour Biennale 8, Mechelen, Belgium; Gasworks, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017); The Harvard Art Museums, Boston (2018), and The Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2019).
Tags: Artist's Film > Documentary > Experimental > Guinea-Bissau > Political > Video Data Bank
November 7 – An Evening With Hiwa K
Posted by | mnguyen6 | Posted on | November 4, 2019
Hiwa K in person
Hiwa K, Pre-Image (Blind as the Mother Tongue), 2017. Image courtesy of the artist, KOW Berlin, and Prometeogallery di Isa Pisani, Milan/Lucca.
Drawing from individual stories, political actions, and his own experience fleeing Iraq by foot in the late 1990s, the deeply moving and often darkly absurd films, performances, and installations of Iraqi-German artist Hiwa K explore our most pressing issues—displacement, war, and identity. In videos like Pre-Image (Blind as the Mother Tongue) (2017) or A View From Above (2017), both produced for documenta 14, the artist allegorizes the fragmentation and precariousness of migration. In others, he stages collaborative interventions in sites of political trauma, including a former detention center for political prisoners, a civil protest in the Kurdish region of Iraq, and a scrapyard devoted to smelting battlefield waste. Hiwa K shows a selection of these works and discusses the ideas and approaches that inform his broader practice.
2006–19, Iraq/Turkey/Greece/Italy/Germany, multiple formats, ca 60 minutes followed by discussion
Presented in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Chicago
Berlin-based artist Hiwa K studied informally and independently in his hometown, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, focusing on European literature and philosophy available in Arabic. After moving to Germany in 2002, he became a music student of the flamenco master, Paco Peña. His referential repository consists of stories told by family members and friends, found situations, and everyday forms that are the products of pragmatism and necessity. Hiwa K has had major exhibitions at S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium; New Museum, New York; Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Venice Biennale; La Triennale, Paris; Serpentine Gallery, London; and Manifesta 7, Bolzano, Italy. He is the recipient of prestigious awards including the Hector Prize for Contemporary Art, the Arnold Bode Prize, and the Schering Stiftung Art Award.
October 31 – Shengze Zhu: Present.Perfect.
Posted by | mnguyen6 | Posted on | October 29, 2019
Shengze Zhu in person
Shengze Zhu, Present.Perfect., 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.
Award-winning filmmaker Shengze Zhu (MFA 2017) is celebrated for her incisive portraits of everyday life in China. Her latest film, Present.Perfect., spotlights the country’s explosive livestreaming phenomenon. Collaged from more than 800 hours of footage from “anchors” who share their lives with a virtual community, the film eschews the medium’s stars to focus on marginalized figures—a burn victim, a crane operator, and a factory farm worker, among others. Each anchor offers an indelible window into Chinese society, defined by physical isolation and virtual sociability. Their collective experiences raise provocative questions about technology and the ever-shifting parameters of community, connection, and commerce that have come to characterize contemporary life.
2019, United States/Hong Kong, 124 minutes followed by discussion
Shengze Zhu is a documentary filmmaker and producer. Her first film, Out of Focus (2014), premiered at the Cinéma du Réel in France. Her second feature documentary Another Year (2016) premiered at the Visions du Réel in Switzerland and received the Sesterce d’or Best Film Award. The film also received the Grand Prize at the RIDM Montreal International Documentary Festival, Canada; the Critics’ Award at the Olhar de Cinema, Brazil; and was honored as “Top 10 Films of the Year” in 2016 by 24 images magazine. Zhu’s third feature documentary, Present.Perfect. (2019) premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam where it received the prestigious Tiger Award. In addition to her work as filmmaker, Zhu cofounded the production company Burn The Film with Zhengfan Yang (MA 2017) in 2012. She has served as producer for many of Yang’s films, including Distant (2013), Where Are You Going (2016), and Down There (2018).
October 24 – An Evening With Rachel Rossin
Posted by | mnguyen6 | Posted on | October 22, 2019
Rachel Rossin in person
Rachel Rossin, Man Mask, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist
Over the last four years, multidisciplinary artist Rachel Rossin has gained recognition for a series of astonishing exhibitions that blend oil painting, sculpture, and virtual reality. Rossin’s practice investigates the fluid boundary between physical and digital worlds, particularly the ways information and sensory experience are transfigured by each. In the 2015 virtual reality artwork I Came and Went as Ghost Hand, photogrammetry models of the artist’s studio and domestic spaces dissolve in response to the user’s gaze to create an elastic, unstable environment. In the critically acclaimed The Sky is a Gap (2017-19), time and space are enmeshed as the user’s body slows down, speeds up, or reverses a cataclysmic explosion. Rossin presents a selection of works in video and virtual reality and discusses them within the wider context of her practice.
2015–19, United States, multiple formats, ca 60 minutes followed by discussion
Rachel Rossin is a painter and programmer whose work explores entropy, embodiment, the ubiquity of technology and its effect on our psychology. Selected solo exhibitions include Stalking the Trace, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2019; Greasy Light, 14a, Hamburg, Germany, 2019; Tennis Elbow, The Journal Gallery, New York, 2019; Peak Performance, SIGNAL, New York, 2017; My Little Green Leaf, Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia, 2016; and Lossy, Zieher Smith & Horton, New York, 2015. Selected group exhibitions include Chaos and Awe: Painting for the 21st Century, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee, 2018; After Us, K11 Art Museum, Shanghai, 2017; ARS17, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, 2017; and First Look: Artists’ VR, copresented by Rhizome, The New Museum, New York, 2017. Rossin was a fellow in virtual reality research and development at the New Museum’s NEW INC in 2015.
October 17 – Narcisa Hirsch: Contact Zones
Posted by | mnguyen6 | Posted on | October 15, 2019
Curator Federico Windhausen in person and Narcisa Hirsch via Skype
Narcisa Hirsch, Werner Nekes, 1980. Image courtesy of the artist
A pivotal figure in Latin American experimental cinema, Narcisa Hirsch is renowned for her striking explorations of the body, agency, and desire. Emigrating from Germany to Argentina in the 1920s, Hirsch first took up artistic practice through painting, then shifted to performances and happenings before moving into filmmaking in the late 1960s. Formally rigorous and visually lyrical, her films raise various existential and spiritual questions as they traverse the landscapes of her everyday life, from Patagonia’s steppes and Buenos Aires’ urban streets to her own domestic spaces. Curator Federico Windhausen presents a selection of works from the 1970s and 80s, some screening for the first time in the United States, before moderating a post-screening discussion with the artist, who will join remotely. Films include Performance Muñecos: London–Buenos Aires–New York (1972/2019), Diarios patagónicos (ca 1972), Taller (Workshop) (ca 1972), Come Out (ca 1974), La noche bengalí (1980), Werner Nekes (1980), and Ama-Zona (1983/2001).
1972–2019, Argentina/United Kingdom/United States, ca 75 minutes followed by discussion
Narcisa Hirsch is an artist and filmmaker whose work has contributed extensively to the formation and sustained development of experimental production in Argentina. Her work has been exhibited and screened internationally, including most recently Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires (2018) and in retrospectives at the Vienna International Film Festival (2012) and TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto (2013).
Federico Windhausen is a film scholar and programmer. He has curated programs for the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany; London Film Festival; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; and Ambulante, Mexico, among other venues. He is editing the forthcoming anthology “A Companion to Experimental Cinema” and writing a book about Argentine experimental cinema of the 1970s and 1980s.
Tags: Early Video Art > Experimental > Feminist > Non-Fiction > Performance > Political
October 10 – Zach Blas: Obedient x3
Posted by | mnguyen6 | Posted on | October 7, 2019
Zach Blas in person
Zach Blas (Post-Bac 2006), Contra-Internet: Jubilee 2033, 2018. Image courtesy of the artist and SAIC’s Video Data Bank
Wry and provocative, the work of multidisciplinary artist Zach Blas (Post-Bac 2006) examines technologies of social control through the lens of queer and feminist politics. In recent years, his projects have addressed biometric capture, microdosing, the hegemony of the Internet, and sex toys. Blas presents a suite of these projects, including the Chicago premiere of Contra-Internet: Jubilee 2033 (2018). Using Derek Jarman’s queer punk classic Jubilee (1978) as inspiration, Blas’ film is a CGI fever dream in which Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, and members of Rand’s Collective are transported from 1955 to a dystopian future Silicon Valley. Guided by a holographic virtual assistant, the group is confronted by Nootropix, a prophetic figure (played by the artist Cassils) who envisions new modes of connection through the end of the Internet.
2011–19, United Kingdom/United States/Germany/Denmark/Mexico, multiple formats, ca 60 minutes followed by discussion
Presented in partnership with SAIC’s Video Data Bank
Zach Blas is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose practice spans technical investigation, theoretical research, conceptualism, performance, and science fiction. He is a lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. Blas has exhibited, lectured, and held screenings internationally, recently at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; 2018 Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; 68th Berlin International Film Festival; Matadero Madrid; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Art in General, New York; Gasworks, London; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore; e-flux; Whitechapel Gallery, London; ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; and Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City. His practice has been supported by a Creative Capital award in Emerging Fields, the Arts Council England, and Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst. Blas is a 2018–20 UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Leadership Fellow and a 2019 Mercator Fellow in Configurations of Film at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany.
October 3 – New Films from the GLAS Animation Festival
Posted by | Amy Beste | Posted on | September 30, 2019
GLAS Animation Festival director Jeanette Bonds in person
Tomek Popakul, Acid Rain, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist and Animoon
Each year, the GLAS Animation Festival showcases a thrillingly expansive range of films from around the globe. Founded in 2016 by animators Jeanette Bonds and Einar Baldvin, it has become a singular platform for art and industry alike, highlighting experimental and visionary threads across the spectrum. Bonds presents a selection of films from the festival’s 2019 edition, including Grand Prix winner Acid Rain (2019), a mind-bending tale of street life and love by Polish animator Tomek Popakul, as well as festival favorite Agua Viva (2018), an exquisite portrait of the inner life of a Chinese manicurist by Alexa Lim Haas. Also on the program are Marta Pajek’s Impossible Figures and Other Stories III (2018), Lénaïg Le Moigne’s Clemence’s Afternoon (2017), Alain Biet’s Grands Canons (2018), and Boris Labbé’s La Chute (2018).
Multiple directors, 2017–19, France/Poland/United States, multiple formats, ca 80 minutes followed by discussion
Curator Jeanette Bonds in person
Jeanette Bonds is cofounder and director of GLAS Animation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to independent animation. She served as animation producer for David Gilmour’s Girl in the Yellow Dress directed by Danny Madden, directed visuals for Nick Thornburn’s music tour, and directed visuals for Kid 606’s B Minor music video. She is currently a director and producer at B&B Pictures, a company founded with her longtime collaborator Sean Buckelew. Bonds is part of the international animation collective Late Night Work Club, a programmer at Slamdance Film Festival and FMX–Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Immersive Media, a contributor to Short of the Week, and serves on the board of directors for ASIFA-Hollywood. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts and continues to make films and installations.
Tags: Alain Biet’ > Alexa Lim Haas > Animation > Borris Labbé > GLAS Animation Festival > Jeanette Bonds > Lénaïg Le Moigne > Marta Pajek > Tomek Popakul
September 26 – Selina Trepp: I Work With What I Have
Posted by | Amy Beste | Posted on | September 23, 2019
Selina Trepp, Tomeka Reid, Jason Roebke, Dan Bitney in person
Selina Trepp (BFA 1998), I Work With What I Have, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist
Informed by ideas of improvisation, collaboration, and flux, Chicago-based artist Selina Trepp (BFA 1998) produces exuberant works from radically limited means. Since 2012, she has refrained from bringing new materials into her practice, instead recycling past artworks and remnants into each new project. Her animated films reflect the living and continuously evolving environment of her studio through their dynamic topographies and breath-like rhythms. For this special program, she presents the premiere of I Work With What I Have, a new stop-motion animation and visual score, performed live by musicians Tomeka Reid, Jason Roebke, and Dan Bitney; a live performance as Spectralina, her ongoing collaboration with Bitney; and a selection of recent films.
2016–19, United States, DCP and live performance, ca 60 minutes followed by discussion
Selina Trepp, Tomeka Reid, Jason Roebke, and Dan Bitney in person
Selina Trepp is a Swiss-American artist living in Chicago. She explores economy and improvisation through performance, installation, painting, sculpture, photography, and animation. In addition to her studio-based practice, Trepp is active in the experimental music scene. In this context she sings and plays the videolah, a MIDI-controlled video synthesizer, which produces real-time animations. Trepp’s work has been exhibited internationally, and she is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Swiss Art Award and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship. Trepp received a Master of Fine Arts from University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007.
Tags: Animation > Dan Bitney > Jason Roebke > Live Cinema > SAIC Alumni > Selina Trepp > Spectralina > Stop-Motion Animation > Tomeka Reid
Fall 2019 Season Announcement
Posted by | Amy Beste | Posted on | August 14, 2019
Filipa César, Spell Reel, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist and SAIC’s Video Data Bank.
We’re pleased to announce the Fall 2019 season of Conversations at the Edge! We have a terrific program lined up, including appearances by media artists Selina Trepp (Sept 26); Zach Blas (Oct 10); Rachel Rossin (Oct 24); Shengze Zhu (Oct 31); Hiwa K (Nov 7); Filipa César (Nov 14); as well as curators Jeanette Bonds, with a program of recent international animation (Oct 3); Federico Windhausen, with a program of works by Argentinian filmmaker Narcisa Hirsch (Oct 17); and Aily Nash, with a program titled Image Employment (Nov 21), presented in conjunction with the exhibition Re:Working Labor (curated by Daniel Eisenberg and Ellen Rothenberg) at SAIC’s Sullivan Galleries.
That’s A Wrap – Spring 2019
Posted by | Amy Beste | Posted on | May 10, 2019
Thank you for making our Spring 2019 season such a success! See you in September!
Jodie Mack, still from The Grand Bizarre, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.
Laida Lertxundi, still from Words, Planets, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.
Evan Meaney, image from ++ We Will Love You For Ever, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and SAIC’s Video Data Bank.
Fawzia Mirza, still fromThe Queen of My Dreams, 2011. Courtesy of the artist.
Yang Luzi, still from The Oracle is the Mouthpiece, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
Marina Zurkow, still from Mesocosm, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation.
Morgan Fisher, still from Another Movie, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.
Tabita Rezaire, still from Premium Connect, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.
Eric Baudelaire, still from the The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images, 2011. Courtesy of the artist and LUX.
Naeem Mohaiemen, still from United Red Army (The Young Man Was, Part I), 2011. Courtesy of the artist and LUX.
Yael Bartana, Still from Kings of the Hill, 2003. Courtesy of the artist.
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.
