Semiconductor
Thursday, October 30, 6pm | Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt in person! Semiconductor, Magnetic Movie (2007). Image courtesy of the artists. UK artist-duo Semiconductor’s stunning digital animations render our physical world in a constant state of flux. Since 1999, Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt have used digital technologies to create what The Wire calls “experimental meta-science […]
Robert Breer by Jim Trainor
Check out this 1979 interview with Robert Breer by animator and SAIC Film/Video and New Media Chair, Jim Trainor. It was published in 1980, by the Columbia University literary magazine, Upstart. Download the full interview here.
Films by Robert Breer, 1957-86
Thursday, September 11, 6pm | Restored 35mm blow-ups! Robert Breer, Fuji (1974). Image courtesy Anthology Film Archives. Joyous, restless, audacious and witty, Robert Breer’s animated films are like no others. Time and again Breer marries his playful perspective to cutting-edge techniques to create formally innovative, non-narrative films filled with humor and charm. Tonight’s program features […]
Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry
Thursday, April 24, 6pm | Daniel Barrow in person! Daniel Barrow, Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry (2008). Image courtesy of the artist. The overhead projector takes center stage in Winnipeg artist Daniel Barrow’s darkly whimsical “manual animation” performances. Layering and drawing directly on a series of Mylar transparencies, Barrow combines his projected […]
CameraLESS Films / Movies without Cameras
Thursday, March 27, 2008, 6pm | Curator Jodie Mack in person! Thorsten Fleisch, Kosmos (2004). Image courtesy of the artist. For over one hundred years, filmmakers have found ways to emancipate themselves from advanced photographic processes and make films without cameras—by drawing, painting, scratching, or adhering figures and objects directly onto filmstrips. Whether produced meticulously […]
At the Heart of a Sparrow: Videos by Barry Doupé
Thursday, October 25, 2007, 6pm Barry Doupé in person! The unnervingly seductive videos of Vancouver-based artist and animator Barry Doupé blend painterly skill with the look of early 3D video games in gothic dreamscapes, at once familiar and forever out of reach. Pegged as one of Canada’s rising stars, with screenings across North America and […]
The Devil Lives in Hollywood: Amy Lockhart & Friends
Thursday, October 4, 2007, 6pm Amy Lockhart in person! Nothing is quite right in animator and SAIC visiting faculty member Amy Lockhart’s hallucinogenic, hyper-colored world. Siamese-hearts pump hamburgers and butterflies, voracious Pac-Men hunt flocks of weeping eyeballs, and frogs belch Smurf-like red-and-white mushrooms. Funny and tragic by turns, Lockhart’s films mix knowingly-naïve hand-drawn characters with […]
Mary Ellen Bute: Centennial
Thursday, March 15, 2007, 6pm Mary Ellen Bute, Color Rhapsody (1948). A pioneer of visual music and electronic art, Mary Ellen Bute produced over a dozen short abstract animations between the 1930s and the 1950s. Renowned for their brilliant color, elegant design, and sprightly, dance-like rhythms, Bute’s films are at once formally rigorous and exuberantly […]
The Wave: New Experimental Films from China
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 […]
The Secret Story: Films by Janie Geiser
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 […]
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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.
