. Conversations at the Edge (CATE)

On Jim Trainor

Our fall 2017 season kicks off this week with a screening of The Pink Egg, the first live-action feature by Chicago filmmaker and animator Jim Trainor.

October 12 – Jim Trainor: The Pink Egg

Featuring his trademark dark comedy and fascination with the natural world, Chicago-based animator Jim Trainor explores the complex and curious lives of insects in his first live-action feature. Casting humans in the starring roles, The Pink Egg follows life-cycles of “The Seven Sisters,” a group of evolutionarily related wasps and bees. Unitard costumes and candy-colored props set the […]

April 6 – Melika Bass: Devotional Animals

Richly atmospheric, the films and installations of Chicago-based artist Melika Bass (MFA 2007) are populated by elusive figures whose enigmatic behavior suggest dark and troubling lives just beyond the screen. Working with a recurring group of performers, some of whom reappear as the same character in multiple films, Bass has developed an expansive approach to […]

April 21-Lyra Hill: Three Performances

Thursday, April 21 | Join us for Chicago based artist and curator Lyra Hill! Comics artist and filmmaker Lyra Hill produces spectacular performances that mix psychedelia with fantastic tales of self-discovery, the body, and the mysteries of nature. She uses multiple film projectors, looping audio effects, and pulsating hand-drawn images to create super-sensory environments of light, […]

On Deborah Stratman

This week I am excited to welcome undergraduate Connor Crable to write for us! Crable sharply discusses Deborah Stratman’s newest film, The Illinois Parables, which deals with a series of histories that have been buried over time.  In just short of an hour, Deborah Stratman’s newest film, The Illinois Parables, ushers viewers through a series of […]

April 14-Deborah Stratman: The Illinois Parables

Thursday, April 14 | Join us for Chicago-based artist and filmmaker Deborah Stratman for a screening and discussion! For the last 25 years, has explored the landscape of our national history and psyche in riveting films, sculpture, sound, and public works. With the Illinois Parables, she turns her attention to the “American microcosm” and its storied past. […]

November 12-Martine Syms: The Unreliable Narrator

Thursday, November 12 | This week Los Angeles based ‘conceptual entrepreneur’ Martine Syms will join us for a screening and discussion!  The interdisciplinary work of Los Angeles–based “conceptual entrepreneur” Martine Syms (BFA 2007) takes shape through websites, essays, bibliographies, and videos to explore the ways individual and social identities are formed. Incisive and sharp, she has addressed Afrofuturism, […]

On Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak: Camera and Line

Tomorrow Wayne Boyer, Michael Golec, Associate Professor of Design History at SAIC, and Anne Wells, Collections Manager for the Chicago Film Archives (CFA) will join us at the Gene Siskel Film Center post screening for a round table discussion. This week Anne Wells of the CFA writes for us, reflecting on her personal relationship with the […]

October 1-Wayne Boyar and Larry Janiak: Camera and Line

Thursday, October 1 | Followed by a roundtable with Boyer, Michael Golec, Associate Professor of Design History at SAIC, and Anne Wells, Collections Manager for the Chicago Film Archives (CFA). Presented in collaboration with the CFA.  Chicago at midcentury was home to a remarkable group of artists who bridged European modernism, pop, and psychedelia in brilliant personal and […]

On “Projections, Portraits, and Picaresques”

Projections, Portraits, and Picaresques: Works by Mary Helena Clark, Mariah Garnett, and Latham Zearfoss screens the at Gene Siskel Film Center tomorrow, Thursday, April 23rd at 6pm. Mary Helena Clark, Mariah Garnett, and Latham Zearfoss in person!  Ouroboros—an ancient symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail. Rather than requiring or demanding a space, this reworking […]

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