March 21 – Wavelengths: in the blink of an eye
Thursday, March 21, 6 p.m. | Curator Andréa Picard in person! Named for but also infinitely inspired by Michael Snow’s 1967 masterpiece, Wavelength, the Toronto International Film Festival’s avant-garde program presents films and videos that defy convention, suggest alternate ways of thinking, and sometimes re-emerge from a distant past in order to comment on the present. Curated […]
March 7 – REMIX-IT-RIGHT: Rediscoveries in the Phil Morton Archive
Thursday, March 7, 8 p.m. | Program introduced by curator Jon Cates. Artists in person! Chicago video pioneer Phil Morton (1945-2003) anticipated remix in his genre-defying individual and collaborative projects that share characteristics with what we now call “New Media” today. Radically open, committed to process, collaborative, contentious, and charismatic; Morton embodied what he dubbed […]
February 28 – Archives in Progress: An Evening with Darko Fritz
Thursday, February 28, 6 p.m. | Darko Fritz in person! “Darko Fritz is like a one-man tech-art history machine.”– Bruce Sterling, author and Wired columnist Since the late 1980s, the work of Amsterdam-based curator and researcher Darko Fritz has revolved around a significant investigation into the use of technology in culture. Renowned for his groundbreaking […]
February 14 – Fern Silva: Concrete Parlay
Thursday, February 14, 6p.m. | Fern Silva in person! Fern Silva’s invigorating, geographically-sweeping films bring together sounds and images of nature, ritual, and pop culture from Europe, South America, the Middle East and the United States to explore ideas of travel and cross-cultural movement. “The disorienting whirl of the compass,” suggests curator Aily […]
November 8- Lawrence Jordan: Beyond Enchantment
Thursday, November 8, 6 p.m. | Lawrence Jordan in person! Best known for his singular cutout animation style, the films of avant-garde great Lawrence Jordan channel the unconscious through surreal compositions of found graphics, drawings, and engravings. Jordan co-founded Canyon Cinema, collaborated with the likes of Stan Brakhage and Joseph Cornell, and continues to make […]
November 1- Vincent Grenier: Tabula Rasa
Thursday, November 1, 6 p.m. | Vincent Grenier in person! For nearly four decades, Vincent Grenier has sought to capture what he describes as “the ineffable, untranslatable, revelations of light, color, form, and composition.” The result is a sensuous, meditative, yet energized body of work across a range of approaches and formats. This program brings […]
October 25- TVTV: FOUR MORE YEARS
Thursday, October 25, 6 p.m. | Allen Rucker and Tom Weinberg in person! Video collective TVTV defined the radical video documentary movement of the 1970s. Four More Years (1972) is an iconoclastic view of the American electoral process, captured through TVTV’s irreverent, candid coverage of Richard Nixon’s 1972 presidential campaign and the Republican Convention in […]
October 18- LAIDA LERTXUNDI
Thursday, October 18, 6 p.m. | Laida Lertxundi in person! Shot within and around Los Angeles, Laida Lertxundi’s seductively enigmatic films mix soul music and art punk as non-actors lounge within sublime beachscapes, cheap motels, and light-flooded apartments. My Tears Are Dry (2009) is a luscious and melodic composition that lures the viewer into and […]
October 4- HITO STEYERL
Thursday, October 4, 6 p.m. | Introduced by Lisa Dorin, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago Hito Steyerl’s masterfully orchestrated video essays chart the lives of images, objects, and places to arrive at provocative new conclusions about their meaning.This program features two of these works, Lovely Andrea (2007) and In Free Fall […]
Sept 20 & 22 — SPECIAL WARNING: FILMS BY ROBERT NELSON
September 20, 6:00 pm September 22, 12:30 pm Introduced by curators Lori Felker and Mark Toscano! Renowned for their exuberance and inventive cinematic wit, Robert Nelson’s films established him as a leading member of the West Coast avant-garde and post-Beat culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s. These two programs of different works pair recently restored […]
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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.
