. Conversations at the Edge (CATE)

Anxious Bodies

Thursday, October 27, 6:00 p.m. Anxious Bodies explores the fraught terrain of bodies, relationships, and power through the work of six award-winning contemporary women animators, including Yoriko Mizushiri, Martina Scarpelli, Shoko Hara, Nadja Andrasev, Lénaïg Le Moigne, and Tal Kantor. Through sinewy line drawings, lush water colors, and striking, multidimensional collages, their films mine the […]

On Thorsten Trimpop

This week, we are thrilled to present a screening of Furusato, the latest feature documentary by Chicago-based filmmaker and School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty, Thorsten Trimpop. Furusato, which translates to home or hometown, is human-scale portrait of Minamisōma, a small town in Japan’s nuclear exclusion zone. The film explores how the town’s inhabitants and surrounding […]

March 29 – Thorsten Trimpop: Furusato 古里

Our Thursday March 29 screening is now SOLD OUT. We’ve added a second screening, with Thorsten Trimpop in person, on Sunday April 8 at 12:00 p.m. Thorsten Trimpop’s films explore the many ways cultural, political, and ecological histories are borne by individuals in their daily lives. His most recent feature, Furusato, exposes the devastating effects of the […]

On Rikurō Miyai

We are excited to kick off our spring 2017 season this week with a rare expanded film performance by Japanese underground filmmaker Rikurō Miyai! Expanded cinema describes a form of practice that emerged in the 1960s involving the film projector being used as a performative instrument. Existing between film, performance and installation art, it questioned […]

February 9 – Rikurō Miyai’s Expanded Cinema

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room Modern Wing Entrance, 158 East Monroe Street Free, registration required (see saic.edu/cate for details) A central figure in Japan’s 1960s underground, Rikurō Miyai’s expansive, pop-infused practice spans filmmaking, art criticism, design, and television. In this rare US appearance, he presents two of his best-known works of expanded […]

On Nobuaki Doi

This week I am delighted to welcome graduate student Kelsey Velez to write for us! Velez reflects on the work of Japanese curator and scholar Nobuaki Doi.  As a curator and scholar, Nobuaki Doi’s work facilitates the continuing legacy of animation in Japan—a legacy that stretches back as far as the 1910s. He got his start as […]

March 10-Wonder: Recent Independent Animation from Japan

Thursday, March 10 | This week Japanese animation scholar and curator Nobuaki Doi joins us for a screening and discussion! Over the last decade and a half, a generation of independent animators have redefined “Japanese animation.” Organized by the animation scholar and curator Nobuaki Doi, this program showcases the landscape of independent Japanese animation, including Mirai Mizue’s stunning, hand-drawn […]

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 […]