April 11 – An Evening with Rosa Barba
Thursday, April 11 | Rosa Barba in person! German-Italian artist Rosa Barba’s work takes shape through artists’ books, sculptural film-based installations, and short films. Often set in monumental, even menacing landscapes, her films combine documentary, performance, and science fiction tropes to examine surreal confrontations between nature, humans, and their technologies. Her subjects include life in the […]
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 […]
Interview with Karen Yasinsky
Ali Aschman and Jeremy Bessoff in conversation with Karen Yasinsky on the occasion of the screening ‘Fire is a Fact: An Evening with Karen Yasinsky’, a program of short puppet and hand-drawn animations from 1999 to 2012. Ali: When Jim Trainor introduced you last night at Conversations at the Edge, he described your work as […]
February 21 – Fire is a Fact: An Evening with Karen Yasinsky
Thursday, February 21, 6 p.m. | Karen Yasinsky in person! In the strange and seductive animated films of Baltimore-based artist Karen Yasinsky, an eyeless woman is abandoned in a landscape of wolves, boys writhe restlessly in a cowboy-papered room, and characters from Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante (1934) and Robert Bresson’s Au Hazard Balthazar (1966) act out […]
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 […]
September 27- BRENNA MURPHY
Thursday, September 27, 6 p.m. | Brenna Murphy in person! Mixing raw footage with sophisticated 3D graphics, Portland-based artist Brenna Murphy creates videos, soundscapes, and downloadable virtual realms in an on-going exploration of psychedelia across physical and virtual realities. For her premiere Chicago appearance, she presents a collection of her videos “structured to function as […]
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 […]
Thursday – WU TSANG & WILDNESS!!
September 13, 6:00 p.m Due to unforeseen circumstances, artist Wu Tsang will be joining us live via Skype instead of in person. We apologize for any inconvenience (but hope you will still join us!) Image from Wildness (Wu Tsang, 2012). Courtesy of the artist. Rooted in the tropical underground of Los Angeles nightlife, magical realism […]
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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.
