 | |  Conversations at the Edge Fall 2011 Season
Conversations at the Edge (CATE) returns to the big screen on September 15. It's our 10-year anniversary! We'll be celebrating with a season of screenings, artist talks, and performances by some of the most compelling media artists working today. We hope you'll be able to join us for these exciting events. Full schedule and program descriptions are below and at http://blogs.saic.edu/cate/.
CATE is organized by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and the Video Data Bank.
Programs take place Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State St.) unless otherwise noted.
CATE is FREE to SAIC students with a valid student ID. Tickets are $11 general public, $6 Film Center members, $7 students, and $4 SAIC faculty and staff and Art Institute of Chicago staff. For more information, write cate@saic.edu.
|
FALL 2011 SCHEDULE—Mark Your Calendar! | |  Image from CONSUMING SPIRITS (Chris Sullivan, 2011). Courtesy the artist.
| | CONSUMING SPIRITS
Thursday, September 15, 6:00 p.m.
Special preview screening! Chris Sullivan in person!
Chris Sullivan's works are among "the most honest, potent, and thoughtful of all animated films." —Chris Robinson, Unsung Heroes of Animation
Over a decade in the making, Consuming Spirits (2011) is the hypnotic and elegiac first feature film by award-winning animator and SAIC faculty member, Chris Sullivan. Set in a dreary rustbelt town, the film follows late-night radio host Earl Gray; wilting violet Genny, who cares for her foul-mouthed, Alzheimer's-stricken mother; and Genny's sometime boyfriend Victor Blue, whose days teeter at the edge of sobriety. While driving home one evening, Genny hits a nun in full habit on the
highway. The accident sets off a string of events that reveal a long and twisted history between Genny, Earl, and Victor, involving family dysfunction, foster care, and old wounds longing to heal. Sullivan's intricate hand-drawn and cut-out animations telegraph his characters' complicated emotions while also depicting the minute tragedies and triumphs that make up a life. Chris Sullivan, 2011, USA, 16mm on HDCAM, 125 min plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from A MAN OF THE CROWD (Matthew Buckingham, 2003). Courtesy the artist. | | MATTHEW BUCKINGHAM: SITUATION LEADING TO A STORY
Thursday, September 22, 6:00 p.m.
Matthew Buckingham in person!
Answering to the gaps and cracks in history, New York-based artist Matthew Buckingham weaves fact and fiction, past and present into elegant narratives and meditative essays. This evening's program, culled from across Buckingham's body of work, explores the ways that historical moments, figures, and places shape the tenor of daily life. Works include Amos Fortune Road (1996), which takes up the mystery of former slave Amos Fortune and a collection of historical markers in his name; Situation Leading to a Story (1999), which transforms four happened-upon home movies from the 1920s into an absorbing investigation of privacy and imperialism; and A Man of the Crowd (2003), which molds Edgar Allen Poe's short tale to the contours of present-day Vienna; among others. Matthew Buckingham, 1996-2009, USA, multiple formats, ca. 75 min plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL (Laura Parnes, 2004-06). Courtesy the artist. | | LAURA PARNES'S BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Thursday, September 29, 6:00 p.m.
Laura Parnes in person!
Laura Parnes's bracingly inventive, stylized films and videos operate at the intersection of narrative film and video art. This evening, Parnes will present her acclaimed feature, Blood and Guts in High School (2004–06). Distilled from Kathy Acker's subversive feminist novel of the same title, the film interweaves events surrounding the book's publication—the Jonestown Massacre, Three Mile Island, the rise of Reagan Republicanism, and the Moral Majority—with interludes from the short, violent life of its pre-teen protagonist, Janie Smith. Parnes will also screen episodes from her new web series, County Down (ongoing). Building on the darkly comic spirit of Blood and Guts, County Down is set in a lavish, gated community where parents suddenly prey upon their children. Copresented by the Video Data Bank. Laura Parnes, 2004-11, USA, multiple formats, ca. 75 min
plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from BOWER'S CAVE (Lee Lynch and Lee Anne Schmitt, 2010). Image courtesy the artists. | | LANDSCAPE AS ARCHIVE
Thursday, October 6, 6:00 p.m.
Filmmakers Bill Brown and Lee Anne Schmitt in person!
In recent years, a number of artists have turned to the landscape itself—using everything from iPhone apps to walking tours—to examine the ways in which ideas, events, and cultures are recorded in the terrain. Curated by filmmaker and SAIC professor Thomas Comerford (Indian Boundary Line, 2010), this evening's program investigates the notion of landscape as archive. Bill Brown's distinctively narrated travelogue, Mountain State (2003), views historical markers across West Virginia (as well as the ghosts that haunt them) as indices of US westward expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries. Lee Lynch's and Lee Anne Schmitt's Bower's Cave (2010) explores the implications of the geographic proximity of a California landfill to a cave once containing Native American cultural objects. Sarah J. Christman's Dear Bill Gates (2006) addresses not only how the mining industry has reshaped the landscape of Pennsylvania, but also how mines serve as literal archives for the cultural ephemera collected by the film's namesake. Multiple directors, 2003–10, USA, 16mm, ca. 60 min plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from VIOLIN POWER (Steina, 1974-78). Courtesy the artist. | | STEINA!
Thursday, October 13, 6:00 p.m.
Steina Vasulka in person! Live performance!
A major figure in the histories of video and electronic art, Steina Vasulka has continually expanded the possibilities of multimedia with her groundbreaking innovations. Trained as a classical violinist in Iceland, Steina turned to video after
moving to New York City in the mid-1960s. Her distinctly musical experiments with the electronic signal, including her real-time performances and development of early video synthesizers, reverberate throughout historical and contemporary art practice. Steina's recent projects continue this pioneering approach, as her dynamic environments of digitally manipulated visual and acoustic landscapes have been installed around the world. This evening, Steina presents a collection of both classic early pieces and newer works, discusses her interest in electronic media, and performs a stirring, not-to-be-missed interpretation of her seminal performance piece, Violin Power (1974–78/1992–present). Steina Vasulka, 1970-2011, USA, multiple formats, ca. 75 min plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from blue mantle (Rebecca Meyers, 2010). Courtesy the artist. | | REBECCA MEYERS: BLUE MANTLE
Thursday, October 20, 6:00 p.m.
Rebecca Meyers in person!
In her nimble, intimately-observed films, Cambridge-based filmmaker Rebecca Meyers illuminates the uncanny and exquisite in the everyday. lions and tigers and bears (2006) seeks out urban wildlife—from spiders and pigeons to bronze lions and chrome-plated jaguars; night side (2008) captures a wintry twilight of street lamp halos and solitary animals. Shot along the Massachusetts coast, Meyers' latest film is a haunting ode to the sea. Combining historical accounts of ocean travel and disaster with images of its vast, roiling expanse, blue mantle (2010) meditates on humanity's attempts to conquer the deep and reflects on its role as a metaphor and passageway to the unknown. This evening, Meyers presents these and a selection of earlier works, including glow in the dark (2002) and things we want to see (2004). Rebecca Meyers, 2002–10, USA, 16mm, ca. 65 min plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from ANNA (TENEMENT FILMS) (Luke Fowler, 2009). Courtesy the artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd. | | LUKE FOWLER: A GRAMMAR FOR LISTENING
Thursday, October 27, 6:00 p.m.
Luke Fowler in person!
How one sees the world and how one hears it are the indelible questions underlying Luke Fowler's startling, vibrant films. The award-winning, Glasgow-based artist often collaborates with musicians and sound artists, drawing upon the histories of field recording, experimental music, and portraiture. Fowler's early films shed light on such infamous experimental musicians as Cornelius Cardew (of the London-based Scratch Orchestra) and Xentos "Fray Bentos" Jones (of the post-punk The Homosexuals). More recently, his collaborations with Richard Youngs, Lee Patterson, Eric La Casa, and Toshiya Tsunoda have resulted in a series of audiovisual tone poems of domestic interiors, urban geography, and rural environments. This evening, Fowler presents a collection of these works, including his Tenement Films (3 Minute Wonder) series (2009), and selections from his three-part 2009 A Grammar for Listening cycle, among others. Copresented with the University of Chicago's Film Studies Center, which will present a second program of Fowler's films on Friday, October 28. Luke Fowler, 2007-09, Scotland, 16mm and video, ca. 75 min plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from ENIAIOS II (Gregory Markopoulos, 1949-1991). Courtesy the Temenos Archive and the Austrian Film Museum, Vienna. | | GREGORY MARKOPOULOS: ENIAIOS II
Thursday, November 3, 6:00 p.m.
Archival print!
Remembered as the "supreme erotic poet" of the American avant-garde, Gregory Markopoulos spent decades creating his monumental film Eniaios, an eighty-hour composition of twenty-two cycles. Eniaios (meaning "unity" or "uniqueness") was originally conceived for screening at Temenos, Markopolous's open-air theater in the hills overlooking Lyssaraia, Greece. Silent yet sensuous, the film journeys through a host of imagery, including pulses of white light, passages of black, fragments of earlier works, and images of sacred places. Markopoulos died before Eniaios could be printed, and his partner, filmmaker Robert Beavers, has spent the last two decades restoring the work. Only six of the twenty-two film orders have been printed thus far. Tonight's screening of Eniaios II—the second cycle in the piece and an epic film in its own right—affords a rare opportunity to view Markopoulos's magnum opus in the making. Gregory Markopoulos, 1949-91, Greece/USA, 16mm, 125 min plus discussion. Eniaios VI–VIII will premiere June 29–July 1, 2012 at the Temenos in Lyssarea (Arcadia) Greece. For more info, visit: www.the-temenos.org.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH (Nicolas Provost, 2009). Courtesy the artist and the Video Data Bank. | | NICOLAS PROVOST: LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH
Thursday, November 10, 6:00 p.m.
Nicolas Provost in person!
With digital prowess and deft editing, Belgian filmmaker Nicolas Provost transforms clichéd Hollywood scenes into something altogether more alluring, mysterious, and occasionally, more grotesque. Long Live the New Flesh (2009) takes this notion to extremes, melting the pixels of canonical horror films (The Shining, The Exorcist, and others) into new forms, effectively creating new kinds of monsters. Gravity (2007) considers the trope of romance fulfilled in a strobe-like succession of seemingly endless Hollywood kissing scenes. Provost based two of his latest works, Stardust and Storyteller (both 2010), in Las Vegas, imbuing banal shots of life on the strip and inside its casinos with a sense of the uncanny. On the whole, Provost's art attests to the malleability of the cinematic images that remain ingrained in our memory, but also just out of reach. Copresented by the Video Data Bank. Nicolas Provost, 2007–2010, Belgium, multiple formats, ca. 75 min plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | 
Image from THE SMILE (Amar Kanwar, 2007). Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York. | | THE FILMS OF AMAR KANWAR
Thursday, Novemeber 17, 6:00 p.m.
Amar Kanwar in person!
Amar Kanwar's films and installations offer incisive and meditative explorations of the political, social, economic, and ecological conditions of the Indian subcontinent. They are also formally inventive, synthesizing documentary, travelogue, and essay forms to reimagine subjects from sexual violence to the political situation in Burma. This evening, Kanwar presents and discusses a range of films from across his vast oeuvre, including new and works-in-progress, selections from the 19-channel installation The Torn First Pages (2004-08), and his widely-esteemed 1997 short, A Season Outside (1997), an examination of nationalist violence along the disputed Indian-Pakistani border at Wagah in Kashmir. The film established Kanwar, according to critic Jerry Saltz of the New York Times, as an artist whose works "escape their own pedantic weight and exist in a lyrical realm where politics, poetry, passion, and form meld." Copresented by SAIC's Visiting Artists Program, the Department of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies, and the Art Institute of Chicago's Department of Asian Art. Amar Kanwar, 1997-2011, India, various formats, ca. 75 min plus discussion.
more info
return to top | | | CATE FALL 2011 Schedule 9/15 – Consuming Spirits (w/filmmaker Chris Sullivan in person)
9/22 – Matthew Buckingham: Situation Leading to a Story (in person)
9/29 – Laura Parnes's Blood and Guts in High School (in person)
10/6 –Landscape as Archive (with filmmakers Lee Anne Schmitt and Bill Brown in person)
10/13 – Steina! (in person)
10/20 – Rebecca Meyers: blue mantle (in person)
10/27 – Luke Fowler: A Grammar For Listening (in person)
11/3 – Gregory Markopoulos: Eniaios II
11/10 – Nicolas Provost: Long Live the New Flesh (in person)
11/17 – The Films of Amar Kanwar (in person)
| | |
Any person with a disability who would like to request an accommodation for this program should contact the Disability and Learning Resource Center at dlrc@saic.edu or 312.499.4278 as soon as possible to allow adequate time to make proper arrangements.
return to top
About the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
A leader in educating artists, designers, and scholars since 1866, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) offers nationally accredited undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate programs to nearly 3,200 students from around the globe. Located in the heart of Chicago, SAIC has an educational philosophy built upon an interdisciplinary approach to art and design, giving students unparalleled opportunities to develop their creative and critical abilities, while working with renowned faculty who include many of the leading practitioners in their fields. SAIC's resources include the Art Institute of Chicago and its new Modern Wing; numerous special collections and programming venues provide students with exceptional exhibitions, screenings, lectures, and performances. For more information, please visit www.saic.edu. | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment