Still from “Sibling Topics (Section A)” (Ryan Trecartin, 2009). Courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Dee Gallery.

“Both in form and in function, Ryan Trecartin’s video practice advances understandings of post-millennial technology, narrative, and identity, while also propelling these matters as expressive mediums. His work depicts worlds where consumer culture and interactive systems are amplified to absurd or nihilistic proportions and characters circuitously strive to find agency and meaning in their lives. The combination of assaultive, nearly impenetrable avant-garde logics and equally outlandish virtuoso uses of color, form, drama, and montage produces a sublime, stream-of-consciousness effect that feels bewilderingly true to life” (Kevin McGarry). This evening, as part of a special two-part presentation organized by the Visiting Artists Program and Conversations at the Edge, Trecartin will introduce two pieces from his latest project, Trill-ogy Comp (2009-10): Sibling Topics (Section A) (2009) and P.opular S.ky (section ish) (2009). Trecartin will give an overview of his practice on  April 14 at 6pm in the SAIC Columbus Auditorium. Ryan Trecartin, 2009, USA, HDCAM video, ca. 90 min.

RYAN TRECARTIN (b. 1981, Webster, TX) holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2004). Trecartin, whose videos have screened all over the world–from Belgrade and Basel to Brazil–is the recipient of the first Jack Wolgin Prize in the Fine Arts (2009), presented by Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, as well as a Pew Fellowship in the Arts (2008). He has had solo exhibitions at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; and The Power Plant, Toronto, among others. Group exhibitions include: The Generational: Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York; the 2006 Whitney Biennial, New York; Installations II: Video from the Guggenheim Collections, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbão; the 2008 Busan Biennale, South Korea; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and many more. Trecartin lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

MORE
Ryan Trecartin on YouTube
Ryan Trecartin at Elizabeth Dee Gallery
Ryan Trecartin in the New York Times

Still from “Ben” (Emily Wardill, 2007). Courtesy the artist and LUX.

The films of British artist Emily Wardill are brilliant cinematic labyrinths. Visually striking and playfully rigorous, they draw upon an array of sources– underground theater, psychoanalytic case studies, the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jacques Rancière, and even the game logic of Nintendo Wii–to pose fundamental questions about vision, representation, and media and their role in how we come to know ourselves. Wardill has been the recipient of much recent critical acclaim: Tate Modern film curator Stuart Comer rated her film The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter) (2008) as one of his top ten picks of 2008 and The Guardian newspaper deemed her its “artist of the week.” In this special program, Wardill presents five of her short films, all of which are Chicago premieres: Born Winged Animals and Honey Gatherers of the Soul (2005), Basking in What Feels Like ‘An Ocean Of Grace’ I Soon Realise That I’m Not Looking at It, But Rather I Am It, Recognising Myself (2006), Ben (2007), Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck (2007), and The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter). Co-presented by CATE and Refracted Lens, a Chicago-based film series dedicated to showcasing emerging and underrepresented artists. Emily Wardill, 2005-08, United Kingdom, 16mm, ca. 60 min (plus discussion).

Wardill will present her debut feature film, Game Keepers Without Game, on Friday, April 9 at 6pm, at SAIC’s graduate student-run series, Eye & Ear Clinic (112 S. Michigan Ave, MacLean Theater Room 1307, free and open to the public).

EMILY WARDILL (b. 1977, Rugby, England) lives and works in London.  She received a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in 2000, where she is currently a senior lecturer. Her new feature film, Game Keepers without Game (2009), was exhibited at The Showroom, London, in February 2010. She will have solo shows at De Appel, Amsterdam, and Spacex, in Exeter, UK, later in the year. Other solo exhibitions include Picture This, Bristol; Fortescue Avenue/Jonathan Viner, London; Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany; STANDARD, Oslo; and Fulham Palace, London. Wardill has contributed to a number of group exhibitions at the ICA, London (2007); Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK (2005); Espace Electra, Paris (2005); PS.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2004); and the Freud Museum, London (2004). Her work has been screened at the Art Now Lightbox, Tate Britain; the International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Witte de With, Rotterdam; and the London Film Festival. Wardill is the recipient of the first ever Follow Fluxus ­ After Fluxus grant (2008), as well as the Film London Artist Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) Bristol Mean Time residency (2007), and she was shortlisted for the 2008 Jarman Award. She is part of the creative group, Boxing Club, and assists in the coordination of the performance, live music, and screening event, Itchy Park.

Still from “Melter 2″ (Takeshi Murata, 2003). Courtesy the artist.

For the last six years, artist Takeshi Murata and musician Robert Beatty (Hair Police, Three Legged Race) have collaborated on a series of visceral glitch-based animations, setting Murata’s psychedelic imagery to Beatty’s hypnotic compositions. Murata’s videos range from hand-drawn animations of fluidly morphing shapes to painterly abstractions of meticulously hijacked digital code. Beatty employs hacked electronics and thrift store cast-offs to craft otherworldly sonic narratives. Together, the duo’s electronic alchemy transforms the detritus of consumer culture into dazzling tapestries of sound and color. This evening, CATE teams up with experimental music and intermedia series Lampo to bring you Murata and Beatty in a special screening and performance. The two will present their work in three sets: a solo performance by Beatty, a screening of videos by Murata, and a new audio-visual performance, created especially for this program, by both. Visit www.lampo.org. Takeshi Murata and Robert Beatty, 2003-10, USA, multiple formats, ca. 90 min.

TAKESHI MURATA (b.1974, Chicago, IL) graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997 with a BFA in Film/Video/Animation. In 2007, Murata was the subject of a solo exhibition, Black Box: Takeshi Murata, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. His work has been included in solo and group shows at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Peres Projects, Los Angeles; Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York; Eyebeam, New York; FACT Centre, Liverpool, UK; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh; New York Underground Film Festival; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn; Foxy Production, New York, and Deitch Projects, New York, among others.

ROBERT BEATTY (b.1981, Lexington, KY) is an artist and electronic musician who performs solo under the name Three Legged Race. He is a long-running member of the bands Hair Police, Eyes and Arms of Smoke, and C. Spencer Yeh’s Burning Star Core. Through Beatty’s collaboration with Takeshi Murata, Three Legged Race has performed at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China; Deitch Projects, New York; the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh), and the New Museum, New York. Beatty’s performances and recordings explore the repetition and decay of simple musical themes. With each tier of abstraction, they discover a new world of rhythmic and harmonic possibilities while also evoking minimalist sci-fi soundtracks and clouded hypnotic landscapes. He lives in Lexington, where he runs the Mountaain record label.

Image: Laura Heit, The Matchbox Shows (1999-current). Image courtesy of the artist.

Poignant and smart, the animated films of puppet artist and SAIC alumnus Laura Heit employ stop-motion, live action puppetry, hand-drawing, and computer animation. Heit is the co-director of the Experimental Animation department at CalArts and her award-winning work has screened extensively at museums and film festivals around the world. This program showcases her films from the last twelve years and features a special live performance of her acclaimed puppet-show-in miniature, The Matchbox Shows. Films include: Parachute (1997), an allegory following a young woman as she leaves home; (2002), Collapse a 2D computer animation tracing a single tragic moment; The Amazing, Mysterious and True Story of Mary Anning and Her Monsters (2003), about the little-known paleontologist Mary Anning; and Look For Me (2005), a Channel 4 UK television commission imagining one’s own invisibility. 1997-2005, USA, multiple formats, ca. 65 min.

LAURA HEIT has a MA in animation from the Royal College of Art in London and a BFA in film from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her award-winning experimental animation and puppet films have been screened extensively in the US and abroad (including Rotterdam, Annecy, Hong Kong International Film Festival, London International Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Walker Art Center, Guggenheim). Her most recent film, Look for Me, was commissioned by Channel 4 Television and the British Council. She is an animation director at Slinky Pictures (UK) and Duck Studios (LA). Besides her work in animation, Heit also works in puppet theater-she has been a member of Redmoon Theater (Master builder/designer/artistic associate 1996-2001), Theater Dank, and En Fuego. The Matchbox Shows, her solo cabaret in which tiny stories unfold within matchboxes, has toured all over the world. She is currently co-director of Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

Parachute (1997, 16mm, multi-plane cut-out animation, 17:00)
Parachute follows a young woman as she leaves home. Both frenetic and lyrical, this allegorical film is a combination of animation, puppetry and theater design.

Collapse (2002, Beta SP, 2D computer animation, 4:08)
A meditation on a single tragic moment.

The Amazing, Mysterious and True Story of Mary Anning and Her Monsters (2003, live action puppetry and 2D animation, Beta SP, 7:45)
A toy theater show based on the life of amateur paleontologist Mary Anning (1799-1847) from Lyme Regis, England. At a time when most children were afraid of monsters, Mary sought them out. She had a passion for the inexplicable and in the end her discoveries would change more than she bargained for.

Look For Me (2005, Beta SP, 2D computer animation, 3:35)
What would you do if you woke up one day and were invisible? Commissioned by Channel 4 London.

The Matchbox Shows (2000, Performance, 20:00)
“With childlike simplicity and arresting nonchalance, Heit offers 30-second vignettes that make Mr. Bill seem positively Rocco.” (­Justin Hayford, Chicago Reader)

Still from The Gypsy Cried (Chris Langdon, 1972). Courtesy the artist.

Experimental Sound Studio’s Outer Ear Festival of Sound and CATE team up once again to present a program of films that investigate the visual and aural possibilities of 16mm optical audio, as sounds perform images and images become sonic scores. Sound functions both as a sonic and visual element in these 6 films. Collectively they propose a new model for listening and seeing – a listening that happens with the eyes, and a seeing that happens with the ears. Curated by SAIC faculty member Michelle Puetz. Co-presented by Experimental Sound Studio. 1966–78, various artists, USA, multiple formats, ca. 65 min.

The OUTER EAR FESTIVAL OF SOUND (November 3–22, 2009) is the only comprehensive interdisciplinary sonic arts festival in the Midwest. Visit www.exsost.org.

Program details
Chris Langdon, The Gypsy Cried (1972, 16mm, 3 minutes, b/w, sound)
“When one likes something very much, or someone, it is hard to do anything but like it.  I didn’t want to take anything away or add anything to this song because I like it a lot.” (Chris Langdon)

Paul Sharits, Ray Gun Virus (1966, 14 minutes, 16mm, color, synchronous sprocket hole sound)
Ray Gun Virus consists of a series of rapidly and intermittently flickering fields of color that are accompanied by an “open system” soundtrack made possible by double perf 16mm film. Sharits wrote that Ray Gun Virus was an attempt to “allow vision to function in ways usually particular to hearing . . . rapidly alternating color frames can generate, in vision, horizontal-temporal chords . . . Just as the film’s consciousness becomes infected, so does the viewer’s consciousness: the projector is an audio-visual pistol; the screen looks at the audience; and the viewer’s normative consciousness. The film’s final ‘image’ is a faint blue; the viewer is left to his own reconstruction of self, left with a screen upon which his retina can project its own patterns.”

Robert Russett, Primary Stimulus (1977, 13 minutes, 16mm, b/w, sound)
In Primary Stimulus, the soundtrack printing process was kept completely photographic so that “the sound emitted is the sound the projector interprets from the lines which are the film’s image. What comprises the film are sixteen different ‘grates’ of varying amplitudes (sixteen compositions of black and white horizontal lines): onto each frame of film one of these patterns is printed. The sequence varies. The compositions are similar enough to one another so that the afterimage of one relates compositionally to the next.”  (Laurence Kardish)

Peter Kubelka, Pausa! (1977, 12 minutes, 16mm, color, sound)
Peter Kubelka’s first and only sync-sound film, Pausa! captures a rare glimpse of the Austrian artist (and namesake of Kubelka’s famous 1960 film) Arnulf Rainer engaged in a full-body performance with a microphone. The vibrations of Rainer’s breath and highly gestural movements form a visceral sonic and visual portrait of his body.

Barry Spinello, Soundtrack (1969, 10 minutes, 16mm, color, sound)
“During the first half of Soundtrack, the “sound painting” – drawn on the soundtrack – is magnified and redrawn, frame by frame, on the image track so that the viewer literally sees what he hears . . . The closing section of Soundtrack makes use of acetate self-adhesive screens and tapes. These screens and tapes, cut to fit the soundtrack, yield controlled pitch for any duration in as many different timbres as there are patterns.” (Barry Spinello)

Richard Lerman, Sections for Screen, Performers and Audience (1974, 6minutes, 16mm, color, live accompaniment by Art Lange, Guillermo Gregorio, and Brian Labycz)
“I was always fascinated by music scores and often imagined how concerts might be changed if performers were not hidden behind music on stands. In the 1960’s, I made several films that used oscilloscope imagery and, in doing so, learned to ‘play’ various synthesizers to generate images. For this film, I used colored gels while filming and chose to optically print a few visual phrases, allowing for repeated sections. I also super-imposed hi-contrast notation over the film. So, Sections became a kind of feedback piece: sound generated the images for the score and performers created new sounds and a new piece from these images.” (Richard Lerman)

About the artists
Guillermo Gregorio is a composer, improviser, and visual artist in Chicago. Trained in architecture and music, he was associated with the Madi movement in Argentina in the 1960’s, and the spirit of experimentation across forms continues. He is especially noted for his compositions that combine improvisation and composed elements through graphic notation.

Peter Kubelka was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1934 and is an “artist and theoretician who has worked in the art forms of film, cuisine, music, architecture, speaking and writing.  In 1964, Kubelka co-founded the Austrian Film Museum and has been its curator ever since. In 1978, he became professor in film at the Art Academy in Frankfurt, where he also served as Rector in the period of 1985-88.  Kubelka’s theoretical work in cooking began in 1967, and in 1980 his teaching position was expanded to include ‘Film and Cooking as Art.’  He is a co-founder of the Anthology Film Archives in New York.” (Hong Kong International Film Festival)

Brian Labycz is a Chicago improviser primarily performing with electronics.  He draws from a variety of sources including analog systhesizers, acoustic instruments, digital manipulations, field recordings, and self-made devices to produce and explore various expressive forms.

Chris Langdon is from the middle of the country somewhere. He studied art (and a little film) at the California Institute of the Arts roughly between 1972 and 1976, during which time he made somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 films. He collaborated with Fred Worden and worked with Jack Goldstein and John Baldessari on several of their early films.

Art Lange has produced more than two dozen recordings for artists like Matthew Shipp, Ellery Eskelin, Ran Blake, and Guillermo Gregorio, and he has directed ensembles in the music of Cornelius Cardew and Anthony Braxton. His writings on music have been published across the U.S., England, and Europe. He teaches at Columbia College, Chicago.

Richard Lerman has been creating electronic music and interdisciplinary art since the 1960’s and has performed and exhibited his artwork and film in North and South America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. For the last 30 years, he has been designing and building microphones using piezo disks. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the NEA, the Asian Cultural Council, among many others. A 2-CD set of his early audio work, including “Travelon Gamelon” and a performance of “Sections for Screen, Performers and Audience,” is available on EM Records. For more information please visit http://www.sonicjourneys.com

Robert Russett holds degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design and Cranbrook Academy of Art. Following his graduate work at Cranbrook, Russett continued his studies in Paris at Atelier17. His films have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the Whitney Museum (NYC), the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, as well as on PBS, The Learning Channel, and Spanish National Television. His tapes and video installations have been shown at SIGGRAPH, the American Museum of the Moving Image (NYC) and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in the Netherlands. Awards include 3 MacDowell Colony fellowships, a Media Fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and a production grant from the American Film Institute. John Libbey and Co. has published his new book, HYPERANIMATION: Digital Images and Virtual Worlds (2009), in association with the University of Indiana Press. Formally an Honors Professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Russett is now Professor Emeritus of Visual Arts and a full-time artist and writer.

Paul Sharits is widely considered to be the first American filmmaker to make “pure-color” flicker films. He was involved with Fluxus in the 1960’s and worked in a variety of different mediums including film, sound, sculpture, drawing, performance art, typography, and printmaking. His film work investigated visual and aural modes of perception by examining the intersections between shifting fields of color and sound, the mechanics of film projection and optical sound reproduction, and what he referred to as “the operational analogues constructed between ways of seeing and ways of hearing.”

Barry Spinello came to animation from painting, and completed a number of films in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s (Soundtrack, Sonata for Pen, Brush and Ruler, and Six Loop-Paintings) that explored various techniques of painting and drawing images and soundtracks directly onto 16mm film.  His films have been shown at the Whitney Museum and at various international film festivals, and he taught animation at the University of California at Berkeley.

Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, “Can’t Swallow It, Can’t Spit it Out” (2006). Image courtesy of Elizabeth Dee Gallery.

With a biting yet surprisingly tender wit, Los Angeles performance and video artists Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn couch social critique in bizarre, hilarious, and seemingly impromptu scenarios. Collaborating since 2001, their work has been featured in exhibitions and film festivals the world over. “At first glance,” writes critic Jeffrey Kastner, “[their videos] seem like lo-fi screwball sketches, thanks to their improvisational skills, Kahn’s magnetic performances, and Dodge’s keen directorial hand.” Can’t Swallow It, Can’t Spit it Out (2006), featured in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, trails a bloody-nosed modern-day Valkyrie-cum-raconteur as she wanders the streets of L.A. Their 2008 tour de force, All Together Now, imagines a post-apocalyptic scenario where different clans forge their way in an anarchic world. Also featured: Whacker (2005); Let the Good Times Roll (2004); and Winner (2002). 2002–08, USA, multiple formats, ca. 90 min.

HARRIET “HARRY” DODGE was born in San Francisco in 1966. STANYA KAHN was born in San Francisco in 1968. They first met in 1993 in San Francisco, and began collaborating in 2001, when they moved to Los Angeles. In 2003 Dodge and Kahn each received an MFA from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, NY. Both have extensive solo careers in performance: Kahn is the creator of the critically-acclaimed performance The Ballad of Crappy and Seapole (According Shempco) (2001); Dodge has appeared in numerous indie films and videos, including John Waters’ Cecil B. Demented; and both artists are featured in Dodge’s 2001 feature By Hook or By Crook, which she wrote and directed with Silas Flipper. Dodge and Kahn’s collaborative work has been exhibited in solo shows at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, and in numerous group exhibitions, including the Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Germany; Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania; the 2008 Whitney Biennial; The Getty Center, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens, NY; and Art in General, NY; among many others. Their video works have been widely shown in film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival; NY Underground Film Festival; Mix Festival, NY; London Lesbian/Gay International Film Festival; Los Angeles Film Festival; New Festival, NY; San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; and the Paris International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

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Read the Chicago Reader capsule by Andrea Gronvall here.

Miranda Pennell, Tattoo (2001). Image courtesy of the artist.

In an effort to dispel the notion that the dance film is largely a decorative and apolitical genre, The Dance Camera: Locked & Loaded is an international collection of films and videos that confront the camera’s power to manipulate identity, create celebrity, and automate the viewer’s gaze. Curated by filmmaker and SAIC faculty member Danièle Wilmouth, these charged works serve as compelling activist documents against a range of global injustices, including sexism, xenophobia, and colonialism. Works include: Je Suis Une Bombe (Elodie Pong, Switzerland, 2006), You Made Me Love You (Miranda Pennell & John Smith, UK, 2005), Dansons (Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Algeria/France, 2003), Element (Amy Greenfield, USA, 1973), Tattoo (Miranda Pennell, UK, 2001), Black Spring (Heddy Maalem, Algeria/France/Nigeria, 2002), Familie Tezcan (Nevin Aladag, Turkey/Germany, 2001), Elegy (Douglas Wright & Chris Graves, New Zealand, 1993). Special thanks to Kali Heitholt, who assisted with this program. 1973–2006, multiple artists, multiple countries, multiple formats, ca 80 min.

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You Made Me Love You
Miranda Pennell & John Smith UK, 2005, 3.5 min
Twenty-one dancers are held by your gaze. Losing contact can be traumatic.
“…On the one hand, this is like looking at a group of aliens who have never seen anything like the camera (or you) before. The concentration of the faces on what is before them takes away their self-consciousness, and like a series of Thomas Ruff portraits, they have an unsettling air of insouciance. But ultimately, the thought one is drawn to, and the allegory the title suggests, concern the contemporary obsession with becoming visible through some sort of brush with celebrity, however brief, demeaning or meaningless that might be.”  — Dr. Stephen Riley

Je Suis Une Bombe
Elodie Pong, Switzerland, 2006, 6:12 min.
A figure in a panda bear costume performs an erotic pole dance. On removing the panda’s head, a woman is revealed, and she addresses the camera. She delivers her own praises of a complex image of woman, simultaneously strong and vulnerable—a potential powder keg. Performer: Carine Charaire. Music: Michael Hilton

Element
Dir: Hilary Harris, Choreography/Performer: Amy Greenfield, USA, 1973, 12 min
“Element raises issues of the active image of a woman’s body on film. Greenfield’s body is covered, like a moving sculpture, entirely with black, wet, clay-like mud in an environment of this element. She falls into and rises out of this glistening substance, over and over, until she is seen against the sky and falls one last time, ending with her black body sliding along the mud glittering in the jewel-like sun. The whole film is a human cycle, which is both birthlike and deathlike, and summons up through visceral imagery a very primal concept of female sensuality.” — Canyon Cinema

Elegy
Dir: Chris Graves, Choreography/Performer: Douglas Wright, New Zealand, 1993, 10 min
Douglas Wright is an openly gay dancer and choreographer from New Zealand. He danced with Limbs Dance Company of New Zealand (1980-1983), the Paul Taylor Company of New York (1983-87) and DV8 Physical Theatre of London (1988) before forming the Douglas Wright Dance Company in Auckland in 1989. In 2004, his first book Ghost Dance was released, part love story, part memoir, a deeply felt meditation on the art of performance. The 2006 season of his stage work Black Milk was accompanied by the publication of his second book Terra Incognito. In October 2007 a poetry collection, Laughing Mirror was published, at which time Wright announced his retirement from dance.

“The self-confident innovator, the prime mover with an incredible athletic ability, Douglas Wright, in the late 1980s and early 90s established himself as possibly the best—the most profound—choreographer New Zealand has ever produced. Certainly, he is the most visceral, the most gutsy, creating dance works that combined a kind of unstoppable callisthenic zest with philosophical ideas done out as images: dance as an articulation of the human condition.” — David Eggleton

“Anger is not just mine, anger is like petrol if somebody gets angry someone nearby will catch fire. It’s about exploring the way energy can be transformed through art. I’m lucky, I’ve been given more than my share of anger, so I’ve got a lot of it to transform.” — Douglas Wright

Tattoo
Miranda Pennell, UK, 2001, 9 min
Trees, insects and birds look-on as the countryside is invaded by a lost regiment of soldiers engaged in a repetitive display. The senseless beauty of a military drill dwarfed by the landscape, is by turns absurd and disturbing. The choreography of military drill here is entirely drawn from the tradition of the Light Division of the British Army. Soldiers and band of the Light Division filmed on Salisbury Plane. Music for military-band scored for the film by Graeme Miller.

Dansons (Let Us Dance)
Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Algeria/France, 2003, 5:35 min
The brilliantly concise Dansons shows in a single take the midriff of a woman belly-dancing to La Marseillaise. It is a startlingly clear image of the clash of colonialism with indigenous culture. The military relentlessness of the anthem is in deep contrast to the sensuousness of the body wrapped in the colours of the French tricolour.

Familie Tezcan (The Tezcan Family)
Nevin Aladag, Turkey/Germany, 2001, 6:40 min
A video portrait of a German family with Turkish heritage, practicing breakdance and singing in four different languages.

“Aladag, born in 1972 in Van in eastern Turkey and now living in Berlin, often focuses on foreignness and self-determination as they are experienced by young people of Turkish origin in Germany today. Demarcation and amalgamation, the search for cultural roots and social connection: Aladag is trying to create individual meaning within the larger context of the production of identity.”  — Harald Fricke, Artforum

Black Spring
Dir: Benoit Dervaux, Choreographer: Heddy Maalem, Algeria/France/Nigeria, 2002, 26 min
“Born in Algiers to a French mother and Algerian father, now living in Toulouse and creating tribal-infused contemporary choreography for dancers from Francophone African countries, Heddy Maalem creates stark investigations of race and identity. — Sharon Hoyer

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Danièle Wilmouth creates hybrids of performance art, dance, installation and cinema, which exploit the shifting hierarchies between live and screen space. Her works—Curtain of Eyes (1997), Tracing a Vein (2001), Round (2002), Hula Lou (2007), and A Heretic’s Primer on Love and Exertion (2007), have screened in festivals, museums, galleries, and on television worldwide. In 1990 she began a six-year residency in the Kansai region of Japan, where she cofounded “Hairless Films,” an independent filmmaking collective. While in Japan, she also studied the Japanese contemporary dance form Butoh under Katsura Kan, and performed with his troupe “The Saltimbanques.” She is currently on faculty in the film and video departments of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College. More info at Hairless Films.

Flingco Sound System releases “textures in the shape of sound.”–Dublab

Since its 2007 launch, Chicago’s Flingco Sound System label has played host to a slate of musicians who work collaboratively with visual artists to create darkly mesmerizing videos and richly textured live performances. Tonight, CATE teams up with FSS to present not-to-be-missed live collaborations by the drone-based Chicago trio Haptic (Steven Hess, Joseph Clayton Mills, and Adam Sonderberg) and real-time video artist Lisa Slodki; the end-of-days strings and digital soundscapes of Interbellum (Brendan Burke), with multi-media artist Annie Feldmeier Adams; as well as the short video Avici (2008), by SAIC alum Clayton Flynn and the experimental Richmond, VA trio Cristal (Jimmy Anthony, Greg Darden and Bobby Donne). 2005–09, multiple artists, Austria/USA, multiple formats, 90 min.

Flingco Sound System was started by Bruce Adams, the co-founder of kranky, an independent record label that Pitchfork recently lauded for its “hard earned niche” and “uncompromising spirit.” The new label is equally innovative, supporting and releasing its musicians’ audio-visual collaborations—FSS’s forthcoming Haptic LP will include a DVD of rotating fourth member Lisa Slodki’s album-length video; FSS’s Interbellum release features media produced by Brendan Burke, the man behind Interbellum, and Annie Feldmeier Adams using Burke’s handheld video footage from a transatlantic sailing voyage; among others. The label is designed to adapt to and take advantage of new digital distribution streams and tap into the rejuvenated market for vinyl. FSS releases DRM-free high sample rate downloads, limited edition LPs on 180 gram vinyl with download coupons, and a subscription service.

Since the early 1960s, legendary multimedia artist Carolee Schneemann has blazed a groundbreaking, taboo-busting path through the art world. Expressive, exuberant and intelligent, her work ranges from hand-made diary films and politically charged performances to painting, poetry, and installation, all the while exploring and overturning preconceived notions of sexuality, gender, and the body. Tonight, Schneemann will present a collection of recently restored films, performance videos, and new work, including the first two installments of her landmark Autobiographical Trilogy: Fuses (1964—67), in which she painted, scratched, and collaged self-shot footage of herself and then-partner James Tenney’s erotic explorations, and Plumb Line (1971), along with the influential performance pieces Body Collage (1967) and Americana I Ching Apple Pie (1978—2007) and her latest video Infinity Kisses—The Movie (2008). Co-presented by SAIC’s Visiting Artists Program and Department of Performance and the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center, which will present a second program of Schneemann’s work on Friday, November 7. 1964—2008, Carolee Schneemann, USA, multiple formats, ca 80 min.

Mutidisciplinary feminist artist Carolee Schneemann is known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. from Bard College and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois. Her work is primarily characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the individual in relationship to social bodies. Her works have been exhibited internationally, including a full retrospective at the New Museum of Contermporary Art, and retrospective screenings at the the Centre Georges Pompidou, MoMA, and Whitney. Schneemann has taught at several universities, including the California Institute of the Arts, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hunter College, and Rutgers University, where she was the first female art professor hired. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including: a 1999 Art Pace International Artist Residency, San Antonio, Texas; Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (1997, 1998); 1993 Guggenheim Fellowship; Gottlieb Foundation Grant; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Maine College of Art, Portland, ME. Lifetime Achievement Award, College Art Association, 2000. Additionally, she has published widely, including, Cezanne, She Was A Great Painter (1976), More Than Meat Joy: Performance Works and Selected Writings (1979, 1997), Imaging Her Erotics: Essays, Interviews, Projects (2003). A selection of her letters edited by Kristine Stiles is forthcoming.

More
CaroleeSchneemann.com
New York Times: Carolee Schneemann