School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N. State St.
T +312 846 2600
Celebrating 150 years as a leader in educating artists, designers, and scholars, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) presents a new season of “Conversations at the Edge”—a weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.
Organized by the Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and the Video Data Bank, screenings are free to SAIC students, 11 USD general public, 6 USD Film Center members, 7 USD all students, and 5 USD SAIC/AIC faculty.
Le Révélateur
Thursday, September 24, 7pm
Le Révélateur (Montreal-based video artist Sabrina Ratté and musician Roger Tellier-Craig) produces audiovisual performances that pay homage to the pioneers of electronic and computer art. The two will premiere a new long-form piece. Presented in collaboration with Lampo.
Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak: Camera and Line
Thursday, October 1, 6pm
This long overdue survey of mid-century films by Wayne Boyer and Larry Janiak pairs their experiments in design with personal, more lyrical works. A roundtable will follow the screening. Presented in collaboration with the Chicago Film Archives.
Louis Henderson: Melts Into Air
Thursday, October 8, 6pm
Award-winning director Louis Henderson presents a pair of films on the networked links between colonialism, computing, and capitalism in contemporary Ghana. Presented in collaboration with the Video Data Bank.
“The Animated Films of Suzan Pitt”
Thursday, October 15, 6pm
Legendary animator Suzan Pitt is renowned for lavishly hand-painted and stop-motion films of shape-shifting characters and meanings. Pitt shows a selection of films and discusses her nearly five-decade career. Prints courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
Lorna Mills: Ways of Something
Thursday, October 22, 6pm and 7:45pm
Ways of Something is Lorna Mills’s update of John Berger’s seminal BBC program Ways of Seeing (1972). Composed of one-minute videos by 114 digital and web artists from around the work, the project describes the conditions of artmaking after the Internet. A discussion with Mills will follow.
Heinz Emigholz: The Airstrip
Thursday, October 29, 6pm
In The Airstrip (2013), German director Heinz Emigholz weaves architectural study into a wide-ranging examination of the “concrete culture” of WWII and modernism’s postwar embrace of the material. Followed by a discussion with Emigholz. Presented in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Chicago as part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Ming Wong
Thursday, November 5, 6pm
Berlin-based, Singapore-born artist Ming Wong repurposes global cinema to explore issues of race, gender, and performance, miscasting himself in iconic film scenes. Wong shows a selection of his work and discusses his practice.
Martine Syms: The Unreliable Narrator
Thursday, November 12, 6pm
“Conceptual entrepreneur” Martine Syms (BFA 2007), whose work often explores blackness as a topic, reference, marker, and audience in visual culture, shows four new works, including the premiere of Notes on Gesture (2015).
Claudia Hart: Simulisms
Thursday, November 19, 6pm
Digital artist Claudia Hart presents a new live staging of her media ballet The Dolls (2015), in which elaborate 3D animations are projected directly onto dancers. A discussion with the artist will follow.
About the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
For 150 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers, and scholars. Located in downtown Chicago with a fine arts graduate program ranked number two by U.S. News and World Report, SAIC provides an interdisciplinary approach to art and design as well as world-class resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries, and state-of-the-art facilities. SAIC’s undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate students have the freedom to take risks and create the bold ideas that transform Chicago and the world—as seen through notable alumni and faculty such as Michelle Grabner, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Murray, Richard Hunt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cynthia Rowley, Nick Cave, and LeRoy Neiman. Learn more at saic.edu.
