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April 19, 2009

Zoe Beloff: Conjuring Specters @ REDCAT

FILM AT REDCAT PRESENTS
Zoe Beloff: Conjuring Specters
Mon Apr 27 | 8:30 pm
Jack H. Skirball Series
$9 [students $7, CalArts $5]

New York artist Zoe Beloff’s unique and mesmerizing films are philosophical toys: objects with which to think. Her work has especially borne on “phantoms,” on images that are “not there,” and on a precinematic version of the virtual, created by means of a stereoscopic Bolex camera that produces spectral 3-D images. Shadowland Or Light From The Other Side, starring Kate Valk of The Wooster Group, locates a link between Victorian spiritualism and the birth of cinema in late-19th century “Ghost Shows,” where actors interacted with magic lantern slides and stereoscopic views. Charming Augustine is an experimental narrative inspired by one of Charcot’s most famous patients at the Salpétrière in turn-of-the-century Paris. It explores connections between photographic documentation of hysteria and the prehistory of narrative film: Augustine captivates the doctors with her theatrical and photogenic hysterical attacks and in the process becomes a star, the “Sarah Bernhardt” of the asylum.

In person: Zoe Beloff

“Beloff exists as the consummate time traveler, floating between the two eras of cine-technology.”
Jeffrey Skoller, Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-Garde Film

LINK

April 14, 2009

Device Art: A Japanese Approach to Media Art

Machiko Kusahara
Device Art: A Japanese Approach to Media Art
Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 6:00 pm

Device Art is a Japanese project that explores new ways of bridging art, design, technology, science and entertainment. Works by the team members vary from Maywa Denki's funny gadgets to Hiroo Iwata's Robot Tile (currently shown at the Milano Salone 2009) and Kazuhiko Hachiya's functioning "personal" jet glider inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's animation film. In theorizing the nature of Device Art elements of Japanese culture, such as the importance of "tools", the appreciation of playfulness, the continuity between art and entertainment, and the importance of popular culture become key issues.

The lecture will introduce the concept of Device Art and discuss questions it raises, accompanied by a wide selection of examples by Japanese artists and designers. Machiko Kusahara is a Visiting Scholar, UCLA, D|MA, Art | Sci Center and a Professor at Waseda University.

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