Announcing the initial meeting of the USC SCA IMD Stereoscopic Imaging Research Group. This will be a group for anyone in the USC SCA community with interest in any aspect of stereoscopic 3D imagemaking and research.

When: Wednesday July 22nd 4-5:30pm

Where: USC SCA Digital Collaboratory Annex, 2823 S. Flower Street
(entrance on 29th Street between Figueroa & Flower).

Relevant research topics and projects will include:
• Stereoscopic cinema and animation.
• Stereoscopic imagemaking, photography and cinematography.
• Stereoscopic & binocular vision and depth perception.
• Stereoscopic aesthetics and design.
• Interactive and real-time stereoscopic applications and virtual environments.
• Dimensional imaging and display technologies and techniques.
• Stereoscopic pedagogy and curriculum.
• Historical, cultural and social aspects of stereoscopic imaging.

We will be meeting regularly (probably every other week) to discuss topics, projects and initiatives.

Also, we have an immediate (and I mean right away!) opportunity for one or more animators for a short-term summer research project. If you are interested please get in touch with me, or come to the meeting.

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

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.

Link

Friday, March 6, 2009
Noon - 1:45 p.m.
Social Sciences Building (SOS), Room 250
Lunch provided. No RSVP required.

Donald Hoffman and Martin Wattenberg will discuss the interface between the cognitive neurological processes of vision and creative strategies for visualization. What happens when inborn “visual intelligence” meets the new modes of visualization made possible by new media? How might visualization techniques reshape how we see and what we know?

Donald D. Hoffman is a Professor of Cognitive Science at UC Irvine, and author of the book, Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See. His research focuses on visual perception, consciousness and the mind-body problem, virtual reality and cognitive science. He holds a Ph.D. in computational psychology from MIT.

Martin Wattenberg is a computer scientist and artist, known for his visualization-based artwork, which has been exhibited in venues such as the London Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the New York Museum of Modern Art. He is the founding manager of IBM’s Visual Communication Lab, which researches new forms of visualization and how they can enable better collaboration. Wattenberg holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley.

Link

Director William Malone (HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, FEAR DOT COM, "Masters of Horror") helms this macabre twist on the Sleeping Beauty legend. This gripping peril-packed love story not only taps into the zeitgeist of dark yet edgy romance-driven fantasies, but also pushes the familiar slasher film landscape into the more unique world of the surreal. The film is director Malone’s homage to the late Polish Surrealist Zdzislaw Beksinski, using the artist's work as the inspiration for the dream world throughout the film.

Valdemar Plusa, owner of the Belvedere Gallery and Beksinski's longtime friend and agent, will introduce the program. A panel discussion moderated by Richard Elfman (THE FORBIDDEN ZONE) on how art shapes and enriches the filmmaker’s vision, past and present, will precede the film, with director William Malone as well as legendary filmmakers Tobe Hooper, Mick Garris, Wes Craven and Stuart Gordon.

(Note from Perry: I will be conducting the interview with Valdemar before the film)

The filmmakers’ proceeds from this screening will be donated to arts organization MOCA for its continued support in providing arts education programs to the public and support for new artists.

Tickets $10, Students $8, advance tickets: Fandango

Link

Sunday, March 8, 2009
1:00pm warning: first day daylight savings time!
Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Presenters will include:

Dan Goods: Dan is the "Visual Strategist" for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech where he develops creative ways of communicating science. He recently has done artwork with aerogel and on a team to develop a 108-foot long data driven sculpture at the San Jose airport.

Eric Gradman and Brent Bushnell: Eric and Brent will present ArtFall: a dynamic physical simulation by drawing on a whiteboard.

Brian O'Connor: Arduino + Chumby = Fun!: The Chumby is an open-source, ambient Internet device running Linux while the Arduino is an open-source prototyping platform. Brian will show how to connect an Arduino to the Chumby and develop a simple application that monitors the environment.

Link

AUTOMATA & The Velaslavasay Panorama present a program of live film/performance works

Perry Hoberman: Denial Clinic
Jordan Biren: All That Passes Before You, Already in Ruins
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Saturday, December 13th at 8:00 p.m.
The Velaslavasay Panorama
1122 West 24th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(213) 746-2166
http://www.panoramaonview.org/
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Tickets: $12 ($10 students, seniors, and panorama members)
to purchase tickets: http://www.BrownPaperTickets.com/event/49667 or call 1-800-838-3006
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SPECIAL INVITE FOR THE IMD COMMUNITY: If you'd rather, please come to the dress rehearsal on Friday night 12/12 at 8pm (it may be a little rougher, but it's a lot cheaper [free]).

Jordan Biren changes course for his new work, All That Passes Before You, Already in Ruins, adding a live film performance to his spectral narrative of transient landscapes, characters and time, melodramatically moving in the shadows of glistening cinematic moments.

Perry Hoberman continues his ill-advised foray as a singer/songwriter, presenting Denial Clinic, a live performance with 3D projection, drawings and songs, chronicling various tales of frustration, loss and self-deception.

Biren and Hoberman's new works weave together into an evening characterized by an atmosphere of ubiquitous desolation and catastrophic wit.
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Jordan Biren is a visual artist whose works in performance, video, image, and text reside at the intersection of melancholy and meaning as it migrates beneath the illusory promise of narrative. Screenings of his video works have included Los Angeles Film Forum; Pacific Film Archive, Aurora Picture Show, Stuttgarter Filmwinter; Cinematexas; Dallas Video Festival; San Francisco Cinemateque; and Chicago Underground Film Festival. He teaches video art at California State Universities Fullerton and San Bernardino.

Perry Hoberman is an installation and performance artist who has exhibited widely in museums and galleries throughout the USA and Europe, including Fringe Exhibitions here in Los Angeles and Postmasters Gallery in New York. Hoberman works with both new media and old worn-out media, and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. He is currently a research professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
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Automata, located in Los Angeles, California, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation, incubation, and presentation of experimental puppet theater, experimental film, and other contemporary art practices centered on ideas of artifice and performing objects. Founded by artists Janie Geiser and Susan Simpson, Automata has been creating and presenting intimate performances of original work, film screenings of contemporary and historical avant-garde film, lectures, workshops, and exhibitions in a variety of spaces in the Los Angeles area since 2004. Automata seeks to radically redefine and re-contextualize the notion of puppet theater by taking an art form that is frequently marginalized and locating it at the intersection of contemporary performance, film/media, visual art, sound art and experimental writing. Automata is dedicated to creating and nurturing new work that is engaged in cutting edge performance/media/art practices, and in deep conversation with our contemporary culture of simulation and mimicry (digital, robotic and otherwise), while still embracing the aura of the handmade and hand-operated.
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