New Media://Visible Evidence show opens
The New Media://Visible Evidence exhibition showcases several examples of mainly Los Angeles-based documentary practice that employ disparate new media forms. The exhibition will include examples from the Web-based portraits of LA and its inhabitants produced by Juan Devis for the KCET series titled Web Stories; media artist Natalie Bookchin’s Mass Ornament, composed entirely of clips from YouTube videos; and several interactive DVD-ROM documentaries created by USC’s Labyrinth Project under the leadership of Marsha Kinder. The show also includes Erik Loyer and Sharon Daniel’s interactive documentary Blood Sugar; The Iraqi Doctors Project: Research and Remix, which envisions remix as a scholarly practice and was produced by Virginia Kuhn, DJ Johnson and students in IML 340; Mobile Voices, a project created by and for day laborers using the MMS feature on cell phones; as well as several examples of database documentaries made using the Korsakow System, including Matt Soar’s Almost Architecture and Florian Thalhofer’s Forgotten Flags.
In addition to showcasing the projects in the School of Cinematic Arts Gallery, the exhibition will also include three lunch-time presentations during the conference, with Bookchin appearing on Friday to talk about Mass Ornament, Marsha Kinder and Scott Mahoy on Saturday to talk about the Labyrinth Project, and Katie Mills on Sunday to talk about Web Stories. We invite you to experience some of the innovative work produced in Los Angeles – the gallery showcasing the projects is located on the first floor of the Lucas Building in the School of Cinematic Arts; the lunch-time talks will take place between 1:15 and 1:45 in the gallery.
The exhibition was curated by Holly Willis and is presented by USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy in conjunction with the Visible Evidence conference.
Blur+Sharpen returns Thursday 2/26: Time Out of Place
The Blur + Sharpen Screening series presents: “Time Out of Place”
Thursday, February 26 at 8:00pm in SCA 108
The city becomes both a focal point and the backdrop for a series of videos made over the last decade that reflect a fascination with urban space, movement, mapping and the possibility of art. Highlights include Thomson & Craighead’s “desktop documentary” titled Flat Earth, Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt’s Time Out of Place, which attempts to portray the city’s past, present and future simultaneously, and the usual array of music videos and design shorts.
Blur+Sharpen presents Machinima Artistica
Blur + Sharpen, a screening series sponsored by the Institute for Multimedia Literacy, is pleased to present Machinima Artistica. This program of artist-made machinima focuses on a full range of expression, from the elegiac force of Phil Solomon and Mark Lapore’s haunting Untitled (for David Gatten) to a range of politically motivated critiques of violence and war, explorations of virtual being, and kinetic, abstract pieces that completely transform game worlds into spaces of awe and beauty. This is machinima like you’ve never seen it before! Curated by Holly Willis.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 : 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Robert Zemeckis Center’s Ron Howard Theater
Free and open to the public
Blur+Sharpen Tonight: The Horror
Halloween may be over but the horror continues with an entire show of spine-tingling, experimental digital shorts and music videos tonight at 8:00PM in the Ron Howard Theater. Where else can you see Hieronymus Bosch images brought to life by the sounds of Buckethead and bikini-clad girls performing amputations with dull instruments?
Blur+Sharpen screenings take place in the Ron Howard Theater at the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (3131 S. Figueroa St. across from the Shrine Auditorium). Free and open to the public. More Information
Blur+Sharpen: The Pleasures of Text
Blur + Sharpen returns with a show of text-based videos that showcase the power of designed typography. Highlights include Dutch graphic artist Mieke Gerritzen’s acclaimed Beautiful World, a confrontational exploration of visual signs, codes and slogans that questions globalization and consumer identity in a fast-paced moving graphics extravaganza. We’ll also screen a pair of jazzy, Web-based pieces by the Korean collective Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, the ASCII vision of Beck by Associates in Science and other shorts and music videos. Complete program is here.
The show will begin immediately after Simon Penny’s 511 presentation on September 27 at 8:00PM in the Ron Howard Screening Room, Zemeckis Center, 3131 South Figueroa – Free and open to the public!
The Computational Sublime
Blur+Sharpen presents: The Computational Sublime!
Wednesday February 15th at 8:30 PM
Ron Howard Theater, Robert Zemeckis Center
The recent proliferation of algorithmic and computational imaging has marked a radical redefinition of art-making, and along with it, a reconceptualization of contemporary technologies of vision, time, space and experience. This month’s Blur+Sharpen brings together a provocative array of generative, algorithmic and mathematically derived videos, all of which suggest new directions for thinking about the creative possibilities for time-based, computational media.
Steve Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Interactive Media and Director of the Ph.D. program in Media Arts & Practice in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He is the author of Technologies of History: Visual Media and the Eccentricity of the Past (Dartmouth 2011), co-Editor of the interdisciplinary online journal Vectors and creator of the fair use advocacy site Critical Commons. A scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of media, culture and technology, his research interests include historiography, the theory and history of emerging technologies, documentary and experimental film and video, and interactive media design.