CURTIN 175
Colloquia in Conceptual Studies"Interactivities: Conversations with Media Artists and Theorists"
Laura Marks, Dena Wosk University Professor, Art and Cultural Studies, School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University
"Travels of the Abstract Line: New Media's Debt to Islamic Aesthetics"
Paul Klee wrote, "We have never until now allowed a line to dream." Yet 1100 years before he wrote this, classical Islamic art abounded with dreaming, growing, transforming lines. And now, software allows lines to dream and grow before our eyes, stirring new algorithms (an Arabic word) into nonorganic life. This resurgence is not a coincidence but part of the Islamic lineage of Western art.
Dr. Laura U. Marks is a scholar and curator of independent and experimental media arts. Her current research interests are Islamic genealogies of new media art and independent media in the Arab world. She is the author of *The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses* (Duke University Press, 2000), *Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media* (Minnesota University Press, 2002), and many essays. She has curated experimental media for festivals and art spaces worldwide. Dr. Marks is the Dena Wosk University Professor of Art and Culture Studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.www.sfu.ca/~lmarks
FILMS TO BE SCREENED ALONG WITH THE TALK:
Dieu me pardonne (May God forgive Me) (Mounir Fatmi, France, 2001, 8:15)
On a Monday (dir. Tamer Al-Saïd, Egypt, 2004, 10:00)
These Girls (dir. Tahani Rached Egypt, 2006, 68:00)
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Carousel: An Evening of Slide Show Sensations
7pm $2
Woodland Pattern Book Center
720 E Locust @ Riverwest
www.woodlandpattern.org
Carousel is a Slide Show Invitational that solicited artists from around the neighborhood -- and oh maybe one from across the country -- to create their own program of projected 35mm slides.
Participants were supplied with a roll of 35mm slide film and one month to design their own shows: the number and kind of slides, the arrangement of projectors & screens, and sonic accompaniment (if any) were all the choice of the participating artists.
Nostalgic for a kind of technology no longer manufactured and, perhaps, for a pre-PowerPoint kind of sharing (communal and performed) of projected images stuttered sequentially, Carousel will unwind a party of images. So join us, won't you?
Participants include Naomi Shersty, Max Estes, Senseney Lea Stokes, Meredith Root, Team Woodland Pattern, Micaela O'Herlihy, Steve Wetzel, Polina Malikin, and more!
Presented as part of the Woodland Pattern Experimental Film/Video series, a presentation of the UWM Film Department
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Performance at the Union Ballroom 7pm ** FREE **
The Mammy Project by Michelle Matlock
An exploration of race, gender, and consumerism in 20th century America
This project confronts the American stereotype of mammy, focusing on its commercialization through the character of Aunt Jemima. Michelle Matlock's performance travels from the life and times of Nancy Green (the first woman to play the part of Aunt Jemima in 1893) to the present day where Aunt Jemima is still bought and sold from her “pancake box prison.”
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Basement Cinema
Mitchell Hall - Room B91
Basement Cinema is a student-run series of B and unusual commercial movies.
More information at http://basementcinema.wordpress.com
7pm ** FREE **
The Stuff(dir. Larry Cohen, 1985, 93 minutes)
Miners discover a white goo erupting from the Earth. They taste it and decide the marshmallowy substance is good enough to market. Over night, The Stuff, as this new dessert is called, takes the nation by storm. This creamy taste sensation scares the sprinkles out of ice cream executives. Hired to find out the secrets behind The Stuff, industrial spy Michael Moriarty (Law & Order) learns the shocking truth. Is The Stuff simply a fashionable consumer treat or is it an alien being consuming the brains of those that eat it and turning America into a wasteland of mindless zombies?
9pm ** FREE **
Street Trash(dir. J. Michael Muro, 1987, 102 minutes)
A vile liquor store owner unearths a case of “Tenalfy Viper” from his basement and starts selling it to local bums and winos for a buck. The outdated booze possesses a nasty side effects that leaves its consumers in a puddle of ooze. Centered around the squalor of the Brooklyn Wrecking Company this junkyard drama is full of sick humor, gross effects, and transgressive behavior, not to mention some of the sleaziest folks ever seen in cinema. Able to rival the early gore/humor works of Peter Jackson, Street Trash shows the dismal side of the 80’s.
