Media Arts Preview: Hall of Mirrors
This week's media arts scene is a hall of mirrors, with events designed to disrupt, rearrange and reset your sense of perception.
Thursday, October 13
Art Center College of Design's Alyce de Roulette Williamson Gallery presents Worlds, curated by Stephen Nowlin. The show brings together work by a group of artists, including media designer Rebeca Méndez, and a group of scientists, including - oddly enough - JPL and Nicolaus Copernicus, among others. The show continues a longer investigation of design undertaken by the gallery that centers on exploring design "by superimposing the domains of art and science." The show opens tonight with a presentation by astronomer and author Mike Brown at 8:00 p.m., followed by a wine reception at 9:00 p.m. RSVP: events@artcenter.edu
Friday, October 14
SCI-Arc presents an installation titled Anisotropy/Anisotropie by the Paris-based architecture firm Odile Decq Benoît Cornette. The piece uses mirror-clad walls to disrupt normal spatial perception. "Decq's exhibition aims to induce a sensory experience, both vivid and discomforting, one that pulls the human mind in various directions simultaneously." The installation is on view in the SCI-Arc Gallery from October 14 through December 4, 2011, and opens tonight with a reception at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 15
Home Movie Day celebrates amateur filmmaking with events at various venues internationally. The celebration at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invites you to bring your home movies to be screened. Film check-in is from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., with screenings from noon to 4:00 p.m. in the Linwood Dunn Theater.
The event continues at 7:00 p.m. when the Academy Film Archive will screen home movie footage from Hollywood's Golden Age,with excerpts of footage that includes Marilyn Monroe, Errol Flynn, Harold Lloyd and others. Finally, tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m., Dwight Swanson from The Center for Home Movies will present 16 amateur films dating from 1915 to 2005 to suggest the "eclectic array of entertainment, innovation and enlightenment found in home movies."
REDCAT presents A Voice That Lingers, featuring work by Werner Schroeter, a German filmmaker known for his contributions to New German Cinema, with more than 20 feature films made over a 30-year career. The show includes the US debut of a documentary portrait of Schroeter made by Elfi Mikesch, who became Schroeter's DP, and a selection of Schroeter's work, including Deux, which stars Isabelle Huppert. The Death of Maria Malibran screens tonight at 8:30 p.m., and the portrait, along with Deux, screens tomorrow night starting at 6:00 p.m.
Sunday, October 16
Los Angeles Filmforum continues its Alternative Projections Screening Series tonight with Industry Town: The Avant-Garde and Hollywood, focusing on the intersection between Hollywood and experimental filmmaking practices. Films to be screened include work by Kenneth Anger, Peter Mays, John Baldessari, George Lucas, and more. Filmmakers Peter Mays and Bruce and Norman Yonemoto will be present. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian.
Dorkbot takes place at Machine Project and this month features Jim Jenkins on kinetic sculptures, Sean Bonner on learning how to monitor radiation, and Carlyn Maw on Store Front Music, which "consists of solenoids triggered by ultrasonic sensors, allowing passers-by to make music." It all starts at 1:00 p.m., and is free.
Monday, October 17
REDCAT presents Nervous Films, Secret Stories, featuring new work by LA-based filmmaker Janie Geiser, whose new experimental films include Ghost Algebra, Kindless Villain, The Floor of the World and Ricky. The films "weave textures of overlaid visual and aural elements haunted by lonely, frightened or sinister figures." The show starts at 8:30 p.m.
The Visions and Voices Arts and Humanities Initiative at USC presents Computational Aesthetics, featuring a lecture by UCLA professor Chandler McWilliams based on the book he and Casey Reas co-wrote titled Form and Code: In Design, Art and Architecture. The talk is free and open to the public, and takes place at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, SCA 112, at 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 19
The Hammer Museum presents a talk by California-raised sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, who are known in fashion design as Rodarte. They will talk with photographers Catherine Opie and Alec Soth about the publication the four created combining fashion and photography. The talk starts at 7:00 p.m. and is free.