Media Arts Preview: Eye Movement Research, Light Sculpture & More
Spatialized sound, eye movement research, light sculpture, mediated images and an interactive dandelion are part of this week's LA media art scene as galleries begin the citywide exploration of the history of LA art in the Pacific Standard Time series.
Thursday, September 8
REDCAT presents the New Original Works Festival, and Week One kicks off tonight with three multimedia projects mixing live performance, film, video, puppetry and music. Lucky Dragons presents Actual Reality, a multi-channel composition that "features an ensemble of acoustic musicians with spatialized amplified sound as Fischbeck [the composer] generates a matrix of software-driven cancellations and reinforcements to engage the audience in a participatory act of listening and orientation." The show also includes Cindy Derby's Edward's House of String, mixing puppetry and stop-motion animation, and Clara's Los Angeles, by Marissa Chibas, which merges silent film and live performance in a story about a time-traveling flapper in Los Angeles. The shows take place Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and start at 8:30 p.m. each night.
ltd Los Angelespresents a show titled Long Range, which opens tonight with phase one showcasing a light sculpture installation by Jim Skludt, which borrows the "elaborate stage show machinery" used by Neil Diamond in his concert tours in the mid-nineties. The light sculpture will be on view 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. nightly, September 9-18, and is celebrated with an opening tonight, 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.
The American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre celebrates contemporary Mexican cinema with highlights from the Guadalajara International Film Festival. The series starts tonight with Tequila: The Story of a Passion at 7:30 p.m., and concludes Sunday night with Castle of Purity at 7:30 p.m. In between, you'll find recent comedies, dramas and shorts, as well as an industry panel discussion on Saturday.
Saturday, September 10
Acme Gallery features work by Los Angeles based artist John Carpenter, who will show dandelion clock (seen above), described as "an interactive, digital projection-based black-and-white installation that explores the spatial and temporal qualities of dandelion achenes in flight." There's an opening tonight, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Angles Gallery presents Judy Fiskin: All Six Films, a show that opens tonight with a reception for the artist, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. The films were made between 1997 and 2010, and reflect the artist's interest in perception. "Rather than 'looking' at things, as she has done so methodically since the early 1970s, in her film and video works, Fiskin takes time to consider what can be described as our perceptions of things." The gallery will also present photographs by LA photographers John Divola and Amir Zaki, and the shows are part of the larger Pacific Standard Time citywide exploration of the birth of the LA art scene.
Lee Lynch, a graduate of CalArts and USC's School of Fine Arts, presents his single-channel video installation titled The Murder of Hi Good, which includes a 60-minute western that's a dramatic revision related "to the murder of California's most infamous Indian hunter who lived in Tehama County in the 1870s." The installation is at Steve Turner Contemporary, and opens tonight with a reception 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.; the show will be up through October 8, 2011.
Eye movement research, and what happens in the blink of an eye, are the subject of Vanja Alispahic's lecture at Machine Projecttonight at 8:00 p.m. Alispahic is currently working in Los Angeles with colleagues in the Brain Research Institute at UCLA, and has collaborated as well with the Brain and Attention Research Lab at the University of British Columbia.
Las Cienegas Projects presents Double Location (The Ambassador Hotel), a sculptural, three-channel video installation by Karina Nimmerfall, an Austrian artist based in Berlin. "Generated from a variety of layers of media information and designed as an active physical and sculptural space, the installation evaluates one's relation to mediated images and conventions." The show opens tonight, with a reception 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., and will be up through October 8, 2011.
The Echo Park Film Center's monthly Film Journeys screening series presents Un Lac at 8:00 p.m. The film is described as "a dizzying, visual poem photographed by the director himself in the Swiss Alps."
Tuesday, September 13
Cinefamily's Show & Tell Series presents Richard Metzger, the co-creater of Disinformation and creator of the blog Dangerous Minds.Dubbed "a fantastic chronicler of hidden underground culture," Metzger will show an array of materials from his collection,
including Timothy Leary prints and footage from the '80s NYC club scene.
Wednesday, September 14
Jennifer Siebel Newsom's documentary film Miss Representation examines women, power and pop culture, combining interviews with various leading female figures and teenage girls. The Hammer will screen the feature length film tonight at 7:00 p.m.