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Media Arts Preview: Marco Brambilla's 3D Installations and More

By Holly Willis
May 19, 2011
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This week's media art highlights include lots of openings, new work by new artists, as well as the dazzling exhibition of video projects by Marco Brambilla, whose exploration of 3D projection takes the technology to new heights.

Scenes From Suburbs

Thursday, May 19
The quarterly Flux Screening Seriestakes place tonight at the Hammer Museum with a show of recent music videos and motion graphics. Tonight's show includes the premiere of a new Arcade Fire music video by Spike Jonze, a video for Mia Doi Todd's "All My City" by Jessica Sanders and a piece by Charlie Reff and Jacki Sextro titled "All in All." The bar opens at 6:00 p.m., doors open at 7:00 p.m., and the screening starts at 7:30 p.m. A courtyard reception follows the screening.

Pelagic Floor

Friday, May 20
A new film by Adrian Wong is featured in the artist's first U.S. solo exhibition at ltd Los Angeles, with an opening reception tonight 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Titled Troglodyte See the Light, the show features Wong's film The Pelagic Floor, which considers isolation, the loss of language and the potential for rapture in that loss.

Half Life

Saturday, May 21
Marco Brambilla's first solo exhibition of video installations opens tonight at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Titled The Dark Lining, the show features two spectacular 3D video installations, as well as several of Brambilla's other provocative reflections on contemporary media. Civilization (Megaplex) and Evolution (Megaplex) are densely layered video collages affectionately compiled from hundreds of existing films, while HalfLife (Surveillance Channel) combines the serene, almost dazed faces of gamers next to their violent gameplay in the video game Half Life. The show, itself designed by Brambilla, opens tonight with a reception 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. at the museum in Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. The show will be open through August 20, 2011.COLECTIVA is a group exhibition of varied works, including poetic and animated video, video installation and audio recordings. Curated by Yoshua Okón and Esthella Provas, the show focuses "on the artists who have developed very singular approaches to their art-making practices." The show opens tonight with a reception 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. at Honor Fraser.

Machine Project presentsString, Glue, Cardboard and Love: Puppet Shows by DanRae Wilson and Miriam Jones.This "mediation on space, identity and objects" mixes puppets, stories about the midwest and a multimedia installation. It takes place at 8:00 p.m. tonight and Sunday, May 23, 2011.

LAXART presents a new project by Marco Rios in Gallery Two. Titled Despair Beyond Despair, the film expands on the artist's investigation of flesh and gore. "Using Dario Argento's 1970 film The Bird With the Crystal Plumages as a point of departure, Rios responds to the metaphorical and literal notions of dying inside the gallery space." The show opens tonight with a reception 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Triumph of the Wild

Sunday, May 22
LA Filmforum presents a selection of recent animation in a show titled Triumph of the Wild: New Experimental Animation From Around the World. The show includes one of my favorite recent short films, Martha Colburn's spectacular Triumph of the Wild, as well as work by Michael Robinson, David O'Reilly and Studio Smack. Filmmakers Alice Cohen and Gina Marie Napolitan will attend the show, as will curator Eric Leiser. The event takes place at the Spielberg Theater at the Egyptian, and starts at 7:30 p.m.Wednesday, May 25
LAXART presents Brian Bulter's new film and installation. Titled The Dove and the Serpent, the film was shot in Normandy, France and "builds upon occult symbology to create baroque atmospheres and an unsettling narrative whose ultimate meaning seems spectral and elusive." The opening event, tonight at the LA>

Mods Hackers

Thursday, May 26
YoungProjects Gallery in the Pacific Design Center presents Mods & Hackers, a survey of interactive videos by artists who appropriate video game materials for their artworks. Participants include Eddo Stern, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Joseph DeLappe and many others. The opening is today, 5:30 - 8:30 in Space B230, and the show will be up through August 30, 2011.

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