Media Arts Preview: Puppets, Buses and More
This week's stand-out media event is a showcase of videos made by LA youth, who get a chance to talk to the entire city as their projects screen on the city's buses...
Friday, June 10
Tonight's a good night to catch Janie Geiser's peepshow/diorama performance titled The Reptile Under the Flowers at The Giraffe Space. The show features a series of 12 mini-stages, each of which tells segments of a story using puppets, projections and music to create an extraordinary mixed media experience not to be missed. The show continues Thursdays-Sundays through June 19. Tickets available online.
Saturday, June 11
The Getty Center presents a film series titled Soy Cuba! featuring four iconic Cuban films from the 1960s. First up: Our Man in Havana at 3:00 p.m., followed by I Am Cuba! at 6:30 p.m. Tomorrow, June 12, the series presents the terrific Tomás Gutiérrez Alea film, Memories of Underdevelopment, at noon, followed by Humberto Solas' Lucia. The films complement the Getty's exhibition A Revolutionary Project: Cuba From Walker Evans to Now. The screenings are free, but reservations are required.
This week's fun Machine Project event is the Solar Sound Workshop taught by David Casey. It offers "an introduction to attaching mini solar panels to small battery-powered devices," and will get you started on building your own solar-powered gadgets. It starts at 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, June 12
The Out the Window project unites media artists, teachers, technology experts and LA high school students to create 40 short videos that will be screened on our city's 2,200 LA Metro buses. Inner City Arts will present the full program of short works today at 3:00 p.m. and then, starting tomorrow, buses will become the mobile venues for the videos, which will screen during the first five minutes of every half hour from 6:00 a.m. until midnight weekdays, June 13-17. They'll get a more prominent showcase, screening for 45 minutes of every hour, on Saturday, June 18 and Sunday, June 19. The project was supported by Echo Park Film Center and Public Matters, and was imagined and coordinated by LA Freewaves with assistance from UCLA Remap. "I'm picturing a network of youths, artists and nonprofits that are talking to the entire county," explains Anne Bray, who dreamed up the idea, got funding, and made it all happen.
Filmforum has invited Anne McGuire to present a retrospective of her short form videos at the Echo Park Film Center tonight starting at 7:30. Each video is described as "a marvel of wit, media savvy, unabashed performance, and brilliant commentary on modern society."
Monday, June 13
The International Documentary Association presents Fine Cut: Exploring the Director/Editor Collaboration tonight at Cinefamily. Speakers include Robert Kenner, Kate Amend, Kim Roberts and Victor Livingston. Doors open at 7:00 p.m., and the discussion starts at 7:30 p.m., with a wine reception to follow.
Tuesday, June 14
The Central Library will serve as the venue for a panel discussion titled We Are Here: We Could Be Everywhere: Media, Arts and Activism in Los Angeles and Beyond focusing on media art and politics. Panelists include Aniko Imre, Henry Jenkins, Reed Johnson and Fabian Wagmister, and Kenneth Rogers will moderate. The program is free but registration is required; it starts at 7:00 p.m.
A+D, the architecture and design museum, focuses on surfing, skating and biking with Come in! 2: Surf.Skate.Bike starting today when "the hottest of Los Angeles' young design talent take over the museum's galleries, offices, storage closets and bathrooms." Among those included are Electroland, known for large-scale interactive art projects. The installations will be on view starting today, with a party scheduled for July 7.
Artist Lynn Hershman-Leeson combines interviews, images of artworks and archival footage in her portrait of the feminist art movement titled !Women Art Revolution, screening tonight at the Hammer Museum at 7:00 p.m. The 83-minute film has been screening around the country to great acclaim, and the director will be on-hand to answer questions following the screening, along with artists Kathe Kollwitz and Judy Baca.
