A Skate Media Inspired Shorts Program
Sunday, October 14 at 8:00 PM, $7-10
Bail or No? takes its name from a moment of indecision, the intuitive, instinctual moment where one decides to either bail from a skate trick or to ride it out. The shorts assembled as part of this program, while disparate in their approaches and proximity skateboarding, ruminate on the spirit of skating, namely the ways in which it has embraced individual and idiosyncratic contributions to the form and how the very practice of skateboarding insists on risk in the face of both futility and injury.
Bail or No? is an experimental shorts program in the guise of a collage film, with concrete and asphalt video-poetry riffing on the aesthetics of skate media, DIY culture, bailing as a form, and the metaphor of micro-rebellion. Aware that such rebellions are easily commodified and co-opted, the program is nonetheless knit together by a mutual spirit—that having to bail is okay, but to move without risk or chance, is to throw in the towel regardless.
Featuring contributions by Brandon Alvendia, Liz Cambron, Chris Johanson, Joe Castrucci with Future Islands, Molly Colleen O’Connell, Rick Silva and Jordan Tate, Jennifer Chan, John Auer, Dina Kelberman, Caitlin Ryan, Jacob Riddle, Rick Charnoski, Philippe Blanchard, Thad Kellstadt, KC Milliken with Eric Fleischauer, and surprise cameos by many more. Programmed by Chris Reeves and Aaron Walker.
Total screening time: 60 minutes
Filed under:
anarchy,
animation,
artist in attendance,
experimental,
new media,
Uncategorized,
video
Featuring Ezra Claytan Daniels
and Ben Passmore with Vicko Alvarez Vega
and Jessica Campbell
Tuesday, October 9 at 8 PM, Free
The Nightingale is delighted to welcome back Ezra Claytan Daniels as he celebrates the book version of his inventive graphic novel Upgrade Soul. Originally released as an interactive iPhone App, the innovative sci-fi story follows an aging couple in the aftermath of an experimental operation to clone themselves gone awry. Daniels asks probing questions about what shapes our identity -Is it the capability of our mind or the physicality of our bodies? Is a newer, better version of yourself still you? This page-turning graphic novel follows Hank and Molly as they discover the harsh truth that only one version of themselves is fated to survive.
Touring with Daniels is Philadelphia-based cartoonist Ben Passmore reading from his comic-collection released in March of 2018, Your Black Friend and Other Strangers. Passmore masterfully tackles comics about race, gentrification, the prison system, online dating, gross punks, bad street art, kung fu movie references, beating up God, and lots of other grown-up stuff with refreshing doses of humour and lived relatability. These comics are essential, humorous, and accessible, told through Passmore’s surreal lens in the vibrant full-color hues of New Orleans.
At this event, Ben and Ezra will both present sections of their new releases. Afterwards, they will join Chicago-based comic artists, Jessica Campbell and Vicko Alvarez Vega in a roundtable discussion about creating comics that address white supremacy, sexism, and xenophobia.
(more…)
Filed under:
animation,
artist in attendance,
expanded cinema,
Free Screening!,
literature,
narrative,
new media,
reading,
science,
social justice,
Uncategorized,
video
Chicago’s Ethnographic Film Festival
Saturday, October 20 at 7pm, $7-10
Collected Voices Film Fest centers around original ethnographic works that explore the intersection of race, age, class, gender, and sexuality through short and feature length films.
This year’s theme: The World We Create
One way filmmakers deal with complex social and personal issues, is to work within the surreal, experimental, and observational cinema. Delve into the reality we create through voice, story, and motion!
Benjamin Kolak – Robots for Illinois
This film depicts Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner fantasizing about replacing the people of Illinois with robots.
Sean Miller – The Replacements
On election night, a janitor feels cheated out of a life he might have lived when his own clone becomes the President. He goes on a bender to seek justice, encountering new forms of prejudice, dismissal, and classism.
David Weathersby – Got the Love
Got The Love examines the work of independent soul musicians in Chicago as they face a changing commercial and cultural world.
Imani Quinn – Period Piece
A dance fashion film about menstruation. The collective narrates a story of womanhood in an effort to diminish the stigma around menstrual cycles and share the menstrual experience instead of hiding in its societal appointed shame.
Sierra Jackson – 432
432 is a movement based film that follows the journey of a young woman as she confronts her own anxiety.
François Fleury – Waimaha
Both an ethnographic study and an artistic meditation, this film presents the life and rituals of the Waimaha people through their myths. Shot in the Columbian Vaupès, a region which has attracted anthropologists since the 1970s, the film relates three ancestral Amazonian legends told by shamans.
Programmed by Raul Benitez
Filed under:
artist in attendance,
documentary,
ethnography