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[May 9] 
Campaign-trail documents by Bill Stamets Friday, May 9, 2008 8:00 pm Nightingale Theater, 1084 N. Milwaukee (corner of Milwaukee & Thomas) $5 suggested donation As the 2008 presidential campaign plods on, perhaps it’s time for a flashback to the dark days of late-20th-century campaigning. Chicago documenter Bill Stamets brings out three campaign-trail treasures, primary, caucus, convention, and inauguration footage shot in ‘88, ‘92 and ‘96. With a light touch reminiscent of Frederick Wiseman, these documents provide a look back at past political landscapes. In the first few minutes of these films, we get a distinct impression that the players rotate, but the political game stays the same. But after a half-hour of watching Stamets’s films, and recognizing politician after politician, it becomes clear that the faces of our political landscape really haven’t changed in twenty years: Al Gore, Bob Dole, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton, Pat Buchannan. What really changes in this quadrennial game? Armed with a Super-8 and later a Hi-8 camera, Stamets embeds wth the press-corps using amateur cameras to notice moments at the margins of the “real” reportage. In this day of incessant, round-the-clock audio and video coverage of all candidates, Stamets’s films have a strange sense of prescience to them. On one hand, they anticipate the intense coverage of unscripted moments with cell phones and miniature digital camcorders that cam make or break a candidate who slips even the tiniest bit. But more interestingly, they are situated in a historical moment when that type of equipment was available for those purposes, but before it became so common that politicians learned to fully protect themselves or manipulate it. The masterful charisma of Bill Clinton is striking in these films, as is a fleeting moment of what looks like boredom mixed with dread that crosses Jesse Jackson’s face in the midst of an Iowa meet’ n’ greet. [May 2] 
On Friday, May 2, 2008, I will be presenting a program of videos at Curtis Hall in the Fine Arts Building (410 S. Michigan) as part of Looptopia. The videos are highlights from the screening series I have been running at Roots & Culture gallery since the fall of 2006. Featured in the program will be works from Inge Hoonte, Chelsea Knight, Jared Larsen, Andy Roche, Brendan Meara, Xander Marro, Eric Patrick and Melika Bass. The pieces in the program are some of my favorite films and videos that have come through the gallery in the past year and a half, and I think it's a really excellent collection of outstanding work by local and national artists. The show starts at 9:00 pm, and will last 1 hour 45 mins. [April 12] This Saturday, April 12, Roots & Culture will be hosting a screening of films by Melika Bass. With a seductive aesthetic that combines experimental narrative practices with poetic scenarios and visual lyricism, Bass's short films are beautifully-constructed mysteries without simple answers, or even simple questions. Her films offer a glimpse into a half-remembered dream world that tempers its surreal elegance with grit, grime and heartbreak inherited from eastern-European film tradition. Included in this Roots & Culture screening will be Bass's films Songs from the Shed (2008), The Quarry (2007), Bulb in the Head (2006), Story Ever Told (2005) and Asleep in the Deep (2002) as well as some surprise treats Bass has collected for the evening. 8:00 pm, Roots & Culture gallery, 1034 N. Milwukee Ave, admission free. [March 4 - 16] Errata will be screened at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, as part of a program of videos presented by Tim Ridlen and Boots Contemporary Arts Space. [February 29] Errata will be featured in the Motion Graphics Festival 08 in Boston, presented through Lumen Eclipse. The event includes work from artists, filmmakers and motion graphics professionals. There will be an opening reception and screening on Friday, February 29 from 7:00-9:00 pm at the Middlesex Lounge (315 Mass Ave) in Cambridge. Afterwards, Errata will be on display on a video kiosk in Harvard Square, as well as online through the Lumen Eclipse site. [January] A new Flash animation Lilli and I did for the Point, titled "The Smart Shopper," is up on their site. Be sure to check out the Chicago Winter Dome campaign, as well as Lilli's great rollover illustration for the "About Us" page. And while you're at it, view this informative and entertaining video on the Point by founder Andrew Mason. [January] The second edition of the SAIC Film Video & New Media DVD is available through the FVNM department. This year's DVD contains my movie Errata as well as some fantastic work by Lilli Carré, Mark Gallay & Noe Kidder, Christopher Becks and other recent graduates. [January 2008] Exciting shows lined up for this spring season at Deadtech and Roots & Culture. Here's the plan, as of January 20 (these dates are likely but are certainly subject to change):
[December 2007] I'm working on the schedule for screenings and shows in 2008. Tentatively planned at Roots & Culture are screenings from Melika Bass and Michael Robinson, and at Deadtech we have invited Sabine Gruffat to do an installation, and Bert Stabler is planning his "Angry Goldsworthy" project for sometime this spring. Stay tuned for details. [November 17] Two stellar events in one stellar night! I have been doing shows at Deadtech and Roots & Culture for the past year, and this is the first time that events at the two spaces are occurring on the same night. -Roots and Culture. Eric Patrick will be presenting program of four of his experimental films at 7:30 pm. Eric's films use stop-motion, live action, photographic techniques and sound collages in experimental narratives. Screening on Saturday Nov. 17 will be Stark Film (1997), Ablution (2001), Roothold (2003), and Startle Pattern (2005). This screening and discussion should last around an hour, which gives you enough time to get out to Logan Square to see the second event of the night at... -Deadtech. We are opening a show of work by onetime Chicagoan Jeremy Boyle. Jeremy will be showing a piece from his recent spinning-screen video projects, and setting up a pair of his self-playing instruments. A musical performance in which Jeremy and guitarist Todd Mattei improvise along with the robotic instruments will begin at 9:30. [October 13] On Saturday October 13, Roots and Culture gallery will be hosting a screening of work by current students in the film & video graduate program at CalArts. Vera Brunner-Sung, a CalArts MFA student who arranged the showcase, will be presenting the work. More information and screening program here. [October 2] Errata will be screening at the San Francisco Cinematheque as part of a program of new films from the Canyon Cinema catalog on Sunday, October 14, at 7:30 pm. The program includes films by Eric Patrick, Michael Snow, Robert Nelson and Thorsten Fleisch. Details here. [September 30] Huong Ngo at Deadtech. We will be opening a show of work by Huong Ngo on Saturday, October 6, from 7:00-10:00 pm. Huong says: "Kosmolet is a radio drawing, a functional receiver made out of common household materials, that spans the entire gallery space. Delicate wire lines serve as antennas, bricolaged cardboard and aluminum foil become the frequency tuners, and lowly cardboard tubes are transformed into noble inductor coils." In addition, Huong has set up models and an animation from her Moonchitecture project with Rob Allen. Close to two hundred bubble-pods with micro-scale lunar architecture and landscaping are on display. 
Huong's work is on view at Deadtech though November 10. Gallery hours are Tuesdays, 8pm-midnight, Saturdays, noon-5pm, and by appointment. [September 27] Lilli Carre and I made four short animations for our friend Andrew's company, The Point. We drew them in Flash, using Lilli's drawings and simple wiggly cycles to illustrate Andrew's scripts. The site launched today, it's a really great social-action organization tool. Please check out The Point, and take a peek at our animations. [September 26] From the High Impact review in this week's Time Out Chicago: "...Alexander Stewart and Peter Miller’s silent, haunting 16mm film, On the Logic of Dubious Historical Accounts, 1969–1972. The digitally projected film’s abraded quality, blue tint, dusty detritus and subject matter—cameras slowly falling in space—are meant to evoke footage of the 1969 Apollo moon landing. According to the artists, astronauts brought 12 high-quality Hasselblad cameras to photograph the moon and Earth. To economize on weight for the return to Earth, the cameras were left on the moon, where they remain today. The film re-creates the disposal of the cameras, which the artists portray gently falling in the low gravity of the moon and impacting the lunar surface. For some viewers, the ease with which the artists were able to re-create the look of a low-gravity environment might bolster claims that the moon landing was faked. For others, the image of a boxy camera falling and twisting in space and the delicate, scratchy patina of the 16mm film are resonant enough." —James Glisson [September 24] Short clip from the project I did with Peter Miller:
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