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URBAN Culture Project PRESENTS EVENT HORIZONS A TOURING PROGRAM OF NEW WORK BY THOMAS COMERFORD, SABINE GRUFFAT & Bill Brown
Film, video, and new media artists Thomas Comerford (Chicago), and Sabine Gruffat & Bill Brown (Madison, Wisconsin) present a program of work that follows shimmering paths of desire across space and time
The Indian Boundary Line by Thomas Comerford 41 mins.,16mm/8mm/S8mm on digital betacam, color, sound Time Machine by Sabine Gruffat & Bill Brown 40 mins., multiple channel, multimedia live performance
Over the last eight years, Chicago musician and filmmaker Thomas Comerford has been at work on a series of quietly-observed films that contemplate the entwined social, political, and environmental histories of Chicago (Figures in the Landscape, 2002; Land Marked/Marquette, 2005). The Indian Boundary Line (2010) follows a road in Chicago, Rogers Avenue, that traces the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis boundary between the United States and "Indian Territory." In doing so, it examines the collision between the vernacular landscape, with its storefronts, short-cut footpaths and picnic tables, and the symbolic one, replete with historical markers, statues, and fences. Through its observations and audio-visual juxtapositions, The Indian Boundary Line meditates on a span of land in Chicago about 12 miles long, but suggests how this land and its history are an index for the shifting inhabitants, relationships, boundaries and ideas of landscape -- as well as the consequences -- which have accompanied the transformation of the "New World."
Time Machine is a live, multimedia performance in which Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown explore new way of telling stories with technologies that are both cutting edge and obsolete. Our Time Machine is built from a variety of machines: a slide projector, an analog video switcher, a record player, a digital video projector, and a computer. Analog and digital signals are combined or rerouted, audio signals are patched through video inputs, and machines are utilized in ways they were not originally built for. During the performance, the stage becomes the control panel for an immense ship and the screen becomes a window through which we visualize different spaces and times. Sometimes we are aboard a transatlantic freighter; sometimes we are whisked into the future amid a constellation of unknown stars; other times we are driving down an American highway peeking into old motels. In all of these locales, we are space-time tourists driven by an exploratory urge.
Biographies: Thomas Comerford (b. 1970, Richmond, VA) is a media artist, musician, and educator residing in Chicago. Trained in sculpture, performance, and the classics, he began making films in the early 1990s. In 1997, he embarked on an influential series of films, made with a pinhole motion picture camera and home-made microphone, under the title, Cinema Obscura (1997-2002). His recent films are site-specific to Chicago and explore the evidence, revision, and erasure of histories in the landscape. His work has screened at many festivals and venues, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, San Francisco Cinematheque, and the London Film Festival. Comerford has also toured the United States with his films, screening in spaces ranging from church basements and backyards to regular old movie theatres. As songwriter, singer, and producer for the rock band Kaspar Hauser, Comerford has performed his music around the Midwest and eastern U.S. and released three LP records. He currently teaches film production, DIY exhibition, and punk rock history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sabine Gruffat is a French-American artist and Assistant Professor of Digital Media at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her performance, photography, and video work deals with the language and cultural significance of both old and new technologies. Her work has been exhibited and screened at venues worldwide including PS1/MOMA, Art in General, and Zolla Lieberman gallery.
Tour Dates: 6/12 Gadabout, Bloomington, Indiana 6/13 Flyover Film Festival, Louisville, Kentucky 6/15 Minicine, Shreveport, Louisiana 6/16 The Groj, Fayetteville, Arkansas 6/17 Spencer Art Museum (Univ. of Kansas), Lawrence, Kansas 6/18 Urban Culture Project, Kansas City, Missouri Urban Culture Project is an initiative of the Charlotte Street Foundation, an organization dedicated to making Kansas City a place where artists and art thrive. Urban Culture Project creates new opportunities for artists of all disciplines and contributes to urban revitalization by transforming spaces in downtown Kansas City into new venues for multi-disciplinary contemporary arts programming. For more information, visit www.charlottestreet.org.
