From: Nicky Hamlyn (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Feb 25 2009 - 14:12:52 PST
Hi Patrick,
Seeing your posting reminded me that I would try to organise a trip to
Chicago (and Madison) this year. I will likely be at Media City,
either as a participant or, possibly, as a juror. What do you think
the chances are of extending my trip to Chicago? I realise it may be
too late in the academic year for this to work well in terms of
teaching/student presence, but I'd appreciate some advice in any case.
I also have two new films, and can send a DVD if you'd like,
Best wishes,
Nicky.
On 25 Feb 2009, at 21:57, Patrick Friel wrote:
>
> DAVID GATTEN IN CHICAGO!
>
> Three Special Screenings – March 5, 6, and 8
>
>
>
> Conversations at the Edge, the Film Studies Center at the University
> of Chicago, and White Light Cinema are pleased to welcome acclaimed
> experimental filmmaker and SAIC graduate David Gatten back to
> Chicago for three exciting screenings across the city.
>
> Gatten’s visit is made possible by the Department of Film, Video,
> and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and by
> the University of Chicago Arts Council.
>
> David Gatten will present three programs while in Chicago.
> Abbreviated descriptions are below. More detailed information about
> each can be found at the following websites:
>
> March 5 screening: Conversations at the Edge series at the Gene
> Siskel Film Center – www.siskelfilmcenter.org
>
> March 6 screening: Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago
> - www.filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu
>
> March 8 screening: White Light Cinema at The Nightingale – www.whitelightcinema.com
>
>
> ******************************************************
>
>
> CONVERSATIONS AT THE EDGE PRESENTS
>
> LETTERS, NOTES: FILMS BY DAVID GATTEN
>
> FILMMAKER DAVID GATTEN IN PERSON!
>
> THURSDAY, MARCH 5 – 6:00pm
> At The Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State St.)
>
>
> “Influenced equally by Stan Brakhage and Ludwig Wittgenstein.”—Ed
> Halter, Village Voice
>
> For more than ten years, filmmaker and SAIC alum David Gatten’s
> serenely beautiful handmade films have employed experimental
> techniques—cellophane tape ink transfers and optical printing—to
> explore the relationships between text and image. Gatten transforms
> type into sensual topographies of time and place. The bulk of his
> work has centered around the books, journals, and letters of the
> William Byrd II family of 18th century Virginia to express the
> family’s ideas, secret passions, and public lives in poetic and
> expansive ways. This evening, Gatten will screen three of these
> films, including SECRET HISTORY OF THE DIVIDING LINE (2002), THE
> GREAT ART OF KNOWING (2004), and HOW TO CONDUCT A LOVE AFFAIR
> (2007), along with the instructional ADVANCED TYPING TIPS PART 5
> (anonymous, circa 1940) and sublime FILM FOR INVISIBLE INK, CASE NO.
> 142: ABBREVIATION FOR DEAD WINTER [DIMINISHED BY 1, 794] (2008).
> (1940–2008, Multiple artists, USA, 16mm, ca 85 mins. total)
>
> Conversations at the Edge is organized by the Department of Film,
> Video, and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
> in association with the Video Data Bank and the Gene Siskel Film
> Center.
>
> Admission: $9.00 general / $7.00 students / $5 members / $4 SAIC
> students and faculty and Art Institute staff
>
> www.siskelfilmcenter.org
>
>
>
> ******************************************************
>
>
> THE FILM STUDIES CENTER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESENTS
>
> Cinema, Nature, Ecology Series:
> NATURE DELINEATED: AN EVENING WITH DAVID GATTEN
>
> FILMMAKER DAVID GATTEN IN PERSON!
>
> FRIDAY, MARCH 6 – 7:00pm
> At the Film Studies Center – University of Chicago (5811 S. Ellis
> Ave., Cobb Hall, Room 307)
>
>
> Part algorithmic and part lyrical, David Gatten's film techniques
> run the gamut from rephotographing microscopic air bubbles in 16mm
> cement splices to harvesting film strips thrown into coastal waters
> and nibbled by spottail bass. His approach is subtle, and wholly
> independent, but his films are staggering in their consideration of
> the history of the American landscape, the history of media, and
> intellectual history as a whole.
> Program includes: THE ENJOYMENT OF READING (2001, 18 mins., 16mm,
> silent); SECRET HISTORY OF THE DIVIDING LINE (2002, 20 mins., 16mm,
> silent); FILM FOR INVISIBLE INK, CASE NO. 71: BASE-PLUS-FOG (16mm,
> 2006, 10 mins., 16mm, sound); WHAT THE WATER SAID, NOS. 4-6 (16mm,
> 2007, 17 mins., 16mm, sound); and SHRIMP BOAT LOG (16mm, 2006, 6
> mins., 16mm, silent).
>
> About the Cinema, Nature, Ecology Film and Video Series:
> From massive multiplayer video games to the multiplex, cinema and
> media play a central role in shaping our awareness of
> “environments”. In the context of contemporary public discourse on
> globalization, ecology, and society, this role takes on new urgency.
> Cinema, Nature, Ecology presents a series of film and video programs
> on these themes, bringing artists to talk about how these issues
> have informed their film practice. Presented in conjunction with the
> Cinema and Media Studies graduate student conference, April 3-4.
>
> Additional Sponsors: Committee on Cinema & Media Studies, Mass
> Culture Workshop, University of Chicago Arts Council.
>
>
> Admission: Free
>
> www.filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu
>
>
> ******************************************************
>
>
> WHITE LIGHT CINEMA PRESENTS
>
> TRACINGS AND MARKINGS: A SALON SCREENING WITH DAVID GATTEN
>
> FILMMAKER DAVID GATTEN IN PERSON!
>
> SUNDAY, MARCH 8 – 7:00pm
> At The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.)
>
>
> White Light Cinema is extremely pleased to welcome filmmaker David
> Gatten for a special salon-style screening.
>
> This program focuses on the non-representational aspects of Gatten’s
> work—the more abstract explorations of inscription, both real and
> imagined, and what even those non-decipherable marks and codes,
> tracings and remnants, have to say to us.
>
> Featured are four completed works and a work-in-progress: What the
> Water Said, Nos. 1-3 (1997-98); Fragrant Portals, Bright Particulars
> and the Edge of Space (2003); What the Water Said, Nos. 4-6 (2007);
> Film for Invisible Ink Case No. 142: Abbreviation for Dead Winter
> [Diminished by 1,794] (2008); and a work-in-progress (tentatively
> titled The Much-Mottled Motion of Blank Time (2009)).
>
> In addition to the films, Gatten will be playing selections of poet
> Wallace Stevens reciting his own work and will be reading from
> Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species to complement some of the
> thematic aspects of the films.
>
>
> Admission: $7.00-10.00 sliding scale
>
> www.whitelightcinema.com
>
>
> ******************************************************
>
>
> About David Gatten (also see www.davidgattenfilm.com):
>
> Experimental filmmaker David Gatten has been making work that is
> both rigorous and intensely beautiful for more than a decade. His
> films, which feel like the products of old-world craftsmen or
> Renaissance artisans, combine his diverse and eclectic interests
> (arcane aspects of history, literature, printing, science, and more)
> with formal elements that are delicate, mesmerizing, labor-
> intensive, and, almost, obsessive. He creates a sensuous fusion of
> image and text that speaks to both the soul and the mind.
>
> He is best known for his on-going Byrd family series (including The
> Secret History of the Dividing Line and The Great Art of Knowing),
> which chronicles members of the 18th century Virginia family and
> William Byrd’s legendary library. In these films and others, Gatten
> foregrounds writing, text, words, and printing—both in his abiding
> interest in books and literature and in a broader interest in the
> construction of meaning and ideas. His work investigates writing as
> concrete referents and also as symbols, markings, and etchings.
>
>
>
> David Gatten Biography:
>
> David Gatten – filmmaker, Henry James fan, recent Guggenheim fellow
> and aspiring audio book producer – makes bookish films about letters
> and libraries and lovers and ghosts that are filled with words, some
> of which you can read.
>
> He lives and works by the water in Red Hook, Brooklyn and on
> Seabrook Island, South Carolina and teaches 16mm filmmaking/Wallace
> Stevens appreciation at The Cooper Union in New York City.
>
> Gatten’s work has been exhibited at museums, galleries and
> cinémathèques including “The American Century” at the Whitney
> Museum, Pacific Film Archive, First Person Cinema, San Francisco
> Cinémathèque, Art Gallery of Ontario, Cinémathèque Française, BFI,
> P.S. 1, Anthology Film Archives, Cinema Project, Swiss Institute,
> Helsinki Film Co-Op, Museum of Contemporary Cinema in Lisbon, Image
> Forum in Japan, Art Institute of Chicago, Proteus Gowanus, Issue
> Project Room, NBK Gallery, Exit Art, Permanent Gallery, Ballroom
> Marfa, DC Arts Center, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Millennium Film
> Workshop, Chicago Filmmakers, Double Negative and the Yokohama
> Museum of Art.
>
> The films have been screened at many festivals as well, including
> Rotterdam, New York, London, Ann Arbor, Toronto, Seattle, Portland,
> Onion City, Ottawa, Athens, Lisbon, Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Impakt,
> Media City, TIE, Cinematexas, THAW, Chicago Underground, Kill Your
> Timid Notion, PDX, Images, FLEX, and Black Maria.
>
> Gatten was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971. Shortly thereafter
> his family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, where he lived for
> 20 years, slowly learning the meaning of the word “y’all” though
> never himself attempting to deploy it. Gatten received a BA from the
> University of North Carolina Greensboro in 1995 and an MFA from the
> School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998. He is a former
> Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema & Photography at
> Ithaca College. Gatten currently continues his teaching in the
> School of Art at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science &
> Art in the East Village of New York City.
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.