Schedule of Events - Practical Optics ** Please note correct date for Reality Effects is Thursday, September 8th.
In conjunction with my show Practical Optics now up at Front/Space (217 W. 18th St.) there is a month worth of workshops, lectures and screenings. All free and open to the public. Come through!
September 8, 7pm: Reality Effects.
Corey Antis
will discuss optical viewing devices and their construction of 18th/19th/20th century spectacular society.
Corey Antis’ work has been exhibited in national and international exhibitions at the Rebekah Templeton Gallery, Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University, Booster and Seven Gallery, the Vox Populi Gallery, Three Walls, Heaven Gallery, Jenny Jaskey Gallery, the D.C. Arts Center, Greenstone Gallery, Hunter College, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Frieze Projects Art Fair, the Stray Show and SPACE Gallery, among others. He received a B.F.A. degree in painting and a B.A. degree in English from Cornell University, as well as an M.F.A. degree in painting from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. He currently lives and works in Kansas City.
September 10, 11am - 4pm: Pinhole Cinema Workshop
Caitlin Horsmon will lead a workshop on using pinhole cameras to shoot 8mm and 16mm film. We will shoot and hand process a film in an afternoon. This workshop teaches participants how to build a simple pinhole camera from a Super-8 cartridge, washer and pen cap, and to modify a 16mm camera for pinhole cinematography. The workshop will allow participants the opportunity to shoot a short black and white film and process it in the same day. We’ll hand process the film (bucket style) use a less-toxic “Caffenol” hand-process technique that substitutes coffee and washing soda for more traditional film processing chemicals. Pinhole filmmaking is unpredictable and exploratory – expect abstraction and imaginative focus. The films made in the workshop will screen during the ‘contemporary pinhole filmmaking’ screening on September 24. Pre-registration is appreciated. Email horsmonc@gmail.com or text to (816) 582-6809 to reserve your spot.
September 14, 7pm: Perceptive Mutations: the Films of Paolo Gioli
A screening of the cameraless films of Paola Gioli and conversation with
Melissa Lenos.
Gioli is a photographer and filmmaker working in the tradition of the Italian avant-garde who investigates the material nature of the cinema. “As a premise for my way of making films and working with film, the most important things is the movie-camera understood almost as a laboratory (for the shooting and printing of films)… I express my love for the cinema through the movie-camera; in terms of time requirements and production costs, I’m beginning to invent them for myself. Free films made freely.”
Melissa Lenos is Assistant Professor of English at Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas. Her writing has appeared most recently in Cinema Journal: In Focus, AnTENNA and In Media Res. She is coauthor (with Michael Ryan) of An Introduction to Film Analysis: Technique and Meaning in Narrative Film, and she is currently editing a collection on uses of classical fairy tales in contemporary popular culture. Her research interests include narratology in Hollywood and media pedagogy.
September 17, 4pm – 6pm: Pinhole Photography Workshop
Adam Finkelston
will lead a workshop that allows participants the opportunity to make and use their own cameras out of ordinary boxes! Boxes and other light tight containers will be provided but participants are encouraged to bring their own containers to use. Containers must be light- tight or easily made light- tight and also be able to open and close. They should also be easy to cut into. Quaker Oats or similar containers are excellent. Some shoe boxes work. Just bring something and we’ll see. Backup plans will be available.
The pinhole camera workshop will demonstrate the simplicity of a basic camera. The word “camera” signifies a room or enclosed space. A pinhole camera only takes minutes to make and is ready to use immediately. The popularity of the pinhole camera has spawned World Pinhole Days and innumerable gallery exhibitions, workshops, and festivals. Participants will have the opportunity to use their cameras and create paper negatives of the images they capture with the cameras.
Adam Finkelston is an artist, art educator, and magazine publisher based in Roeland Park, KS. Mr. Finkelston holds an MA in Photography from the University of Missouri- Kansas City (UMKC), a BFA in Photography from the Kansas City Art Institute, and a BA in Art Education from UMKC. He has shown his photographs in many solo and group exhibitions, and received several awards for his work. In addition to his studio practice, Mr. Finkelston is the owner, publisher, and co- editor of an internationally- recognized quarterly art magazine called, The Hand Magazine: A Magazine For Reproduction-based Arts, through which he has also curated exhibitions of international artists. As an educator, Mr. Finkelston has received numerous awards and grants, including the 2016 ArtsKC Education Award, recognizing his multi- disciplinary student project, Creative Co/Lab.
September 17, 8pm : Figures in the Landscape: The Films of Tom Commerford
A screening of a selection of pinhole films made by
Tom Commerford
, a Chicago-based filmmaker and musician. Using 16mm film, self-constructed lenses and handmade microphones Commerford figures the world and the cinema in surprising ways. His meditative films put the landscape of the Midwest at their center creating reflexive spaces both exterior and interior. “The effect of all this analogue tinkering is an emphatic insistence on film’s materiality—all hypnotically swirling film grain and bouncy, crackling voices, these works never allow the viewer to forget the processes that birthed them.” – Tom McCormack in Cinemascope
September 24, 1pm – 4pm : Pre-Cinematic Toys
In this workshop
Lisa Marie Evans
will explore the pre-cinematic devices like zeotropes and thaumatropes. Participants will make their own image strips exploring the nature of animation and the birth of moving images.
Lisa Marie Evans’ work varies in form from feature length documentary films to short animation and public art installation. As a selected artist for various awards and grants, Evans participates in artist residencies and screens her work internationally, including such locales as Hungary, France, the Philippines and Canada.
Evans thrives from being active within her community. She has developed curricula and taught filmmaking to all ages, facilitates professional development programs for artists, serves on multiple film organizations, and programs documentaries for the Kansas International Film Festival.
September 24, 6pm : Closing Reception
Come back to see the work produced over the course of the exhibition. Pinhole photographs, zeotropes and a films made during the month will be displayed. Screening at 7pm.
Practical Optics opens September 2nd @ Front/Space (217 W. 18th St.)
Practical Optics transforms Front/Space into a camera obscura, an optical device that creates a projection of the outside world directly into a darkened room using the sun as a light source and a pinhole on the window to create the image. The reengagement of this simple pre-photographic technique explores mechanized vision and monocular perspective and reflects on the many machines through which we see the world. Based on the simple principle that light travels in a straight line this viewing machine brings the textures of everyday life into the gallery while revealing the physical geometries of vision. In conjunction with the show there will be a variety of workshops, performances, screenings and talks, led by Horsmon and many collaborators including pinhole camera workshops (both still and moving image), construction of portable camera obscuras, drawing workshop, optical toy workshop and more.
Looking forward to a screening August 6th at Echo Park Film Center with the the inimitable Charlotte Taylor. So excited to do a screening and workshop with her! She’s doing a Kickstarter right now for the kick ass Mechanical Eye Microcinema which is such a worthy cause - please check it out!!
Looking forward to being a juror again at this year’s Kansas City Film Fest - check out their schedule for a great program. April 13 - 16.
Looking forward to debuting a new installation No Ties To Earth at Anne Hunter Galleries in Seaside Florida at the end of May. Big thanks to Escape to Create for making this show possible.
March 9th debuted a new collaboration with Mara Gibson (composer) and Gary Abbott (choreographer) called Blackbird. We were so fortunate to have the Cascade String Quartet in from Montana to play the piece and amazing dancers from UMKC. Photos to come
So excited to be in this group show at 50/50 a great gallery space in 2 shipping containers in KC with an outstanding curatorial team. Here’s what they had to say about the show: Inherent to contemporary art today are forms of practice that work between many iterations of image making, including painting, film, video and performance. This exhibition examines the work of three artists that place their subjects within this history through political, bodily and collective forms of practice.Where do we place work by its medium? What is the image within contemporary practice and how does it function within three dimensions, video or installation? SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF works within and against this history through artists that function in-between and along the lines of this lineage.
I had the extreme good fortune to spend this January in the amazing town of Seaside, Florida for an Escape to Create residency. Seaside is beautiful and an amazing community so supportive of the arts - each of the artists did a presentation of their work to large audiences and we were even on local tv. It was an awesome month spent with other outstanding artists and the generous organizers of the residency. Many thanks to E2C and the community of Seaside.
Very honored to be presenting about place at this months Alt Lecture with Alain LeTourneau. Many thanks to Jessica Borusky for putting this series together - its super cool.
Excited to be moderating a panel on documentary filmmaking for the Kansas City Women in Film and Television at KIFF this year - Saturday November 7th at 10:30am - it’s going to be fun… Check out the festival lineup and go see some films!
Big big thanks to ArtsKC for awarding me an Inspiration Grant to cover my travel expenses to and from Escape to Create.
I’m so pleased to announce that I’ve been selected as one of the artists for the Escape to Create residency in Seaside Florida! I will be spending January working on a new 16mm film project and I couldn’t be more excited.
Here’s a nice review of “The Center is a Moving Target? by Neil Thrun for KC Studio Magazine.
The Center Is a Moving Target.
I feel so fortunate to be a part of this excellent exhibition curated by Erin Dziedzic at the Kemper Crossroads. I’m in extremely good company and there are really powerful architectures of space and knowledge at work in the show - check it out until January 6th. https://www.kemperart.org/exhibitions/center-moving-target-if-you-lived-there
I had the great pleasure to be a guest on KCUR to talk about my favorite art exhibition that has happened in Kansas City this year. More here about the amazing exhibit and our radio conversation… Click the link above to read a great New York Time’s story about the show.
http://kcur.org/post/photos-life-through-eyes-kansas-citys-fast-food-workers
Coming up at FPS - “A Spell To Ward Off the Darkness” - FREE - April 16th 7pm at the Tivoli.
Due to the impending rain “Map Of Rain Hitting Water” has been changed to April 15th - same time & place. Very much hope to see you there!
Come to Prairie Logic April 8th for a great exhibition of sound work by Mara Gibson and some image work by me… Event page here.
Images from _place _plateau a site-specific installation I did for the Hown’s Den Domestic Exhibition space at 5624 Lydia in Kansas City, MO. The exhibition consisted of two video/sound installations (on the backdoor and in Elliot’s room), one light/sound installation (in the bathroom) and a sculptural video installation on the mantlepiece. A link to the event page here. And show statement here.
It was really a pleasure working with Crystal, Bobby and Elliot and getting to know the neighborhood. Big thanks all around.
Had another fantastic experience at the True/False Film Festival - this time with students from my Documentary Film History course. As usual the films were outstanding and the company even better. Had a great time teaming up with KU friends Bob Hurst and Tamara Falicov and their students - some of our crew made the paper even… http://www.columbiatribune.com/multimedia/photo/true-false/collection_e7ce89f4-7455-5201-9335-5689c3d3f2ff.html#image_23