Ocular Degenerate: Derek Farkas

In the first public exhibition of his work, Derek Farkas, UB Visual Studies/Media Study Undergraduate and interdisciplinary artist, will present a two night screening titled Ocular Degenerate.

To be held at:
Rust Belt Books
202 Allen St., Buffalo, NY
December 8th and 9th, 2011
Opening Thursday, December 8 at 6 PM

The event will feature a multi-channel video installation utilizing a collection of retro televisions and videocassettes. In highlighting the minutiae of these mediums, the decaying elements are presented within an environment of discordant VHS sourced loops accompanied by an animated projection. The asynchronous elements of the piece are intended to dissect societal delineations, and in doing so, demystify the artificial veneer in modern notions of free will.

The Spines Project: Chris Caporlingua

Caporlingua’s thesis exhibition, arising from his research on optics and the processes for geometry and sequence in recorded media, centers around a system that produces variable and immersive perspectives in images for individual viewers from regularly shot video.

The Spines Project
at Sugar City
December 10th from 6pm to 10pm

14 DAYS IN AFRICA: A video & text installation by Samuel Avery

Avery’s most recent documentary film project took him across the ocean into Sub-Saharan Africa where he focused his lens on a fellow student filmmaker, a Burundian refugee named Rheli Mugisha. In this narrative-nonfiction installation Mr. Avery and his crew reveal their misconceptions around ‘documenting’ the life of their African protagonist and embark on a very reflexive journey that addresses the (ir)responsibility of a being a filmmaker and the inevitable subjective separation between maker and subject.

where:
Main(St)udios
515 Main St.
Buffalo, NY

when:
Dec. 9th
6pm to 8pm

Channels: Stories from the Niagara Frontier

When: Sunday, December 11, 2011 @ 3pm
Where: Burchfield Penney Art Center, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY
Featuring: Anna Scime, John Fink & Vincenzo Mistretta

Please join us for the premiere screening of  four new short documentaries produced through Squeaky Wheel’s Channels: Stories from the Niagara Frontier initiative. Channels pairs area filmmakers with activist groups to produce videos about significant issues impacting our communities. This year’s projects highlight Buffalo’s water and air quality, the Peace Bridge expansion project, and community building on the city’s East Side.

The Videos:
Everyone Lives Downstream by Anna Scime & Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper
This video examines the history of this city’s complicated relationship with the Buffalo River – the way we continue to alter this body of water through industrial exploitation as well as remediation and restoration efforts.

Living in the Shadow of the Bridge by Mark Barner & Niagara Gateway Columbus Park Association / Buffalo West Side Environmental Defense Fund
This video depicts the negative impact that the uncertainty the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority’s constantly changing expansion plans has on the quality of life, property value, and the health of West Side residents.

Reclamation by John Fink & the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Resurrection
This video focuses on an inclusive community centered around this 100 year old congregation that has been continually adapting to challenges facing the health, safety, and economic stability of their often neglected neighborhood.

You Are Where You Live by Vincenzo Mistretta & the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York
This video chronicles the personal stories of the Clean Air Coalition’s fight for the people’s right to a healthy environment.

Channels 2011 is generously supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation

A Matter of Scale: David Mauzy

A Matter of Scale
Show and Presentation by Dave Mauzy

When: Monday, December 5th @ 6-10pm
Where: Sugar City, 19 Wadsworth Street, Buffalo, NY 14201

A Matter of Scale is a 3d virtual environment that is constructed to show the difference in certain elements of physics, in this case how an object behaves when kicked or nudged, at three scales. macro scale (kicking a ball), micro scale (nudging a pollen grain) and nano scale (needle interacting with a virus).  While not really a game environment, it is meant to show a fusion of game technology and teaching and how important possibilities exist within the idea of using technology thought of as game technology for teaching and learning purposes.

There will be a presentation segment about the science behind the physics involved and about the ideas behind coupling technologies normally seen as gaming technologies to a learning environment. The project itself will be discussed and available for attendees to “play”. The “play” sessions will run at 6pm and 8pm.

INCITE INSIGHT IGNITE: JOHN BONO

INCITE INSIGHT IGNITE by John Bono
Where: Main-Washington Exchange, 2nd floor, 523 Main Street, Buffalo, NY
When: Wednesday, November 30 to Thursday, December 8
Reception: 6pm to 8pm on Wednesday, November 30

INCITE INSIGHT IGNITE explores how introspection influences creative thought and interpersonal dynamics. In this media installation, featuring surrealist film practices, John Bono plays upon the ability to transfer emotion without verbal communication while creating an environment for inspiration.

About the Artist: John Bono has lived in Buffalo on and off for 24 years. He is a media artist and M.F.A. candidate at the University at Buffalo. As a media artist he works in video, photography, and interactive media. His installation Interflections was exhibited at the 2011 Squeaky Wheel Peepshow and his installation Ephemeral Reality was exhibited at the 2011 Buffalo Infringement Festival. He has also worked on the video portion of the Irish Classical Theatre’s 2010 world-premiere production of The Cant, and as the Stage Manager for VideoSoundDanceMagic, a performance that was part of the 2011 Steina Vasulka exhibit at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. INCITE INSIGHT IGNITE will be Bono’s first solo exhibition.

Fluid Borders: Anna Scime

Fluid Borders by Anna Scime
Location: Front window of Space 224, Allen Street, Buffalo, NY
Date: November 4th, 2011 – November 30th, 2011
Time: From dusk until dawn

A videographic essay in three parts, fluid borders paints an atmospheric portrait of the city of Buffalo’s interaction with its surrounding river and stream bodies. Focusing on three main areas – the Buffalo River, Niagara Strait, and Scajaquada Creek – this piece surveys the land surrounding these water bodies, their surfaces, and what lies underneath. An endless stream of binaries is presented between past and present, dry and wet landscapes, animal and human populations, ecology and culture, the surface and the submerged, and the polluted and the pristine.

Part 1: everybody lives downstream travels through the Buffalo River from its origin at the confluence of Cayuga and Buffalo Creeks to the Central Wharf.
Part 2: black rock, pink sky travels up and down the Niagara Strait from Buffalo’s Outer Harbor to the Grand Island Bridge.
Part 3: sunvein travels along Scajaquada Creek, popping in and out of the water from Forest Lawn to the Black Rock Canal.

Anna Scime is a Buffalo-based multimedia artist, working primarily in video and film. She is an MFA candidate in the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo.
Sponsored in part by The Baird Foundation, Microsoft Research, UB Humanities Institute, and UB College of Arts & Sciences.

For more information, please visit: http://www.fluidculture.org/
An open reception will be help at Space 224 on Friday, November 4th from 7-10pm.

DIET for an AMBIVALENT AMERICA

DIET for an AMBIVALENT AMERICA by Paul Lloyd Sargent
as part of Archival Impulse, Gallery 400, UIC, Chicago

Project: DIET for an AMBIVALENT AMERICA
By: Paul Lloyd Sargent
What: As part of Archival Influence, curated by Lorelei Stewart
Where: Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago
When: Opening Friday, November 4th, through December 17th, 2011

Launching Friday, November 4th, as part of the Archival Impulse exhibition, curated by Lorelei Stewart at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Gallery 400, DIET for an AMBIVALENT AMERICA is a decidedly low tech anti-food blog utilizing available consumer technolog and the Tumblr platform to archive years of grocery lists, shopping receipts, cell phone pictures, drawings, emails, and other ephemera to document “economic transactions with/in my neighborhood groceries, supermarkets, CSAs, co-ops, delis, bodegas, convenience stores, restaurants, and other local and regional ‘foodsheds.’”

Numerous artists in Gallery 400’s history have demonstrated an interest in the archive as a structuring device and a site through which histories are contested. Including those artists, as well as others currently employing archive processes, Archival Impulse gathers together works that draw from historical archives, construct new archives in varied collection formats, mine the archives of art history, and generally question the ways in which cultural memory is established.

Featured Artists:
The Alliance of Pentaphilic Curators (Jason Dunda and Teena McClelland), John Arndt, Conrad Bakker, Dexter Sinister, Christa Donner, Kota Ezawa, Edie Fake, Eric Fleischauer, Stephen Lapthisophon, Jason Lazarus, Dani Leventhal, Aspen Mays, Mary Patten, Jenny Perlin, Public Collectors, Jason Salavon, Paul Lloyd Sargent, Cauleen Smith, Edra Soto, Stephanie Syjuco, Sergio Vega, and Philip von Zweck

Bio:
Paul Lloyd Sargent is currently a PhD candidate in the UB Department of Media Study.  His work focuses on supply and disposal chain concerns through an amalgam of media tactics including: video, photography, experimental geography, radical cartography, and grass roots activism as art practice.  Among his international exhibitions and screenings, Sargent has presented work at the UB Art Gallery, BIg Orbit, Exit Art, Conflux, Smack Mellon, Para/Site Art Space, and the Hyde Park Art Center.

Le Tourneau & Minty: Visiting Filmmakers

Visiting 16mm Filmmakers Alain LeTourneau and Pam Minty
Where: Center for the Arts, Room 235, @ 3:00-5:00pm
When: Thursday, November 3, 2011

All are invited to attend.

“16mm: Form & Format”
A conversation and screening with film artists Alain LeTourneau and Pam Minty to be followed by a screening at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center.

Pam Minty is a Portland, Oregon based filmmaker, sound recordist and manager of the Film Education Program at the Northwest Film Center School.

Alain LeTourneau is a filmmaker, photographer and film preservationist engaged in efforts to sustain the 16mm format as a viable production and exhibition format. His film and video work has screened at media arts venues and festivals in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Toronto.

In 2000, Pam Minty began programming 16mm films with Alain LeTourneau, under the name 40 Frames which provides technical consultation and service work to individuals and organizations, exhibition of 16mm film prints, and on-going preservation work. In 2008, 40 Frames transitioned to a new scope of work involving the completion of two major projects: the web resource 16mm Directory and the film Empty Quarter, a 16mm experimental documentary about rural Southeast Oregon. The team works with 16mm black and white film, using the traditional tools of flatbed, mag film recorder, and rewind bench as well as digital video crossover. Alain LeTourneau is also engaged in film/video installation work and is in-progress on a new project about Portland neighborhoods.

Empty Quarter is a film about the region of Southeast Oregon, an area populated by ranching and farming communities and also a landscape that is rich with diversity, as seen by the presence of East Indian families, Japanese families, ancestors of Basque sheep herders, home to the Paiute tribes people, and to Latinos who have come to help work the land. Rather than subscribe to a modern form of documentary replete with talking heads and B-roll images, Empty Quarter presents stark portraits waiting to be explored and digested by the viewer. Their meaning can be felt in the slow process of accumulation and measured response.

For further information about the workshop contact:
Sarah Elder at selder@buffalo.edu or
Carl Lee at cl62@buffalo.edu

Digital Poetry Exhibition

LANGUAGE TO COVER A WALL: Visual Poetry through its changing media
When: November 17, 2011 – February 18, 2012
Opening Reception: November 17, 2011 @ 5 PM – 7 PM
Where: Second Floor UB Art Gallery, Center for the Arts

This exhibition of international scope will be the largest single gathering of its kind of language art, drawing upon material from as early as a Pueblo Indian petroglyph (Galisteo Basin, New Mexico, ca. 1350–1680) up to the twenty-first century that contributes to an alternative tradition to standard linear poetry. Included are examples of seventeenth-century pattern poems, contemporary concrete, poesia visiva, eye poems, typestracts, poem-objects and digital poems. Works by George Herbert, Lewis Caroll, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Barbara Kruger, Henri Chopin, Robert Lax, Dick Higgins, Daniel Spoerri, Alison Knowles, D.A. Levy, Bob Cobbing, Siebren Versteeg, bpNichol, Bill Bissett, Guy de Cointet are among a multiplicity on view.

The “Digital Poetry” component of LANGUAGE TO COVER A WALL: Visual Poetry through its Changing Media focuses on bringing the traditions of visual poetry into present day digital poetics, including sound, video, language, especially as focusing on engagements with computer process media practices. These practices include works in a variety of formats, including computer generated poetry, time-based works, language and video, and digital poetry and dance. This exhibition will provide new works along with rarely exhibited historical works crucial to the field, presenting works by some of the most highly celebrated digital poets in the field from the United States, Canada, France, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Spain, Austria, Sweden, and Norway.

Sponsored by the E-Poetry Festivals and the Electronic Poetry Center, Department of Media Studies, in collaboration with UB’s Dance & Theatre Department, and other sponsors, the exhibition will also consist of special events celebrating the “Digital Poetry” component of LANGUAGE TO COVER A WALL.

Upcoming Events:
January 31, 2012: Digital Humanities Panel: Poeisis, Language, & Emerging Media: A Roundtable on New Cultural Configurations @ 242 Center for the Arts, 3pm
February 3, 2012: Digital Poetry & Dance Concert @ the Black Box Theatre, 7:30 & 9 pm
February 4, 2012: International Digital Poetry Performances @ the UB Art Gallery Light Well, 7:30 pm