Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N State St
312.846.2600
This event has passed.
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Still from Ryan Trecartin's I-Be Area, 2007, Courtesy Elizabeth Dee Gallery
- When
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Thursday Apr 15, 2010 (6pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$10
- Links
“Filmmaker and artist Ryan Trecartin is present on Thursday to discuss several recent short films — part of an epic series that will be launched as a museum solo exhibition in May — screened through the Siskel's "Conversations at the Edge" series. Trecartin, whose frenetic and burlesque approach to avant-garde film has earned him a spot at the Whitney Biennale, creates worlds in his work that are simultaneously surreal, exaggeratedly absurd versions of our own, and disturbingly realistic depictions of post-digital conditions of existence. Trecartin's major theme within this exploration is nothing new: how to find meaning and identity in a digital age; but the feverish energy and exquisitely garish aesthetic he brings to it is still hypnotizing.”
Monica Westin, Flavorpill
Siskel Center says: "Both in form and in function, Ryan Trecartin's video practice advances understandings of post-millennial technology, narrative, and identity, while also propelling these matters as expressive mediums. His work depicts worlds where consumer culture and interactive systems are amplified to absurd or nihilistic proportions and characters circuitously strive to find agency and meaning in their lives. The combination of assaultive, nearly impenetrable avant-garde logics and equally outlandish virtuoso uses of color, form, drama, and montage produces a sublime, stream-of-consciousness effect that feels bewilderingly true to life" (Kevin McGarry).
