Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N State St
312.846.2600
This event has passed.
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Still from Emily Wardill's Ben, 2007, Courtesy of the artist and LUX
- When
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Thursday Apr 8, 2010 (6pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$10
- Links
“British academic artist Emily Wardill makes short films that often begin as performances obsessed with the rhetoric of metaphor and structuralist problems of language, but they draw on references both esoteric and popular, from high theory and canonical philosophers to Nintendo Wii, to create off-kilter productions that make theoretical arguments while remaining tangible and beautiful. Case in point: The Diamond (Descartes' Daughter) begins with a story of Descartes constructing an automaton of his dead daughter, entwined with a blurred memory of a diamond protected by a laser security system. All five short films are Chicago premieres, and Wardill is present to lead an audience discussion after the screening.”
Monica Westin, Flavorpill
Siskel Center says: The films of British artist Emily Wardill are brilliant cinematic labyrinths. Visually striking and playfully rigorous, they draw upon an array of sources — underground theater, psychoanalytic case studies, the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jacques Rancière, and even the game logic of Nintendo Wii — to pose fundamental questions about vision, representation, and media and their role in how we come to know ourselves. Wardill has been the recipient of much recent critical acclaim: Tate Modern film curator Stuart Comer rated her film The Diamond (Descartes' Daughter) (2008) as one of his top ten picks of 2008 and The Guardian newspaper deemed her its "artist of the week." In this special program, Wardill presents five of her short films, all of which are Chicago premieres: Born Winged Animals and Honey Gatherers of the Soul (2005), Basking in What Feels Like 'an Ocean of Grace' I Soon Realise That I'm Not Looking at It, But Rather I Am It, Recognising Myself (2006), Ben (2007), Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck (2007), and The Diamond (Descartes' Daughter).
