Occasion:

1: A significant event or happening; an incident. 2: a favorable or appropriate time or juncture; an opportunity. 3: Something that brings on or precipitates an action, condition, or event. 4: A large or important social gathering of ILPI catalysts.

CHINA TOWN (2009)

Director

Lucy Raven
China Town, 51:30 minutes 2009.

Video Screening

23 September 2009,
Churchill Room 8:30
Goodenough College

About

China Town traces copper mining and production from an open pit mine in Nevada to a smelter in China, where the semi-processed ore is sent to be smelted and refined. Considering what it actually means to “be wired” and in turn, to be connected, in today’s global economic system, the video follows the detailed production process that transforms raw ore into copper wire—in this case, the literal digging of a hole to China—and the generation of waste and of power that grows in both countries as byproduct.

The video uses an experimental edit structure, composed entirely of animated sequences of digital still photographs and ambient sound recorded on location. Thousands of individual images with varying frame rates are combined in a granular, accumulative narrative, that structurally echoes the many discrete processes, human efforts, and geographic locations that go into copper mining and commodity production.

Many of the laborers who worked on mines throughout Utah and Nevada in the late 1880s were Chinese immigrants—a population who was also involved in construction of the transcontinental railroad, which connected just north of Salt Lake City in Ogden, Utah, igniting mining activity in both states. The area where the workers lived on the mining site was called Chinatown. Today, the historic mining town of Ruth, which still sits at the base of the mine and most of whose population of several hundred works there, is another sort of China town: sending their ore overseas as China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization demands a growing amount of raw materials from around the world. China Town follows the contemporary recycling of the American landscape and industrial economy as raw mineral wealth for a developing nation.

BIO

Lucy Raven is an artist who lives in New York. Recent and upcoming screenings of China Town include the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Migrating Forms, Abandon Normal Devices (Liverpool), the Storefront for Art and Architecture (New York), The Wexner Center for the Arts, MASS MoCA, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Bureau of Land Management (Ely, Nevada). She is currently working on public television spots for Performa 09. She is Editorial Director of Bidoun Magazine.

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Towards a History of Poise:
The Balance of Fortune in the Renaissance

Presenters

Michael Witmore and Pawel Siwczak

Occasion

Experimental Lecture Performance
Goodenough College, London House
2 April 2008, 8:00pm

Abstract

In this experimental Lecture Performance, Siwczak performs a harpsichord accompaniment to Witmore, who presents a series of highly allegorical images that show various states of balance and imbalance, and talks about the meaning of poise in the Renaissance, in both a physical and philosophical sense. It is composed of movements that address different themes: Circles, Axes, Poise, Circulation, Impulse and Point..

Bios

Michael Witmore is an ILPI Investigator, Associate Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, and Organizer of the Pittsburgh Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Pawel Siwczak is a harpsichordist & early keyboard specialist, member of the Four Tempermants, currently studying at the Royal Academy of Music, and current Goodenough member.

Additional Information

• Download Poise Performance Itinerary
• Download Event Poster
• Sound Extract from the Event (Coming Soon!)

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Of Wise Fools and Foolish Sages

Author

Ole Peters

Occasion

Experimental Lecture
Goodenough College, London House
22 November 2007

Abstract

In this experimental lecture we explore the concept of universality and simplicity as the meeting point of the trivial and the profound. Why is there wisdom in simplicity? And when is this wisdom an illusion? We draw on examples of universality from various fields, including photography, film, painting, economics, literature, mathematics, and physics. Given the speaker's shameless bias, we focus on the intricate relationship between profoundness and triviality in the context of statistical physics. In this realm the renormalization group method provides an objective criterion to distinguish between the two. The method, brought to fruition in the 1970s, enables our understanding of universality in physics and was recognized with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1982.

Excerpt

(Coming Soon!)

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Broken Symmetries

Exhibitor

Katherine Bash

Occasion

Exhibition
Women and Their Work, Austin, Texas
August 9 - September 15, 2007

Abstract

As part of her commitment to uncovering new meaning and new poetry in the physical and mental places we inhabit, Katherine E. Bash presents five corpora of works that focus on the concept of symmetry and symmetry breaking in different realms such as landscapes, geometry and thought. In addition to her own research, she brings with her the works of two Investigators published by the ILPI Press: Echoes (for Robert Creeley) by poet William L. Fox, and Fragments of Symmetry by physicist Ole Peters.

Works Exhibited from the Following Corpora

• Horizon Studies
• Phenomena of Partial Illusions
• Perceptual Rivalries
• Perforation
• Drawing Iteration
• Library of the ILPI

Associated Occasions

• Marfa Aesthetic Radio Conversation with Kate Hunt, 16 August 2007 at Marfa Public Radio
• A Reading in Three Parts, by Katherine E. Bash, 18 August 2007 at Women & Their Work.

Additional Information

• Portrait of an Itinerant Investigator as told to a French Historiographer (PDF) by Catherine Dossin
• Account of a Perceptual Inquiry in the Realm of Broken Symmetry (PDF) by Catherine Dossin
• Slideshow of works

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Tracing the Wind

Exhibitor

Katherine E. Bash

Occasion

Project Exhibition Curated by Amanda Douberley
Upstairs Project Space, Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
March 31 - May 10, 2005

Abstract

"Tracing the Wind" features The Pinholes (2005), a video installation and text piece. Continuing Bash's exploration of natural phenomenon, The Pinholes captures an everyday occurrence that often goes unnoticed: images produced by the sun filtered through tiny gaps in tree's canopy. These subtly shifting beams of light create abstract patterns that at first dazzle the viewer, challenging our perceptive tools. The pinholes' glittering movement generates a disjointed rhythm without logic, except that of the wind itself. These chance effects make us aware of the structures hidden within organic systems, and our inability to control and comprehend the world around us.

Associated Occasions and Publications

• Observation as Aesthetic Practice, Artist Talk, 20 April 2005 at the Glassell School of Art's Freed Auditorium
• Tracing the Wind, Exhibition Catalog with essays by Amanda Douberley and William L. Fox, an Introduction by Valentina Fraiz-Grijalba and text works by Bash.
• Listening to Light: Katherine Bash and Observational Displacement (PDF) by William Fox

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