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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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Three to See: Electrical Walk, Red without Blue and Allegoric
Produced by Nick White on Friday, November 16, 2007
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Detail from "Dolphin Games" by Chris Kerr |
Each week our segment Three to See offers some suggestions for how to lead less boring lives. Today, Hello Beautiful’s Nick White brings us his three cultural picks.
We’re going to try a theme for this week’s three to see: things you don’t see – or at least, things you don’t see enough of. The first? And don’t let the science scare you here…Electromagnetics! Now you have a chance to discover what’s really floating through the air. Very simply put, electromagnetic waves are the inaudible chatter that almost all modern technologies send into the atmosphere.
ambi: electromagnetic sounds
Christina Kubisch is an artist who has experimented with sound for decades. Chicago is the latest city in her series of Electrical Walks. Head down to the Chicago Cultural Center, borrow some electromagnetic headphones and you’ll be on your way.
KUBISCH: The experience is something between beautiful and frightening.
ambi: electromagnetic sounds
KUBISCH: Really melodic, or like early synthesizers.
But frightening because it raises all kinds questions that haven’t really been answered.
KUBISCH: Why do we need all these electromagnetic waves, why do they increase, what is happening with us in the midst of them?
Electrical Walk: Chicago is part of the Outer Ear Festival of Sound. It runs daily at the Chicago Cultural Center through November 20. Next, let’s head back to the visual side of the spectrum, with another thing that’s been overlooked
BENITA SILLS: You don’t see a lot of transgender people in media.
That’s Benita Sills, a Northwestern alumna and co-director of Red Without Blue, a documentary that’s been winning awards all over the country. It follows identical twins Mark and Alex Farley. The two were very close as young boys in Montana, but their relationship changes. As they move away to separate colleges, Alex realizes he is transgender, and begins to identify himself as Claire. The film is an intimate look at gender, and how having a twin can affect one’s own identity.
CLIP: It was almost like you were cutting this chord that we had. This twinship, this identical identity.
Co-director Sills says that certain parts of the film’s success have been a surprise.
SILLS: The one thing that we didn’t expect was that it was going to be so popular among straight audiences or mainstream film festivals. It’s about the struggle, to be yourself, separate from your twin.
Red Without Blue screens Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Chicago Filmmakers space in Andersonville. It’s part of the Reeling Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival.
And the third of our three you don’t see enough of? A large art show, of working artists under 30 years old.
KIM HOFFMAN: I would say most of the best artists I know have day jobs.
MATTHEW HOFFMAN: I think there’s a big difference between artistically successful and financially successful.
That’s Kim Hoffman and Matthew Hoffman. They’re unrelated, but both curators for Allegoric. It’s a one-night show happening tonight at the Country Club Chicago in Wicker Park. But don’t be confused - it’s not that kind of Country Club. The show includes riskier work you might not see in a commercial gallery. Take the work of artist Chris Kerr. By day, he's a facility supervisor at Columbia College.
CHRIS KERR: It’s acrylic, airbrushed onto paper. A boy and girl playing in the water with a dolphin and the boy’s head has exploded off his shoulders, so the dolphin’s caught it and he’s about to throw it to the girl.
And Kerr is pretty honest about where these farcical ideas come from.
KERR: Drinking, usually. Drinking beer. In the basement, or playing with my dogs or as I’m working something just pops into my head, so I just run with it.
The show includes over 300 works, with about half from Chicago-based artists. Pieces include intrictae found objects and artful illustrations of bacteria. The show is tonight only. So there you go –three things that all deserve just a little more attention.
For Chicago Public Radio, I’m Nick White.
Nick White is a production assistant for our Sunday morning arts program Hello Beautiful! On this week’s show Neo-Futurist founder Greg Allen sits down for a conversation with Justin Kaufmann.
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