Woodland
Pattern™ |
 |
| Book Center |
|
 |
| |
Experimental Film and Video |
|
Woodland Pattern Experimental Film/Video series
presented by the UWM Department of Film
Thursday, November 20, 7pm $2
what is ultimately not seen:
video work by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Tonight's program unveils the recently once-again
available video work of acclaimed conceptual artist
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.  The five videos presented echo
and explore Cha's trademark themes of speech and
identity, language and silence, displacement and
exile.
The Korean-born Cha produced a wide range of work
before her tragically untimely death in 1982. Her
prodigious body of work included mail art, artists'
books, sound pieces, videos, films, performance,
installation, and writing. Her remarkable Dictee, a
collage book generating an exploration of identity
through a cartography of history, memory, gender, and
ethnicity, is available for purchase at Woodland
Pattern.
Videos to be presented (video descriptions courtesy of
Electronic Arts Intermix):
- Secret Spill (27 min, b&w, sound, 1974)
In this work, which documents a
performance/installation, the tension derives from the
ruptures between what is heard, what is seen, and what
is ultimately not seen.
- Mouth to Mouth ( 8 min, b&w, sound, 1975)
English and Korean words appear on the screen, a mouth
forms the shape of an "O," then opens and closes. Is
this the beginning of language? In this early
videotape, Cha isolates and repeats a simple, physical
act - a mouth forming the eight Korean vowel graphemes
- so that this ordinary action becomes something
primal and riveting.
- Permutations (10 min, b&w, silent, 1976)
The artist's sister is the subject of this
structuralist work, which was originally created as a
film. Cha herself appears in a single frame.
- Vidéoème (3 min, b&w, sound, 1976)
In this meditation on speech and language, Cha
juxtaposes English and French words to form new
relationships and meanings.
- Re Dis Appearing (3 min, b&w, sound, 1977)
The artist speaks a word, which is quickly echoed in
French, so that the words are only barely
comprehended. Simple images - a bowl, a photograph of
the ocean - appear and disappear.
|
|