Rebecca Baron and Douglas Goodwin, from Lossless #2 |
“Lossless” at Sert Gallery, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge | October 2–December 7 | 617.496.6617
“Overflow” at Laconia Gallery, 433 Harrison Avenue, Boston | October 3–November 22
“Garry Knox Bennett: Call Me Chairmaker” at Fuller Craft Museum, 455 Oak Street, Brockton | October 4–February 8 | 508.588.6000
“String Theories” at New England School of Art & Design Gallery, 75 Arlington Street, Boston | exhibition on view through October 24; concert October 3 at 7 pm | 617.573.8785 |
Digital-era experimental filmmakers occupy a rich and interesting place in relation to the new technology available to them, as well as to the access this technology gives them to, yes, the works of their avant-garde forerunners. In “LOSSLESS,” which opens on October 2 in the Sert Gallery at Harvard’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, filmmaker Rebecca Baron and artist/writer Douglas Goodwin present five works exploring the radical possibilities that arise from the dematerialization of film into bits. The use of high-quality bit torrents not only makes file sharing possible and enables those in the know to share first-run movies and amateur video diaries, it also facilitates a much higher circulation of rare experimental films, creating creative opportunities for a new generation. In “Lossless,” Baron and Goodwin interrupt data streaming and remove basic information that holds digital formats together to create film and video that bring a new viewpoint to such works as Maya Deren’s iconic 1943 trance film Meshes of the Afternoon and John Ford’s mythic 1956 Western The Searchers.A headlong dash into ideas of wildness and excess, as found in nature as well as in 18th-century interior design, is the driving force behind “OVERFLOW,” which, curated by Resa Blatman, opens at the Laconia Gallery on October 3. The show brings together work by Sara Hairston-Medice, Mary O’Malley, and Blatman herself. Hairston-Medice uses knitted yarn, thread, and fabric to create “paintings” and sculpture that mimic and also embellish the organic growth patterns of nature. O’Malley makes tangled, tightly rendered drawings that form vast topographies. And Blatman paints flora, fauna, berries, birds, and bats with an eye to beauty that is disturbing.
Chairs that pair precious materials like rosewood and yellow satinwood with less fancy plywood, aluminum, plastic, and paint are the signature creations of contemporary studio furniture maker Garry Knox Bennett. Fifty-two examples of Bennett’s skill at making objects you’d probably rather ooh and aah at than sit on are presented in “GARRY KNOX BENNETT: CALL ME CHAIRMAKER,” which opens at the Fuller Craft Museum on October 4. They give new meaning to the phrase “sitting pretty.”
Boston-based, science-savvy musicians Lou Bunk, on electro-acoustic flim-flammery, and Lou Cohen, on laptop powered by Csound, are joined by special guests in concert at the New England School of Art & Design Gallery on October 3. The performance is offered in conjunction with NESAD Gallery’s current exhibition “STRING THEORIES,” which looks at art and theoretical physics in work by Cohen, Paul Andrade, Keith Francis and William Frese.
On the Web
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts: www.ves.fas.harvard.edu
Laconia Gallery: www.laconiagallery.org
Fuller Craft Museum: www.fullercraft.org
New England School of Art & Design Gallery: www.suffolk.edu/nesad/gallery
